Manky's Pop.

[Manky Monkey]

Feeble excuse Ben!

Thanks for the encouragement people.
Test Day Minus One, so our last chance to get it sorted.
As Terry said, first job was to check the sealant in the fuel tank had done it's job. I poured about half a gallon of unleaded in & sloshed it around -no obvious leaks. Left it to stand for half an hour. Still no leaks. Great. The sealant around the filler neck was still a bit tacky though, so we emptied it, bolted it back in place & left it empty. We'll stop enroute to the test station tomorrow & fill it up.
With the tank back in place & the fuel pipe connected, we couldn't use a petrol can to feed the engine, so couldn't run it. It started & ran fine yesterday, so we're just keeping our fingers crossed it'll do the same tomorrow -yeah, we'll pack a hammer to smack the sticky starter solenoid.
PD dropped by, so was pressed into service, cutting a temporary perspex windscreen from the cardboard template I made for the glass. He had to trim it to fit in the rubber, which suggests we need to have the glass sanded down by a few mill all round, (the glaziers can do that on their belt sander). We had enough perspex, (left over from another job), to cut 2 screens, so will use the second to produce a more accurate template. Thanks for doing that Pete. 

[Manky Monkey]

Terry's electrickery seems to be working fine. The only ammendment we made was to swap the fog light warning light on the dashboard for a proper car one. The previous one was from Maplins Electronics & intended for indoor, computer use I think. One of the terminals had come adrift. I bought a sheet of symbols, on a transparent self adhesive backing, so we've labelled all the dashboard switches. That's the old light in the photo. I'd originally planned to fit red LEDs above each switch, hence the line of holes. Even I don't need a light to tell me the wipers are on though, or that I'm pressing the washer switch, so we'll fill in the rest & just leave the central fog light light.

[Manky Monkey]

Mr Loony finally had a chance to tackle the door latches this afternoon.
We plan to fit the modern, & hugely expensive, "bear claw" latches I bought last year. They comply with the new BIVA requirements, even though we're not going for that test. They'll take some work to fit though, so for now Loony's tacked in a pair of original Pop door catches I had in my spares box. They're very simple -like the internal door latches in your house -but they work. Standard Ford Pop interior handles & window winders, with reproduction external handles. The previous owner of the doors had butchered them to fit completely different locks, so they weren't a straight bolt in fit.
Ta dah! We now have not one, but two opening, shutting & latching doors. Not pretty, but they'll do the job. Talk about leaving it to the last minute mate! 
The outside skins of the doors have half a hundredweight of body filler on them. No idea why cos they're not that rusty. We can only assume it was done to line the doors up with the bodywork. You can see in the second photo that we had to sand a chunk out around the door handles so we could refit them.
If anyone wants a nice pair of reproduction '32 Ford, S shaped chrome handles, I've got a spare pair for sale. These aren't quite the same as the original Pop ones, but are more in keeping with the truck look we're going for.

[spanners]

what time,s take off

[Manky Monkey]

Scottie, (Tiki Munki here on the forum), is meeting us at the workshop at 10am. The test's booked in Southampton, about an hour away, at 1pm. Hopefully that'll give us time to load the Pop on his truck, drive down there & find the place, unload & get the thing running, before we have to go in.
I hate tests. really, really don't do any kind of test or exam well. I get nervous to the point of feeling physically sick. We're allowed a maximum of 2 people present during the test, so as Mr Kapri's done it before & knows what to expect & what to say to the examiner, he's meeting us there. I've elected Loony to go in with him to actually drive the truck. I'm not used to driving autos & if I stall it I know I'll panic & fluff it up, so I'd rather he was at the wheel. I need to be there to sign the paperwork, but I'm happier waiting outside with Scottie.

[spanners]

that sounds like a good plan

i too hate tests  yet i used to carry out mot,s on an almost daily basis  but when i used to take a coach or truck even my own i used to be scared of something failing

i only had three fails on stuff i,de prepped in the last four years at boydons and two of them got rectified and ,signed, off before i left the test station 

[Manky Monkey]

I know it's daft -it's not like it's the end of the world if we fail miserably, but I still can't wait till it's over with.
We tried the brakes again today & topped up the fluid. Also added the sticker that says to only use DOT4 brake fluid, as required for the commercial SVA.

We know we're going to fail the test on the brakes. They take 2 pumps to be fully operational, which ain't good enough. As we've said, tomorrow is really all about getting the truck in the system, so we're eligible for a re-test, which'll give us time to fix the list of faults they give us tomorrow. That's actually taken some of the pressure off. We've been all round the Pop today & can't really see anything else wrong. Maybe a loose brakepipe clip, something like that, but hopefully just the brakes, which we reckon we can fix given a bit more time. As long as it fires up & runs O.K tomorrow, with no fuel leaks, it'll be fine.
So the last job today was just to squirt the truck all over with a couple of aerosols of black paint we had on the shelf.
And that's it. 3 or 4 years of work, on & off, & it all comes down to a couple of hours at the test centre tomorrow. Here we go then.

[Manky Monkey]

.

[spanners]

where did you get them tail lights from ?  i think you told me before  but i forgot 

[Hagar]

Looks good  , all the best with the test   .....

  ..  Hagar  .. 

[hunter]

Yep all the best for today andy.

[tbone]

I`m biting my nails here for you too guys 

[Tony oily bike]

Good luck!! 

[phunkie hiboy]

Yeh, good luck. I'll give you a ring later.

[cunningplan]

Good luck Andy, I know how you feel