1968 2000 TC Restoration Project
- Thread starter DAK
- Start date
DAK
Active Member
The bore had similar scuffing and gouging at the same spot you can see the gouge off to the right on the skirt on the one photo. The depth of the gouge in the bore drove me to go to the 2200 diameter pistons. I did not get any photos of the bores, it was just too hard to photograph well. There were 39000 miles on these 30 thou oversize pistons.
I am not aware of any foreign material in the bores. I looked closely at the rings and they look fine.
It is possible that there was some over fueling. The HD8 carbs on my car were badly in need of overhaul before my restoration work and were definitely running rich. Not rich enough to significantly impact the fuel economy though.
If there was sticking at the wrist pin, it was resolved by the time the engine was disassembled. All four of the rods more freely on the pins.
I am not aware of any foreign material in the bores. I looked closely at the rings and they look fine.
It is possible that there was some over fueling. The HD8 carbs on my car were badly in need of overhaul before my restoration work and were definitely running rich. Not rich enough to significantly impact the fuel economy though.
If there was sticking at the wrist pin, it was resolved by the time the engine was disassembled. All four of the rods more freely on the pins.
DAK
Active Member
I retrieved my car from winter storage yesterday. It has been a long cool wet Spring, otherwise I would normally have been back on the road by the end of April. I keep my car in a very nice dry heated storage facility. They store a lot of high end cars and my unique P6. They have lifts to keep an upper tier of cars. I have stored my car there for the past twenty or so years with no issues but this year, they managed to snag the roof-top antenna on the lift above the car when pulling in. There was no damage to the roof or the antenna base but the tip of the antenna must have caught and the spring near the base of the antenna was stretched until there was enough force to pull the tip of the antenna off. Now I am busy casting about for a suitable like kind replacement. Not an easy thing to find. It is amazing how much the spring stretched before the antenna tip pulled off. Photo attached below.
The Rovering Member
Well-Known Member
They made a tidy job of it anyway.
BrianMac123
Active Member
I hadn't seen this thread, amazing work there Dak. Are they going to fork out for the damage?
DAK
Active Member
Their initial offer was to cover 2/3 of the cost. That is unacceptable but I told them I wasn't going to start the discussion until I had found an acceptable solution and have a cost.
DAK
Active Member
One of the outstanding issues with my car from last year was the fuel gauge that had stopped working and steadily read empty. I had tested the electrical wiring right to the connections to the tank and the wiring proved to be functioning correctly. Over the winter I procured a new sender unit and a new float to be ready for the project. I drained the fuel by disconnecting the line at the fuel pump (engine driven) with the reserve lever pulled. It took close to four hours to drain the fuel this way but there was no fuel in the tank when I removed the sender. It turned out that the float was filled with fuel. You can see the small air bubble in the float in the photo below. There was no obvious crack or hole in the float and I could not get the fuel to drain from the float without cutting it open. I decided to retain the sender and just replace the float. With the 2 floats I had available, one looked identical to the failed on and the other was a slightly different molding. I chose the different one to see if I have any better luck. I reinstalled the sender and connected the lines. With 20 litres of fuel in the 55 litre tank, the gauge read just over empty. With 40 litres in the tank, the gauge read half full. With the tank topped off, it read full. There is a serious accuracy problem with the replacement sender unit I used during my rebuild project. I guess I should have tried installing the new sender unit I purchased to see if the accuracy was any better. That will be a project for a future day.
DAK
Active Member
Working away on a aerial fix. I was able compress the spring somewhat. It looks ugly but is functional. (photo below) I am still also missing the antenna tip. I am not having much success finding a "like kind" replacement. The one on my car is definitely different from the common "split ball" type seen on most cars. I have that type on my '65 2000. I saw in the "factory antenna" thread a photo from GRTV8 of one very similar to the one on my TC. It was suggested that the aerial kits for some export markets were different than the common one. I like the look of the one on my car better than the round ball type as the one I have has a more streamlined shape. Of course, the round ball type is readily available. I am going to look at options and see if I can fit a new spring and antenna shaft to the base I have. The thread in the base is a #10-32 tpi and anything
I find is likely to be metric so some modification work will likely be necessary.
I find is likely to be metric so some modification work will likely be necessary.
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DAK
Active Member
Took the car for a spin today and 10 kms down the road, the speedometer stopped working with a light grinding sound coming from behind the speedometer. At least, I knew that it wasn't the drive gear in the gearbox this time. I suspected the angle drive and after returning home and pulling out the speedometer (strip type) found that was indeed the problem. Interestingly, the gear had not stripped. The plug with the slot in it that holds the shaft that goes towards the speedometer had popped out and the gears were no longer engaging but the edges were grinding lightly against one another accounting for the noise I was hearing. The plug is simply peened in place, so I took the opportunity to clean and grease the angle drive and re peened the plug. Reassembly always takes a bit. I find correctly threading the speedometer cable onto the angle drive somewhat back breaking. A test drive and all is OK. I guess the angle drive did well by lasting for 54 years.
DAK
Active Member
The aerial repair turned out to be easier than I expected. WINS had a roof aerial with a spring that looked similar to the original one on my car. To my surprise, the thread size and general arrangement was the same as the old antenna and the new spring and aerial threaded right onto the old base. Repair complete! I will make sure I fold this one well out of the way before the car goes back to storage for the winter.
DAK
Active Member
I have reached just under 1000 miles since I "finished" my rebuild project. I did several longer highway trips this summer and am very pleased with the performance. The only niggly issue is the accuracy of the fuel sender. I replaced the float, which had filled with fuel, in the Spring and that restored operation but not accuracy. When the gauge is reading empty, a full fill only requires approximately 25 litres. I could probably live with that but my wife gets very uncomfortable heading out in the car with a fuel gauge that reads empty. It also seems that no amount of discussing the petrol reserve lever function or the calculated mileage when more fuel is required seems to soothe her anxiety.
