Members Blogs

Dads and their lads

25/9/2020

Written by Gar Cole

The anniversary of my Dad's passing recently came and went so it's at this time of year many memories and emotions bubble to the surface to fill my thoughts. I still love to talk about him even now, things he'd done in his life and the incredible experiences he had, and the happy memories we made over the 36 years I was lucky to have him around.

He came from a long line of gifted men who all shared a love for all things mechanical and the desire to see their sons succeed in different careers instead of the traditional working class jobs available at the time. It's a story of trains, planes and automobiles compiled from records from Ancestry.Com and family tales; their story is my story. Still with me?

My great grandfather George J Cole (1873 - 1951 hailed from the Forest of Dean but his son and my grandfather Thomas we know was born in Filton (Bristol). This started our search on Ancestry where we found out he was a train driver for the GWR railway company, something we hadn't known until recently. He was registered in this profession on the 1911 census and we were surprised such a relatively young man of 37 had made his way through the ranks to engine driver.

He was also registered as living in Filton with a young lady called Mary who was 'domestic service'. We know this girl was my grandfather's mother although they never married. We were later shocked to find that George was already married and had a wife and family of 6 children already registered in Waterloo. I guess you could say he was 'tooting his whistle' at both ends of the railway line! We have no idea if either lady knew about the other but he seems to have kept this deception going between his marriage in 1894 and relocating to South Wales in 1914. He transferred to working out of Pengam railway goods yard near Cardiff, which we assume was to do with the war effort delivering munitions to the ports.

My Grandfather Thomas J Cole 1912 - 1980, born in Filton but raised in Abertillery was a sporty and restless character who excelled at mechanical engineering. He was a keen long-distance cyclist and played rugby to a high standard for Gelligaer Rugby club for 2 years (1932-33). After marrying my grandmother in 1934 he relocated to Filton in 1936 with his pregnant wife to work for BAE systems, where he worked on fabricating the sheet metal for the aircraft bodies.

He worked firstly on the Bristol type 105 'bulldog' and later after the war broke out the 'Beaufighter' working for BAE. Aircraft in general were Thomas's passion, my grandmother and 3yo father Gerry returned to South Wales to live with her parents after war broke out in 1939 for their own safety as the Aircraft factory was a major enemy target. Sadly this was borne out one sunny day in September 1940; Thomas and his co workers had just headed out of the factory for their lunch break when a surprise air raid by 80 German aircraft rained bombs on the plant and surrounding area.

The raid lasted less than 1 minute yet substantial damage was caused to the factory and sadly 132 people died in the raid, 92 of them Bristol employees. My grandfather Thomas was one of 315 casualties, being hit in the lower left leg by shrapnel. They managed to stem the bleeding and save his life but he lost his leg below the knee. After this devastating incident he returned to his wife in South Wales. It's clear he didn't let this injury get him down as my aunt Pat was born a little over 9 months after he returned! Thomas later went on to be union shop steward at Penalta coal mine and worked hard to improve the working conditions of the men right up to his retirement in 1977.

My Dad Gerry J Cole (1936 - 2013 ) born in the Rymney Valley was gifted both academically and mechanically. He excelled at Pengam grammar school, with one of his school friends a certain Neil Kinnock (he later became the Labour Party Leader then an MEP). Money was scarce in the Welsh valleys and my Dad left school at 15 in 1951 to find work.

It was always assumed in mining communities that boys would head straight for the mines; despite my grandfather Thomas being union rep he didn't want his eldest son to work underground. My Dad was also a restless soul, an avid reader of adventure novels who longed to travel. Luckily his own Grandfather George was still alive and despite being long retired as a driver he managed to get my Dad an apprenticeship at the same Pengam train yard that he had retired from in 1946. My dad loved it, learning his heavy engineering skills maintaining the rolling stock and he reveled in his free employee travel pass, visiting places such as Weston-Super-Mare and London for the first time.

Aged 17 he signed up for the RAF in 1954 and was stationed at Boscombe Down. Continuing to develop his mechanical skills and following his father in a similar path he became an airframe maintenance technician and was soon off around the world. His first trip abroad was in an aging Shackleton bomber heading out to Ceylon (modern day Sri Lanka ), a noisy 14-hour trip with 3 landings to refuel en route.

Later in 1955 he transferred to RAF Akrotiri on the island of Cyprus. The island was under British control at that time and rebel EOKA forces were fighting for a union with Greece. Dad's arrival got off to a bad start after their plane was shot at over a wooded area and forced to land. He spent the next day patching up bullet holes in the wings and fuselage; strangely he never wanted to go on holiday there later in life.

