Workshop Skills: Project Shoestring
With the brakes sorted, it was time to dive under the bonnet of our project Acclaim, always keeping in mind the aim of making it reliable and safe while also keeping a tight rein on the financial outlay.
Attention turns to the cooling system, and there is no way of avoiding expense on the car we want to put OTR for £1500.
As we reported previously, the radiator on our Project Shoestring Acclaim was not in the best of shape, with plenty of green verdigris stains suggesting it was far from watertight. The plastic overflow bottle looked initially to be filled to the correct level, but closer inspection revealed that this was in fact empty – it was so badly stained at the fill level that it was impossible to see at a glance where the coolant reached.
The coolant overflow bottle (or more technically correct the expansion bottle) was attached to the screenwash reservoir, which was also empty. Peering inside the screenwash reservoir revealed plenty of gunk in the bottom, so there was no point in just filling it with fluid and pushing this through the system as that would have quickly blocked the jets. Besides, the plastic outlet stub on the washer motor that was attached to the reservoir had broken away from the pump and was simply dangling on the end of the tubing.
Both bottles were removed as a unit, then separated. Fortunately, I was given a great tip some while back from Rough Luck Racing when they were working on my old MG TF, a tip that I was able to put to good use on the Acclaim. So I filled the coolant bottle with some brake and clutch cleaner plus a handful of nuts and bolts, then swilled this around – the cleaning action of the fluid together with the abrasive rubbing of the nuts and bolts slowly cleaned off the deposits until a rinse and a final scrub with a bottle brush had it cleaned up, translucent and looking like new.
As for the screenwash pump, I couldn’t find a genuine Triumph or Honda replacement listed anywhere, but did find a generic one that looked the right size and shape – it was only £6, so I took a chance and ordered it. In the meantime, I cleaned out the bottle with water and a bottle brush, then cleaned up the outside with panel wipe – this is less aggressive than white spirit, so a bit safer on old plastic which can be brittle and fragile. Then, because the reservoir cap was damaged, I splashed out £3.99 on a universal replacement of the correct diameter. I also replaced the windscreen wipers, which felt very hard. I happened to have some unused ones in the garage, but to keep the costing fair I added £10 to the running total to represent buying a new pair of rubbers.
While the bottles were out, I did find a couple of patches of rust on the inner wing under them. There was nothing serious and no holes, but I used this opportunity
There was still the radiator to sort out though, and this time there was no way of avoiding expense
to clean those areas with a Scotchbrite pad and apply some rust killer.
Also while rooting around in the engine bay, I noticed that the top cover on the timing belt did not fit properly against the rocker cover. Taking this off to investigate gave me a chance to inspect the timing belt. This was a Gates item and looked fine, but as somebody once told me – a timing belt is either a circle or a straight line, and it usually goes from one state to the other with no warning. Still, I was tempted to move replacement of the timing belt a little further down the priority list of jobs to do, but only because this is a ‘safe’ engine design and if the belt snaps, the pistons and valves will not collide.
The top cover should slot behind a semi- circular lip on the rocker cover, and this was easy to correct. However, before fitting it properly, I removed the rocker cover because I had noticed some mayonnaise under the oil filler cap. This is usually a worrying sign suggesting at best a blown head gasket and at worst a warped or cracked head allowing oil and water to mix, but for once I was reasonably relaxed. That’s because I’d had a similar experience in the past with an Acclaim which turned out to be only down to general condensation from too many short journeys and not enough long runs. (I have also heard that this Honda engine is susceptible to this kind of build-up because the rocker cover is so large, though I can’t say whether that is true or not.)
I suspected a similar issue this time around because this Acclaim has not been used on the road for some years, and will no doubt have been subjected to regular short bursts of running to move it around in storage that wouldn’t have got it warm enough to burn off any moisture inside. Besides, the oil on the dipstick was perfectly clean and clear, and the idle was rock steady. I had wanted to remove the rocker cover so I could clean inside it and around the valve gear rather than leaving any sludge to cause damage, and with that done it all went back together properly and looked much better.
There was still the radiator to sort out though, and this time there was no way of avoiding expense. The previous owner had warned me that this had a slight leak, though I had not noticed any water underneath. However, as noted earlier there was plenty of green verdigris on the fins and the end tanks. My initial idea was to remove the radiator and flush it out, then to refit it if nothing was obviously wrong. As a budget project, if there was a small leak then I could try adding a product such as Radseal to the coolant – I wouldn’t normally use this for fear of it blocking narrow passageways as well as sealing up leaks, but in this case I wouldn’t have anything to lose because if it sealed the radiator then all well and good, but if it blocked the radiator and led to overheating then I’d need to get it recored, which was where I was at the start anyway.
