Shrinking Weatherstrip

The strip that wipes the outside of the winding windows was sourced new for the Vogue when I re-fitted the winding windows. Referred to as door glass weatherstrip and a few other names,
I purchased mine in Australia and it appears similar to what is available at a few places here.
Unlike the original it has no reinforcing metal strip.

Trouble is - it shrinks!

Note also the waving lines where the clips are holding it inside the door.

The Vogue has "seen" two summers in active use now and the driver door weatherstrip is now about 22mm shorter than when I installed it.
The passenger side is a little better, but not much. The driver side is exposed to the Sun more than the passenger side and it shrunk first over the summer of 2013/2014 by about 15mm. (January/February is the peek of summer here.)

I have finally found something like the original with the metal strip buried in it and have ordered some from the UK.
I get the feeling that most Classic car restorations sit in garages most of the time and are not exposed to the weather much.

Rear Windscreen Sealed - back driving the Vogue

I finally got to the Vogue on Sunday afternoon and sealed up the rear windscreen glass-to-rubber interface. It took a whole 15 minutes. I drove the Super Snipe to work Monday (yesterday) as I don't like to put it away after only running it for a few minutes (rust out exhaust) - so I swapped cars as soon as I got home. With my wife's car and daughters car - and my two, it's not that easy to change over the Vogue and Super Snipe to/from the garage. Most times I have to move three cars (anyone seen "The Castle"?). I'm back in the Vogue today. It will be raining off and on for most of this week so I'll keep an eye on the rear windscreen.

The accelerometer arrived (eBay) yesterday and I had a quick play - it looks like it will do quite nicely. I had to decide whether to keep the Vogue in the garage for another week so I could do the axle stand thing or drive it this week. Based on my poor track record last week (nothing but the rear windscreen done) I decided to drive it. I have to make up a little bit of electronics to trigger the LED strobe from the accelerometer anyway so we'll see how I go with that!

Vogue off the road for a few days

I'll be driving a dinosaur to work today. It doesn't slow down all by itself - I have to press the brake pedal. Then the engine keeps running even though I have stopped. Going down a big hill, instead of adding to my range, It drops brake pad powder on the road and heats up the brake disks and drums. Acceleration is weird - it loses torque in stages (gear changes). All truly archaic.
Yes, I'll drive the Super Snipe to work today.
Why? Do I have more distance to travel than the EV can manage today? Is there an electrical malfunction with the Vogue?

Nope. The rear window leaked with the massive rain we have had over a past week. I noticed it yesterday in the work car park - the rear window was foggy on the left hand side so I investigated.

When we installed all the glass in the Vogue I took counsel that having a velour headliner might be a problem if any water got under the rubber seals - so I was very careful to use Butyl Mastic between the seals and the bodywork. The seal to glass interface - not so careful. I did the corners, but not across the bottom

The front is fine but the rear window is leaking where the glass goes into the rubber seal. It's no problem to fix but I have to dry it out and clean it before sealing it with Mastic - so it's out of the rain in the garage today.

I have circled in red where the water leaked in. It was quite easy to see water seeping over the top of the rubber seal on the inside. I'll remove the rear parcel shelf mat and board and dry them out as well. 

This will also give me a chance to work on the Vogue at night next week. I might even get the heater back in. If my accelerometer arrives early next week I'l try to get my home-balancing system working as well.

I also have a new configuration to put in the controller that is different enough that I should put the car on stands to try it. The new config has more ramp elements to make regen cut-off at 1km/h gentle and some other refinements.

Issues to Resolve - not quite finished

A number of people have congratulated me on finished the Vogue. Getting Vic Roads approval was a goal but unfortunately isn't the end of the project.
Back at the end of 2012 this ended one of my posts:
"My target for the moment is VicRoads approval so everything else can wait. I pick up the polycarbonate partition for the boot tomorrow and I'll be preparing the car for inspection over the Christmas to new Year break."