He later spent 3 years stationed on Malta, which he described as the best time of his life. He and 4 mates bought an old Ford V8 pilot between them, so they could pretend they were a higher rank and it was shared out on 'date nights' , the local ladies never seeming to notice that these young guys didn't actually all own a car of their own.

During 1958 he flew out to Christmas Island with the Vickers Valliants of No49 squadron. They were so excited to be part of watching Britain's nuclear testing. Dad and his mates were fascinated and had a great time out at the island watching this awesome spectacle. Of course many years later everyone realised the danger they had all been exposed to without adequate protection. An estimated 88% of the servicemen went on to develop cancer - another of his lucky escapes.

During his last 3 years in the RAF Dad was in the V bomber squadron, maintaining the planes including his beloved Vulcan. As part of the ground crew he often took part in the ' fast scramble ' exercises using the vehicle-mounted turbo starters.

After leaving the RAF in 1963, Dad returned to Wales riding around on his Royal Enfield 350 bullet and caught the eye of my mother. They married a year later and he worked at Cardiff's Rhoose airport.

His restless nature returned after several years and they relocated when he started working at Elmdon airport (now Birmingham international), in 1972. At this time Mom was working for a company called 'Andrews Heat for Hire'. Some might remember that name as the main sponsors on Russell Brooks' rally car during the late 70s / early 80s.

Dad was between jobs after leaving Elmdon having called his boss an 'insufferable prat' who hadn't a fraction of Dad's experience but treated his employees like idiots. At the Andrews Christmas party the parents met guest of honour Russell Brooks and he and dad got on really well, so much so that he joined the crew on the 78 Circuit of Ireland Rally.

While not a car mechanic, Dad was brilliant at quickly fabricating brackets, mounts or other parts that failed and had to be quickly made and fitted between stages. He described it as quite a rush being part of that world with fast-paced days and hard drinking nights. Brooks went on to win the 1978 event, but with 3 kids aged 13, 10 and 1 (me), Mom wasn't keen for him being away from home too often.

Growing up with a Dad like this was a gift for me. I loved cars, planes and trains so he took me to watch rallies, many airshows, built me amazing model railways and of course he was car mad. He had Granadas, SD1s, Land Rovers, Jaguars, Vauxhalls, Minis, in fact most British tin. He would come in from work excited and say 'get your coat on ma boy, I've seen a cracker at a little garage in town'. He would buy cars cheap, fix them up perfectly, get bored and sell it on before doing it all over again, much to the annoyance of my mother. He encouraged my love of cars which continues to this day. However where George, Thomas and Gerry seemed to be born with a spanner in their hand, I'm actually hopeless at it! My Dad joked I was born with a cook book in my hand.

My best mate has been gone for 7 years now and I miss him with all my heart. When you have somebody that always has your back and always wants what's best for you that leaves such a void when it's gone, but I know that continuing the interests we shared through this car club and the brilliant and gifted people its brought me into contact with, the places we've been and shows we've put on makes me feel I'm adding to their story in my own way.

Gar J Cole

Dad and me on his Ventora

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Brits Abroad: USA

6/9/2020

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by Paul Sweeney

This is the first of a new feature focusing on members with pre-85 Brits living outside the United Kingdom - in this case, the USA.
My sincere thanks to those who took up the challenge and sent in their car photos and some information.

Member: Timothy Olson

"I started collecting British cars because I loved the interesting variety of companies and models of cars. I started collecting American and German cars but then decided to focus on British cars that are rarely seen in the USA. I have owned 18 different British cars, but now I have ten and all are drop heads.

That seems like a good number for me right now. I am able to fit eight cars in my garage and in the summer I rent two neighbors garages for the others. In the winter my garage is heated and two are stored in a secure and heated facility. In the summer I like to get all the cars out and running with the help of a number of friends who take turns driving the different cars.

The most difficult car to drive is the 1934 Austin 7. I give an award for bravery for anyone who drives the car. We live in a beautiful area and our drives take us north often along the shore of Lake Michigan.

I bought the Triumph Herald that had been stored in a garage for 25 years. This car is the only one that I restored myself. It took almost 3 years. It was my first and last restoration. The car was featured in the Wall Street Journal.
Pictures of my current cars can be seen at www.britcars.us"

Member: Mike Eder

"I am a retired Moravian pastor and current police chaplain who stumbled upon a Jensen Interceptor MK II in a shed it had inhabited for more than 30 years (disassembled). I realized that in 2019 it would be the 50th anniversary of the MK II model. I decided to build my car as if Jensen were still in business and they would release a "5oth Anniversary Special Edition" Interceptor.

