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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 »

The switch cleaner shouldn't do any harm, it evaporates off just like IPA does and leaves nothing behind. I'm sure we'll be fine. Honestly, the switch cleaner helped flush a lot of the debris out that a cloth and petrol/IPA wouldn't have so easily though in the future, it will be a case of maintenance rather than cleaning so we shouldn't need to be quite so gung ho about it. It's going to take me a while to get my head around the sixteenths rule on sizes, Pat is much better with numbers than I am. Being of a creative bent I'm far better with the abstract than the logical and really struggle with numbers in particular. The Consort diagrams are better than the ones we have to hand as it happens, though they show the same process, that's the approach we'll be taking once the car is in use as we'll definitely be keeping on top of the maintenance schedule to ensure our hard work isn't undone.

While I'm here, it's worth noting that it looks like I'll have some extra time free this weekend so if Pat also has his predicted free time available and the weather is good we will be able to make a start on the wiring. We're going to start in the engine bay and work to the back of the car, that way we should be able to get it mobile quicker since all the important bits for driving it are from the dashboard forwards. Interior light, semaphores, and rear lights are less important and more difficult to rewire because of the bits of the interior we'll need to disturb. Fingers crossed everything lines up for us so we can bring you more Lanchester updates.

Brian-H
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Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Brian-H »

I have to confess that only about a year ago, when the motor in my jig saw started to play up, I opened it up and saw that the brushes were worn right down. I wedged some small bits of plastic in to move them tight onto the commutator, and liberally dosed it all with switch cleaner :shock: I expected it to badly arc and catch fire :!: 240 V AC :!: but it worked fine while I ordered some new brushes from ebay. New brushes fitted and it's still working fine

I don't know what's in switch cleaner that's not in IPA, but as I say, Servisol also sell spray cans of IPA, so there must be a difference - maybe an ingredient called pedantism :lol:

Re spanners, just convert to sixteenths, ignore the bottom (denominator) and then use the top (numerator) so there are 16 sizes in an inch. Putting 8/16 on a spanner would look daft instead of 1/2, that's the only issue really.

I don't envy the new wiring job - if it's same as Consort then the dash and bulkhead and engine compartment will be tricky, the rest runs along the chassis to the back, and the feed up to the semaphores and light come from the back. Maybe just leave the original wiring to semaphores and light in place and splice into the back using inline fuses ?

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

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

We don't really want to leave any of the old wiring in place, so much of it has been brittle and caused problems already that it seems safest to replace the lot at this point. Whether it runs over the headlining on the drivers side as we suspect it does, or along the chassis, it's going to be a faff to sort. Worth it, but a faff. We'll also be upgrading to flashing indicators with the new loom, and an auxilliary power socket. LED high level brake light and indicators in the rear window, and multi-function sidelight/indicators at the front, while also retaining the semaphores and their usual function so externally the car won't look upgraded until the lights come on. This should hopefully make the rear lights particularly much more visible to other traffic.

Brian-H
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Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Brian-H »

On the Consort the wire for the semaphore runs from the back (in the boot), and up through holes in each rib to the B pillar. The wire for the interior light runs with the wire for the driver's side semaphore and then across to the middle. You might get away with running stout string on the pull out of the wire, but if that fails, it's going to be tack removal time on part of the lining. Having the headlining out already it would be easy for me to replace, but if I hadn't taken the headlining out then personally I wouldn't even attempt it. The wires don't carry much current and they'll be fine, quick-blow inline fuses where they appear down at the back (in the boot) would be an acceptable precautionary measure.

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

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

What a frustrating long weekend this has been so far. Intermittent rain has stopped any sort of play on the Lanchester and while I'm hoping for a long enough bit of stable weather to do something on it today, it certainly won't be any where near what we'd hoped to achieve. I might just wheel it out to do some undercarriage degreasing and cleaning since that won't matter so much if it rains and might make some of the wiring work more pleasant to do.

Brian-H
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Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Brian-H »

I know it's not much use, but I found the instructions for removing the front bodywork - see removal in this link http://ld10.awardspace.co.uk/bay/engine.htm Very similar to the Consort.

