Page 9 of 34

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2020 3:53 am
by Brian-H
Vulgalour wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 10:39 pm
Image

Image
The hub caps look like they were originally black in the area between centre and edge, as in this photo of an LD10 that I've referenced from wikipedia
Image

or this one
Image


btw I've glanced through that PDF on the horns, whilst it's useful for providing the DC resistance and the working current (0.28 Ohms & 5.5 Amps on the WT 28/29) , the rest of the detailed info (especially armature stack) is for WT 614/616/618 , which have quite a lot of adjustments of parts with the top dome removed. The horn that you have is completely different from the WT 614/616/618 and the only adjustment is on that screw underneath (briefly mentioned in the PDF). There's no info on which way round that "piston" (core) should go either, and the method in (vi) for checking the gap (by applying power direct to the armature coil) relies on the rest of the horn being correctly assembled. Basically it's a service document, for horns that haven't been tampered with by a previous owner, or possibly their son with similar knowledge that I had when I was ~14 years old :lol:

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:04 am
by Vulgalour
On the Barker bodied cars, there seems to be some variation with the finish on the hubcaps. Some are all chrome, some have a body-coloured insert, some are clearly tweaked to suit the owner's personal taste. They probably were fully chromed and then the body coloured paint applied to suit whatever car they were going on, that was fairly standard with that sort of trim on other cars I've experienced, and quite often the paint just flakes off the chrome over the years. Were the chrome in better condition then they'd look quite good with the black put on the insert, as they are, if we paint that bit black they're going to look a bit odd against the rest of the car, you'll see why in this update.

The horns have been set aside for the moment, we're going to come back to those later when we've got a fresh mind to look at all the information gathered and the horns themselves rather than getting bogged down and going in circles as so often happens with that sort of job.

---

We made a discovery today that made a lot more sense of that single front door lock than our initial assumption. Totally by accident we found out where the other door locks are when I knocked a rear door handle down into the lock position while in the car, and then tried to open the door from outside and couldn't. That means all the doors can be locked only from inside the car, except for the passenger door that can only be locked from outside the car using the key. The theory, we think, is that the driver locks all the doors and then slides across into the passenger seat and out to lock the passenger door from the safety of the pavement. Of course, you can also pre-lock the doors without keyholes and shut them. It was nice to discover there was some security on the car after all.
Image

Our schedules being what they are today, other half sorted out the tyres in the morning in the gap between him finishing work and me getting up. We then fitted the newly shod wheels on the car in the gap between then and me going to work. We did learn that one of the wheels (the worst looking one) is slightly buckled and while the tyre place could and did balance it we'll use this as our spare until we can get a non-buckled wheel. We'll keep an eye out for a replacement, though it's unlikely to be much of an issue unless we're doing motorway speeds, which seems unlikely.
Image

Then it was off to work for me until our next schedule line up when we took some time out to have a meal and finish the rest of the hubcaps. It's a subtle difference, the refinishing on the hubcaps, and they're basically polished and lacquered steel for how little chrome is left on any of them, but they look more correct to the rest of the car than they did in silver paint and really help the car look old and worn, rather than old and neglected.
Image

Image

Image

Image

This was the worst looking of the hubcaps, the one that was almost entirely mottled in rust. There was barely any chrome at all and the Lanchester pressing was the best of all the hub caps.
Image

This one is the actual worst of the hubcaps, so we put it on the worst of the wheels as a good visual reminder that this will become the spare. The spare isn't a very high priority at the moment since the goal was just to get new tyres on to replace the ruined old ones, but we will sort it soon.
Image

There were other benefits to these new tyres too, even fully inflated the old ones were making it so that it was a two person job to push the car, with these new tyres one of us can push the car fairly easily now and that's much more convenient. It's also made the car sit higher and more level so that too has benefits for working on and around it... except for me being too short to reach the middle of the roof without a chair.
Image

The donor carburettor is on the way and we got a brief visit from our neighbour on his Norton Dominator to check up on progress, so that was pretty neat too. Feels as good a time as any to update the list.



