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1951 LD10 KKV 222

Descriptive and in-depth articles on how to do repairs or restoration. (Wilf's articles visible by forum members only).
Vulgalour
Posts: 236
Joined: Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:04 pm
Location: Kent

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

We didn't know about that polish, that's a worthwhile thing to be aware of so we can keep the bakelite in good shape, thank you.

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Today we finished one of the front seats, the worst of the two. The end result is not perfect and, as has been stated before, that's actually not a problem with this particular car. We could have invested more time and different materials to attain a more perfect finish, this is instead conservation so the repair is not invisible. After getting all of the splits and tears repaired with the glue and bridging fabric, a small piece of new leather was cut to fit the hole from the cat damage. To try and hide the repair as much as possible, the piece of leather cut was done to follow the shape of the hole rather than making it a square or circle. The theory was that this would mean the edges looked more like the other cracks on the leather. We then applied the leather filler - seems to be some sort of latex or rubber base to this, it's a bit annoying to work with and shrinks - a couple of times to lessen the severity of the worst areas of repair on the seat. You can go further than this and then smooth the entire surface, following up with dye, we didn't want to do that since we want as much of the original leather to remain in the condition it is as possible.
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After that's done, use a combination of a sharp blade to scrape across the surface where the filler is thin, and fine sandpaper where it's thick, to blend it out into the original leather. This takes a while, the cat scratch damage in particular required several rounds of filler until it was somewhat even looking.
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After that, apply the dye of choice. I was using a dye pen which was good for the cracks, but could have done with something I could have applied with a cloth for the cat scratch repair. I made do with the pen, a small paintbrush, and some kitchen towel so that I could dot on the dye and blend it out in a few layers. The original dye on the seat varies quite a bit and the new dye looks very dark in places because of it. After the initial round of dye I used one of my alcohol based Copic markers in a different brown to blend out the new dye and repairs. It's very ad hoc in approach, you just sort of layer and feather repeatedly until you get something like a uniform look without it being a uniform single colour.
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A bit more effort and time and layers and it was about as good as it was ever likely to get. You can see in the daylight tha the finish between the Copic, the dye, and the original leather is variable in shininess, it's not so obvious in artificial light. The camera is also picking up on imperfections that don't jump out so much at you in person.
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To mellow this out, a couple more rounds of conditioner were used and that made the finish much more even as well as improving the general feel of the leather even further. We've now got to the point with this leather that the conditioner doesn't soak in straight away so we're pretty close to how it should be. We've probably given the leather 7 or 8 applications of conditioner now, which seems like a lot but has saved us a fortune on getting the seat recovered with new leather. The end result is quite remarkable, especially when you compare it to where we started.
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Next up will be the driver's seat. This needs much less repair, and another repair kit because it took two kits to do the passenger seat.
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All in, repairing and conditioning the seats has cost about £50-60, the door cards about £35 (plywood, glue, and escutcheon), and a few mornings and evenings of fiddly work between waiting for materials to dry. Even when you factor in the materials for the woodwork, the interior revival will have cost us £100, give or take a tenner, and that's an enormous saving on the conventional way of doing these things. The carpet is going to cost more to do than the woodwork and seats combined and that's usually the cheap bit!

Vulgalour
Posts: 236
Joined: Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:04 pm
Location: Kent

