Floyd Brothers 70 Challenger

[Stu]

Door lock, with the door open use a screwdriver to engage the lock and see if it will spring open with the outside door handle. If it won’t then something need tweaking as you are running out of travel, probably needs a rod bending or something.

Will give that a go.

[Stu]

I know the new mirror adjuster is somewhat corroded but won’t it clean up enough to thread the nut on?

Yes, it likely will, that’ll be all there is to it if I can get a colour match and decide to paint the new one.

My thought was that if I could separate the adjuster, I could thread all the guts from the new one into the old mirror casing and reattach the adjuster, that way no painting needed.

[Stu]

Door lock, with the door open use a screwdriver to engage the lock and see if it will spring open with the outside door handle. If it won’t then something need tweaking as you are running out of travel, probably needs a rod bending or something.

Seems you are right. Springs open from the internal handle, nothing from the external handle. Can’t see what has happened internally, though. The outer handle seems to move all the right stuff, same as the internal one, can’t for the life of me see what’s wrong. Brand new handle, everything still connected correctly and was working fine up until it wasn’t.

[Stu]

I think it might be down to the two little bars in the photo. They are the only things that seem to move a little further when using the inner handle. If I pull the external handle all the way out, then pull the inner handle, they go about 2 or 3mm further.

Not sure how to adjust that though, as there is a metal stop that prevents the external handle pulling the mechanism any further.

[Blue]

Is there a rod connecting the outer handle to the lock?

[Stu]

Yes. That was my first port of call. It’s secure and taking the mechanism all the way to the stop.

[Blue]

Ok, you might be able to bend it a bit to get the extra travel you need at the lock.

[mygasser]

i guess the 2 levers go up into the 'twin' grooves in the part above (in your pic)? if so are the grooves wear? if they are i'd weld a bump onto each lever to take up the wear. done that lots of times when parts are hard to replace.
neil.

[Stu]

It’s the other way round. The grooves are what pushes them up to where you can see them on the picture when you pull the external handle. The picture shows it pulled from the internal handle.

When you pull the external handle, the grooves bit moves to them and pushes them, it can’t go any further than it does, because there is a metal stopper, but even flush up to that it isn’t pushing them far enough, so in theory your suggestion is probably right. I think where the grooves have worn, it may just be stopping it pushing a couple of mm too short.

May try that, as bending the rod won’t allow any further travel, due to the stopper.

Think that may be the way!

[Dave999]

i had to bend rods when swapping similar handles on mine.. outer handle just didn't move as far as the worn one i took off

you can also conspire to make this happen by putting the handle clamp (calmshell part on the inside) on the wrong way round mine has a cut out on both sides but 1 side is bigger. they also needed to be precisely angled when correct before the nut was done up.
if you get it backwards or the right way but wonky, the rods rub
need to be the right way round....at least on mine they do.


do all work with the window half open

Dave

[Stu]

Still not got round to the door handle fix, but on to other stuff for a minute, I’ve picked up an expansion tank from Blue which I was planning to whack straight in, without remembering that the breather on my rad goes to the side where there is no space for it.

Not sure on a couple of things, main one being would it be an issue if the breather pipe did a 180 to fit the tank on the side with enough space? Feels to me like it should have as free a flow as possible, really.

Don’t really want to mount it in front, as it will be clearly visible through the grille (although I appreciate this could be handy in some ways) but was toying with the idea of relocating the horns and putting it there.

[Blue]

I always move the horns to behind the grille to get them out of the way so I’d be doing that.

[Stu]

May try that, as bending the rod won’t allow any further travel, due to the stopper.

Apparently that was bow-lax. Managed to put enough of a kink in the rod without taking it all out to get it working again.

On to relocating the horns and trying to get the expansion tank located, then.

[Stu]

Having a rethink now.

As I don’t have the battery in the front, there is ample space on the other side of the rad to mount the tank, however the breather comes out of the left hand side, so would be messy (and possibly restrictive) to do a 180 with the tube.

It has made me think, though, the washer bottle pipe goes all the way round the back of the block to the driver side, through the firewall there. The reservoir is right where the expansion tank would be ideal.

Now thinking I may just get an alternative washer reservoir to fit on the battery side instead and put the expansion tank in its place. Not arsed about not original, as it isn’t all standard anyway, so if I can’t turn up a Chrysler bottle, looking for suggestions as to where to source something suitable that isn’t too modern.

[Blue]

Plastic water bottle and bracket off a pushbike mounted inside the car is my usual solution…