Service and Mechanical

Change oil and filter
Flush and replace coolant
Adjust brakes
Grease all grease points
Tool roll (original if possible, equivalent if not)
Spare key set cut
Key cut, or replacement lock barrel, for boot handle
Underseal arches

Electrical

Inspect starter motor
Replace wiring loom - ordered new
Acquire battery clamp
Indicator/sidelight combination LED bulbs for front (hidden item)
Indicator/high level brake light combination LED for rear (hidden item)
Replace bulbs where necessary
Figure out inoperative brake lights
Repair/replace horns
Inspect wiper motor
Inspect clock

Cosmetic

Door handle gaskets
Sidelight gaskets
Headlights gaskets
Door and boot seals
Front and rear screen seals
Pedal rubber seals
Handbrake draught excluder seal
Fresh air vent seal
Window winder escutcheon (driver's side front door)
Carpet set
Polish and wax bodywork to preserve
Repair seat leather
Revarnish interior wood
Re-scumble instrument cluster

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2020 12:10 am
by Vulgalour
Time for a carburettor update. The donor arrived today and apart from being filthy from presumably years of use, it looked complete at first glance. The important thing was that the chassis, the one part we'd bought it for, was an identical match to our original carburettor. The differences between the two is mostly in the throttle mechanism and all of those parts can be swapped pretty easily.
Image

Image

Image

Image

On the bottom of both is the important bit, 30 VIG-5 tells us that these are the same chassis, the stamp on the top (C1227 for the original, C1010 10/12 for the donor) seems to refer to the external items bolted on so the carburettor can be used with a different car's throttle set up. We think the donor is from an Austin, though we're not entirely certain.
Image

Image

The other important aspect was the thread on the donor, which looked to be in excellent condition on the listing and, in person, was slightly better than it appeared in the listing. Donor first and original after here so you can see what we've gained. A dry fit of the banjo bolt also demonstrated that the donor has a much better thread than the original.
Image

Image

After several rounds in the ultrasonic cleaner, the donor chassis was made ready. We didn't push to get every speck of dirt removed, there really isn't much point, instead we focused on making sure passages and moving parts were nice and clean, which they are now. While the cleaning was happening, we worked out which bits were spare, checking the condition of the parts on our original carburettor against the donor and selecting the best items. As it happens, almost everything in our original carburettor is in better condition.
Image

One item that was a benefit is a small piece of the throttle mechanism, on ours it's worn quite badly while on the donor it's got significantly less wear. While most of the donor's throttle mechanism is different, this piece and the spring-loaded adjustable balljoint socket piece are the same.
Image

Another benefit with the donor chassis is that all of the rivets that hold in the float bowl gasket came out quite easily so we could fit the new gasket using the new rivets out of the kit instead of relying on a couple of smears of sealant.
Image

We also used the rebuilt float bowl from our original carburettor, since it was in much better condition than the one on the donor, and reassembled everything. With the newly rebuilt carburettor waiting to go on, the fitting for the vacuum line could be tackled on the car now we had a spare fitting from the donor carburettor as a back up, and that came undone properly without damaging the copper vacuum line or the brass fittings. We didn't want to have to remake the vacuum line or modify things to take a modern equivalent, so it was good that this came apart without drama in the end. It also made refitting the carburettor a lot easier since we can screw the fitting to the carburettor rather than the other way around.
Image

It was then all bolted back onto the car, the banjo bolt being significantly easier to fit than previously, everything was checked as being free moving and we're ready to go this weekend. There wasn't enough time today to get the car started up so we'll do that tomorrow. Hopefully this cures the fuel leak. We would have done it tonight, except that there's no power or lighting in the garage, the car has no rear lights of any sort working at the moment, and the exhaust sleeve needs fitting so that we can actually run the car. All of this will be easier and safer to do in the daylight before I go to work tomorrow.
Image

The eagle eyed may have noticed the base on the donor chassis isn't perfect. It does have a very slight warp to the base which flattens out once it's bolted down to the manifold with a gasket so we opted to leave it alone. If it proves to be an air leak issue or similar in the future, we'll sand it down flat, otherwise it seemed sensible to leave it. Also, the gap between the float bowl and the chassis is nice and even, and much smaller, on the rebuilt carburettor, so that's another potential issue resolved. We did find the missing bolt for the air silencer feed to the rocker cover. Previously, we'd dismissed the very short bolt we found since it didn't match the other bolt in the rocker cover, but it looks like someone has tapped out one of the holes much larger than original and used this short, possibly cut down, bolt in its place. It's easier to keep it as it is than try and fix this to return it to stock so that's what we've opted to do.