An alternative would be to remove just each wing and leave al the rest in place i.e. the front bumper (not really necessary to remove anyway), radiator hoses, stay rods, bonnet, radiator cradle, and radiator.

All you'd need to do to remove a wing is (from the link)
7) Under the front wings, remove 3x 1/4" BSF hexagon headed screws which hold the rear of each front wing to the bulkhead and 4 which hold the inner wing panel to the bulkhead (2 sets of 7 screws in all).

You'd also have to remove the screws that hold the wing to the radiator cradle (probably 1 or 2 each), and probably a stay under each wing, and screws to the front apron. It's only the latter which might be problematic.

Did this myself on my Consort about 30 years ago after having removed the front bodywork as a unit, and then decided to strip it down to repair some rust in the apron and wings - and I put the radiator, cradle, stays, and bonnet back so as to be able to run the engine and work on it. The wings went back on later (without apron) and come off very easily, presently removed from the car and stored - makes it very easy to work on everything.

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

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

We did look into removing the front end and decided to only do it if we absolutely had to. Actually getting the panels somewhere safe to store them isn't that easy, access to the back garden (where it would be safest) is via a narrow path and getting the wings alone down there is going to be a nuisance. The other option is to remove the panels and drape them back on the front of the car every time we've finished for the day (there's isn't enough space in the garage to store them otherwise, no rafter space due to the up-and-over door and the slope of the roof) and that's just an extra layer of work and time to every time we get the car out. So, until we have to, we'll leave things in one piece. As it happens, today's efforts highlighted that we probably don't have to remove the bodywork, happily, and that it might even be easier to route the wiring with the bodywork kept in place, particularly the bits that go on the front wings.

---

A little bonus Lanchester update for you all today. Pat and I had a long weekend that coincided for once and, unfortunately, the weather conspired against us making use of it on the Lanchester. Instead, our time was spent together in the garden where rain wouldn't be so much of an issue and that's now looking much better for the attention.

However, today the weather cleared for a short while, quite unexpectedly, while Pat was at work. So I decided to ignore my aching joints (when I say gardening, it was lots of clearing, fence building, digging holes, moving rubble... not just sticking some pansies in a nice flower bed while enjoying a glass of lemonade and the sunshine) and haul the Lanchester out of the garage so I could take a look at the wiring loom.

An hour later, I was still none the wiser. I think I've figured out which bit goes to the back of the instrument cluster since that's the only bit with the specific sort of bulb holders it takes, and which bit goes behind the dashboard itself since that's got a lot of connectors and branches compared to the rest. That still leaves me with several sections of loom that I don't actually know the location for. None of the loom is labelled, and it came with no instructions or diagram and while the Lanchester is very simple and the wiring for the most part original and unmolested, it's still quite a job to figure it out.

