Caesar the 1275 E - Diary of minor changes

[Vinay-RS]

So the cylinder head looks pretty good once the tape was removed.


Started work on the brakes too by cleaning and taping them up.


Then for a coat of paint.




Next job to assemble them. Then sandblast the dust shields and paint them and the hubs.

[DomMINIque]

Looking good man!

Can't wait for the day you swop the head and end up with a heavier right foot.

[Vinay-RS]

Haha! Yeah, me too Hopefully I'm not too much of a hoonigan on the roads

[Vinay-RS]

So we finally got to tackle the job of fitting the GTS cylinder head. It was  a good reason that I didn't attempt this myself as there was no way I would have finished it. Fortunately my good friend Abri agreed to help with the work. Well, when I say help, he did most of the work and I assisted where I could. It was a very involved job and took us quite a while to complete.

First off the old cylinder head had to come off. It took quite a bit of persuasion to get the old cylinder head off as there was quite a bit of rust holding it to the block. Lastly there was another massive bodge on this car... there was no thermostat fitted :\


Next the newly rebuilt and painted GTS cylinder head was fitted.


We ran out of time and were having some problems with the twin carb manifold so refitted the HS4 carb. So we'll take care of that job when we get a chance in the near future. For now the positives are that the car is pulling nicely with the new head and the mixture has been adjusted so that it runs really well.

[DomMINIque]

That seems to be the standard these days... no thermostat. Very frustrating.

Glad to see you're one step closer to RACECAR!

[Vinay-RS]

That seems to be the standard these days... no thermostat. Very frustrating.

Glad to see you're one step closer to RACECAR!

Yeah, that's true. Fortunately I was able to pick up a thermostat, the correct temperature sender and wiper blades (because the ones on the car are worn and don't work well anymore).



I was also able to finally source one of these washer bottles, but I was an idiot and didn't realise it had a separate pump... which I forgot to ask for :\ So now I need to find that too.



We got the thermostat and temperature switch fitted today made some adjustments to the carb and the timing. The plugs were a nice brown colour and so at least the car isn't running lean anymore. The car currently has an issue with running-on (which was why we adjusted the timing) that is a bit worrying, since it wasn't there before the cylinder head transplant. We think it might be the compression, so we will check that next.

We took the carbs apart and found that I had used two extra washers in the assembly, which was why they weren't operating smoothly. Then when we were going to fit them we noticed that I am missing a throttle bracket for the carbs (another thing wrong with them that I didn't get :\), so I need to source that. Hopefully I can find one and also find a manifold to replace the one Abri gave to me.

In some good news, I decided to fit the clubman steering wheel that I got from Dennis a while back. I still need to find a clubman wheel badge, but it looks and feels really good. It was a bit dark so I couldn't take a picture. I shall take one tomorrow

[Vinay-RS]

And some images of the fitted steering wheel.





Next jobs, sort out the refurb of the GTS cluster and source (or fix) the centre badge. It's a bit annoying that they're so hard to find in SA. Hopefully I can fix the existing one (and perhaps mod it a little).

[DomMINIque]

Some nice mods you got going there Vinay...

I almost feel like this is a back to the future car.

If any mods had to be done to a 1275e back in the day, they would have been everything that you are busy doing to the car.
Kudos man.

[Sooper]

nice work vinay, fully agree with Dom

[Vinay-RS]

Some nice mods you got going there Vinay...

I almost feel like this is a back to the future car.

If any mods had to be done to a 1275e back in the day, they would have been everything that you are busy doing to the car.
Kudos man.

nice work vinay, fully agree with Dom

Thanks Dom and Trinesh, I'd like to think so too. I mean disc brakes and gts clocks were proposed factory fittings until the finance people stepped in. Everything else should hopefully be 60s/70s changes that won't look out of place.