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2020 1:35 am
by Vulgalour
Now that I've finished work I can update what was done earlier today before work. The first problem we encountered was that the carburettor base wasn't actually flat enough and wasn't sealing properly. Fortunately it was an easy enough task to remove it since we've now had things apart a few times, and I had the onerous task of using a flat surface and wet-and-dry paper to flatten out the base of the carburettor. It didn't take very long to do, it was just tedious.
Image

Just a case of going back and forth, then turning it 90 degrees and repeating, until you got as much of the darker surface sanded away as you reasonably could. There's one spot that was really stubborn about sanding out, we opted to ignore it since it was so minor a deviation and so much of the sealing face was nice and smooth and even we didn't think it would now cause any problems.
Image

As it happens, it didn't cause any problems and now we don't have a leak from the carburettor base. We also don't have a leak from the banjo bolt and the carburettor seems to be working fantastically well now, as it ought given the attention it's had. We did get the car to run off the choke today at least, and got some decent heat into the coolant system which highlighted good flow through the heater so we're getting there, it's just a case of sorting a problem and seeing what pops up as an issue next and then resolving that. The other thing that was done was to fit the new exhaust bandage thing, a temporary measure just so we can run the car. the black on the exhaust is from where it was previously split and we know the car has been running very rich before we got hold of it. With the new bandage on, the majority of the exhaust gasses are now going all the way through the system and out the back of the car, where they should, and the exhaust isn't emitting any smoke so that's also good.
Image

This weekend we're hoping to flush out the fuel tank to get rid of the old stuff, change the oil, flush out the coolant system, and generally get things in rude health on that front. We've been having a bit of a problem with sooty plugs today which we think is due to running on the ancient fuel (we know we shouldn't, but it's not doing any harm for the short time we've done it and it's saved us hassle flushing and refilling just while we test) and hopefully some new fuel will cure that issue. We now know we have oil pressure, good fuel pressure, excellent spark, and the coolant system is working well enough to get the heater pipes hot so we're definitely on our way with this.

The other thing that happened today was a rubber delivery, specifically the new rear screen seal, pedal grommets, and headlight grommets. As you can see in the following photograph, the old grommets have gone all weird in that way really old rubber does.
Image

Replacement wasn't entirely plain sailing. One thing I do dislike about this car is the extensive use of fine threads, it makes undoing anything a chore. It's also frustrating that every time I go to undo an awkwardly located fitting, none of my spanners fit so I have to resort to the adjustable wrench, as I did to do these. I'll go into how this is done in more detail in a future post, for now suffice to say that the bolt you have to get to so that you can remove the headlights is pretty annoying, especially if you choose to be lazy like me and not remove the wheel for better access. Still, the new grommet actually went in really nicely and fits snug to the headlight which seals everything up properly, preventing water getting through the wing. Annoyingly, after taking care to feed the wires out of the headlight bowl so nothing got snagged or damaged, one of the connectors that splices the new red wire in the above photograph to the original loom fell off, mainly because the old wiring loom section is really brittle so now we have one less working light. Ah well, there's a new wiring loom on the way (estimated arrival is late October) which will deal with these issues.

We'll see how far we get this weekend, our basic plan is a fluid change, fit the new rubber items (except for the rear screen seal), and polish up the last of the bodywork that needs it.

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:39 am
by Mark Bullen
It's great to hear about progress, one thing I would suggest is a set of BSF/BSW spanners and sockets so you have the correct sizes and don't have to resort to an adjustable. I bought them for quite reasonable prices online/local ironmongers. A tip I read was to buy impact sockets (this was after buying normal ones) as they are tougher and designed for impact which you might need on some more difficult parts. Not sure if this helps, but good luck with the work.

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:05 pm
by Vulgalour
We recently decided to grab a couple of job lots of old spanners in a mixture of sizes, theory being that something is better than nothing and we should be able to make at least one useful set even if it's not matching.
---

Today's plans went mostly as we wanted them to. The first job was to drain the old fuel out of the tank. There's a handy, easy-to-access drain plug on the underside of the fuel tank, as is the norm for older vehicles, which makes you wonder what the point of the locking fuel cap really is since it's no hardship to get to and undo the bolt at which point the fuel gushes out at quite a rate. We got a bucket and a bit of old fuel out and while it was quite yellowed and varnish looking, there wasn't much in the way of actual sediment and bits. You couldn't see more than about an inch through the fuel in the bucket, all the same.
Image

The drain plug was refitted and a couple of fresh cans of fuel poured in, then the system was primed and the sediment trap cleaned out a couple of times until the fuel went from this yellowy-brown colour back to the almost-clear of fresh fuel.
Image