So now it's approved but not quite finished.
Known issues:

1. Tailshaft speed vibration - I suspect differential pinion angle. This is the big one and stops me driving it too much until it's sorted.
2. Brake master cylinder. Pedal is not returning fully. Not a big issue but indicative of a problem. I have a spare (I think) so I'll restore that and do a changeover. We caused this when we flushed through new brake fluid - a common problem in cars that haven't been driven in a while.
3. Winding window outside weatherstrips. I need to dis-assemble all doors and replace the clips - they're falling off inside the doors. Getting the correct clips is a pain as the originals don't fit due to a difference in the weatherstrip. (I kind of knew I had a problem when I fitted them then warned the family not to wind the windows all the way down.)
4. Slight "thump" when starting from stationary. This is a controller programming issue. It's fine going on and off regen when actually moving - it's just when starting. Annoying.
5. Front end work. Knox Tyrepower noted that while most of the front end was fine, there are a couple of bushes that need replacing. While at it, I'd like to get prices on lowering the front about 20 to 25mm.
6. Remove and modify all 12 chargers. I am not at all happy with how they balance the packs at the end of charge. I have modified one of my spares and it worked well so I now need to remove, modify and replace all chargers. The rear ones are easy - the front not so. While I am at it I am going to replace all M4 nuts and bolts on the front controller tray with rivnuts so I can get individual items off the tray without having to remove the tray as I have to now.
7. Front parcel shelf (below the dash). Laurel wants it back in. It doesn't really exist anymore as it was a total wreck. I kept the metal front though.
8. Car Radio and speakers. Also mounting for the little Lenze (motor controller) keypad and display.
9. The "other" controller - the 75kW version. I have all the parts for the upgrade but it's pretty low down on the priority list. Unfortunate, as more power would be nice.

There is other stuff but they are the main issues.
We are renovating my daughter's bedroom while she is away for the next two weeks so the Vogue fixups will wait until that's done.

All Windows Installed - permanently

I was a bit concerned tonight when I realised that the three day weekend was over and I could not remember what I did on Saturday. (We drove to Shepparton on Sunday to visit a relative - 400Km round trip). Then I remembered - on Saturday I installed all the sliding windows. I also deinstalled the drivers window and changed the outside weatherstrip to match the new stuff I bought for the rear windows. It wasn't just that it looked a little bit different. When I cleaned the window the weatherstrip did the same as the rear one (previous post) - it disappeared down into the door when the glass was pushed down. The window regulators are not installed yet.

Monday afternoon I selected the two best "Vogue" badges (I have a few so it took a while to clean them all up to find the best two) and mounted those. I also installed the rear Stainless Steel trim (rear wings) that goes midway up the car.

I only have the front two trim pieces and the two thin (stressful) pieces that follow the line of the rear fins left to put on (in the way of trim).

Here's a pic. Not a great image due to the fluorescent lighting and phone camera. You can see the place for one of the last missing trim strips yet to go on the front wings.

On the inside I just need a slightly warmer day to paint the scratches on the inside part of the rear pillars (gained during rear 1/4 light window installation), then I can continue with gluing in the vinyl trim.

New doorseal and weatherstrip

I bought new window weatherstrip today and ordered door seal from Adelaide yesterday.
The weatherstrip is better than the one I used on the driver front door so I might redo it if there is a noticable difference.

Door Weatherstrip does not fit

I bought the rubber doorseal for all four doors from a supplier in England together with the carpet near the end of 2011. Unfortunately the doorseal doesn't fit. It does fit in the channel on the door but the door will not close - the leading edge fouls against the car body on all doors.
Here is a sketch indicating why.

Blue is the door.
Black is the sponge rubber seal.
Green is te car's body.

I have a feeling it's going on eBay!

If that wasn't enough - the rear window outer weatherstrip is a problem too. I already had two pieces for the front but had to buy two for the rear doors at around $40 $30 each.
This is the front door - this one works well.

This is the rear door - note the height that the weatherstrip goes up the glass compared to the picture above.

And here is the problem. This is what happens when you wind the window down. The weatherstrip follows the glass down into the door.

I have only cut one of the rear weatherstrips so with any luck I can get a changeover or a refund.

On the good side, I have finished preparing all the vinyl trim and will begin to install it in the car. I have one more piece of trim to do - the section in-between the front and back doors. It has my modified inside lights and the seatbelt mount. We are going to do this piece in headlining fabric down to the bottom of the glass then blue velour to the bottom of the door - it's black vinyl under that.

Windscreen is Installed!

