[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Thad, I really enjoyed the Blondihack video’s you recommended earlier. She is a very good teacher, her video’s are extremely well thought out.

That's nice to know. I was pleased to see them, as, having barely a few hours lathe experience at school, I was watching guys like Adam Booth, who is a great explainer, but does not assume that one never saw a lathe before!

As you liked Blondihacks, may I recommend Joe Pieczynski for more serious stuff.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

As you liked Blondihacks, may I recommend Joe Pieczynski for more serious stuff.

Thanks! I had already found Joe! In fact my very first project is one of his little projects! He has a three part video on machining a tap follower. Blondihack does one too, but Joe’s is simpler. So I choose his design. I mailed him and he mailed me back the drawings. All I need to do is convert them into metric!

Jeroen

[Sutripta]

^^^
What cutting bits did you choose? HSS or carbide?

The drill chuck - looks to be on a taper. Jacob or B series?

[Jeroen]

^^^

Originally Posted by Sutripta

What cutting bits did you choose? HSS or carbide?

These are the ones that came with the Lathe. I am not hugely impressed, but for now it will have to do. I used to make my own, but as Blondihack advised; another variable that will test your DIY skills.



This Corona virus is really a problem for the hardware shops. Just about everything is sold out and nobody knows when new stock will arrive.

It took me days to find an online supplier for the Chuck. Believe it or not, but I had to order it in the UK and ship it to the Netherlands. Could not find it in the Netherlands anywhere!

Originally Posted by Sutripta

The drill chuck - looks to be on a taper. Jacob or B series?

Yes, two parts:
Key Type Drill Chuck 1.5-13mm - B16 Taper
Drill Chuck Arbor MT2-B16 (M10 Thread)

I aim to get started over the weekend. But it is going to be really nice spring weather, 20oC, so lots of gardening and bicycle riding to be done too!

Jeroen

[Sutripta]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

These are the ones that came with the Lathe. I am not hugely impressed, but for now it will have to do.

Brazed carbide tips.
Surprised at the number, considering that most jobs can be done with just 5 types Quantity over quality. But should do for starters.

Regards
Sutripta

[Jeroen]

One of the projects I mentioned before is making an emergency bonnet and boot release. In one of my earlier post I showed the various (bicycle) parts I have already bought for it. (yes that is bicycle parts and no I am not mixing two different topics / threads)

Both are simple mechanism. Essentially a wire cable that runs through an outer tube. You pull a handle and the hood or boot pops open. The problem is they do break over time. I have had to deal with many boots that would not open during my years on the technical committee of the Spider Register. In most cases it was fairly easy. 9 out of 10 times the cable snaps just behind the lever. Which usually means you can still get a the cable with a plier. If the cable fails at some other point, it gets a little bit more tricky, but we have always managed to get the trunk open.

However, the bonnet is very different. I have only come across a cable failure once. And it had us baffled. There are those that claim you can get a the actual catch from underneath the car, but we never managed to open it that way. So if your bonnet cable snaps, you have a problem.

Recently I joined an American Alfa Romeo Spider forum. Amazingly I had not come across it before. Good fun, lots of stuff happening! I stumbled upon an old thread about an emergency hood release. (This is American so a bonnet becomes a hood, don’t know why.)

https://www.alfabb.com/threads/hood-...failure.45189/

So this very simple solution inspired me to do something similar. But I also thought I a little improvement on this simple design. When thinking about this I thought I could use my lathe to fabricate some parts too. Not sure about that yet.
We will see.

So here we go. This is what the normal release mechanism looks like





First thing is I wanted to have a proper bracket onto which to fix the emergency release cable. So I got myself a piece of aluminium to work into the correct shape. I used aluminium, because that is what I had. Also, it is very easy to bend and cut. Even so, I messed up a few first attempts:



But here it is the emergency release cable bracket mk1:









Here it is mounted in its rightful place:





a little trial fitting with the outer cable. All bicycle bits.



I have not yet quite decided on how to route the emergency cable. The American design was very simple. He just drilled a hole on the side of the fender and fed the cable through into the wheel well, where he fixed it to a piece or rubber that was there already.

