Early HPE restoration

[peteracs]

Not much to report on the car, the bodywork is apparently moving on after about 3 months of inactivity, fingers crossed.

Last year I bought a pair of the red door lights fitted to early cars, the lenses were in decent condition, but the internals were all rusted as I received them, not my best deal, but they did come with the rubber seals for the doors which are useful. I decided to ditch the bulb holders and bought a pair of generic holders and a number of the rubber covers I have previously used on the water temp sensors on the Spider and will need for this car’s engine. A bit of fettling and it all goes together quite nicely.

Peter

[SanRemo78]

Nice find Peter, also on Gammas and Stratos.... That's why they can be soooo expensive. Especially the ones you didn't get that have the Carello logo in a horseshoe shape on the lensed.
Guy

[betaveloce]

Top tip: Bielstein in Germany sells those new for not much: https://www.bielstein.com/Light-for-door-Carello-14784718  

[peteracs]

Hi

I think Guy mentioned these AFTER I had bought these second hand ones, unfortunately. I just did not want to effectively scrap what I had, just seemed wrong when the lenses were in good condition. Also I did get the door to A pillar seals with the wiring which was a bonus.

Peter

[peteracs]

Hi

I had the Siem headlight bowls back from re-silvering. Not quite as I had imagined them with a few marks on them which I need to clean up, but they will be perfectly acceptable when finally assembled and a lot better than when I sent them off. I am probably getting too picky in my old age. I bought some Sikaflex 221 to reseal the lenses back in and to provide a seal around where the bulb retaining metal attaches to the main bowl. The original seals were old and not reusable.

Peter

[peteracs]

Hi

During The Restoration Show I had a chat with a guy called Simon Cox who works for Longstone Tyres in Bawtry. He has a Coupe and is looking for a 1600 engine for it if anyone knows of one? As well as that he also has a very rusty HPE facelift and a VX Coupe which is engineless and missing the front end, the front end went to repair his Coupe after an accident. My HPE has very very bad rear wheel arches, more patches than original, and I wondered if the Coupe rear he had was in usable condition. On quick inspection they do look in good condition, so I called in at John the body guy's place, had a talk with him and he was going to measure up the wheel arches on the original Coupe I have which donated the front parts to the HPE to see how similar they are. We know the turret tops are higher, but they are good on the HPE and are simply a welded section attached to the wheel arch. If they are usable this will save a bunch of time and money.

One positive is that work on the HPE sills is continuing and should be completed soon which has been a major job to replace them all.

[peteracs]

Hi

Decision made not go the Coupe rear wheel arch donor route, so if anyone wants a Coupe body for parts, mainly rear end looks to be good, get in touch.

Had some photos through of the work done, so thought I would post here. These show repair to subframe, right hand side lower sill repair, right side upper sill below door repair and left side inner sill which was also the same as the repair to the right side. The inner and upper sills were made in house, the lower outer sills were supplied by Mark.

Peter

[peteracs]

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