It's finally in! We installed it again Sunday morning with exactly the same result as the first second time (I forgot the this was the 3rd attempt) - it still wouldn't go in at the top. On Sunday afternoon, having tried a bit on and off to get the top in, I called Mathew from the Rootes Group Car Club. Matt had fitted a Super Minx windscreen a year or so ago so I figured that now was the time to get some advice. Matt kindly offered to drop in on Monday morning to have a look, so I left the windscreen alone for the rest of Sunday.
Monday morning came (this morning), Matt turned up, and one of the first things he asked after having a look was "do your hands hurt?". Essentially, he figured if we had been doing the right thing our hands should hurt. He showed me what to do, and after about 10 minutes of thumping downwards on the outside of the screen (standing on my painting trestle), it slowly edged in. A bit more thumping and the top rubber lip went over by itself.

I took this picture Sunday before it was all the way in.

 (Later addition to this post) This is the "trick" in getting these windscreens all the way in.

Once the bottom and sides are in, if the top still has a gap do as indicated in the picture. As Matt said, hands start to "smart" after a minute or two.

Windscreen attempt #2

Today's attempt to put the Windscreen in was almost successful except that we couldn't get the top part over the bodywork lip. I pestered away at it for an hour before I resigned to the fact that is wasn't really in. We slightly tore the rubber at the join too. We have removed the windscreen, repaired the rubber, and will try again tomorrow. Laurel and I think that we didn't get the bottom in correctly so hopefully we have learnt something from today's attempt.

Rear 1/4 Light Windows are In!

We installed the rear 1/4 light windows this afternoon. These are the ones where I returned the rubber seals to have them shortened because we just couldn't get the windows installed.
It still wasn't easy but at least they are both done.

For anyone with a Vogue Mk3 or Super Minx Mk3 Sedan, the trick is to put the bottom and vertical (front) sections in first and work toward the rear, hardest corner (the opposite of what seems intuitively correct). We use three 3.5mm pull cords - one along each side. Getting the top right angle corner in is tough and getting the rear under-right angle corner in is REALLY tough. I honestly thought that I'd torn the rubber seal on each corner, but I hadn't.

The finished product.

From the inside with the rear parcel shelf fitted (carpet not fastened down yet).

I managed to scratch one of the rear black pillars a bit but that's easily fixed as they are enamel that I applied with a brush - probably why they scratched as enamel is not as hard as auto paint. I hope I can get the same finish though because it was perfect before.

After our evening meal the whole family fiddled with the windscreen for an hour or so before we decided to call it a night. The pull cord will work OK (we had concerns about ther area just above the dashpad) but we had trouble getting the screen low enough for the rubber to go over the metal lip (see dashpad install).
I think it was because the outer rubber lip was folded under, so our strategy will be to use another pull cord on the outside lip as well.

Here is a sketch of the windscreen rubber and how it has to be fitted.

The inside pull cord is slotted in where I have drawn the purple lines for the car windscreen metal lip. The red arrow shows where the seal on the outside is folded in normally and has to be pulled out so the seal can drop down to the purple line (car body). The actual seal that we are using has the outside rubber lip tightly curved in and touching the rest of the rubber seal. It's quite difficult to coax out - a real finger wrecker.

Windscreen Trim

The steering wheel is painted and ready to go in the car.
I spent about four hours Saturday and a couple on Sunday fitting the trim around the windscreen seal.
Why? Because it was REALLY difficult. Keep in mind I fitted the stainless steel trim to the rear windscreen seal and that only took about 15 minutes. This one is thicker as it's plastic and I think that's what made it so difficult (the original trim didn't fit this rubber seal).

The red arrow shows where I stopped again Sunday morning to rest my hands. The masking tape helps stop the rubber falling off the screen again. The strange shape of the glass allows it to come off a bit too easily.

You can see how bulky the plastic trim is in this picture. The Ella Bache makeup applicators I've been collecting over the years were invaluable. (Long oval shaped plastic thing on windscreen. They don't have them anymore - Laurel brings home useless flimsy things now.)

My fingers and thumbs were bruised from holding it in as I went so I had to stop and come back to it several times. I know you can get a tool to help with this but I didn't have one.

We were ready to fit the windscreen on Sunday afternoon but given it was Mother's Day I decided not to press Laurel  to help (even though she indicated she was happy to). I figured if we failed it would kind of put the damper on the day. It's penciled in for Wednesday afternoon when the temperature outside is a bit kinder.