The sediment trap has a mesh disc filter in it, which is the first fuel filter in the system. The second filter is in the mechanical fuel pump and is another mesh screen type. There was a small amount of particles on this which cleaned off quite easily, not much to speak of actually in the fuel pump. The primer lever on the fuel pump does seem a bit weak so we wonder if the spring or diaphragm are tired and due a replacement, we believe there are rebuild kits out there so it's something to look into in the future.
Image

The third fuel filter is a mesh screen tube around the banjo bolt that goes into the carburettor, so there's not really any need to add any more filters to this system. by the time it gets to the carburettor there's not really anything to catch. Our next issue today was the spark plugs fouling really quickly with sooty deposits, as though the car was running much too rich. We tried resetting the fuel mixture, the idle, not using the choke, and every time we were finding the same result so we headed out to try and find some generic replacement plugs and ended up getting some ridiculously fancy four-point Bosch things since they were the nearest match. Not massively expensive, the NGKs it came to us with, and the Bosch ones we've now fitted.
Image

Before starting the car again we opted to change the oil since it was warmed up now and that would make the job a lot easier. Access for doing the oil change is actually superb, without even jacking up the car, you can get straight to the sump plug and even fit the oil pan under the car. The long tube to the left is the oil filter, and while we could undo the drain bolt on the bottom, the bolts that hold the filter housing in place are so tight we couldn't shift them so we've saved that particular job for another day. We'll be doing another oil change very soon anyway since the oil we put in is mostly to clean up what's in there without being too aggressive about it.
Image

What we weren't expecting was the rate the oil in the car would gush out, hitting the oil pan at such a rate it splashed straight out of it, and all over the drive. The oil was incredibly thin, like water almost, and while we did at first thing maybe it had got fuel in it from repeated attempts to start it by us and previous owner, it didn't have any petrol smell (either the old fuel or the new) at all. It also had no signs of water contamination, it was just incredibly thin oil. The other peculiar thing is that when it came to cleaning the oil up, there was barely any rainbow sheen from it and it didn't really seem to repel the water that much either. Our theory is that someone has seen the SAE 30 on the oil filler cap and assumed it takes modern SAE 30 which is very different to what Lanchester would have specified back in 1951. The modern SAE 30 is much thinner and more watery in consistency than the modern equivalent to the SAE 30 of old. Since doing the oil change and fuel change we haven't had the same sooting of the plugs so that's a good thing. We haven't taken the sump off at this point, and won't unless we have to for some reason, but it was reassuring to see no bits of note in the oil that came out, there were a few of the usual tiny blobs of old oil, but nothing any larger than a small pinhead and nothing hard or metallic.
Image

Image

That done, and a short drive later, we discovered that the radiator is only getting hot right at the top so that's probably blocked. Ran out of time to do the coolant flush today, so we'll see if we can unblock the radiator tomorrow, a job which we're expecting to escalated into having to remove the radiator and possibly replace the radiator hoses. In the meantime, it was time to sort out the headlight gaskets and learn that there were more items that have been done in a not exactly factory way. To replace these rubbers, you will first need to jack up the car and remove the wheel, this will give you comfortable access to the one bolt you will need to undo, you can do it without removing the wheel but it's not much fun if you do. With the car securely supported, you then unclip the fastener on the bottom of the headlight bowl trim ring and lever the ring and lens out from the bottom.
Image

Unless, like us, you're missing the clip entirely on one side, in which case ease a screwdriver into the gap between the trim ring and the bowl and twist it to pry the housing open carefully.
Image

Inside the bowl you'll find three wires (on the assumption you're on the original reflector bowl and bulb set up, rather than an upgrade), one connects the bulb to the bowl, the other two connect the bulb to the wiring loom. Disconnect all three so you can remove the ring and lens and place them out of harms way. You can then pull the two wires through the headlight stem and into the inner arch.
Image

Image

Image

With the wires removed, you can then fit a socket on the nut. In our case it was what looked to be the original brass nut of 22mm on the passenger side, and a totally random steel nut of 19mm on the driver's side. We also found some of the wiring was original, some was new, and some was a combination of old wiring with new connectors.
Image

With the nut undone you can then lift out the headlight bowl completely. Refitting is reversal of removal, the wires are very easy to thread back through so just put the nut and washer back on the headlight bowl thread first to save accidentally stacking the parts on the wire in the wrong order. Before you do refit the headlight bowl, you'll want to prise out the old grommet, especially if yours looks as bad as ours does.
Image

With that out of the way, clean up the surface if you need to and then ease the new grommet into place. A screwdriver can help on the grille side where there's not much space between the wing and the headlight bracket, just for easing the lip of the grommet home. Aside from the fiddly access, this isn't too bad a job.
Image