I might just route it back into the interior, parallel to the original cable and find a good place to fix it to underneath the dashboard. Might require another bracket.

Easy enough job, although it did take me about two hours to produce this bracket in its final shape. At least got to use my mini mill for a bit of drilling and milling!





We will see. Today is a very nice day, 20-21oC for the first time this year. So I will be taking the Spider for a spin.

Jeroen

[Sutripta]

^^^
How difficult is it to periodically check, and if necessary change the bonnet release cable?

Regards
Sutripta

[Thad E Ginathom]

How difficult 2... to replace the cable every n years?

But... Great project anyway.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Sutripta

^^^
How difficult is it to periodically check, and if necessary change the bonnet release cable?

Checking these cables tends to be difficult. They always snap in odd places, so the only way to check them is to take the inner cable out. Once you have done that, you might as well run a new inner cable in. The bonnet latch mechanism is easily accessible, the lever mechanism inside the car a little less. You have to take the knee boards out first.

On the boot it is even worse. The latch mechanism is a real pain to get at.

Whilst in theory you could replace these cables every so often, it is not necessarily 100% guarantee they would not snap in between sometime.

During my years as a technical committee member of the Dutch Alfa Romeo Spider Register I have come across many snapped cables. One guy had a new inner and outer cable installed afterwards, the next year, whilst we were on a tour in the South of Italy his brand new boot cable snapped again.

9 out 10 times it tends to be the boot cable that snaps. Getting the boot to open and do a quick emergency fix is usually pretty straight forward. You can pick up the cable leading to the latch mechanism behind the B pillar and also underneath the fuel filler neck.

The real problem is the bonnet. They don’t snap very often, but if it does snap, you will not be able to get the bonnet open. Some claim it can be done by putting the Spider on a lift and working from underneath. But I don’t know of anybody having managed successfully. Which leaves only one option; forceful entry and that means damaging the bonnet.

So an emergency release, even though the chances of having to use it are remote, is useful. Also, I get to spend some more time fiddling with my car. Which I happen to find extremely useful!

Manage to get the emergency outer cable all the way into the interior. Took several hours. I have some images I will upload later this week. It was a lovely day yesterday. Sunny, blue sky, 20oC. We can still go outside for a bit. So I took the Spider for a nice 2 hour drive. I am very happy with the way it now handles and brakes.

Jeroen

[Sutripta]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

So an emergency release, even though the chances of having to use it are remote, is useful. Also, I get to spend some more time fiddling with my car. Which I happen to find extremely useful!

Crux of the matter.

Regards
Sutripta

[Jeroen]

My wife has always been very supportive of all my hobbies and interests. But there is one aspect that does create some tension in our otherwise excellent marriage of more than 37 years: Dirty hands!

When working in my garage, I do get dirty. I always put on old clothes. Even though I do wear gloves most of the time, getting hands dirty can not be avoid.

So when I am done, I will walk over to the kitchen, open the door (put dirty hands on the door handle) and wash my hands in the kitchen sink. I have my own heavy duty soap and a special towel. Even so, this was deemed insufficient. So I was ordered to get a better solution in place.

We have decided to put a tap and a outside sink on the side of the garage. Which means I can wash my hands, my wife can use it to fill up her watering cans and we can also use it put a garden hose on, for washing the cars or watering the far end of the garden.

Sounds simple enough. The execution of such a simple plan is something else. Part of our yard is covered by a 20-40 cm thick concrete slab! So I subcontracted the whole job:

This is yesterday, they started on the side of the house. This is also where we will break through the outerwall of the house. Into the cellar and pick up a connection with the main waterline in our cellar.

They cut out a huge slab with a power saw.



Today they brought in a little digger to dig up the rest of the yard and dig a 60 cm deep trench. It needs to be at least 60 cm deep in order to be protected from any frost.





The builder found that the concrete slab also extended under part of the yard where we had regular cobble stone. So out comes the jack hammer!