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

Today on the Lanchester, it's time to backwards engineer a door card. There's a lot of different ways to redo door cards, and this is one of the more involved approaches since we're trying to save and reuse as much of it as possible. The thing that makes this more difficult than it might be is that we're having to replace the board itself so that means stripping the whole thing into the component pieces to understand how to put it back together on a new board. The first stage of the process is to take a lot of photographs so you have the best record you can of construction. You'd be amazed how often something is confusing on assembly that a photograph will help explain, even if you weren't deliberately taking a photograph of the confusing item at the time. We've opted to go for the least damaged of the door cards, they all follow the same basic construction and this will give us the most accurate reference point since it has the least amount of missing or damaged parts. This approach can help if you're trying to rebuild a door card that's pretty far gone, it allows you to make educated guesses. The damage on this door card is limited to water damage along the bottom edge, the glue coming unstuck on the top edge, and a couple of missing tacks.
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When you take your detail shots, pay special attention to where materials overlap and how they interact. You'll find as you unpick each layer you'll need to take more images. If you're reusing the original material, as we intend to do, it's easier to see where things go because generally they want to go back where they were. Understanding the original construction means you're less likely to put undue stress on the fabric, and retain an original looking finish, especially when it comes to things like the way the end of the piping trim is closed, or the way it hooks around bracketry to keep a good clean line when the card is refitted.
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I also make a rough plan as I go along, marking all the details as I find them. I don't worry about measurements every time I do it, and I didn't in this instance either. I'll be transferring the measurements from the old card to the new pretty much by tracing, so the measurements aren't that vital at this stage. If the door card was more badly damaged then a to-scale diagram would be the choice. I also generally draw what I see to save on annotation and a confusing diagram, this used with the photographs gives me a very clear idea of what goes where and saves some time plotting everything out.
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The whole panel is held together with tacks and some glue and the cover is a layered construction. It makes for a quick assembly and a smart finish without need of specialist tooling. The only stitching is on the edge piping, the binding edge for the carpet panel, and the piping seam for the pocket elastic, that's a benefit of Rexine not fraying, you can save a lot of time by not having to finish raw edges. The first task was pulling the tacks I could see, this removed the edge piping and revealed some more tacks underneath holding the main cover in place. Once those tacks were removed the carpet panel could be carefully folded up so it lid face down on the rest of the door card and that revealed the three tacks holding it down. To get a nice sharp edge, Barker opted to tack the panel and then fold it rather than sewing and pressing, and that makes the job of removal a lot easier.
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With the carpet panel tacks removed there were several more tacks holding the bottom of the pocket in place.
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With those removed, the pocket panel could be opened, again up so it's face down against the door card, and that revealed the doubled-over cotton wadding used to give the pocket shape and softness.
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After that, fold the fabric upwards again until you get to the elastic cord. The cord is held in place by both the knots in it that stop it pulling through the door card, and two half inch tacks that are driven through the board (through the pocket fabric rather than the cord itself) and then bent over. This will be reduce strain on the corners of the pocket panel and prevent it tearing, also to prevent overstretching of the elastic cord that would result in saggy pockets. All of that removed we could carefully lift the rest of the cover free and reveal what was underneath. From the carpet panel up, the door card has a single layer of cotton wadding glued on. This is to give a smoother finish and a 'soft touch' to the rexine. It's understandably quite flat now and water damaged so will need replacing. Fortunately, this is a readily available material both from automotive suppliers and craft stores, the latter selling it for use in quilting.
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We will be using the same material rather than a modern foam equivalent for a number of reasons. The first is cost, there really isn't any saving to be had by using foam over the original cotton wadding. The second is smell, the interior of this car is almost entirely natural materials and as a result has a complex combination of smells that give it that 'old car smell', as soon as you start introducing modern materials like foam, you start getting 'new car smells' and we don't want that. The smell of a car is just as important as all the rest of the details. That said, there was one other item underneath the wadding layer and that's a felt pad for the door handle. There doesn't seem to be one for the window winder, it doesn't look like it's fallen off or worn out, there just isn't any evidence that one was there, so we shan't be fitting one unless the other door cards suggest there should be one there.
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Finally, we have all our pieces separated and ready for the next phase.
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In all, I removed 55 of the shorter 1/4" or 6mm tacks, and two of the bigger 1/2" or 12mm tacks. We're undecided if we're using tacks or staples to put everything back together, tacks are more original and possibly easier to remove should we have to, but staples do the same job and are easier to install. We'll figure it out when we try and acquire suitable hardware of either variety.
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After all that, the plan of the door card had evolved somewhat. There's still a couple of items to remove from the backing board, we've opted to leave them in place for now so we don't loose them, we'll remove them when we cut the new card so they can be transferred straight over.
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Given how easily the carpet sections come off, and that these are the most badly damaged portion of all the doors, we're considering replacing all of them when we fit the new carpet. That way it should blend in since the change between old and new is also a point where the materials change in type and texture so, in theory, it shouldn't be that noticable. That does give us an element of Project Creep since it means to finish the door cards we've got to get the carpet, and to do that we've also got to replace the missing kick panels since the carpet goes onto those and if we're doing that we should really get the front speakers for the entertainment centre... so we'll probably just redo the old door cards and leave the carpetted section off for now and then do all the carpet and kick panels later when we have the materials for that and have completed some of the other jobs instead.