Finally I installed the pull rope for installing the screen. The windscreen is in our bedroom staying warm for the big day.

Window saga and Seat foaming

The windscreen rubber and rear 1/4 light window saga is not over yet.
When we went to fit the stainless steel trim to the windscreen rubber, it was way too wide. The Vogue appears to be different to other Rootes Group cars (Hillman) in that the front and rear windscreen seal trim is a different width from front to back.
Front trim. The new front windcreen rubber allows about 8mm where this measures 11mm.

The rear which is on the car. This trim width would fit the front.

My supplier in Adelaide is going to supply a plastic chrome trim that will fit.
I also sent the rear 1/4 light seals back to him to have them shortened on two sides. When we get them back we will try one last time to fit them and if not successful I'll get "someone" in to do it.

Meanwhile I am still applying rubber foam to the front passenger seat. We are fiddling with it a lot to get a really nice comfortable yet confining seat. It's also a fiddle to get the upholstery to fit.
More soon.

Rear Seat upholstery glued down, Driver's side window in

Actually gluing the upholstrey down under the silver section was another job we really didn't want to do. It turned out fine. I couldn't get good pictures and I think I'll wait until they are in the car to get better ones.

I fitted all the bailey channel, outside weatherstrip and the inside felt strip. The window regulator (winding mechanism) isn't in yet but the window slides nicely.
There's glass in that door!

Bailey Channel Search

I have finally resolved the Bailey channel problem. I really have NOT been unable to track down a rigid bailey channel that is 5/8" wide and the right height with a metal trim. See this post. Laurel and I have decided that a non-rigid bailey with no trim will be acceptable.

After much reserching online, I discovered that Clark Rubber (Australian national rubber retailer) actually stocked a few of the candidates for flexible bailey channels.
I went there a couple of days ago and bought back these four samples. The one on the far left actually had little wings on the outer edges which I cut off hoping to get a better fit but it was still too large.

So numbered left to right:
#1 Too large
#2 Fits quite well
#3 Too small
#4 Too low

Number 2 works really well in the doorframe. It will have to be held in with glue at about 100mm intervals. It has the official number 350.222. Clark's price was good so I went back yesterday and picked up 7 meters.

Just a side note. The clips that hold the rigid bailey channel into the door frame were a bit rusty so ages ago, during great clip de-rust, I had cleaned them up and de-rusted them. When I tried to fit one of them into the door frame I scratched the paint on the edge of the doorframe (covered by the bailey channel we have chosen). No matter how I tried there was no way to get them in without damaging paintword. The flexible bailey won't use the the clips so I'm also happy with this approach (glue) on that front as well.

We put the windscreen rubber on the front windscreen last night. We'll give it a few days to settle in then attempt to put the windscreen in the car. If Sunday pans out then maybe then.

Windscreen Seal #3 Arrived - Boot handle on

My third windscreen seal arrived yesterday. We didn't get time to put it on the screen last night - hopefully tonight.

To racap.
#1 Didn't have the stainless steel trim channel
#2 Wrong size - for eariler car
#3 Just arrived looks OK - a tad bigger than #1 so I hope it's OK.






On other matters, the boot handle, trim and boot rubber seal is on. (They have actually been installed for a few weeks but I hadn't taken any pictures.)

UK Bailey channel no good

The Bailey channel from the UK is 14mm - no good.
I have sent the windscreen seal back and expect a replacement in about a week.
That means no windscreen by the end of February. Oh well - lots to do on other bits.
I've tracked down a flexible bailey channel replacement for the Mk1 Ford Cortina that might fit.
Curiously, Clark Rubber stock it so I might get 50mm to try.
More soon.

A Frustrating weekend.

It's been a frustrating weekend.
I decided to leave the rear 1/4 light windows alone for a couple of days while I sought advice and decided to finished the doors - install locks, glass etc.
I had already restored the door lock mechanisms and purchased bailey channel and weatherstrips over a year ago. (Bailey channel is the channel that the winding door windows slide up and down within.)

First step was installing the door locks.

Before

After

The doors close and open very nicely. No door seal yet but that's for another day.

Next, measure up the bailey channel and get ready to cut it. I kept all the old stuff and and the length isn't critical as half the channel is hidden in the door, but I needed to know how much room they took up so I could get the weatherstrip and felt strip that goes accross the door (where the glass dissapear into the door) measured accurately.
Since the bailey channel has been cut with tinsnips I had to clean the ends anyway so I hacksawed off (small fine blade) about 50mm of channel.

