DAF 66 marathon coupe (unnamed yet)

[bettyskeeper]

I have acquired this weekend a new to me DAF 66 marathon coupe rather unexpectedly. I only saw it properly as there was a car shuffle going on, Matt has kindly agreed I can also have the 'DAF' number plate with it

My new stablemate for Betty

[33grinder]

Well done Sian, she's my favorite of Matt's cars and I'll be sorry to see her go, not to mention insanely jealous of you!

[spunkymonkey]

Jealous? Me?? Of a water boiler???


Ok, maybe just a little bit ;D

[stefan]

Sorry I have no coupe glass for you but the car looks good, could a saloon glass be cut down to size using the old one as a template

[bettyskeeper]

That's an idea Stef i hadn't thought of that

[spunkymonkey]

Not a bad idea, Stef - not too urgent as we won't be able to recover it to Anglesey for a while (and I WILL be finishing Sheila before starting any more major Daf work!!!) so hopefully we'll find one by then. If not then it's gotta be worth measuring up to see what the difference is.

[stefan]

Difference is about 2" mate I mesured my old 55 coupe with the yellow race car, it is possible hotrodders do it all the time with roof chops

[bettyskeeper]

Thanks again Stef, i know a man who knows a man who can do that. This car may not be Joe's priority but it is mine as it's my project and i'm trying to get a few things organised ready for when she moves to the workshop we use. I have also contacted autoglass who are checking their stock

[pauldaf44]

Sept 19, 2011 9:41:56 GMT bettyskeeper said:

I have also contacted autoglass who are checking their stock

Lol Good luck.

I will eat my shoes if they turn up anything

[bettyskeeper]

well Paul do you want salt and pepper on your shoes? They can supply within a month if i like the price oh and i'm awaiting a call on another one

[bettyskeeper]

Thank you Derek, a windscreen is waiting for me to pick up

[munceyboyjoe]

Sweet!

[spunkymonkey]

Sept 19, 2011 17:01:24 GMT bettyskeeper said:

well Paul do you want salt and pepper on your shoes? They can supply within a month if i like the price oh and i'm awaiting a call on another one

Sept 25, 2011 20:49:05 GMT munceyboyjoe said:

Sweet!

No, quite savoury I would have thought ;D

[spunkymonkey]

Boris lives! photos will have to wait unless someone else does them first because I'm on my phone and they're on my camera.

He's now strapped safely on the trailer ready to head to Anglesey tomorrow, having loaded himself under his own power

Ok so it did involve a can of petrol under the bonnet and a couple of wires from the battery to ignition and starter - he smoked a bit from the dash and melted his ignition switch when I turned the key so decided to bypass that for now - but he was running and driving and the rest is just getting the knots in the electric string right

[33grinder]

Joe and Sian did a sterling job today and photos will be forthcoming on the ED thread.

[spunkymonkey]

Back safely with only one brown-trouser moment on the way, when one of the trailer tyres decided to suddenly deflate with one hell of a bang! Not having any real option, we drove on carefully to the next services (about 20 miles) where a little (actually, quite a lot of) air seemed to get it inflated again and - amazingly - happy to do its job for the next 240 miles home! May have to mention that one to the trailer's owner though cos I wouldn't want to roll much further on it

Meanwhile, a little vid of a VERY happy new Coupe owner taking him for his first drive in a good few years:


Pics and a proper report will follow when possible but we have to unload him tomorrow and then pick up our new house keys in the afternoon so don't hold your breaths

[spunkymonkey]

Very true, John, but..... getting the car sorted is far more fun than wall painting and carpet laying!

[Nick the man with a daf....]

sounds sweet as a nut !!! really liking the shape of it too ! had never seen a coupe like that before

[spunkymonkey]

Bump! ;D

Finally got a start on the work on Boris today, with his engine coming out to look at the smoking clutch. Sorry about the fixed camera angle but I didn't think anyone would keep up following me with a camera at the speed I was working

[spunkymonkey]

Having removed the engine yesterday, today was time to strip his clutch to investigate the slipping and smoke:



The linings are both 3mm thick (as specified by Mr Autodata) but I think the oil on the flywheel and soaked into that clutch plate might have something to do with it! The odd thing is there's not what I'd consider excessive wetness around the area - may well have been a slow seep over the time he's been standing, but better to do the rear seal anyway for safety while it's all out

So that'll be one clutch plate, one rear oil seal and a couple of clutch bearings (again, seem fine but for good measure....). The pressure plate is slightly blued, but not distorted, cracked or grooved so I reckon it'll be good to go again ;D

[spunkymonkey]

Got the clutch off the spare 1100 engine that Mac dropped off but have decided it's probably better not to use it - the "new" thickness for linings is listed as 3mm and they should be replaced when they're down to 2. The linings on that one are about 2.25 each, so well past half their wear.