Vulgalour
Posts: 236
Joined: Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:04 pm
Location: Kent

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

Our goal today was to remove the dashboard and starter motor so that they could be refurbished. We started with the dashboard since it looked to be a more involved job and it was going to take a while to figure out how it was held in place. As it happens, the main fascia of the dashboard is held in by three screws, on in each A pillar, and one in the centre, hidden from view. I couldn't get the camera to focus on the hidden one because of all the other items it wanted to focus on instead. Access to all the fixings is tricky and since it's all flathead screws that have gone a bit soft with rust, removal was a fraught endeavour. The two circles are the hole in the bracket, and the hole in the A pillar and this gives you some idea of what it was like to try and see what we were doing while working under the dashboard today. Also imagine bits of the floor jabbing into your back when you least wanted it, and stuff falling out of the dashboard into any part of the face you don't want it to.
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With that removed it was then time to figure out how to get the panel out. We couldn't risk removing the steering wheel as we didn't have the screws needed to replace the one that was threatening to self destruct last time, and there were a lot of items attached the dashboard that needed to not be. While we were under the dashboard we saw one possible reason for the wiper motor linkage rubbing against the back of the dashboard, there seems to be a missing screw in the plate that holds it.
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The other items we needed to disconnect were the heater switch, ignition switch, instrument binnacle, choke cable, starter cable, and fuel reserve cable. All of the cables are held to the back of the dash with a large nut recessed into the wood of the dashboard. All bar the fuel reserve cable nut came undone by hand, the fuel reserve required careful use of narrow pliers since none of the spanners could fit in the gap. The choke cable was disconnected from the carburettor and on trying to pull it through the bulkhead, the cable came out of the sheath and now doesn't want to go back in, judging by the state of the cable it's not the first time it's done that. To disconnect the fuel reserve cable we had to remove the passenger side front floor board for access, the fixings were just too difficult to get to from underneath the car. The starter cable proved the most difficult, the fixings for the cable on the starter motor are in such a place that it's really difficult to get to them, added to that the size of the bolt head that screws in to clamp the cable in place didn't seem to match any metric or imperial tool we owned, it was only after we finally got it out with pliers that we understood why.
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The capillary line for the temperature gauge was removed when we got the dashboard free, we unscrewed the temperature gauge from the instrument binnacle and then very carefully fed the capillary line through from the engine bay into the car. We couldn't see any other way to do this at the time, there didn't seem to be any obvious way to disconnect the line from the gauge. Our biggest obstacle to removing the dashboard now was the steering wheel, but I knew that on some cars if you unfasten the bracket that holds the column to the bulkhead, the column will drop down a bit, preventing the need to remove the steering wheel. I can also tell you that undoing the three bolts that hold the column to the bracket is nigh on impossible with the dashboard in place because you can't actually see all the nuts and bolts you're trying to undo. We did get there in the end. The top rail of the dashboard is held in with four screws, one at the outer corners, and one near each wiper spindle, all of these screws are awkward to get to, we are not looking forward to trying to reassemble everything.
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There was one casualty along the way which was the driver's side cubby, there was signs of water damage on it and as we tried to wiggle everything out past the steering column it started to collapse. It's intact enough that we can take a pattern and make a new one and since the glovebox is similarly tatty we'll redo both and reupholster them in something suitable, though perhaps not the original beige wool.
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With everything all out we could now get a look at the new wiring that had been let in. The work has been done reasonably well except for the fact that none of it is tidied away, it's all just draped over the top of the heater. Just as well we've ordered a brand new loom, this looks like it was just waiting to be an accident.
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The dashboard needed to come out both for refinishing and so we could more easily do the wiring loom, so as horrible a job as it's been, it was absolutely necessary. Another thing it's allowed us to do is see that the wiper mechanism is very sloppy, the main linking arm wobbles around quite a lot and it's not exactly clear how we're going to tighten this up again at this point, we'll have to investigate more thoroughly when we have more time. It was also quite clear someone has been behind the dashboard before as several screws were missing, including on of the two that holds the instrument binnacle in place, and there were a few newer screws here and there, all items we'll need to rectify on reassembly. With it removed, we could now get our first proper look at the dashboard, the condition of which isn't too terrible aside from a little water damage on the corners and the wear from the loose wiper mechanism. The radio blanking plate (we assume, it's about the right size) and controls are all in pretty good shape.
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On the speedometer there is a red line, it doesn't show up as red in photographs for some reason. Is this some sort of visual reminder for which gear to be in? Maybe instructing you to be in top gear by the time the needle gets to this point? EDIT: apparently this is to serve as a reminder of the speed limit in built-up areas.
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The boot handle was screwed back on now we have a working key for it and that makes life a lot easier on that front. I also put all the spanners into my old plywood toolbox which just happens to fit perfectly in the bottom portion of the Lanchester's boot.
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After a break we then spent some time scraping old varnish off before putting the first fresh coat of Danish Oil on the dashboard. As with the other wood, it's come up beautifully. There's a few tiny pieces of veneer missing that we're not worrying about since they're hidden by other bits of trim that overlap. With another couple of coats of oil, this dashboard is going to look excellent and will be a real treat when it's back in the car.
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Vulgalour
Posts: 236
Joined: Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:04 pm
Location: Kent