These aren't vital really, we could have easily opted to leave the crumbling old ones in place, it's just nice to make the weather proof items good when they're available, especially given how specific a shaped thing these are. Very happy with the fit on these and they're a sensible price.
Image

All that done we decided to give the car one last short run with the new oil to circulate it all. Happy to report that the new oil and new spark plugs have made the car incredibly willing to fire up (providing the starter motor behaves, that's another item on the shortlist) so we ventured out onto the street to find out how bad the brakes really were. The answer is that the brakes are really quite terrible and barely stop the car at walking pace, so we're glad they're quite high up our list of items to address since they're clearly well out of adjustment, even with a good shove the engine is overpowering them quite easily.



The only other issue of note was the car bogging down under throttle to the extent that in the little video above, it's at barely more than idle since that's all it would tolerate. We suspect this is a blocked jet in the carburettor so we'll pull off the float bowl that contains the jets, remove and clean everything, and then reinstall it. It doesn't take much to block up a jet and it doesn't take much to clean it out. We are getting a healthy spark and good fuel delivery at idle and the carburettor isn't getting warm even when the engine does (that home made heat shield does its job really very well) so the usual suspects are pretty much ruled out. If you're careful you can very gently ease the throttle on, but try and sustain it and it will start to bog down again until you drop to idle where it's quite happy indefinitely.

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2020 11:42 am
by Sydsmith
Just a thought, the bogging down you describe suggests air getting in between the carburettor body and the manifold or the manifold and the block, also sometimes happens if the auto advance and retard tube is perished or leaking on cars with auto advance.

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2020 8:48 pm
by Vulgalour
Fortunately, we got to the bottom of the running issue and it was surprisingly simple. Sediment from the tank had blocked the sediment trap filter, just enough that it could run at idle and not with throttle. A nice easy fix that one.

---


Today I got to the bottom of why the car didn't respond well to throttle and it was very simple, more on that later. The important update was that I attempted to start the car to move it out of the garage, something it's usually totally unwilling to do for me (but not the other half, who this car likes more) and it fired straight up. Not only that, it responded normally to throttle and I got to trundle around in a little circle and get my first drive of the Lanchester. First impressions were that it's surprisingly intuitive to use the pre-selector gearbox and the steering is pleasantly weighted. The size of the car felt very easy to place and while rear visibility is really quite terrible thanks to the body style and the tiny rear window, the car didn't feel particularly ungainly. The brakes are terrible, though this is more a case of bad adjustment than the brakes being terrible by design. If you really stamp on them hard they will just about stop the car providing you're not doing more than about 5mph. Keeping an eye on the gauges I noticed the temperature had got very high, so decided I should let the car cool down so that a coolant change could be done. That's when I noticed the first problem of the day when the car decided to do its level best to change the coolant for me.
Image

Had I looked inside the car first I would have seen the leak immediately, as it was it took a little while to realise it was the heater matrix that was leaking.
Image

We knew there was a chance of leaks happening, and surprised it hadn't been worse until now. I did the jobs in a different order to how I'm reporting them here, so I did some other things before dropping the coolant. Draining out the coolant was quite easy, there's a brass tap on the bottom of the radiator that you turn and the coolant all falls out. Frustratingly, I didn't have a container shallow enough so it was a case of using a lot of plain water afterwards to dilute this and wash it away since there's a lot of cats in the neighbourhood we don't want getting their little faces into this. As it happens, I'm not so sure there was any antifreeze in here anyway, the water that came out was initially quite plain, and then very sludgy and brown, and then sparkling with silver and copper glitter. The sparkling was not a welcome sight and means someone has most likely put K-seal and maybe also Steel Seal in the system either as a preventative measure, or to cure a leak, or to cure a head gasket failure. Nothing for it but to clean everything out to find out which item it was going to be.
Image

Image

It took a while and eventually, the drain tap clogged. A poke with a screwdriver a few times and it cleared but it was evident there was something in the radiator blocking things up so that meant the radiator ideally needed to come out for a flush. It also meant I wanted to see what the other coolant passages I could get to without opening up the engine were like. Unbolting and prising off the thermostat housing, taking extra care to unbolt the water temperature gauge capillary line, revealed that the car did still have a thermostat fitted, and that it was pretty disgusting.
Image

Not quite as disgusting as the pipe that bridges between radiator, heater, and water pump. It looked like it was full of leaves, a poke revealed it wasn't and was instead a combination of rust flakes and sheets of something that had dried out and got stuck in here.
Image

