1964 Austin Cooper S - Portugal

[greyghost]

thats a great looking motor.

is that an original oil cooler or a repro?

[ricardo]

Thanks for the nice comments.

Is that a concertina type by pass hose ? I have see them split up the side of the hose !
Where did you get your wire hose clips from ?

You're right, that is a concertina bypass hose. I already bought a new one (kevlar) and I am planning to fit it before the engine goes to the car. Do you think I can do it with the cylinder head in place?

I used the original large clips for the radiator hoses, just had them zinc plated. As for the small ones, I bought a few of those concertina type bypass hoses just to get the clips. Look on ebay, they should be easy to find.
But the original clamps for the PCV and heater hoses, were this type:



I only had 2 at the time, but already found more 4. Still 4 missing for the servo hose and heater hose. I will swap them when I take the carbs apart to fit the engine to the shell.

is that an original oil cooler or a repro?

Oil cooler is an original item. When I bought it:

[IAIN]

[quote="ricardo"]

I already bought a new one (kevlar) and I am planning to fit it before the engine goes to the car. Do you think I can do it with the cylinder head in place?



Yes......... take off the water pump !!

[ricardo]

Just managed to swap the bypass hoses and fit the kevlar hose without cutting it or taking the head/water pump off. It's possible to do

[Austin Costin]

lovely job Ricardo, hows the shell coming along.

[nick@dunsdale]

Just managed to swap the bypass hoses and fit the kevlar hose without cutting it or taking the head/water pump off. It's possible to do

Yes back in the day we used to fit them in place with everything still attached, large lever and a small amount of soap, in saying that i would have been wary of using a lever on that nicely painted engine.

Looks great nice series of pics

[970s]

Excellent Job!
When will the whole project completed?
Keep going!
Must be one of the best S around!


AL

[JC T ONE]

Woaw--thats a very good job you are doing there

will look foreward to see the progress.

Jens Christian

[ricardo]

Hi,

I have no idea of when it will be finished. I would like it to be during next year, but it will depend on the time available for the assembly.
At the moment I have almost every part ready, but can't go any further without the shell, which is still at the paint guy... with no progress since the last 2 months
I will add a couple more pictures soon.

[ricardo]

Moving on to the front subframe... The suspension was originally hydrolastic but the car had been fitted with shocks all around.
The hydro hoses were very bad and thinking about reliability I decided to convert the car to dry spec.




Original MOWOG stamp:




The top arms buffer holes were already enlarged to accept the shock pins:




Subframe was sand blasted and then converted to dry spec:










Top arm pins were really rusty/stuck and were a pain to remove!










Drive shafts still showing the original blue strip:

[ricardo]

The subframe was powder coated and the other bits were painted.




With everything ready, the fun part begun

[ricardo]

Same process for the rear subframe:










Received yesterday the missing engine number plate from Tim (Minimail):

[nunecos]

Really nice Ricardo! So you already can say that the engine is DONE!

[ricardo]

Finally got some news about the shell. The preparation took forever, but was nicely done and the engine bay and floor was just painted this weekend. Next month will hopefully be ready to return home!

[ricardo]

Well, after 1 year and a half at the paint shop, I just picked up the shell 2 weeks ago. The paint job is not as good as I was expecting (and paid for!), but it's not bad either. I guess it is ok, but just not the standard I asked and was expecting. Most affected areas are the rear seat and floor, which will not be seen once covered. The area between the washer jets has some sort of orange peeling effect too on the clear coat (I think), maybe it could be minimized with a buff (?). None of this can be seen in the pictures though...








I already started fitting the front part of the wire loom and had some problems with the wiring for the headlamps. This loom was bought from Autosparks and had the 2 extensions half the size of the originals, they are impossible to fit! Did anyone also had this problem? The wire for the passenger (LHD car) interior light door switch was also missing. Otherwise it is ok so far...








One question: where can I buy the big dash grommet 3H1457?

[JC T ONE]

Hi Ricardo,


nice to see your car is back

regarding grommets, try this link http://www.coh-baines.co.uk/


keep up the good work.

Jens Christian

[georgek]

Nice to see the paint go on, looking good.

[Lilihip]

This restoration is absolutely amazing! keep up the great work!

[ricardo]

Had some issues with the interior light door switches, turned out I had bought a wrong set of switches. Luckily, I still had the originals which are shorter and don't hit the shell inside the A panel, as the longer version does.




I also sent an email to austosparks regarding the short headlamp wires and was told the wires they sent me were for the dip switch (which I thought were missing). I got confused because they are of the same color, also 3 wires and they sent me 2 sets of them! Anyway, as they informed me, the headlamp wires do not come with new wire looms, you have to buy them separately...

I managed to find the dash grommet in Lisbon, but couldn't find yet the right pattern for the dash vinyl.

Made some progress this weekend, not much as I was expecting, but still some progress (wiper motor, petrol and brake pipes & steering rack fitted).

The gray strip for the rear seat was a kind offer from a member of this forum - thank you very much!

[InimiaD]

Looks superb already Ricardo. Excellent work.