First thing is noted is that it did not appear to be wide enough for the part of the door where it was to be installed.
Rear Vogue door showing where the bailey channel fits.

Careful measurement showed my new bailey channel to be 15mm wide. The Vogue requires 5/8" which is 15.875mm. Believe is or not the difference is make or break.

New and old bailey channel.
Picture to be added later - when I find it (found it 2nd March 2012)!

I could kind put up with that, so I checked my 50mm piece on the Vogue doorglass (why didn't I do this a year ago?). Nope, that didn't fit either. The channel is apparently for 1/4" glass - the Vogue uses 3/16" glass. All in all, useless.
Looking up online revealed that I appear to have Holden EH bailey channel. Described as 15mm wide, 15mm high with a stainless steel bead on either side.

The Vogue originally has 5/8" wide, 3/8" high on one side and 1/2" high with a stainless steel bead on that side (outside). It appears to be the only car in the world that has 5/8" bailey with 3/16" glass.





Since I have not been able to find 5/8" bailey with 3/16" glass in Australia I checked the same place in the UK that I got the Vogue doorseal and carpets from - yes they list it. They are emailing me today with the actual sizes.

OK, forget the doors for now. How about the windscreen rubber. We have had a new one for a week or so but hadn't fitted it to the screen. Short version of story. There is no way we could get it on the windscreen glass. The packaging did say 61-64 Vogue/Super Minx but I thought that since we had (me and vendor) discusses the fact that the 1965 has a bigger screen, AND the seal was made for me, it would be corrent. I have emailed him too!

Curiously Alpine West Midlands (provider of Vogue carpet, doorseal, probably bailey channel and now windscreen seal) list one and they have already verified that it takes the stainless steel trim and is for a Mk3 and Mk4 Vogue. I think I'll just buy the third windscreen seal. I'll have a lot for eBay when this is done!

OK, forget the windscreen (Sunday afternoon by now), let's do the front passenger seat. I had stripped it and painted the frame a couple of weeks ago.
I reinforced part of the seat base that had bent slightly and reassembled the base. (A piece of aluminium pop riveted at either end in a pool of epoxy.)

The reinforced part of the seat frame (right).The aluminium is 10mm x 3mm and 250mm long with 1/8" holes in about 20mm from the ends (documented here so I don't forget for the other seat).

Then I got out the MGB seat diaphragms that I bought 2 years ago (having been told they were a pretty close match to Hillman ones), and no way will they fit. I think they would be a disaster even if I did make them fit.


The old seat diaphragm (below). I circled the torn bit - repairable I think.

So three options that I can see:
1. Make the MGB seat diaphragms fit
2. Use webbing and springs
3. Fix the old ones they are torn in one place (center back).

Not a great weekend for the Vogue...

Rear 1/4 Light Window Installation - NOT!

I have trimmed back the headlining all around the car in readiness for installing the pinchweld around the doors and the rear 1/4 light triangular windows (behind the rear doors).
We attempted to install one of the rear 1/4 light windows last night but unfortunaetly - failed.
No matter how much soapy water and pulling and grunting we did, it just would not go in around the corners.
We are using the cord around the seal inner lip and drawing it in from the inside of the car.

This is the opening where the window has to go.

Here is the window - complete with rubber seal and bit of cord.

The first time we tried with the cord all the way around the window rubber.
We tried cutting the cord into three lengths and:
1. Running it from corner to corner.
2. Running it from the middle of each side, around a corner, to the middle of the next side.

We haven't caused any damage yet but I am concerned about the headlining if we try this too many times.
I think we will try with a slightly lighter cord - the one we used was thicker than the one we used for the rear windscreen as we thought that we were lucky not the tear it at the time.

The seal is on the large side as it was very easy to get onto the glass. I'll slip the seal off and check for fit in the opening before we try again.

Windscreen Seal Arrived

My new windscreen seal was on the doorstep when I got home last night.
The weekend should see the Vogue with a windscreen.

New Windscreen Seal Ordered

I have just ordered a new windscreen seal from the same place I am getting the 1/4 light seals from - hopefully delivered by the end of next week.