Most of the grey paint on this pipe and the thermostat housing was flaking off so after cleaning out the worst of the rust and detritus, they were treated to some paint stripper. They need another round, and will then get repainted, probably in black, before being reinstalled.
Image

I hadn't removed the radiator on this car before and unbolted what looked like the correct items, only to find that the radiator still wouldn't come out. I'm not sure why, perhaps because I'm used to front wheel drive cars, but I thought the radiator had to tilt back towards the engine to come out, something that's impossible because of the radiator surround. Rather than take a step back and see how it actually was done, I decided to take the water pump off instead. This wasn't an entirely bad decision, the water pump is thick with paint and would benefit from a general clean up anyway which is much easier to do with it off the car. The shorter bottom two bolts were very difficult to access, they seemed hard up against the rubber of the engine mount which didn't seem quite right. The fan belt was also impossible to remove from the lower pulley. I'd been warned that the front engine mount being worn could cause this so that's what I suspected I'd find behind the water pump.
Image

Image

The proper way to remove the radiator is much simpler than I'd actually made myself do it. There's four nuts on captive bolts at the sides of the radiator which need loosening to allow the pressing that serves as a radiator cap and holds the bonnet catch.
Image

There's also two bolts that hold this capping to the front grille.
Image

There's another two bolts that hold the radiator stay bars. There's two nuts that hold the bottom of the radiator in place, and the drain tap needs the handle removing. With all these items undone, you can simply slide the radiator up and out of the car, really very simple when you know how.
Image

Image

With the radiator out an attempt was made to flush it, at which point it became clear it was blocked. A few attempts and it eventually spat out first brown, then black sludge, then I flushed it until the water ran clear and filled the radiator up with a couple of Steradent tablets in it (since that's all I had to hand) to help dislodge any debris inside. While that was being done, the thermostat was cleaned as much as possible to try and find any markings on it. The thermostat does appear to work though a replacement will be sourced, it's a generic looking thing and stamped 82, which I assume means it's an 82C thermostat, and not an 82F one.
Image

Image

With all of that out of the car, the radiator was emptied out and a potential cause for the k-seal being added is that one corner of the radiator is now leaking. It has much better flow than it did, not great, but better than almost none, and we're going to get this inspected and repaired before refitting it to the car. At least with this all removed we could get a proper look in the front of the engine bay, and it's mostly good if dirty. The main issue is that the front engine mount does look as though the rubber has become at least partially detached and the whole engine is sagging down a little. It's not dropped far enough that the pulleys are touching anything, but it is far enough that the fan belt cannot be removed.
Image

Image

After the trundle about, the sediment bowl was checked and cleaned out again. There's much less sediment coming through now, the glass magnifies it somewhat, when it was removed and cleaned out it was little more than thin collection in one corner of the bowl.
Image

Now that both of us have driven the car and changed gear in it, I felt much happier about disabling it indefinitely to fix the coolant issues. Taking the water pump off has really helped give us access to that engine mount, an important issue to resolve. The other satisfying job today was getting the driver's side of the car polished, there's just the roof to go but I ran out of time and energy for that today.
Image

Image

Now attention will likely turn more towards the interior refurbishment while we source and wait for parts needed to get the coolant system in rude health once more.

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2020 2:22 am
by Vulgalour
You may remember, we recently removed the water pump. Happily, this pump is of the construction type that means you can strip it down and rebuild it. We're not doing a full strip down because the pulley bearing has no play and runs very freely thanks to previous owners keeping it well greased no doubt. As a memory jogger, here's what we started with.
Image

Image

It's been repainted several times and the grey paint is both thick and flaking off. We've decided that anything mechanical we remove will be at the very least cleaned and made to look as good as possible before reinstalling, so we opted to do just that with the water pump. Four bolts hold it to the front of the engine, the lower two are pretty much hidden from view so you have to feel for them. Of note are the temperature gauge capillary line which requires care to remove (fortunately ours did not put up a fight), and the thermostat housing which is part of the water pump assembly. We had already removed the thermostat housing when doing the first drain and flush of the system, otherwise it would have been just as easy to leave it attached and remove everything all in one go. With the waterpump off the car, there are several bolts holding the backing plate on, and four holding the fan blades on, these all came out very nicely and soon we had our first look inside the pump. Happily, it was very clean inside and while the flash does make the rust look very visible, it really isn't any more than you'd expect to see inside a cast iron housing like this. No heavy scaling or large deposits except around the end of the large cast hose joiner. All of the brass fittings are in excellent shape and water flows very well through the pump itself. That was a huge relief as it means really the only thing to do with this assembly is to remove the many layers of paint and repaint it.
Image