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

Work has been progressing steadily on the dashboard. Drying times aside, this has been a very quick job. One of the issues was that when you turned the heater knob, the whole assembly turned and we were concerned the controller might have seized. Luckily, it was just that the nut holding the controller to the back of the dashboard was a bit loose. Even so, we did take the heater controller apart, a case of prying back three metal tabs on the casing, so that we could get a better look inside it. It's a very simple item and therefore very easy to sort out. It was a bit corroded from sitting around, so we gave it a thoroughly clean to give it the best fighting change. It all cleaned up very well and moves much more freely than before.
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This was then reassembled and attention turned to sorting out the dash control knobs. Most of the original paint in the lettering on the knobs was missing, or discoloured to a degree that it was no longer legible. A good scrub in plain water followed by picking out any stubborn bits of old paint with a pin was followed by some good quality acrylic paint. You don't have to be at all tidy doing this, just load up the letters with as much paint as they'll take, wait for it to dry, and then polish the paint off on a piece of paper towel. This gives a nice crisp finish for minimal effort and can be redone just as easily in the future if needed. A good quality acrylic paint was chosen rather than enamel as it doesn't yellow with exposure to UV. Some people use Tippex or nail varnish for this job, the former has a habit of flaking off, the latter can be more difficult to clean since you have to use a solvent and that can lift paint out of the lettering as you clean.
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All of the exposed plywood edges were originally painted a dark brown, this seems to be common practice with mid-century modern furniture too. I used black, since I had some left over from the restoration of an antique sideboard that's made in the same way as this dashboard, and that works just fine. It's a slightly translucent paint so it does allow some of the brown of the plywood to show through, the finish ends up closer to dyed wood than painted.
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I then reassembled all the bits of the dashboard I could that were finished. The only item I'm having difficulty with is the choke cable which does not want to thread through from the front. Because of the way the sheath is made, you have to thread the cable in from the engine end, the step of the sheath as it goes into the holder that screws into the dashboard is such that it always catches whatever cable or wire you try to thread through. I'm considering getting some very skinny plastic pipe, threading that through from the engine end of the sheath, fitting the cable into it and then pulling the whole lot back through to get around the step. Failing that, unsoldering the cable, threading it through from the engine end, and the re-soldering it into the brass tube ferrule might be the only way to do it. It'll sort. the other item that was tidied up on the dashboard was the flaking paint on the ignition/headlight switch. You can get a black sticker with white lettering for this which is usually for Land Rovers. We're either going to get a reproduction sticker to match the original cream paint with brown lettering, or we'll get the three positions stamped into the polished bezel and then put paint in the recesses as with the control knobs. There was no saving the original paint, it had basically turned into confetti.
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Finally, we got the opportunity to see the dashboard all together since all the finishes on it were done that could be. The collapsed cubby box might actually be salvagable, most of the damage is to the front edge so in theory we should be able to just cut the first inch or so off it, strengthen any weak spots with resin or similar, and recover it, both dashboard boxes need recovering anyway and this would be the most cost effective solution as things stand. Obligatory before and after shots.
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Vulgalour
Posts: 236
Joined: Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:04 pm
Location: Kent

