Make sure the shaft slides in there easily while contacting both ends.
Marco
Did you stop drill the crack, before welding?
I put on a Moto-lita knockoff steering wheel. I bought it many years ago but as time went on, I liked sticking with stock more and more. But I decided the original wheel could use some refurbishing (basically clean/sand off the ingrained dirt and refinish) and polish the spokes.
So I broke this out from the parts pile and slapped it on.
I did want to try a thicker rim than stock, which this has. It’s only 15", but I didn’t notice any issues on a 15 minute drive. I like it and may just preserve the original off the car after refinishing. (or maybe leave it in survivor condition.)
I was really impressed with the quality of this replica - no faults except the horn button will not fit over a Series 1. The horn rod is too long and the horn button /hub cover much too shallow. I was about to remove it for this reason until I decided to take a shot at just gluing the old horn button / hub cover on using 3M Super Weatherstrip adhesive (which I should be able to pry off when needed.) It actually worked! It holds very well so far.
Now I notice that the turn signal - flasher lever keeps hitting the headlamp dip switch when signalling right. Is this the way other Series 1 E-type are like? I have to think there’s something off with mine, but I see no way of clocking the turn signal or moving it fore or aft to clear the dip switch. Maybe the lever can be repositioned somehow?
Dave
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Looks good! So that others are aware, Moto Lita offers another wheel specifically designed for E-types. The rim and It uses the original hub and horn button, which both saves money and more closely preserves the original look. I put one on my car and really like it.
Never heard of that for treating a crack when welding. As a former aircraft engineer, I have stop drilled many cracks to prevent propagation, but never heard it necessary when welding. I would be Interested to hear the metallurgical reason
I can’t offer a metallurgical reason, but relate how it was explained to me by an aerospace tech who built race car chassis in his spare time.
There is a difference between a crack and a fracture. A crack may or may not visible to the naked eye, but is caused by a weakness at that point in the metal either through the excess stresses induced on it or a flaw in the metal. When those stresses reach a certainly level, the crack can expand to become a fracture where the bonds in the metal are truly broken.
When one finds a fracture (which is what Philip has), it is just the completely failed part of a crack, but the crack is likely extending further through the metal than just the section that is visibly broken. Welding the fracture can partially fix the problem, but often not well or only temporarily. Those stresses that were starting the break the metal bonds in the first place are still there, and are present beyond the areas of the fracture. They’ll continue to make the crack propagate further.
The tech’s contention was that simply welding up the fracture is doomed. If the crack and resulting fracture are because of flaws in the metal unable to handle the stress, then those flaws exist in the metal beyond the fracture and there will be further failure. The metal bonds are damage not just at the exact point of the fracture, but on each side of it as well. If the metal was sound but the stresses were too high, that condition still exists, and the welded fracture will not be as strong as the original metal and will likely fail, and the not-visible cracking which extends past the fracture are a further weak point subject to failure if allowed to propagate.
His bottom line was simple - the problem is caused by too much stress for the metal, and unless the stress is reduced (i.e. change the design) or repair is beefed up to handle the stress, the problem will come back. To him, such a repair requires stop drilling well past the point of the fracture, grind out all the metal where the fracture happened and where the subsurface cracking was likely to remove damaged material (even if not visible to the eye), and then beefing it all up with additional metal to handle the stress.
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Indeed, as it was also explained to me by numerous welding wizards.
All of the above is explained in the post I linked to, above.
When I had my cracked/broken right frame welded, yes welded the Reynolds alloy, I made up diamond shaped reinforcements that straddle the welded crack on all four sides and gave them to the welder to add. 22 years later with the last four traversing very rough gravel road the frame is still holding up. Spreading the stress out certainly helps the situation.
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Interesting thank you. I think I will use a dye penetrant NDT check of the area
Thanks, Bob. The knockoff came with its own hub - I actually had forgotten it did. The original hub is riveted and I wasn’t going to drill out the rivets to install the replica Moto-Lita, but then I found the hub assembly in another box of parts.
So I would call the knockoff a very pleasant value, as I find no fault in its construction quality other than the hub button (which just has a cheesy small “Jaguar” sticker to embellish it, even if it did fit at S1.) It probably would be fine on a S2 with stalk mounted horn.
I agree that if you don’t mind drilling the rivets, re-using the original hub would be the most economical way to have a Moto-lita wheel. The knockoff at least uses a spring tensioned snap-in hub, vs. the grub screws for the S1 horn button hub.
Dave
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Hey Dave. I can understand if you already had the pieces. Drilling the rivets was not particularly hard, and the machine screws they provide would work equally well on the original wheel if one wanted to go back.
Here’s a photo of mine. It’s a 14” wheel, so the number of holes in the spokes are reduced by one.
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Ah, that wheel is very nice. The original hub/horn button fully covers the center, which is better than what I have. But I’ll live with it. 
Anyway, now I can swap wheels pretty quickly at least if I want (though I have to pry off the glue on my center cap, alas…) I think though I’ll like the new one enough that I won’t bother, especially because I do like the thicker rim over stock.
Dave
Put my right splash shield on. Tight as a drum. It came loose as a new part in a bag with the car when I got it. The left one was in and I bought one for the front and installed.
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I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with the splash/heat shields…they’re always in the way when you want to do work underneath and the heat blocking properties are somewhat questionable,… in my opinion. Other than for Concour cars, I would venture to say that most E’s have had them removed, lost or are sitting in the garage somewhere. IMHO
Needed to go to Harbor Freight to buy a fuel pressure test kit to sort out an Polaris UTV that died on a mountain Monday.
HF is an hour and a half away, but the drive is quite nice for the most part, running over the mountsin to Taos and then along the Rio Grande as it cuts through a significant elevation change. Car ran perfectly the whole way. And it was great to be able to pass everyone in a 54 yo car. First long trip since working a various things this winter and summer. And Joey will note the 123 was great😎
And the fuel pump turned out to be shot. 30 psi instead of 60.
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Tis a magnificent drive!
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Wait! Do you guys up there know how to make that? 
