Visors.

Today, Jenn helped me to reverse the toll that 40+ years of UV took on our Amazon's sun visors.



Restoration of the visors started from the inside out. I used a wire wheel to clean the rust off the visors' wire frames. If I'd been really smart, I would have given them a preventative treatment with POR-15, but I was lazy and skipped that step. (I'll probably regret that decision later.)



Following auto upholstery guru Don Taylor's method, we cut chipboard backings for the new visors using what was left of an old visor as a pattern. I purchased some 2-ply chipboard for the job, but it turned out to be too thick, so we ended up using a frozen pizza box (Amy's Organic Roasted Vegetable No-Cheese).

We glued a layer of 3/8" foam to the chipboard using Super 77, and trimmed it flush to the edge of the chipboard. Next, we cut a piece of vinyl matching the shape of the chipboard, but leaving an ample allowance around the entire edge.


the entire sandwich: wire armature, chipboard with foam attached, and vinyl

The trickiest part of the whole operation was trimming the vinyl and cutting darts to allow a smooth radius around the corners. We ended up doing this by trial and error, using masking tape to "tack down" the straight portions while we cut the corners.



Using Super 77, we glued vinyl to foam, then folded over the loose vinyl edge and glued it to the "inside" of the chipboard. (FYI: as noted on the can, spraying Super 77 on both surfaces to be glued, and then letting it dry for a couple of minutes before assembling produces an extra strong bond.)

After botching our first attempt at gluing the two sides of each visor together, I discovered a better method: before applying adhesive, fold the two sides together and align them with the wire frame inside the sandwich. While keeping everything aligned, tape the wire frame to the chipboard. Then apply Super 77, and glue the two halves together. Everything should remain aligned. (On our first try, we tried inserting the wire armature and aligning after glue was applied, and ended up with a crooked visor that had to be taken apart.)


two sides glued together

The Super 77 bond started pulling apart within minutes, and we decided that it'd be necessary to sew the edges. The visor was too thick to fit in our sewing machine, and we wanted to avoid a top-stitched seam anyway, so we sewed a blind stitch by hand around the entire perimeter of each visor. (This was time consuming.)



I'm reasonably satisfied, and would have been even more satisfied if our hand sewing skills were more practiced. But all in all, I think the visors look pretty good.

Temperature Gauge.

The capillary tube on the original Bourdon tube temperature gauge had ruptured, rendering it useless. Evidently, mechanical temperature gauges can be repaired, but I opted to convert my 122 to an electrical gauge setup.


original gauge, with weird Bourdon appendix squiggling around in foreground

Figuring I was just going to tear it apart anyway, I bought the cheapest electrical gauge I could find at my local auto supply shop. For $16 plus tax, I got the gauge, sender, and 4 fittings with different threads.

Unfortunately, none of the fittings had the right thread for my B18 head, so I ended up drilling out the fitting from the original sender, and tapping it to 3/8" NPT for the new sender. (Supposedly, electrical senders from B20 heads will also fit, but I decided not to chance it.)


new sender unit on left, original fitting on right drilled and tapped with 3/8" NPT thread


new sender installed

I was able to remove the old temperature gauge while keeping the rest of the instrument cluster in place. I unceremoniously disassembled and discarded the guts of the old gauge, retaining the backplate, instrument face, and needle for the retrofit.

It felt a little weird ripping a perfectly good new gauge apart, but a pair of pliers and some brute force were all that were necessary to free the internals for "re-purposing."


old and new gauge parts meet on my workbench.

Hacking old and new together was relatively straightforward, but required some trial and error fitting. I was hoping to use the standoffs from the original backplate, but they were not spaced far enough apart, so I had to drill them out. I elongated the remaining holes, and made some new standoffs from aluminum tubing. Bolts through the backplate, standoffs, and into the flanges on the new gauge (tapped to receive the bolts) hold it all together. The bolts are a tight fit next to the screws that affix the gauge face, but it all comes together, albeit with minimal room for error. Wires exit through existing holes in the backplate (enlarged slightly).


original standoffs can be used to determine correct distance between backplate and face

In order to mount up the original needle to the shaft of the new gauge, I drilled it out using a miniature wire-gauge bit. In my haste, the hole is neither centered, nor the correct diameter. Because of the loose fit, I had to use some silicone adhesive, rather than friction fit it onto the shaft. I also accidentally drilled through to the front of the needle. Doh. Luckily, the bottom third of the gauge is hidden when the assembly is installed in the instrument cluster.

"Calibrating" the needle to the correct angle and whatnot was a complete shot in the dark. Accuracy will not be a forte.


managed to only slightly damage the original gauge face.

Back in the car, I pulled +12 volts off of the fuel gauge, grounded under the nearby turn signal flasher bracket (where another ground is already located), and ran the sender wire back into the engine compartment along the same route as the original capillary tube.


back in the dash and looking stock

It was surprisingly satisfying to power it up and see the needle jump to action! And now I can tell (relatively speaking) when the car is warm.

