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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 »

Thank you for the information, Brian, that helps me understand the manual and what I'm seeing in the unit a little better, top tip on the power unit thing too, I probably won't go for that one since cash is a little tight at the moment (shoulder injury cost me all of February and its associated earnings), though it's useful to have the info to hand when things are a little better balanced. Thank you also, Syd, for speaking up about the valves, should we need them then we'll be sure to give you a nudge.

It has been a productive day on the Lanchester, plenty of footage for an upcoming Lanchester video. Almost got the interior back together now and decided to plonk the Ekco in the cabin to see just where it might fit and... er...
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That's going to require some thinking. One advantage of the tiny interior of the Lanchester is that the orange carpet I saved from the Princess has actually got enough material in it to do the Lanchester, at least on a first trial fit, and the colour is a lot less offensive than you might expect due to the copious amounts of brown.
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There will be a full and proper video update and write up in a few weeks when the interior should be all together. As you can see, I did figure out how to get the dashboard in without removing the steering wheel and three out of four door cards are fitted, the fourth requires some fitment fettling and we simply ran out of time today to do any more. These old car interiors are surprisingly labour intensive to put together and so cramped that recording-while-doing is almost not an option.

Simon Hyslop

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Simon Hyslop »

I appreciate the radio is just placed temporarily in the picture but I thought it worth mentioning about two things. First is that one of the really handy features of these cars is being able to slide across the seats and leave through the passenger side door, as was originally intended hence the door lock on the passenger side only and the interior locking driver's door. Having something in the way of feet or knees to do this may be a little awkward.
Secondly, having relatively easy access to the removable gearbox cover panel is a good thing as checking the oil level in the gearbox and fluid flywheel is a task to carry out at least once a year. This is also made easier by having a separate piece of removable carpet covering the panel.

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

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

The working theory at the moment is to make some sturdy brackets to raise the radio up to a more user friendly height without blocking the heater behind. The brackets would bolt into the inspection cover using the existing bolts so the whole lot is easier to move for checks and fully reversible. Possibly fit a small basket underneath the radio for a little in car storage too. That way the radio can sit a little further back out of the way of feet, in theory. The orange carpet isn't permanent either, I should have mentioned that, it's just so we have carpet and to provide a template, the end goal is some nice brown wool as was fitted originally, and we're planning to leave the service hatch uncarpetted for ease of access.

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

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

Today, I finished editing the next Lanchester video which is due for release next Tuesday, the 30th of March. My videos are scheduled for release every Tuesday at 3pm, cars one week, crafts the next. It won't always be Lanchester videos on a car week, and it won't always be sewing videos on a crafts week, so it's a bit of a lucky dip. I see from the data that Youtube gives me that there's been a steady increase in views on the Lanchester content and traffic has been heading towards the channel from this very forum, so thank you everyone that has stopped by and had a peruse. If you've left a like, a comment, or better yet subscribed, thank you for that too! The more I can get the channel to grow, the nearer to earning I can get and then the more content I can afford to create. Pat and I want to do some proper adventures in the Lanchester when it's sorted out and we'd love to share that on the channel too.

If there's anything about the LD10 you'd like to see, any particular jobs or how bits are put together, do please ask. If I can get it into a video, especially if it's part of a job we'll actually be doing, I'm more than willing to do so. The goal is to share as much information on these cars as possible after all, so your input really helps there. Whenever we find good materials or suppliers, and that appears in the videos, we'll be sure to share links for future reference and again, get more information out there to make everyone's life easier.

Soon I do hope to have the free time to create some Lanchester artwork for the print shop. As far as I'm aware, there isn't any copyright infringement issues there as there can be with Daimler (and Jaguar, Land Rover, Lamborghini, Volvo, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen, BMW....) so I should be okay to do so. Obviously that means Daimler artwork won't be forthcoming, which is a shame since I'd quite like to create some Majestic and DS420 pieces. Ah well.

One thing we are on the look out for is the brass screws that go in the horn push/semaphore unit in the steering wheel centre. A silly mistake when I misunderstood how the steering wheel is removed (and was blind to the info actually available on this very subject for some reason) means I need to replace them and I'm not sure what size they should be or where to get them.

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

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

Time for a Lanchester video.



Getting the interior refitted threw up its own challenges, and we're learning as we go. I'll do the full write up later when the video has had chance to get a bit of attention, that way I can hopefully address any questions etc. when I do the write up.

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

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

As usual, check out the video above for more on how this job went and some nice footage of the Lanchester out in the sunshine. This update's job was to try and reinstall the newly refurbished door cards. As you'll recall, we'd replaced one missing escutcheon, the plywood backing boards, the padding, and the tacks and rivets that hold everything together. All of the original elastic cord, rexine, carpet, and door furniture have been retained. This is the approach throughout, replace items only where necessary.