It's a fairly simple assembly, you can strip it down a little further to remove the pulley and bearing but we saw no need since that's all perfectly okay and it's more work for no gain, mechanically or cosmetically. The first of several rounds in the paint stripper was begun so that we could assess the condition of the metal before repainting.
Image

One thing of note on this style of water pump is that the backing plate can corrode away, quite badly in some cases. Ours isn't that bad, though when we found a stainless steel alternative with gaskets available through one of the three eBay sellers (they've made life so much easier on the parts hunt!) we opted to go for that. Here's the original backing plate, we're not sure if this is cast iron or thick sheet steel, either way the coolant facing side of it is what's on show here so you get some idea of the corrosion that happens. This plate is in really good shape, all things considered, I've seen some where they've corroded so badly they've holed right through.
Image

The fan blades, like the rest of the pump, appear to have originally been black. Working back through the paint layers the first looks to be red oxide, then black, then grey, then a brighter red, then at least two other greys and some hint of white on the blades, so they've had a life.
Image

We opted to simply repaint in bright red, partly because it's in keeping with the car and partly for safety. There's no fan shroud and a fast spinning black fan blade made of thick steel in a dark engine bay is just asking for trouble. Yellow is more visible still, but felt out of place given that the other bits and pieces are red.
Image

Painting that part was easy because the shape meant respraying with rattlecans wasn't an issue. The other components are considerably more fiddly shaped, and very heavy, so we've opted to brush paint those in enamel. I'm quite confident with enamel paints so am sure I can get a nice finish on these parts. First thing is 2-3 coats of red oxide, I've already done the lower metal pipe and the thermostat housing a few days ago, we've now got the first coat on the main water pump housing which is the most difficult item. Previously the old paint was so thick some of the casting markings were no longer visible, now that isn't an issue. The only problem with enamel paint is how long it takes to dry, so generally I can only get 1-2 coats of paint on in a day, schedule permitting. It will be a few more days until these are all painted and a few more until the paint is hard enough to properly handle and reassemble.
Image

The pipe and the thermostat housing have had 3 coats of red oxide and 2 coats of black gloss. They need one more coat of black gloss to be finished. I'm really happy with the finish. One thing we decided early on is that unless a dent, or pitting, or other damage is detrimental to the operation of an item it is left in place. We're not taking a file to casting markings, and we're not filling the rough surface of cast parts smooth to get that restored look because that's not what this project is about. Instead, we've opted to embrace imperfection. One of the main reasons for this is that in a few years when the initial shine has worn off these refurbished parts they should all blend together and look like they've always been the way they are, if they pick up the odd chip here and there it won't draw the eye in the way it would with a better-than-new finish.
Image

Image

To save having too much of the car apart at once, we're tackling one component at a time, refurbishing it, and reinstalling it on the car once done. The starter motor will probably be next, then the dynamo, and then the fuel pump, all of which would benefit from a clean and refurbish, and the first two would certainly benefit from a lick of paint. A leather repair kit is on the way so I can get the front seats repaired and once those are done I can make a start on the door cards and associated woodwork.

Another project the other half has decided we should embark on is a removable entertainment system and it's quite a neat idea. We're on the lookout for something along these lines.
Image

And a pair of grilles, something like this.
Image

We don't want anything valuable, because all we're after from these is the casing, the innards are of no use to us. His plan is to take a period appropriate radio, ideally on the smaller side, and retrofit it with a modern mp3/bluetooth player. The two grilles will go in the kickpanels at the front where the trim panels are completely gone on our car and integrated into new panels. He wants something that will look like it belongs inside the car since we won't have any visible concessions to modernity. Ideally the head unit will be removable too, possibly with its own rechargable battery incorporated, so it can be taken out of the car and used as a stand-alone music player. Finding a radio is easy enough, finding the right one has so far proven tricky since most are much too big, much too valuable, much too ugly, or all three. It's probably going to be something we find when we're not actually looking for it, hopefully a neighbour will be throwing out something suitable, we've done quite well for things we need when other neighbours have been getting rid of things so who knows?

