Restoration: D750 Ford—Part 27
Auckland COVID-19 restrictions continue to be a hurdle in Lyndsay Whittle's restoration
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A last-minute rush of blood has seen to it that masking could at least be started
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Aside from a recently purchased length of a one-and-a-half-inch exhaust pipe, a refurbished Motorcraft carburettor that looks like it’s new out of the box, and a template for what will become the new exhaust manifold, I’m sorry to say that I don’t have much to show for the efforts of the last few weeks.
It’s probably fair to say that if I was doing this as a commercial job, I would’ve been given the sack months ago; in truth, there’ve been a few times in recent weeks when I’ve felt like terminating my own services.
A mitigating circumstance (and a perfect excuse I might add) has been the recent COVID-19 lockdown, which prevented any chance of collecting the refurbished carburettor I’d dropped off to Mark at Carburettor Specialties the day before the lockdown was announced.
Mark obviously made good use of his time in isolation, as I received a call from him to say that the carb was repaired and ready for collection about a week later. Ready or not, I was unable to collect it, and even if I could have, it wouldn’t have been a scrap of use, as I had nothing to attach it to given that both manifolds were (and still are) off the engine.
And here I was smugly telling everyone I could that this current incarceration we’re all having to endure wasn’t affecting me too badly at all. At least things were going along just fine until I was unable to get hold of some of the bits and pieces that were needed to at least make a start on the manifold.
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It looks like it’s brand new
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As briefly touched upon last month, my restoration buddy Murray said that as he had made extractors for the Mini he used to race back in the 1960s, he’d be happy to have a go at making one for the D even though it’s nearly 60 years since he last fabricated a set.
He does reckon, however, that this one should be a whole lot easier, as back in the day, he had to make all the cuts with a hacksaw and tidy them up with a file; no grinders and cutting discs in those days.
The pipe and a number of bends arrived on the morning that these lines were being written, so hopefully, some favourable progress will be able to be reported on in Part 28 next month.
Who knows, perhaps there may even be a manifold fitted to the truck to photograph – no pressure Murray! Yet another hold-up due to this confounded lockdown has been with the brake booster, which is, unfortunately, still with my friend Colin who’s confident he can get it sorted now that he’s back at work.
I thought I had enough paint in stock to be able to repaint the cab, however, when I lifted the lid on the four-litre tin, the amount inside didn’t look enough to finish the job. While at first I thought I’d chance it, but after a bit of thought, I decided to wait until I could get enough paint to ensure completion of the job.
My last disaster with trying to match paint to an existing job was still all too fresh in my mind, and I didn’t want to risk revisiting that most humbling experience. The paint has now been ordered from Auto Paint in Henderson and should be in my hot little hands a day or two after this tale of woe goes to print.
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That two-pack doesn’t come off easily
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I usually set aside around 20 hours each week to work on any current restoration, with that extending out to 30 hours a week. However, with so many different segments of the restoration being in various states of disassembly at the moment, the job has come to a standstill with absolutely no hours being recorded in the worksheet over the past two weeks.
One job I was contemplating getting stuck into was masking the cab, but not knowing how long the lockdown was going to last, I figured that’d probably be a waste of time, as knowing my luck, the masking would either fall off or the tape would burn into the good paint and the window rubber and then I’d have another job to contend with.
Other projects in the workshop
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The old Laser back in 2006
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I know it’s nothing to do with the D Series restoration, although, it’s a tale about a Ford (of sorts)—it’s actually a Mazda 323 badged as a Ford Laser Ghia that I’ve had in the workshop for a while, so I’ll tell the story anyway.
It was once my wife Christine’s daily driver until it was replaced with a Mitsubishi Diamante, which I also kept when it too was replaced with something newer. The reason I kept the Laser was that I couldn’t bear to see it go to the scrappy, given that it’s one of the last New Zealand assembled cars remaining on our roads.
It’s also probably the last car standing with the first of the new two-letter white number plates with black lettering NF4115. It needed a new seal between the auto box and the engine, so while I had the engine out, I thought I’d freshen up the front panels a bit.
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The freshen up will do it some good
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The reason I’m mentioning it in this article is that aside from getting another of the jobs on the ‘to-do’ list out of the way, it has provided a bit of respite from the D Series project, which is becoming a bit of a drag, not only for those of us working on the job but also for the long-suffering readers who have faithfully stuck with the programme.
Thanks, guys. Let’s hope now that the paint is on its way, and we have the pipe and some bends for Murray to get onto fabricating the exhaust manifold to make some good progress in the coming month.
In fact, I’m going out on a limb here and saying that you can kick my backside if I don’t have a painted cab to show off in the next issue. I don’t want to put any undue pressure on Murray with the manifold, but knowing him the way I do, we can look forward to some serious progress in that area as well.
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