Honk Honk.

Evidently, horn failure is pretty common in Amazons. Rather than fix the horn button, or simply disconnect the horns, the previous owner of my car (out of frustration?) went ahead and removed part of the horn switch entirely.

Figuring it'd be faster and cheaper than trying to locate a replacement, I took it as a challenge to fabricate a new switch from scratch, using a diagram from GCP as a guide.


parts 34 through 38 were missing on my Amazon

To form the main body of the switch (part 36), I soldered a 1/2" x 1/8" ring made from copper plumbing pipe to a length of 17/32" brass tubing. I sealed the other end by soldering on a piece of flattened copper pipe (I didn't have any plate handy) and drilled a hole for the wire (part 35). I found a suitable spring (part 37) from my local hardware store, along with a nylon spacer (part 38) that fit snugly inside the brass tubing. I soldered the wire to a rivet (part 34), and soldered an extra glob of tin to the rivet to give the end a little extra "crown."

(As a side note, I whacked the whole thing together in about an hour using only a drill, a pipe cutter, a hacksaw, a butane torch, and a file. I'm constantly amazed at how much you can do with basic hand tools. Then again, they made some pretty crazy stuff back in the days of antiquity, long before there was such thing as an Epilog.)


completed switch


in situ

I proceeded with the standard fix of making a new foam insulator (part 23 in previous diagram) to hold the two halves (parts 22 and 25) of the horn switch apart. I got a rubber overflow washer from the plumbing section of my hardware store and cut a section out to fit the diameter of the horn ring, then glued it back together with hot glue. I had to trim the washer, which was originally 3/'8" thick, down to about 1/4" to get the correct "springiness." Finally, I punched some holes in it to fit the posts and nylon insulators.


ugly, but functional

Because the new assembly is much "springier" with the new rubber washer installed, I had to use some C-clamps to compress the whole sandwich before re-installing the clips which hold it together.



The last step in bringing my Amazon's horns back to life involved disassembling and cleaning the horns themselves. I discovered that one of the contacts inside the horns was severely oxidized. I used electrical contact cleaner and some 400 grit sandpaper to renew the contact, then treated with De-Ox before reassembling.


arrow indicates location of oxidized contact

I ran a new wire to horn switch through the steering tube (much easier to start at the steering box and feed it up through the steering tube) and hooked the whole thing up.

Honk honk! My 122 can sing again.

Bulbs.

I was having a tough time locating exact replacements for the type 12913 bulbs that were used in the glove box and instrument panel lights, so I started looking for other 12V/2W replacement bulbs with a mini bayonet base.

The closest modern replacement I could locate was a type 3797 bulb, but didn't want to mail order just two bulbs, so I kept looking for something available locally. I finally discovered that a type 53 bulb, available at most auto supply stores, should work.


new Sylvania 53 bulb on the left, old Phillips 12913 bulb on the right.

The 53 is technically a 14.4V bulb rated for 0.12 amps (14.4 volts X .12 amps = 1.7 watts), but that ought to be close enough. It's also globe-shaped rather than tubular, but the globe is narrow enough to fit in the openings in the dash.

Fresh Air.

Since I fixed the exhaust downpipe, a working fan hasn't been as high a priority, but it's been something I've been wanting to fix since I got the car.

I thought faulty wiring would be the culprit, but it turned out that it was simply forty-some years of accumulated dust, pine needles, and automotive goo.


there's a fan motor somewhere underneath all that dirt

I got the motor partially apart before realizing that complete disassembly would only be possible after removing the brittle plastic impeller. It's a friction fit, so I wet the shaft down with WD-40, twisted back and forth slowly and carefully, and used the mantra "please don't break, please don't break."

Once apart, I gave the motor and impeller a thorough cleaning, polished the commutator and contacts, and relubed the bushings.



back to life, running on a bench power supply

Back on the car, the ground wire was making an intermittent connection due to dirt and corrosion. The fan ground is connected to the nearby brake line union (where the brake light pressure switch is located).


bolt at upper left of brake union serves as chassis ground for fan

After a good cleaning all around, and some preventative Ilsco De-Ox on the contacts, the fan is back in business.

Door Contacts.

The door contacts for the dome light aren't really designed to be serviced, but the spring in one of mine had snapped, requiring either replacement of the entire switch, or figuring out some way to disassemble and repair the assembly.

I opted for the latter and found that, after carefully filing away the rivet at the rear of the assembly, it was possible to disassemble the contact into its component parts.

from left to right: new screw (with allen wrench attached), new plastic washers, copper contact, plastic insulating spacer, fiber washer, switch body, spring, plunger (drilled and tapped)

I cleaned up the copper contacts, replaced the spring, and reassembled. I drilled and tapped the end of the aluminum plunger, and replaced the rivet with a small screw, using a stack of two plastic washers to hold the copper contact in place while insulating it from the rest of the switch.