Rob & Stu's 69 Sport Satellite

[RobTwin]

Pre and post Isle Of Man 'Festival Of Motoring' update coming soon...

and I've bumped our thread up so it's easier to find

[Derek]

Excellent work twinsters , I even took the seat out to replace the indicator flasher unit,4 nuts and it was out, ( and no I didn't have 3 friends to help me ) it made it so much easier. age and a belly is not good for that sort of work.

[Stu Twin]

I'm not used to this admin stuff, but as Rob said we did do a bit of prep before the IOM trip. Getting to Heysham ferry was probably just over twice as far as we'd been in the Satellite for many a year. It has been behaving recently, but just to be sure I took it to Jim Darrington in Potton (blue 68 Charger) to give it the once over on his ramp.
More with an 'if it aint broke don't fix it' eye, he still recommended a few things could do with changing sooner rather than later.
He didn't find much thankfully but recommended fitting new leaf spring bushes and rear shoes / wheel cylinders. So I ordered new shoes from Rockauto, wheel cylinders collected from John Woolfe in Bedford. Can't remember where the spring bushes came from but the front eye bushes arrived late so weren't fitted. I also collected a few 'just in case spares' such as V/R, fand belts etc.

As we were running out of time I got Jim to fit the bushes, shoes, cylinders and also some front pads I had in stock. And as the brake fluid was probably 10 yrars ols he changed that too. Along with engine / trans fluids. Felt a bit guilty subbing those jobs out but what took him less than a day would've taken me a few weekends LOL.

I did find time though to fit a new starter as the initial cranking had been a little slow recently, wasn't sure if this could be the starter or the battery, so got a new one of each (getting expensive now). Figuring I'd rather fit a new starter in the garage than on the side of the road, i opted to do the starter now and take the spare battery in the boot. And remebering the headache of attaching the cables from last time, i ordered one of the adaptors from Summit that puts the terminals away from the block. Works really well, admittedly with a mini starter and cast manifolds, not sure how it would help with headers - depends on the routing of the tubes i guess. $20 for the part but $75 to get it delivered in a few days which was needed. I really should be more organised, and probably even ordered a few more of these.
I'm sure Summit have a deal with Fedex by using larger than necessary packaging so they can charge more. Just saying...
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-820442
Photos below:

[Stu Twin]

Another pre-trip concern bearing in mind that we'd had a really hot end of August / start of September, was getting stuck on the M1/M6 in traffic and overheating. We'd talked about fitting an electric fan to supplement the fixed stock fan. Obviously it would have to go in front of the rad and next to the existing trans cooler, which limited size to around 12-16" dia, but also to 3" deep to be able to sit behind the slam panel upright.
I ordered a 12" Spal 'pusher' low profile fan giving just over 1000 cfm. Not a massive amount but it just needs to help when stationary on a hot day.
Well it turns out that traffic was pretty good and we certainly didn't get any hot (or dry) days.
Fan was £85 off ebay plus a few ££ for a relay.
We really didn't want to fix the fan through the rad so i drew up some sheet metal brackets that fixed it to existing holes on the core support on the left, and to the trans cooler on the right. One of our sheet metal / fab suppliers at work did me a favour by laser cutting and fabricating them from 2mm mild steel.
Took a bit of shimming to get flat to the rad with a few mm clearance. A few coats of black satin and it was in.
Just need to wire up. Not my speciality but with some advice from one of the sparkies at work i managed to wire in the relay and connect back to the back of the fuse box. Just got it working off a switch under the dash for now. Figured we'd know when to turn it on, and we usually disconnect the battery when parked up so won't leave it running accidentally.
We're not massive 'fans' (excuse the pun) of seeing auxiliary fans on stock-ish engine bays but needs must.
Only used it once on the IOM trip while being parked up in the services, I think it seemed to prevent the temp rising too much.

PS sorry my phone pics aren't that good.

[Pete]

I see you have been to the "Hole school of "Blue"".

Well done , guys!

[Stu Twin]

I see you have been to the "Hole school of "Blue"".

Well done , guys!

more in the name of airflow...

[Stu Twin]

The actual trip was great, if a bit wet (did someone mention this already?).
I won't post up any pics of the trip as i think Rob may have posted 1 or 2...
Since we got back most of my evenings have been spent stripping out, drying, spraying, sealing and re-installing the entire interior.
I soon realised it would take more than some newspaper and a hair drier. Carpets and underfelt were dripping when taken out. Luckily the next few days were dry (surprise surprise) so i could lay the carpets etc out in the garden.

I tried to be a bit methodical about finding out where the water gets in, so lined the edges of the floors and boot with paper towel and started spraying water around the front screen, door jambs, side windows and rear screen.
I found some getting in at the top of the screen trim and at the bottom corners. Also at the base of the A pillar where the door shuts against the body.
None though through the side windows or rear screen thankfully. Strange though as the boot was definitely getting wet. Turn out that was through a small gap between the tail light housing and body.

sorry about the pics coming out 90 degrees out of whack, rotated them several times. bored now... EDIT - fixed now

[Stu Twin]

Interior being stripped and taking up most of the garage...

[Stu Twin]

Minimal squidge of Tiger Seal around the screen trim, plus some strategically placed pieces of neoprene foam around the A pillar.
Also some between the top of the tail light housing and body plus some thick gasket paper behind the original foam tail light gasket. Seems water tight now it's pulled up.

[Stu Twin]

All seems ok so set about refitting, Rob helped with the back seat as that can be a pig. And it was.
Fitted a bit more thin foam behind the rear 'door' panels as they can rattle, and also adjusted the black trim panel under the rear side window as it has always squeaked / graunched against the door when closed. At least with the rear seat out i could get to the screw.
Carpet back in, twice, after realising that we (I) had left one layer of under felt out DOH.
Had hoped to address the hit n miss shifter while the console was out but that will have to wait.

[Stu Twin]

and the front, hopefully not upside down..

[Stu Twin]

Ok so maybe not as comfortable as seats from a modern car LOL.
Can't believe that General Lee sold for £70k with seats out of a Jag or Granada...

[RobTwin]

Great write-up, thanks. And thanks for doing 95% of the work
Agree on the seats, modern seats never look right in an older car, I don't care how uncomfortable they are
Luckily ours aren't too bad.

[Pete]

Well done Lads, I am still at the "Drying out" phase and all the interior is out at the moment, so I know the feeling.

[Blue]

This stuff is mustard, https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172241116794
Recommended by my windscreen guy, it’s non setting. I apply it around the trim and you can wipe it off trim, paint, glass for a really neat finish and it seals.