So, the old plate is in a paraffin soak for a few days, which will be followed by thinners, in the hope that it'll draw enough oil out to save it (doesn't seem all that oily so fingers crossed!). Also, the flywheel is off and the rear seal measured up and ordered (£5.04 delivered - this is getting expensive!!!!! ;D ) There were a few traces of oil on the outside near the bottom of it, so looks like it probably was the culprit but hadn't let go completely.

Next job, while waiting for the seal to arrive, will be stripping out most of the engine bay to give Glorious ray of sunsine access to start practicing with the shiny new cans of shiny new black paint I got for her today. Only 2x 500ml cans for now cos that's all the cash I had on me, but that should be plenty for the engine bay - it only took 250ml of celly on Matilda and the acrylic cans tend to cover better.

So may be some prettiness photos to post shortly.....

[spunkymonkey]

Well, the sun was out (ish) and the engine bay was calling today! Glorious ray of sunsine wasn't feeling up to car work but she gave me permission to play with some paint, so....

Boris' empty engine bay was looking like this:




Generally clean and tidy but, how can I put this? a little "grey" (with patches of his original mustard yellow). Anyway, it's only an engine bay so, in the absence of any metalwork being needed, decided that he could have a quick tart-up. Quick because a lot of the stuff like the heater seems to be bolted through from under the dash and I don't want this car ending up in TOO many bits to put back together!

So all accessible bits got a quick-ish rub-down with wet & dry, followed by thinners, followed by Kurust on the few bits of surface rust that were showing (not least, the battery tray!). That was followed by touching up the primer as needed:


Whle that was drying, I turned my attention to the clutch plate that had been soaking in paraffin for about 24 hours. It got a 10 minute wash down in thinners followed by drying off with a blow-torch:


The end result does a very believable impression of an oil-free clutch


So then it was back to the engine bay to use up the first tin of black acrylic:








Certainly not concours, but good enough for the oily area, and the rattle-can acrylic is SOOOO easy to use - good coverage, good gloss and no reaction risk. No wonder it used to be the touch-up paint of choice ;D

[spunkymonkey]

A little bit more progress on Wednesday. The new oil seal is now fitted:



If you look carefully, you'll see that I've set it about 1/8th of an inch "below" the face of the housing. The reason for that is that it allows the seal to run on a new part of the crankshaft, which reduces possible problems if the old seal had worn any sort of groove.

I also flatted down the (not wonderful) paint that I'd thrown on the wing a few days ago. Should now have a nice, even, surface for a couple of light top-coats then polish like a mirror




Today saw Boris' clutch go back on, having remembered to double check the torque setting for the flywheel bolts - I'd done them to about 22 lb/ft when they should have been 30 - 35. Nearly oops!



Followed by a start on making his wing shine again. Should be enough on there for a final flat and topcoat now, just waiting for some 800 grit w&d to turn up off ebay...



The only trouble is, I was going to pop to youtube for an appropriate song to put here, but I never realised there were quite so many shades of Black, so I guess I'll leave it up to you lot to choose your own.....

[dafdaffer]

ive never seen a 66 in black, i think it will look nice, i think some banded steels as well

i see its original colour was that brown like my old one.

[spunkymonkey]

The original had been covered up years ago and it's been a fairly matt black (up to where the stripes should be) / silver for the rest 2-tone since then.

The plan is to go black (but SHINY) up to window level and the bonnet, keep the roof, pillars and boot silver, then re-do the "Marathon" stripes in silver as well. Should be eye-catching with a bit of luck

[dafdaffer]

yes that should look very striking

[Richard DAF Webmeister]

I've just remembered that there used to be a mostano 66 coupe in the club way back with the reg number DAF223K - is it that one?

Used to belong to a very nice chap in Stevenage called Bernard. It was immaculate.
I must have pics somewhere, but alas, I never got around to putting pics in albums etc so they are in various drawers here and there. I'll have a look around though.

And just found this pic obviously from more recent times...

media.photobucket.com/image/daf%2066%20coupe/Charlie_D_Brown/Boris%2520the%2520Daf%252066%2520Marathon%2520Coupe/readyToRoll.jpg

[spunkymonkey]

Yes, that's the one, Richard.

It had lost it's Mostano paint (thanks for putting a name to the colour!) before Matt aquired it, and he had it for a good few years. Apart from the slightly tired looking paint, and a couple of small rust spots, it's still in remarkably good condition. There's a little welding needed at each end of the n/s sill but that's par for the course for a 30 year old car that's been standing so can't really grumble there.

Especially with a registration that suits it so well!

[Richard DAF Webmeister]

I've been having a look around and found this from 1986. Sorry it's a bit grainy and small, but the pic was taken with a 110 camera - remember those?!

And dig the clip on wire-wheel-effect trims.

[spunkymonkey]

That's a great find, Richard, thank you! No need to apologise for the 110 effect, memories are meant to be grainy with slightly off colours - I think that's why they made the film like that ;D

Sadly the wheel trims are no longer with him but, if Sian likes that look, may have to have a hunt round at Beaulieu if we make it this year!