Hi Guys
I haven't been here in a while. Garry has kept me so busy :-)
It's been quite some time, since I worked on the electrical portion of this job. I finally figured out the wiper motor, although I had to get a little "German-style" on the Jaguar parts sellers in New Hampshire who had just sold me, basically the wrong wiper motor. So they finally agreed to ask one of their tech guys and it only took a minute to come back to confirm what I had already suspected: There was a left and and a right-hand drive version of the wiper motor. Luckily, the answer was simple: Take out the wiper motor for the fourth time. Open the the new wiper motor up too, take out the gear from the old motor and swap it over. The gear has a cam on top of it which activates a micro switch inside the motor. That switch turns the motor off in its resting place (just like on a pagoda), which is different for left and right hand versions. Even the tachometer, which was feared not working after sitting around for a few months finally fell into place. After I had exhausted every other possibility, including frying Garry's electronic ignition (:-( oops), I finally had the courage to swap the direction of current going through the tachometer to the exact opposite direction of what it said in the wiring diagram. I think this was Mr. Lucas' last vengeance and after that he asked the tin worm to take over.
Apparently, when Garry went to the bank, he was either very charming or he mortgaged his new house, because he sure didn't want to have me stop working on the Space. Either that, or he figured he was better off having most of the labor intensive work done in a Third World country, so that the labor costs would be reduced. (We thank you here for giving us the work)…
As he already told you, I started having some concerns while installing the retractable seat belts. I had been hearing that the safety inspectors down under were as particular as those in most of Europe. Even though I thought we always knew that there was a small rust spot at the bottom of the sills, I thought it best that I should maybe put a little paint over it before the car arrived in Australia. Little did I think that would result in the car staying with me for another six weeks and with me doing my least favorite type of repair, which is rust repair. Although the damage was fairly moderate, compared to what I've seen in my prior life in Europe, Garry took the "might as well" approach and kept asking me to open the sills a little further, in order to get a good look. Once again, I felt like a forensic scientist or an archaeologist, unearthing hidden treasures and minerals (unfortunately FEO2 is not nearly as valuable as AU, which I didn't find). I DID find the most unusual looking pod inside one of the sills. I swear it looked like an alien skull that had been deposited there for burial or for a Trojan horse attack on planet Earth.
Anyway, I started fabricating pieces of sheet metal to replace the cancerous pieces and before closing the sills back up, I treated them with the wax like rust inhibitor, Waxoyl. The only problem was that when I started welding in the outer sill, the substance became VERY liquid, even gaseous and it would burst out in flames, thereby igniting evermore waterfalls of burning petroleum distillate from the sills. Luckily, I was prepared and had fire extinguishers handy, but I realized this was not a safe way to work. The only thing I could think of to inhibit the fire, was to run some vinyl tubing into the sill, which I duct taped to a bottle of welding gas, consisting of an Argon/CO2 mixture. This actually worked quite well and I could finish the job without further incidents. As is usually the case, there was a little bit more body filler, than one would prefer, at the upper edge of one of the sills. It had led to a horizontal crack just behind the door and since we were applying the "might as well" principle, we decided that all that filler should be removed before painting the lower sills and eventually the whole rear clip (except for the trunk lid) and both doors. The added benefit of that was that the Space is now more or less one shade of blue…
After I got it back from the painters, I had only two more days to finish the Waxoyl inside the doors and sills, glue in the door weather stripping, install the antenna and the door and other interior panels, glue the sill upholstery back on, apply some seam sealer in the rear wheel arches where I found more open "gaps" (luckily no rust), install the left seat belt and seat, clean the car, tighten the steering wheel and install the horn button, figure out why the horns weren't working (one of the reasons was: "that wasn't the horn button" :-) . Luckily, the answer to that problem came to Garry in a dream :-). The, get rid of a muffler rumble and some other noises and finally put the hard top back on the car and place Garry's Blacklick PUB poster inside the trunk. With a half-hour left to go before the shipper needed the car to entomb it in a container, I was nervous what might go wrong on the drive down there. But all was well. She ran and sounded very well, the blinkers and instruments still worked, fuel was nearly depleted and after driving 1400 miles with the steering wheel of the left, it was now....
Oh, oh. It was STILL on the left hand side.........I was so busy trying to figure out all the other little issues that the main reason for being here somehow got overlooked and I had installed it back on the left side of the car!!..... :-(
(Just kidding Garry. There’s nothing better for the heart, than the occasional elevated heart rate :-)….
I’m going to miss you my small moving space, even though it is nice to have a bigger space back at my garage now. Have a good trip!....