It looks like my first project in the Spring will be to drain the tank down again and pull the sender unit and see what can be done to improve the accuracy. The car is put away for the winter now. There is 15 cms of snow on the ground here that fell over that last 36 hours. Although I drove a 1965 2000 SC for many years in the winter on snowy and icy roads and was happy with how it handled those conditions, I don't need or want to expose the 2000 TC to all that salt, rocks and bad drivers.
It looks like my first project in the Spring will be to drain the tank down again and pull the sender unit and see what can be done to improve the accuracy. The car is put away for the winter now. There is 15 cms of snow on the ground here that fell over that last 36 hours. Although I drove a 1965 2000 SC for many years in the winter on snowy and icy roads and was happy with how it handled those conditions, I don't need or want to expose the 2000 TC to all that salt, rocks and bad drivers.
DAK
Active Member
Put a bit of tape over it
Seriously though, when you remove the sender, the float should be level with the top of the fill tube when at rest.
The float is level with the top of the fill tube so the resistance of the unit must be off. The sender is a reproduction unit. I have checked the voltage regulator on the back of the instrument cluster and it checks out (the temp gauge works well, so that is not unexpected). I will have to do some testing to see what resistance corresponds with the empty position on the gauge and then see what resistance I get at various positions of the float. If the range of resistances is just not there with the sender, all I can think of is to see about looking at a different sender.
DAK
Active Member
Although I am unable to work on the actual fuel sender in my car as the car is in storage, I decided to do some bench testing with what I have available. I have the instrument cluster from my ’65 2000 and reproduction senders from two different manufacturers. I thought it would be interesting to see their respective accuracy. I believe that one of the senders is the same as the one installed in my car. The other one is from a different manufacturer. Although the voltage regulator on the '65's instrument cluster seems to be operating properly, I decided to bypass it and us a regulated 10-volt supply to eliminate any possible secondary issues and the annoying fluctuations as the voltage regulator switched on and off. When I do the work on my '68 TC in the spring, I will replace the mechanical voltage regulator with a solid-state one I have procured from Moss Motors.
The comparison between the two senders was interesting.
Position---------gauge reading-------Ohms
Full-----------------Full------------------27
3/4-----------------5/8------------------60
1/2----------------<1/4-----------------133
1/4---------------<1/16-----------------208
0---------------------0-------------------286
Sender 2 (25 cm range)
Position--------Gauge reading---------Ohms
Full-----------------Full------------------19.2
¾--------------------¾------------------52
½------------------>1/2-----------------74
¼------------------<1/4-----------------165
0----------------------0------------------284
Where I use the < and > symbols, it means that the reading was a needle width below above the indicated mark, respectively.
Although neither sender is perfect, there is considerable difference between the two units. Based on the inaccuracy I am seeing in my car, I expect it is the same as Sender 1 in the test. When I get my car out of storage in the spring, I will check how much vertical distance is available in the tank, bend the float arm if necessary and install sender 2 and the solid-state voltage regulator and see if the accuracy improves.
The comparison between the two senders was interesting.
- They had slightly different vertical measuring range. One has a range of 21 cm and the other 25 cm. The one with the 21 cm range needs to have the arm bent significantly as the float at the empty position sits well below the top of the main fuel inlet tube. The other one seems to be set up properly. When I have the sender out of my tank, I will have to measure the distance between the sender flange and the top of the tank to see which range better matches the height of the tank.
- Both of them have similarly looking rheostats and wiring. The instrument connection on the sender is connected to one end of the rheostat and the other end is connected to the earth/chassis connection. The wiper arm attached to the float arm progressively shorts the windings to earth as the float moves to the “full” position. Both senders measured a resistance of approximately 285 ohms when at the empty position.
- I set up the senders against a vertical scale and measured the resistance of the sender and the resulting reading on the fuel gauge for positions corresponding to 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of the respective senders range. The positions do not correspond directly to the volume that would be in the fuel tank due to the irregular shape of the tank, but close enough. The results were as follows:
Position---------gauge reading-------Ohms
Full-----------------Full------------------27
3/4-----------------5/8------------------60
1/2----------------<1/4-----------------133
1/4---------------<1/16-----------------208
0---------------------0-------------------286
Sender 2 (25 cm range)
Position--------Gauge reading---------Ohms
Full-----------------Full------------------19.2
¾--------------------¾------------------52
½------------------>1/2-----------------74
¼------------------<1/4-----------------165
0----------------------0------------------284
Where I use the < and > symbols, it means that the reading was a needle width below above the indicated mark, respectively.
Although neither sender is perfect, there is considerable difference between the two units. Based on the inaccuracy I am seeing in my car, I expect it is the same as Sender 1 in the test. When I get my car out of storage in the spring, I will check how much vertical distance is available in the tank, bend the float arm if necessary and install sender 2 and the solid-state voltage regulator and see if the accuracy improves.
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DAK
Active Member
Given the tight fit of the tank in the base unit, I would not expect the tank could be any taller or wider. The extra volume must be made up by extra depth. I am sure someone who has seen the 2 tanks side by side can confirm or correct my assumption.
PepijnWK
Active Member
In the case of sparkplug parts I would think to see more scuffing and scratches above the piston rings. While now it is only under the piston rings....
DAK
Active Member
In the end, the storage facility more than compensated me for the cost of the replacement and included some extra cash for my time to track down the replacement part, installation and for my inconvenience. They turned out to be eager to keep me happy. If only all businesses were as commmited to customer service.