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

Time for another instalment of Lanchester fettling. Quite a few small jobs have been ticking over and I've been saving up the progress made until I had something to put together into a single post. We found, and were the only bidders, on a pair of working Lucas WT29 horns, or so they were described. Hopefully that will at least give us a look at how a working pair are supposed to go together and figure out why ours are being so recalcitrant. Here's hoping the new horns arrive safely. Progress on the dashboard has been continuing steadily in our free time, and the fabric stash raided to see if we had anything suitable that would suit the car without looking too out of place. I know there was no pale coloured wool, and the dark coloured wool I did have didn't look right against the restored dashboard. Eventually, we settled on two scraps of artificial silk leftover from sewing projects past and not enough to really do much of anything else with. This is the first item that goes against the originality brief but we think it's allowed because it looks nice and it at least fits in with the ethos of using what you've got to keep things nice. After stripping off the old fabric and discovering the back of the storage bins are a separately covered piece, some repairs were done and then the backing boards covered in the paler of the two fabrics in the same way they were done originally. That is to say, messily on the side that isn't seen. It was actually a bit surprising just how quick and lazy an approach was taken to upholstering these pieces, fabric is basically stuffed where needed, wrapped around and glued, then wedged together to fit.
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The second bit, while the first bit dried, was to line the storage bins themselves, this time by using a strip of fabric glued around the inside of the bin. Because this artificial silk is quite thin, we also used a bit of the cotton wadding we ordered for the door cards (the smallest quantity is far more than we need) to line all the pieces which will lend a nicer finish by hiding the fixing rivets and making the fabric feel a little plush. The copper fabric is extremely shiny on the facing side, on the reverse it looks a lot more like shot silk so that's the side we had facing out. Because this isn't real silk we shouldn't have issues with sun damage or the fabric rotting away, and because it's been in the fabric stash for a long time, it no longer has that new fabric smell. Lining the boxes is easy, you roll the fabric up and start from the seam at the top centre of the box, then unroll it using pegs to hold it at the top. There's no need for any glue. The one mistake I made was the larger box I cut the edge fabric too short and the scrap I had left wasn't long enough to redo it in one piece. Instead of panicking, I just folded the raw edges and put another piece in to bridge the cap, If I hadn't told you, you'd think it was a design feature rather than a mistake... unless you know anything about sewing and upholstery I suppose. Anyway, it's fine, it looks fine.
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With that all pegged in place, I could put the contact adhesive on the back of the first panel we covered and in the base of this panel. There's no need to glue the copper coloured fabric because when you (carefully) push the paler backing piece in, it holds all of the raw edges out of sight and under as much tension as is required for this application. Originally, the fabric was glued to the sides of the box, one downside of this fabric is that the glue bleeds straight through to the front and looks unsightly (test samples are a good idea for this reason) so we'll be gluing this in differently. Since the pale piece holds one end of the copper fabric in, we'll do as Barker did and glue the other end of the fabric to the bracket faces and the edges of the box so that when the box is screwed back onto the dashboard there's no way for the fabric to escape.
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With the base piece glued in and the pegs holding the fabric, fill the boxes with whatever you can that's got some weight and fits, and leave to cure. The box that was water damaged was repaired with a combination of leather offcuts, hessian, and contact adhesive and is now almost as strong as it was originally without altering its original dimensions. We could have bought the materials to remake the box, but since it's not really visible and this repair is perfectly adequate, this is the option we went for.
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The original fabric was very dirty and in places moth-eaten (perhaps even literally) so replacement of some sort was likely to happen anyway.
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Speaking of moths, we got some little cedar wood blocks to dot around the car to keep the moths at bay and protect the headlining a bit. You can re-infuse these blocks with cedar, lavender, or camphor oil to refresh them so they're a very affordable moth deterrent solution.
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Another item that was solved by chance was making use of a little velvet bag some horrendous cufflinks I ordered came in, turns out it's just the right size to put on the keys so they can't scuff up the dashboard. Even covers up the keyring nicely.
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For some idea of how the newly recovered storage boxes look in the dashboard, here's a view of that. You'll have to imagine the copper fabric with some more tension and a smoother finish, than it has here. The colours compliment the wood nicely and the machine embroidery is a nice little flourish. They also feel quite nice because of the padding.
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The driver's seat as was has now been fully repaired too. The leather on this seat is a good bit lighter than the passenger seat so the dye does stand out a bit, it's also not been conditioned after the repair and we know from experience that will help mellow and blend in the dye a bit better. We actually ended up swapping the drivers and passenger seats over and found that there's better knee support for the driver that way. Even though the seats did look the same, there must be some slight variation in them that's not so obvious to the naked eye.
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The really scary job to do was the instrument cluster. One problem with it was that the original pad-printed lettering on the back of the glass was flaking off and we didn't really know what to do about it. That is, until Baumgartner posted a video about restoring a reverse painted oil-on-glass painting. This would give some insight into what to expect from paint on glass and how to potentially fix it.