Anyway, all this is to say I decided to start unpicking the wiring that is in the car so I could compare it to the new loom and work out what goes where. First task, start disconnecting items from the bulkhead.
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This took a while because I made myself a little diagram as I worked, marking the location and direction of the wires running to and from the voltage regulator/fuse bank and the white connector block below. About half of the wires go into the cabin, the other half seem to go down the outside of the steering column and out into the generator, starter motor, and front lights. After painstakingly unpicking and noting things I got to this point.
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Let me tell you, I was glad of the carpet in the car, it was so much nicer to lay on than the boards and made it much easier to see what I was actually doing since I had a nice uniform colour background behind the work. Doing the carpet before the wiring might have seemed an odd choice, but I reaped the benefits of it today. The branch of wiring I removed went to the instrument cluster, across the bulkhead and out to the oil pressure switch and the coil negative. Some of it is original, some the new wiring a previous owner installed. All of the old wiring is quite brittle, the coating is quite fragile, and where new wire joins old the fittings generally fell off so it's less than ideal to leave it in place.
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That left things looking like this.
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It took a lot longer to dismantle than expected for the small amount of wiring removed. This is mostly because I'm taking care to label and record everything as it comes out, and to label anything that has to stay in the car for future reference. It's a slow job and my first foray into this. I've read other build threads and watched videos which has helped me keep things organised and lend some confidence. The other items that came out where the wiper motor and heater box, both of which can now be refurbished much easier. I couldn't tell where the wires were going for the wiper motor and heater box, they disappeared behind both and without removing them I hadn't realised I could have disconnected the wiring without removing either item. However, we were expecting to have to pull these items anyway for servicing and repair so it's not an issue. It also gives a bit more room under the dashboard to get to where the wiring needs to live.
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For the wiper motor, two nuts need to be undone behind the dashboard inside the car, or in the case of our car just the one nut since one was missing and will need to be replaced. Happily the rubber shaped washers are both present and in good shape so we won't need to try and find those. The heater comes out by disconnecting the heater hoses at the bulkhead and then undoing three nuts on the engine side of the bulkhead. There's then one wire to disconnect before you can remove it from the car. We'd be interested to know what the markings refer to on the heater, simply out of curiosity.
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The core on the heater leaks, and looks to have been doing so for some time. Pat and I have been warned that these heater boxes are sensitive to pressure, too much and they burst, so perhaps that's what happened here?
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What came out of the heater wasn't too nice. It smelled like overheated coolant and had a slightly greasy feel, like mayonnaise, while also being a decidedly unpleasant colour. We're hoping we can get this flushed and repaired since it seems to be original to the car. We know more modern heaters exist, and this one could probably be retrofitted with something of that sort, but it would be nice to retain this one if we can for the novelty of it if nothing else.
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Pat got home from work just as I was packing up and we had just enough time to get the Lanchester put away before it started raining again. The wiring feels a little less daunting now. I couldn't find any wiring underneath the car aside from the main battery cable and I also couldn't see a route it was taking from front to back so I'm hoping as I unpick more of the old wiring the path it actually takes will become clear, right now it's not very obvious.

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watkindj
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Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by watkindj »

The loom enters the chassis under the back seat, comes out of the chassis rail, alongside the petrol tank, because the chassis rail is partially blocked by the cross-tube. If I remember correctly, the loom re-enters the chassis behind the same cross tube, then comes out again just in front of the rear cross-tube. The in-out-in-out creates a convolution that should make it impossible (or very difficult) to pull through.
watch for earth point on O/S rear above bumper bracket

notes on earth returns (one on gearbox seen under front passenger floorboard)
Darren
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http://ld10.awardspace.co.uk

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

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

That makes sense of why I couldn't find it, I hadn't actually been looking there for it, I'd been looking just about everywhere else and having a bit of a grope in the chassis and couldn't find anything I expected to. Mind you, given the other wiring repairs there's a good chance that the original route isn't being adhered to which would further muddy the waters. We'll get the car out and jacked up at the next opportunity, try and get the rear end a good way in the air so we can have a proper look underneath. Everything is quite dirty from the B pillars back so a lot of the wires and cables and such are probably obscured from view. No doubt it will be obvious when we find it. Thank you for the tip.

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

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

Today the last of the engine bay wiring was removed. The repair work done in the past has muddied things a lot, we need to go through and work out what's actually been done so we can understand it a bit better. The best news is we've finally found the route the wiring takes to the back of the car. The reason we couldn't find the wiring before is that it is quite well hidden unless you know where you're looking, so thank you ocne again to watkindj for giving us the tip off on where to look for that. With all the new stuff out of the engine bay we could actually see where the original wiring disappears into a boxed section of the chassis and could then find it underneath the car where it reappears in an open section of the chassis and runs to the back of the car. This probably means the wiring branches off at the B pillar on the driver's side for the semaphore, goes up to the interior light (which has never worked while we've had the car) and down to the other semaphore. In theory, we should be able to attach string or similar to the passenger side semaphore wiring and the interior light wiring to pull the old wires through and then feed the new wires back in without disturbing the headlining at all.

We've also found more and more problems with the old wiring as we've removed it from the car. It really does seem like it's the failing wiring that took the car off the road more than anything else, clearly someone has gone to a lot of effort to keep things going, it just wasn't enough as the old wiring continued to disintegrate.

There will be a video going into more detail on the process, with pictures and write up as usual. The next section to tackle is the chassis back to the B pillars and just see how we go. If we're lucky we'll be able to get all the way to the rear lights in one day, there's much less sign of alterations and repairs once you get under the car so hopefully it will all be a bit easier going.

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