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2020 12:20 am
by Vulgalour
Today has been mildly productive, with new items arriving and progress being made on a couple of items. First thing to arrive was a job lot of old spanners I found online for not very much, 42 spanners in total of various ages and manufacturers. I went through and organised them into sets of like manufacturer, while there's a fair bit of size duplication this is made up for in variety of spanner shape and size. They're marked variously with some being Whitworth, some being BS, some being a combination, a couple having just a fraction marked with no indication for what measuring system it relates to, and one with no markings at all. There's spanners from Snail, Gedone, Gordon, King Dick, Bedford Vanadium, Atco, Humco, Garrington, Tipco, Brenco, Elora, Jenbro, Enfo, and a couple with markings I can't make out. Snail brand ones are probably my favourites for their logo, while the Gedone seem to be the nicest quality. A few have what appear to be date markings on them, the oldest being a HumCo. from 1940, while there's an unbranded one from 1957, another unbranded one from 1961, and a Snail from 1966. They're all well used and there's enough here to make up both an at home set and a small tool roll for in the car, I just need to figure out which are going to be the best fit for the most common jobs to decide how we split them up.
Image

Image

The water pump only required two coats of red oxide before an even finish was achieved so that got the first coat of black on today, it will probably need three coats of black to finish. The pipe and thermostat housing received their final coat of black today and look very smart for it.
Image

Image

The new stainless steel backing plate for the water pump arrived too, it's an exact match for the original and came with two perfectly cut gaskets which is a big time saving when we rebuild and reinstall the pump since we won't have to make those from scratch. Here's the new and old plate side by side.
Image

More items arrived of the rubber variety, namely a fanbelt (the one on the car looks fine, but is very old now, so a new one seemed wise), and some new radiator hoses. We'll also be replacing the smaller rubber hose connectors for the heater pipes, and all of the jubilee clamps so we shouldn't have problems with hoses and connections when we put everything back together. The old hoses weren't in terrible condition, as it happens, it just seems wise to replace them so that we can avoid the disappointment of sudden failure.
Image

The other item to arrive was the leather care kit I'd ordered from Wakeson, a company I've used before and found their products to be pretty good for the price. I wasn't sure how much I'd need having never done leather repair before so I just ordered their standard tear repair kit, what's not shown here is the strong fabric you glue on the back of the leather. The little pot of glue is quite a strong contact adhesive, solvent based, and goes quite a long way. The leather conditioner is recommended for dry old leather, which ours is on the edge of being, and being used as more of a precaution than a cure. The other item not shown is the dye pen, something I opted for rather than a spray dye since the redying on these seats will be restricted to very localised areas to blend with the original finish.
Image

The passenger seat is the worst one in the car, with a lot of cracks and tears to the front bolster. Repairing the tears so they're stabilised is actually pretty straightforward. Cut the fabric into strips about 1.5-2" wide and then ease it between the leather and the padding, using one of the wooden sticks provided makes this quite easy. Then using the other wooden stick, dip it in the bottle of glue and smear the glue between the strip of fabric and the leather. It does work best if you glue one side of the tear down first, let it dry, then glue the other side, this allows you to line up the leather the closest and minimises the size of the repair. The leather on this section is under tension and seems to have shrunk a little, so the gaps I could do aren't quite as close as I would have liked, that's something the filler will fix. The kit did about half the tears on the section of leather, it's quite fragile when you handle it so some new tears were created as I was repairing old ones so it's a little fiddly until you've secured a couple of tears. Another kit should be enough to repair the remaining tears.
Image

To minimise the cat scratch damage and scuffs, I used the dye pen to draw and blob over the affected areas. Then, before the dye was dry, I quickly brushed over it with some paper towel to remove the excess dye and blend in the coloured area with the original finish. This worked exceptionally well on the cat scratches on the top of the seat. Perfection is undesireable with this job, so we're not trying to make the seats look like a uniform newly dyed leather, this approach helps draw the eye away from the damage and see the seat as a whole.
Image

Until the second repair kit arrives I can't do anything about the other cat scratch damage so opted to give everything a go over with the conditioner. The leather drank up a lot of the conditioner and did become softer afterwards, a few more applications should see the leather much more supple and less prone to further splitting. The previous conditioner we used was a lighter duty one and gave the leather a nice sheen, which is a nicer finish, so once we've fully repaired and applied some more of the heavier conditioner, we'll go back to that lighter one to bring the sheen back to the leather.
Image

I'm pretty sure the Wakeson products are generic and I could probably research it and buy it in bulk cheaper. However, it's not really cost effective for the quantity I need so I'm happy to buy the kits and products as they provide them since they do what we need at a sensible price.