Obviously, we're neither of us professional conservators, but the age of information allows us to get a glimpse into techniques that would otherwise be unfamiliar, and adapt them to our current needs. The first task was to actually get to the back of the glass, and that meant dismantling the unit. We also hoped the glass would be separate to make the face of the binnacle easier to repaint, more on that shortly. The binnacle is made of three steel pressings, the rear being bare steel painted white inside, the intermediate piece being white on the back and cream/ivory on the front, and the front pressing being painted mid-brown front and rear, with a darker brown scumble on the face.
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The unit is illuminated by just two bulbs, these go into the two round holes halfway down the unit on each side. All of the instruments are held in with very short flat head screws, except for the clock which is missing one screw and has had the other modified in the past with a saw to make it a cross head which none of my screwdrivers actually fit. The two riveted pieces to the top left and right are the bulb holders for the oil and ignition lights, these shine through coloured lenses that are held in with rubber tubes sandwiched between the layers of the binnacle. The two large tabs on the side are what holds the whole binnacle to the back of the dashboard, one of the screws was missing when we removed the dashboard, presumed repurposed as one of the three screws holding the washer jet pump that a previous owner added.
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For the illumination, the bulb's light is supposed to be directed out of the little bay through several holes. However, in part because this isn't a superb design, and in part because the white paint isn't particularly bright any more, it doesn't work very well at all.
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So, one of the things we'll be doing to improve this is to replace all of the white painted areas you don't see when the binnacle is together, with modern chrome paint. It shouldn't negatively affect the colour of the light, but should improve the amount of it. We may also upgrade the bulbs to warm white LED equivalents to improve matters. This image really is as good as it currently gets and there's nothing wrong with the lightbulbs.
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o the task at hand then, which is the numbers. This design is supposed to give you 'floating' numbers, so far as I can work out, and when it's done well it's quite a pleasing thing to look at. Each of the numbers is printed with a black drop shadow to emphasise the effect. Unfortunately, while all the black remains, most of the white paint has peeled up and fallen off so the letters don't float that well.
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There are various solutions to this issue and had it not been for the Baumgartner video above, this could have proven tricky to resolve. We didn't want to have a custom vinyl made, or transfers, since that would mean getting everything exactly aligned. We also can't remove the glass from the face of the binnacle, it's bonded on very well and to try and separate the two risks breaking the glass so that's something we have to work around. Instead, we had to find some way to both stabilise what was left, and replace what was missing. Fortunately, we found a way, and the trial of it on the glass proved it to be quite effective.
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What's more, it didn't require any specialist tools to be bought. The same paint brush and high quality acrylic paint as was used on the control knobs was used for this. Good old Citadel paints and tiny artist brushes.
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The reason for using this particular paint is that we know it's very UV stable, not prone to shrinking or fading, and sticks really very well to just about any surface you care to apply it to. It also behaves incredibly well, so you can predict where it's going to go and, since we both have years of experience of using it, we know just how to make it do what we want when you need to do a very controlled bit of detailed work. One very fortunate thing with the way the original numbers are applied is that it leaves just a bit of rough surface even when the old paint has flaked off, and that works a bit like a primer. If you dot the paint on it wants to flow only where the primer is and avoids going on the glass, so you can get it almost exactly where it used to be. Because of the aforementioned video, we knew not to clean the old paint off, or clean the glass, and instead used the new acrylic paint to serve as a bonding agent as well as a paint in its own right, stabilising what was left of the original paint and filling in the missing areas. It was jolly hard work to do, but the results really do speak for themselves. The letters actually do appear to float because now they actually cast a shadow and, when the binnacle is illuminated properly they should block out the light and become more visible by contrast.
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The scumbling is very straight forward and quite affordable so some samples will be run before we commit to doing that on the instrument binnacle. Careful masking of the glass should make for a very sharp end result. The intermediate panel may also get repainted on the visible side because where the 20/30 is on the speedometer you can see a bit of brown staining, this is rust just coming through the very thin original paint. It is a satin finish rather than gloss, to give it that look of a more expensive ceramic surface so it will be a case of finding a close match to the instruments themselves. The instrument faces aren't rusting because they're painted over aluminium and are all in very good shape so we'll leave those be.