First task is to identify the fixings for the door cards so we can reinstall them. In theory, this should be a simple case of slotting the keyhole brackets on to the screws that are in the wooden frame of the door. There's two of these screws for each door card. They're the silver headed screws on the leading edge of the door frame in the following shot. The upper one was missing on the passenger front door and the lower one not in great shape.
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Then it's simply a case of slotting the brackets over the screw heads to hold the door card in place so you can put the other fixings in. Only, we'd made a mistake. You see, even when the eyes of the whole internet are on your project, you've taken lots of reference photos, and you've been really picky about making sure things are correct, sometimes you miss the obvious. The obvious we'd missed was that every single keyhole bracket was on upside down. Unfortunately, the rivets holding them in do an incredibly good job and are very difficult to remove without damaging the plywood.
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To fix that issue, we had to remove half the tacks and peel back some of the rexine to get access. We also found on the trial fit - we could still get a couple of the other fixings home to at least put the cards in the correct place - that the front passenger door card was catching on the leading edge. The rear driver's door card was also catching on the trailing edge. The other more annoying problem was that the escutcheons for the window winders could not physically be compressed far enough to get access to the locking pin hole... all in all it meant partially dismantling all of the door cards to correct these minor issues. The hole for the window winder escutcheon was increased such that the escutcheon could recess slightly into the door card, 6 of the 8 keyhole brackets were removed and reinstalled the correct way up, and the two slightly oversized door cards were retrimmed accordingly. A little time with hammers and tacks later and we had the door cards ready to go again.
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Refitting wasn't too bad though it did end up being a two person job. It's easier for you to see the struggle in the video, but essentially you need one person to hold the handle and drive the pin home, while the other pushes against the spring inside the escutcheon to keep it out of the way of the pin. On attempting to do this job we understood why when we got the car the escutcheon and pin were missing on the driver's door and had been replaced with a piece of twisted wire. To fit the door cards, there's the two screws that go in the keyhole brackets, two screws that go on the B pillar side through the door frame and into a bracket on the door card, one screw at each top corner that is hidden by the wooden trim, and two to four screws along the bottom edge through the carpet. Once you've done all those, you can put the wooden capping back on, being sure that the screw holes are lined up with the holes in the metal tongues on the capping, and then screw in the door pull handle. It was a far more involved process rebuilding these doors than expected and we hope nothing goes wrong inside them as a result.
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They do look so much nicer now. there's a little bit of fettling to sort out minor bits like the padding that's sticking out in a couple of spots that will be addressed later. The only door card we didn't complete on the day was the rear driver's side one. We'll be getting that sorted in the near future and it will be installed in a future video.
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Foolishly, I then attempted to see if I could figure out a solution to the dashboard. I reminded myself that I'd replaced the soft and rotting old screws with nice shiny new ones so the problem glovebox could be removed. This then allowed me to thread the dashboard into place.
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So far so good. I also found I could get to most of the screws for the glovebox brackets with the dashboard sat in place but not screwed in. An awkward job, but not an impossible one, there's not a lot of access. After doing that, I reminded myself where the three screws were that hold the lower portion of the dashboard in place and, with Pat's help, got everything aligned and screwed in. This is one of those jobs where it is easier if there's two of you because the dashboard does not want to stay in the place you need it to. Screw the central screw in first, you can't really see what you're doing and you have the thread the screwdriver around all the things behind the dashboard, don't tighten this all the way.
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Then find and align the side brackets that go into the A pillars. This is also awkward because as you align one side, the other will want to pull out of location. There's a sweet spot where it all aligns, but it's tricky if you haven't got a helper.
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Once it's all loosely in place, tighten the screws down and you're done.
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Then put the top capping on and screw it into place.
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Then realise you can't get to the four screws for the top capping because you've obscured access by putting the bottom half in first. Call it quits for the day and accept that at least the dashboard looks gorgeous and is in a safer location now. We'll address this issue another day too. Just before wrapping up I pulled out the spare Princess carpet I'd dyed and plonked one half in the car to see if there was enough to do a temporary flooring in the Lanchester. It looks like there is and, as a bonus, the colour isn't as shockingly orange looking as expected so will certainly do until we can afford to get the much nicer brown carpet we eventually want to fit.
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Finally, we took a quick look at the sound systems. We're still planning to gut and modernise the Dansette as a removable unit. The Ekco we're still planning to restore to functionality if possible.
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The only slight issue is the size of the Ekco compared to the size of the Lanchester. We've got some loose ideas of removable brackets and centre consoles as a solution there, it was just nice to see it sat in the car and imagine the possiblities. The Ekco is something of a curio really.
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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 »

A nice fresh video for you to enjoy.



I'll do the proper write up and photos later.

