500 (Classic) Noah's "Ark"ive

[Noah500]

Some more recycling of old seat material, this time into a 60s-ish-style flight bag.

Take:

• Pieces of vinyl from the front and back of the old seat covers
• Piping from old seat covers
• Old static seat belt that I previously replaced with inertia reels
• Some fabric that I had from somewhere else to make backing for the fluted part (as the foam scrim had rotted away)
• A zip
• Some thread
• A bit of foam to make the interior base

I measured up and marked the material, pinned it together and sewed it on an old Singer manual sewing machine. That sounds simple but in fact there was quite a lot of swearing, unpicking and restitching before I got it to an acceptable standard. Not sure if I will use it as a general bag, but I think it goes well with the era of the car... and it's made using some old parts of the actual car, so bonus

 

[Noah500]

Last bit of upcycling from the seat covers - not enough piping left and the fluting on the top and sides doesn't quite line up due to stretching (because the foam and fabric backing on the driver's side had given up the ghost). Anyway, it's good enough for a useful tool bag to go in the boot/trunk

 

[Noah500]

Per this thread, my latest mini project has been to fit rear inertia reel 3-point seatbelts.

 

[Noah500]

A bit of minor fettling today:

1. Not sure if the cable has stretched over time but it's become increasingly difficult to open the front boot with the handle - however much you pull, it doesn't easily release the catch. I wedged open the safety catch (the one you have to release manually to actually open the lid) just to check it wasn't that, and it's definitely the main catch. The solution was to put a couple of aluminium spacers on the cable before the stop inside the bonnet, so the catch is effectively not 100% clicked into the hole on the underneath of the leading edge of the boot lid. Seems to have done the trick, though it's still not easy to open...

2. I was browsing through this forum and saw something about adjusting the clutch cable. My clutch pedal had a bit of slack at the top, so I looked down through from the top of the engine bay and could see the adjustment rod, which had the locking nut about 2cm away from the main nut, and another 2cm, from the end of the rod. I was able to tighten the lock nut by hand from the top but it was too far to get 2 spanners on the nuts to tighten them against each other, so I went underneath. Wheels chocked, rear jacked up and axle stands installed, which made it a much easier prospect (once I had removed the undertray on the LH side of the engine bay). I took the opportunity to tighten up the main nut first to reduce the slack, then got spanners on the 2 nuts to lock them against each other. Hopefully that will help, though it'll take a run out to really check.

 

[Noah500]

A couple of photos of the work I did yesterday:

I tested the boot catch release again and it was still sticking a bit, so I bent down the lip of the hole where the catch goes in to make it a smoother run,. Seems to work fine now(note: I had already previously put a piece of angle ali to brace the cable bracket, as it was a bit bendy)

Clutch adjuster all nipped up... to be tested