We do hope folks are finding these posts useful, our goal with this thread is to share information and get more reference images and good DIY solutions out there to help other owners keep their projects going, or just get started, however big or small the challenge they're facing.

Brian-H
Very Wise Man
Very Wise Man
Posts: 1095
Joined: Fri Aug 09, 2019 6:04 pm
Location: UK

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Brian-H »

Vulgalour wrote: Fri Sep 25, 2020 1:08 am We found, and were the only bidders, on a pair of working Lucas WT29 horns, or so they were described. Hopefully that will at least give us a look at how a working pair are supposed to go together and figure out why ours are being so recalcitrant.
If they were these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203108990568 then, going by the description (and refurbished exterior), expect them to work perfectly.
First thing I'd do is check the resistance between brown and blue for each horn. According to PDF page 3 (v), should be 0.28 Ohm . Then see which wire, probably blue, is connected to the chassis (should get 0.00 Ohm from one wire to any of the screws, and, the measured resistance from the other wire to the screw).
Only then, connect directly across a 12V car battery. If everything checked/worked ok, then (not before) remove the domes and cross-check what you can see with the original horns (according to PDF page 3 (iii) you might find an 8 Ohm resistor across the winding in the ebay horns). Other than removing the domes, I wouldn't go any further than removing the domes on these refurbished ebay horns.

Vulgalour wrote: Fri Sep 25, 2020 1:08 am We do hope folks are finding these posts useful, our goal with this thread is to share information and get more reference images and good DIY solutions out there to help other owners keep their projects going, or just get started, however big or small the challenge they're facing.
Definitely found the stuff on the leather very useful indeed. My (long deceased) wife did the wood ~30 years ago, not sure where she learned how to do it. Can't remember how she got the original varnish (whatever) off, think she used French polish afterwards. I should have paid more attention when she did it (I worked on the engine from Exchange & Mart).

Vulgalour
Posts: 236
Joined: Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:04 pm
Location: Kent

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

Those are the horns. Thank you for the guide on checking them, we shall heed that when they arrive. We're hoping that by checking a working pair, we can find out and possibly repair what's wrong with our existing pair. If we're really lucky, we'll end up with a spare pair we can then keep in reserve as spares, or sell on to recoup some costs.