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

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

Instead of using a separate camera for photos, I'm trying out the screenshot function on the video editing stuff. It makes this part of the update much easier since I can use just the one device and footage and means I have one less thing to forget when actually working on the car.

The first job was refitting the rear door card that we hadn't yet. The video really highlights what this job is like, it involved making a lot of these sorts of faces.
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Once all the edge screws were in to hold the door card in place, Pat fitted the wooden capping since he seems to be better at that than I am and we made sure nothing was binding on the door frame. Happily, everything was good so we moved on to the next bit.
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Fitting the pull handle was easy, that's just two large screws, fitting the window winder was another matter. As previously mentioned, the window winders almost seem to have too short a post on them meaning it very difficult to get the escutcheon compressed enough (even on the original plywood cards) to get the pin to go in the locating hole that holds everything together. We found it impossible to do solo, instead it usually takes three screwdrivers, a lot of huffing and puffing, and a dash of luck.
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The door release handle, by comparison, is a doddle, partly because the post for that is just a bit longer. All the door cards in and the windows etc. tested we could happily draw a line under this part of the renovation. No more flappy door cards. When it comes to replacing the carpet on the bottom, we wont' actually have to remove the door card to do it, there's enough flex in the plywood once the side screws are undone that you can glue and tack the new carpet on pretty much in the same way it was done originally. This is no doubt deliberate since the carpet is the bit that's most likely to need replacement due to wear. On to the dashboard then. We'd already fitted this but did it wrong, so it had to come out again so we could reinstall it correctly. Confusingly, the top rail that looks to be the last thing to go on is actually the first thing because once you fit the main dash board you can't get to the fixings that hold the top rail in place.
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Visibility for the four screws that hold the rail in place is poor, opening the fresh air vent did help a bit, with the side effect that any dust and detritus you didn't want in your face got blown straight into it. The screws go through metal brackets on the car's wooden body frame and into the rail itself, the first attempt we misaligned and screwed into thin air. This turned out to be another two person job since I had to see where it was aligned and then Pat had to hold the rail to prevent it from moving until we got a couple of screws located.
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You can make out where they're supposed to go in this next picture, spot the silver coloured crosshead screws.
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Then it was on to the dashboard itself. This is held in with three screws, one in the centre and one into each A pillar through metal brackets. First though, the glovebox needed to be reattached. We'd had to unscrew this to get the dashboard moved enough to fit the top rail, now it was a case of doing some contortions to get around the various obstacles to put the screws back in. This time we got all of the screws in so the glovebox is a good bit more secure than last time, which was nice. Access is not great.
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Everything was then eased into place and the final three screws put in and we could call the dashboard done. Hopefully it will never need to come out again. We can do the wiring without removing the dashboard, access to the relevant bits is actually quite good for what it's worth. Next up, the cables for the choke, starter, and fuel reserve were refitted. The fuel reserve system isn't being reinstated but to save the cable just flopping about it made sense to put it were it belongs. We may repurpose the pull knob for another function in the future, like the hazards or something, for now it's not a worry.
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Then it was the turn of the temperature gauge and its fragile capillary line. The wire on the back of the gauge is actually a very fine tube, sealed at both ends, that cannot be removed from the guage or the sender that goes into the water pump. It works so we're happy to reinstall it and it keeps things nicely original.
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It's held into the back of the instrument cluster with two stubby little flathead screws, like the rest.
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It was nice to finally see the instrument cluster complete again. The speedometer cable was reattached too. We didn't attach the starter cable to the starter because the starter motor needs to come off for a service or repair and to do that it looks like we need to remove the exhaust to get access to at least one of the starter's bolts so that's going to be another fairly involved job.
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We also learned that either one of the hose connectors or the non-return valve for the washer pump is leaking a bit. We know it's not the heater matrix as that hasn't been used or disturbed this time, and you can trace the water to the washer pump connections. That one at least is an easy fix using generic parts.
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It's wonderful seeing all of these things coming together and we're eager to crack on with the rest as soon as time and weather permits.

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

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

This time, it's fitting a carpet, which is a fairly easy thing to do since the Lanchester is a nice simple shape. Full write up and photos later, as usual. For now, here's the video:


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

Re: 1951 LD10 KKV 222

Post by Vulgalour »

How to do the carpet in the Lanchester then. The video above does illustrate this a bit better than I can do with photos and words so if you haven't, please do give that a watch for a bit more clarity on the process. This needn't be an expensive endeavour and indeed, this carpet has cost the sum total of £0 since I already had all of the materials required in house.

Ingredients are a pack of cheap printer paper, a pen, a good pair of shears (for cutting the carpet), a good pair of scissors (for cutting the paper), some sellotape, and a spare carpet set from the Princess. The carpet set I'm using here is temporary, eventually it will be replaced with proper brown wool, for now it's what's to hand and the bright orange doesn't actually look as bad in situ as you might expect.
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If you already have a carpet in the car you're doing this job on, it's a bit easier, since then you have a template of sorts. Unfortunately for us, there is no carpet in this car and it didn't come to us with one. We've also been unable to find an off-the-shelf kit of any sort to hint at what shapes are required, so it's been a case of relying on photographs of other cars and clues this car has given us from what is present.