I’m not a fan of the wire hose clips that Triumph fitted to the coolant pipes as they tend to cut into the rubber, so bought genuine Jubilee clips to replace them. I always find the genuine items are better value despite being more expensive, as the threads on cheap clips have a tendency to distort under load. Right now though, I was more concerned with getting the wire clips off without damaging the top and bottom hoses – these are not freely available, so I wanted to reuse them if they were fine. If they were no good, then I would have had to come up with an alternative; silicone hoses and bends from the likes of Car Builder Solutions would have meant the car could be put back on the road, though it would have added to the cost.
I took a few photos of the wiring and hose routes, then disconnected everything on the radiator. The coolant was lovely and clear, and also contained antifreeze
which was a good sign. However, I wasn’t happy with how much the radiator flexed when I removed the hoses; surely it should be more rigidly fixed to the car? My initial fear was of potentially serious corrosion in the structure of the car as I could see great flakes of rust on the crossmember below the radiator, but after removing the radiator and fan as a unit, I could see that this was largely from paint flaking off the fan housing with only minor rust underneath, and that structurally everything was pretty sound. In fact, one of the characteristics of this car is that everything you touch has a sticky feel from a waxy rust-preventative coating. That is great on structural members, but this was on the brake master cylinder, the radiator fan, the air cleaner housing – everywhere. I got in the habit of cleaning it off wherever it was not needed as I went along.
At this point I was still considering the possibility of saving the radiator, but as I removed the fan assembly I could see that the bottom panel on the crossflow radiator had rusted through and come away from the end tanks. That would explain its extra flex, then. I could also see that the core behind the fan was more badly decayed than had first been apparent, and replacement was the only option. This will put a big dent in the budget, but you do always have to put money aside for this sort of thing, and it is far cheaper in the long run than repairing an engine that has overheated and seized.
As it turned out, my local classic-friendly garage, Hall’s Garage of Morton, arranged to have my radiator recored and the rusted frame repaired. I couldn’t believe what a superb job the specialist made of this, as it really did come back looking like a brand new unit from end to end, and all for the bargain price of £216. While it was away being recored, I took the motor and fan blades out of the housing so that I could clean up the metal framework and paint it. The fan itself needed a two-legged puller to shift it from the spindle after the E- clip on the end had been knocked out. I then cleaned the fan up to remove the wax, figuring I might as well have it looking nice since that doesn’t cost anything but time.
Meanwhile, I had seen some sealant oozing out from under the thermostat housing. Triumph would never have used any there, and that raised my suspicions – could the thermostat have been removed as a budget way to cure an overheating issue because of the dodgy radiator? It made sense to investigate now while the system was drained, so I removed the housing – one of the bolts was really difficult to access below the throttle cables, but it was just about possible.
The thermostat looked brand new, though I decided to check it while the system was drained and I had it removed. It was marked up as the correct 82°C item, but I don’t have a thermometer for that level of accuracy. All I could do was suspend it from a piece of wire in a saucepan so that it was not touching the base of the pan, fill that with water and bring it to the boil. So long as the thermostat opened well before the water reached a boil, that would satisfy me. (And yes I am happily married, so I do have an old saucepan I keep in the garage to use for this kind of thing.) The thermostat duly opened right on schedule.
Before reassembling everything, I flushed the whole cooling system through with water from the garden hose and was gratified to see that there was no corrosion
I couldn’t believe what a superb job the specialist made of this as it came back looking like a brand new unit from end to end
or silt whatsoever in there. I really am convinced that there is an excellent car hiding under all this wax and neglect! I did notice that the rubber O-ring under the thermostat housing was totally flat though, which might explain the sealant that had been used. Fortunately I have a Honda Civic head gasket set in the garage. Not all the bits in this are compatible with the Acclaim, but this O-ring was. I had plenty of antifreeze concentrate for refilling so didn’t need to lay out any actual cash before refilling the system, but have added £10 to the costs anyway.
Finally, there was some good news on the tyre front. Steve Hall managed to find a new 145/80 R13 Firestone Multihawk 2 tyre, meaning that I could use the spare wheel with its unused Multihawk tyre on the other side and have a matching set of rubber all round for the price of one new tyre. When fitting it, we were surprised to find that the old tyre had been fitted with an inner tube. It certainly didn’t need this, and raised suspicions about whether the wheel rim had been leaking. There was no obvious problem, but Steve did wire brush the rim and give it a quick spray of paint as a precaution. The wheel only needed 10g of weight for balancing, which is a tiny amount – we certainly pulled far more than that off with the old tyre.