It's good to hear some of the information has been useful. It's marvellous when you can work together with your partner on a project, some project threads I've followed over the years do rather gloss over their input on what is quite often some of the most important details since they're the items we see and contact every time we use the car, like the woodwork on your own car.

Vulgalour
Posts: 236
Joined: Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:04 pm
Location: Kent

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

Work on the Lanchester continues apace. The new entertainment system arrived and having taken it apart already, it's proven pretty much ideal as an upgradable unit for what we intend to do. It's nice that it doesn't really need any restoration work to fit in and even the wood on it is a very close match to the wood in the car. The dials are sticking up like that because they're not actually attached at the moment.
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The other job was to redo the hessian backing for the underside of the seat base. The existing one exhibited signs of rodent and moth damage, along with many years of use. First was to unpick the very crude running stitch holding the hessian in place which was done with what was basically string and appears to be completely original as it matches the similarly crude stitching holding the fabric to the frame. With the hessian removed, you can get to the black felt that sits between it and the springs, and then to the springs themselves. The internals of the seat are in exceptionally good condition with no rusting or pest damage evident.
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With the backing removed we could lay it out on some new hessian ready for recovering. The new hessian is from Woolies and cost just £7 for a piece that's larger than we need.
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After some discussion, we decided to keep the original hessian and cover over it. Rather than sewing it back on, we used contact adhesive. With the old hessian as a folding guide, we simply folded the new hessian over and glued it in place, holding it all together with pegs while it dried.
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To reattach this to the seat base we again opted for contact adhesive. This isn't original in approach but does mean we're not trying to re-use the original stitching holes, or putting extra holes into the material and putting it under any undue stress. It also makes this entirely reversible should we need to in the future. The felt has shrunk a little so it was given a few stitches through the middle to catch it to the hessian and hold it in place so it didn't crumple up as it had in the past. The two vent holes were also cut into the new hessian, these should help displace the air without putting stress on the fabric when someone sits in the seat, a small detail but an important one that the seat base has had from new. Also of note is the small rough-sewn hessian bag tacked to the underside, this contains some cedar blocks to deter moths from having a nibble on the wool felt.
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The front seats and rear seat base were then plonked back in the car, a job of mere moments. We swapped the two front seats from how it came to us originally so that the one with the heavier repairs is the driver's seat. The camera has been quite unkind about the colour difference of the dye, it seems to be set to some sort of high contrast mode that makes everything look a little strange.
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In other news, we have a new video to enjoy now that we've acquired a new camcorder.


alex_gray255
Posts: 51
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2019 7:17 pm
Location: Nr. Cambridge, UK

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by alex_gray255 »

Looks very nice!

Vulgalour
Posts: 236
Joined: Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:04 pm
Location: Kent

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

Brian-H wrote: Fri Sep 25, 2020 3:29 am If they were these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203108990568 then, going by the description (and refurbished exterior), expect them to work perfectly.
First thing I'd do is check the resistance between brown and blue for each horn. According to PDF page 3 (v), should be 0.28 Ohm . Then see which wire, probably blue, is connected to the chassis (should get 0.00 Ohm from one wire to any of the screws, and, the measured resistance from the other wire to the screw).
Only then, connect directly across a 12V car battery. If everything checked/worked ok, then (not before) remove the domes and cross-check what you can see with the original horns (according to PDF page 3 (iii) you might find an 8 Ohm resistor across the winding in the ebay horns). Other than removing the domes, I wouldn't go any further than removing the domes on these refurbished ebay horns.
The new horns arrived today and following these instructions, we got 0.05-0.11 Ohm on the quieter horn and 0.23-0.32 Ohm on the louder one. On the original horns we got no reading on one of them, and 0.00-0.02ohm on the stripped and rebuilt one. The assembly order of components for the points inside the dome of the new horns is slightly different to the originals, and the coil windings look a lot cleaner. A quick test with a battery revealed both new horns work and the loud one is, even with warning of it being such, shockingly loud. That's an item ticked off the list, though it would be nice to find out just what's gone wrong with the original horns some day.

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