Happy Birthday!

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.
John Burroughs

Well the progress on the restoration has been slow but Father Time just keeps marching on! Today marks exactly 42 years since Marigold came off the production line in Germany.

I had some cake and beer to celebrate, not too much, I promise :)

I'm still struggling with the new gear linkage that we made - it's just not working properly to select all of the gears correctly. I might have to get a third opinion on this problem...


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CooP

Changing Gears

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
Henry David Thoreau

The gearbox was covered in 40 years of collected gunk and congealed filth so we gave it a wash and brush-up before re-fitting.

We bolted the clean gearbox back into it's correct position without connecting the driveshafts. I was concerned about the length of the new linkage that we made up last week and whether it would all fit properly. No need to have worried - it's only perfect! Lovely stuff.*

I seem to have scattered spare parts all over the house, garage, workshop, shed and store-room. I managed to find a suitable bolt to connect the linkage to the gearbox and bolted them together. The new linkage shaft seems like a tight fit in the guide tube, despite the globs of grease that we slathered all over it when fitting it last week.

We fitted the gearstick temporarily, just to try out everything and test it. The locking plate went missing for a while. It's a plate that is designed to prevent accidental selection of reverse gear while looking for forward gears. After a long search I found it in a desk drawer in the outside store, together with the original worn-out seat belts and nothing else. How odd.

* Not quite perfect :(
It's all fitted and it seems to be getting all four of the forward gears without problems. Reverse gear IS a problem though, we cannot find it! But it's late and we're tired so we'll look for it next week! I expect that we have fitted the lock plate incorrectly but we'll see.


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CooP

Long Links

Not all who wander are lost
Tolkein

The rearmost section of the gear linkage was easy to remove from it's steel housing since the gearbox was dropped out of the way. I have the other section from the white Kombi and the front piece that connects to the bottom of the gear stick. I laid all of these out to see if we have enough length to make up the new linkage.

The end piece beneath the cab has a resemblance to the traditional peace pipe. I'm not planning to have a smoke though, it's getting a good clean and a blob of grease instead. It connects to the main linkage with a collet fastend with a grub screw. The main linkage is a thick-walled steel tube approximately 18mm in diameter. I have the two original pieces that I shall join together to make one long one.

Very similar photo, sorry, but at least it's all in one piece now. When it's fitted it will be out of sight so a photo will be pointless; this is hopefully the last time that we'll see it. I measured up the exact length required for the new linkage (Marigold is almost 1.5 metres longer than a standard Kombi). The two main halves of the pipe were trimmed to fit and the ends cleaned up neatly. Then they were welded together after a "slug" was rammed into the open ends to act as a backstop for the weld. It was all greased up like a cross-channel swimmer and the plastic guides were clipped into place. A bit of jiggling and fiddling and it slid into the tube perfectly!

I'll need to tidy the rusty threads on the bolt holes where the gear lever fits to the floor. Once that is done then the gear linkage should be complete and just waiting for the gearbox to be refitted.


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CooP

Tightening Up The Back End

Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Not much to tell this week, although we did put in a full evening's work. The rear torsion-bar suspension was raised by one spline. This is in order to lift the rear slightly and also to firm it up a bit when laden and when hitting bumpy roads. And I hope to hit a lot of out-of-the-way places once this old girl is back on the road.

No pictures with any merit were taken so here is a pic of a pretty place instead, to give me motivation and make me dream of the places that we shall visit when the Project is complete.

Next time we'll try to join up the pieces for the extended gear linkage and fit it all in place.


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CooP

3 Steps Forward, 2 Steps Back

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
Matthew Broderick in the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Not a nifty dance move I'm afraid, rather a description of the slow and often repetitve moves that we have to make in order to cross this uncharted territory. While looking ahead and attempting an uncharacteristic shot at being proactive we realised that an obvious problem lay on the horizon. The gear linkage consists of a steel tube running inside a second, protective tube which doubles as a guide to keep the linkage straight and true. We have not extended the linkage yet but have realised that we shall not be able to slide it into the guide tube while the engine and gearbox are in place! Bother, bother, bother. So it's time yet again to remove the engine, and the gearbox will join it this time too.

It really does seem to get easier every time that we do it - practise makes perfect I guess, we are down to half an hour or so. I have been under an onslaught of the dreaded flu and have felt a bit weak and bunged up this past few days. I have counter-attacked with doses of medicine in the form of brandy which gave me strength and motivation (to a point anyway!).

The gearbox is oozing a little oil from here and there but seems to be in generally good condition. I'll give it a good clean during the week and examine it more carefully. I'll check around for the availability of new seals and perhaps do a mini service on it while it's out. Now that these parts have been removed I can see down the gear linkage guide tube and I'm sure that the next step, making and fitting the gear linkage, will run smoothly.

That's about it for, it's late and my "medicine" seems to be doing more harm than good so I'm off to bed. Happy new year everyone, updates to follow in the new year :)


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CooP

Slip Sliding Away

Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way.
Benjamin Franklin

Not much to report this week but we did make a little progress between the slurping supping of some of Cape Town's finest export brandy. The sliding door "slider" has had a damaged spring on it for the past ten years or so. It prevented the sliding door from popping open smoothly when the catch was released and also did not hold the door away from the body panel. This has resulted in awkward opening requiring two hands, and a nasty gouge down the right-hand panel that will need a smear of filler. So we popped the door off and removed the suspect part. I also cleaned and lubricated all of the other moving parts for convenience while we had it all in bits.

After some exhaustive searching around the house, garden and shed I managed to find the unused slider from the left-hand sliding door that was fixed in place (see SlidingDoor? No More). Couldn't remember where I had put it - they say that the memory is the second thing to go, hee hee. Despite it's grotty appearance it was all in good condition and came up lovely and clean after being attacked with an old toothbrush dipped in petrol. A few of the individual parts are individually made for either the left OR right side but the spring and fastener that I needed was universal. Fixed, fitted and replaced with a dollop of grease and the job's a good 'un. It's working perfectly now, opens smartly and slides just right - it feels like new and is a testament to the original build quality of 40 years ago :)


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CooP

Trendy Gear

Our life is frittered away by detail... Simplify, simplify, simplify! Simplicity of life and elevation of purpose.
Henry Thoreau

I missed my regular Wednesday get-together but I managed to do some work on the gear stick. I assembled all of the parts that I could find from the two cars and gave them a good cleaning. I sanded off some light rust and then primed and painted them with rattle-cans.

The result was a smart gear stick with spotless fittings, very tidy!

Close up of the bottom end. This was caked with congealed grease and 40 year's worth of road muck but it came clean with some petrol and a wire brush. I accidentally managed to knock out the sprung pin while I was cleaning. It landed in a pile of leaves and took me half an hour to find again, clumsy oaf! I located it with a magnet eventually.


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CooP