Here we are now: The black tube is the water line. The red one is just a spare conduct one I have put in as well. It is closed off on both end with a pull wire inside. If ever we need to bring say an internet cable, or 380VAC to the garage we can use this. (I hope)



Hopefully, by tonight the yard will be covered up. Later this week the plumber will come to make the necessary plumbing connections.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Tranquility has been restored. Instead of the sound of jack hammers, we can hear birds chirping away again



In our cellar, waiting to be connected to the water mains.



Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Still waiting for the builder to show up and fix the last bit of the driveway. And the plumber to finish the plumbing part of our project.

Still, last night I made very good project on my Spider emergency bonnet release

I decided wanted to have the emergency release close to the original release. I wanted to be able to pull it without having to take things apart. The solution I found on the USA Spider website, would probably mean taking a wheel off!

But in order for the emergency release to get close to the original release lever, the cable needed to routed alongside the original one. Here is the original one, the black tube with the open cable tag attached. It goes through a rubber grommet into the back of the dashboard.



I have removed part of the kneeboard here, normally this part swivels on two little hinges and provides easy access to the fuses. But with it removed you can see the original release lever



I thought it would be a good idea to somehow have the emergency release behind the bracket of the original release lever. There was some room and some bolts to attach an additional bracket too.



Need to poke a hole in the grommet to push the new outer cable through. I tried this first



To no avail. This grommet was old, but very very tough. So more elaborate tooling was required. Got my pneumatic drill out, that fitted exactly in between all the other parts!



Here you see the new outer cable pushed through the same grommet as the original (outer) cable.



I just kept feeding the new cable through. I was expecting it to get stuck somewhere underneath the dashboard. I was pleasantly surprised when it just popped out from underneath the dashboard, all by itself!



However, it somehow found its way along a very different path and it wasn’t anywhere near the back of the release lever. I spend about 45 minutes to try and get it there. Head in the footwell, underneath the dash. Very uncomfortable.



I could not get it properly routed. So I came up with a cunning plan. From a piece of simple metal wire I made this little “follower clamp”. Now when I push the new outer cable in, it will follow exactly the route of the old outer cable.



Worked a treat!

Next another bracket to be mounted behind the normal release lever:









Then I inserted the inner cable, always a bit fiddly and I put some simple bearing grease on it too.



A few more bicycle bits came in handy to attach it to the bonnet release mechanism.



This is how things look under the bonnet:





And this is how things look under the dashboard, near the original bonnet release lever:




I just looped the inner wire and clamped it with an electrical wire connector and another bicycle bit. I tested it about a dozens times and it works really well.



As usual, lots of tools everywhere. If you look closely you will also notice two fuses on the floor mat. When I was fiddling with the inner cable, trying to loop it, clamping it, it brushes across the fuse box and shortened two fuses! Did I mention you should always disconnect your battery!! No matter what!



I have also started with my very first little project on my lathe. The hinges of the knee pad protector swivel in a nylon bushing. One is completely perished. I tried to repair it earlier, it is somewhere in this thread. But it came apart, so I am making a new one! The hinge pins on which it swivels are 7,3 mm. Regular sets of drill rarely have a 7 mm drill bit, let alone a 7,3mm. So I found a website where you can order drill bits, per piece in any diameter, 1 mm increments. Obviously, I have opened an account with them!



Also, last Sunday when I took the Spider for a blast, I had to move the Jaguar out of the way. I noticed a little bit of oil on my garage floor! I don’t think I have ever seen any oil leaking from my Jaguar before. Apart from the hydraulic hose that was damaged and I replaced several years ago.

So most likely another Jaguar project coming up.





I have mentioned before; I used to be very active in the Dutch Alfa Romeo Spider Register. Usually together with spanner mate Peter. We havent done much for our club over the last years. That is fine, we did our thing for 10-15 years, time for others to take over. Due to the Corona, obviously, our events have been cancelled.

Peter and I have come up with “virtual technical meetings” for our members. We will be discussing various repair and maintenance jobs. Tonight the first prep meeting with some folks to organise it all. Look forward to it!

Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

Letter drill still available? The internet tells me that L is 7.366mm. Too big?

[Sutripta]

^^^
Between inch, metric, and letter, you have almost everything covered.

Regards
Sutripta