Luckily, the floor of the Lanchester is almost completely flat with the exception of the tunnel down the middle, and the fixings for the front seats. That means you can lay down the printer paper very easily to patchwork a pattern. It's mostly a case of lining up an edge of paper with the edge of a bit of floor, and then using a fingernail and/or pen to mark the edges before using the scissors to trim. Offer up the paper a few times and trim as necessary until each piece is as you want it. Then tape your next piece of paper down to the first and so on until the whole floor is covered.
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The floor of the Lanchester isn't actually symmetrical. While the outer edges are mirrored, the front portion of the tunnel isn't, and the rails the seats sit on are also in different locations on each side, something that isn't as obvious when the carpet isn't present. That meant that a different template would be required for each side.

To get around this you can either make two whole templates, or if you're channeling your inner Yorkshireman as I was, cut out the carpet for one side before flipping your paper template and chopping and patching it as required to make it the correct shape for the other side. This means you use a few sheets less paper, a bit less ink, a bit less sellotape and quite a bit less time.

For the driver's side, I disconnected the balljoint from the accelerator pedal so that I could put the carpet over the pedal rather than unbolting the pedal itself. It doesn't make sense to bolt the pedal down over the carpet in this instance, far better to cut a hole in the carpet for the pedal.
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When you're repurposing existing materials some compromise is required. The Princess carpet isn't moulded, one of the benefits of a front wheel drive car with a very flat floor, but does have a few cut-outs for various fixings so it was a case of figuring out where best the paper template fitted the carpet. It turned out that it was best to make four separate rugs for the Lanchester, choosing to join them at the crossmember that runs the width of the floors under the front seats. The Princess carpet was long enough in each half that a small overlap was possible too which is better than trying to make the pieces butt up to one another neatly in this instance. Because of how much wider and longer the Princess floor is than the Lanchester floor, there was actually quite a lot of material available and before too long, I had a complete carpet set created.
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It's worth noting that the paper template will fit slightly differently to the carpet, this is because of the thickness of the material. So once you fit the carpet you'll likely have to go around the edges, particularly any radiused pieces, and just trim back until a nice fit is acquired. Since the Princess carpet doesn't fray, there was no requirement to bind the edges and it will serve as a very good template for the nice carpet when we get to that point.
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The bit I got really lucky with was that the Princess' integral heel mat actually lined up close to perfect with the Lanchester's pedals, making the orange carpet look just a bit more proper than had it been plain. Less so was the central tunnel, something I couldn't use from the centre of the Princess' main carpet. Instead, I built a tunnel section from the two inner sill pieces of carpet which are more flexible, the profiles were similar enough that I could use some duct tape to hold the four pieces together and to the tunnel itself, and wide enough that the main floor carpet could be put over the top of the edges to keep them in place. It's likely the proper carpet will be glued down in one piece instead. We will probably leave the front section of the tunnel uncarpetted (and there wasn't a suitable piece of Princess carpet left to do this part due to the strange shape involved) since there are service points that could do with being accessed and, judging by the condition of the paint, it looks like there may never have actually been a carpet there originally. We haven't yet seen a picture of an LD10 with the original carpet intact to tell us either way what's correct here, only cars with replacement carpets which may of course be non-standard. So we're going with what feels and looks right for this particular car, like we have with other items.

Anyway, here we are with the carpet fully fitted and looking a whole lot better than you might expect. It also cuts down a lot of draughts from the door bottoms and generally makes the car sound, and by extension feel, a bit more refined and finished inside than it did. When we come to doing the wiring under the dashboard this will likely be a lot more pleasant to lie on and much harder to lose the various fixings since there aren't all those little gaps around the floor boards accessible now.
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All in all, an okay job really. Once the seats were refitted, you could barely see the carpet anyway so the colour difference really isn't that noticeable. It's also worth noting for the front seats that the brackets that hold the locking pegs in place need the carpet trimming away from the whole of the square base of them otherwise the thickness of the carpet prevents the seat from locking into place as it can't sit down low enough in the sockets.
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We have what looks like a very short list of items to attend on the car now. How short this list ends up being in practice is of course a different matter entirely:
- Fit new wiring loom
- Recondition and refit radiator
- Acquire and fit new front engine mount
- Refit water pump and fan belt
- Adjust brakes
- Fit new front and rear screen seals
- Fit pedal draught excluder rubbers
- Make and fit kick panels, and lower B pillar trim
- Replace missing/all door furflex trim
- Restore and fit Ekco radio

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