Next job on my way to disassembling the front end was a refurb of the indicators.
The rubber boots had gone hard and one had a chunk missing.
Unable to get replacements, I had a crack at making some out of rubber door stops. I glued two different types together, with the larger one having a handy recess which could later be bored out.
Made a sheet steel template
With a bolt and nut through the piece, it was chucked in the drill press and roughly shaped with the angle grinder
Being a messy job with fine rubber dust flying around, I used a dust mask and safety glasses
When closer to shape, I switched to an air tool with small disc for better control
When almost there, switched to using files and sandpaper
With the outside done, the piece was chucked in the electric drill mounted in the vice, and a hand held lathe tool used to get the internal diameter correct to fit over the indicator unit socket.
Then a spade bit to drill clearance for the bulb holder
Happy with the result, assembly started after putting bits of heat shrink along the cables length to keep it together to make tape wrapping easier later
With a small gap between the cables and boot, heat shrink was used to increase water/dirt resistance. I thought about using a Silastic type sealant instead, but wasn’t sure it would hold up or work as well due to the cable having to move back and forth when removing or replacing the bulb.
Now for tape wrapping
I found that increasing the wrap by about 5/32” as I wound it on produced the best looking result. Much more and the tape would bunch up and any less would use more tape. The indicator was mounted in the vice to allow tension to be kept on the cables as they were wrapped.
The lens gaskets were still nice and supple but had a fair bit of the brown dirt on them, as did the lenses. I’d found this stuff stains quite bad and is hard to remove until I tried some CLR (Calcium Lime Rust remover) when I did the bumpers previously. It works great - just spray on and wipe off. If I couldn’t wipe it off due to being inaccessible, I used a water hose or air gun. I ran out of CLR and found this Glitz which was cheaper but looks to be similar and works well.
Before and after
All the bits ready to go
Hard to see maybe, but the gaskets have “HOLDEN” written on them
I flipped the gaskets to maybe improve the seal and noticed the two lugs to help position the gasket - handy touch.
All ready to go
That was fun and and some handy tips I learnt or had refreshed along the way:
1. Use a spade bit to drill rubber as it cuts better, and normal twist drill bits tend to drill undersize by pushing the rubber outwards
2. Supa-glue works great for bonding rubber
3. CLR, or equivalent, easily removes the brown crud you often get on these old girls and
4. When sculpting, carving, or turning something from both inside and out, make sure you measure correctly to avoid the outside meeting the inside
Cheers,
John
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