Same Italian design lines and proportions, same hand crafted coachwork, same American muscle (490 hp custom LS motor). 21st century bells & whistles; fuel injection, 6-speed automatic, keyless, power boot, ground effects, 17" alloy wheels, navigation, blue tooth, rear camera, etc."

Here is a video for more pictures, etc

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Alldays and Onions

3/9/2020

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by Brian Allison

My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,
gather round whilst I introduce for your delectation, delight and wonderment this latest lantern slide of the magnificence, the last word in technological achievement , the pride of the Empire's engineering industry , that is Ladies and Gentlemen, the Alldays and Onions Automobile.

Boasting a powerful new engine with the might of ten good horses ensuring smooth progress at all times this is surely the very pinnacle of superbity.

Note the supremely comfortable upholstery, specially designed to ensure that you arrive at your destination not only in great style, but unperturbed, and in no way discomforted by your journey in any way. Neither is inclement weather a problem when being conveyed in this superb machine. Thanks to the protection afforded by the carefully designed hood and windscreen, inclement weather need no longer detract from the extremely satisfying pleasure which is to be found when travelling in this fine machine.

You will also notice the extremely easy to use controls. Indeed, so easy in use are the controls of this fine conveyance, that I venture to say even the ladies could possibly find themselves capable of driving it.

Alldays and Onions was a prolific Birmingham based engineering company with a vast range of products, from bellows to drop hammers. They produced their first car in 1898. The one in the post is a 1908 10 hp. They ceased car production in 1918 but continued to make motor cycles under the Alldays - Matchless name until 1915 when they changed the name of the motorcycle to the Allon, presumably to avoid confusion with the London based Matchless motor cycle. Motor cycle production ceased in 1927.

The fourth photo is the tractor they produced 1917 - 18.

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Driving test stories

26/8/2020

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from Admin

We asked our members to share memories of their driving tests and the responses were so much fun, we've collected them all here for you to enjoy.

1974 in a Ford Anglia. I was told by the examiner to use hand signals and do a three point turn. All went fine until further down the road he told my to turn right at the junction, I put on the indicator, then he said we are still using hand signals, so I put my right arm straight out of the window and left arm through the centre of the steering wheel to turn the indicator off.
Incorrect use of the controls.
Max Carman😞

Had a Morgan 3 wheeler for my 16th birthday in '62. Went for test, it was raining. No doors on the Morgan but a working hood easy hinge up and down and 3 press studs holding to the windscreen frame, no sidescreens and hood needed to be lowered to get in and out.

Test inspector was a large man, very large. Did the eye sight test, went to the miniscule car, lowered the hood (seats not too wet) inspector shoe-horned himself in.

Oh, by the way, had no starter motor so had to hand crank which meant retarding ignition by the lever on the steering wheel, turning off ignition, back to the front to turn the enine to the compression point, back to the cockpit to switch on ignition, back to the front and sharp pull up of the starting handle with thumb tucked away safely in casd of backfire and removal of thumb and possibly other parts of anatomy depending on trajectory of flying handle.

If you got the hand throttle and choke settings just right it may start or it's back and fore adjusting until success then dashing back to the cockpit, throwing the starting handle onto the floor, advancing ignition, blipping the throttle and adjusting the choke - both also hand operated levers mounted on the steering wheel - to keep it running, climbing in and pulling the hood over the now soggy inspector.

Set off, the one vacuum-operated wiper scraping feebly away at my aeroscreen. So far so good! But, following instructions about 2 minutes later we arrived at an uphill tee-junction to turn right onto a main road - yes, you guessed, in my nervous condition I stalled and had to go through the starting procedure all over again!

I actually persuaded the inspector to switch the ignition on and off to save time while the traffic built up behind. After that it all went swimmingly, especially the inspector sitting in a pool of rainwater.

Never really understood why I failed but he certainly didn't mention any of the above!
Owen Short

A neighbour when making the 3 point turn did the first part and turned the car across the road. Then when she tried to engage reverse which was up to the left and lift, the gear stick came off in her hand.

The test was abandoned with the car left in the middle of the road.
Tony Dixon

I took my test in 79 in my own car, a 59 Morris Mini. It didn't have seat belts and the front seats were just the tip up and down variety (no locking).

I won't go into the finer details but you can imagine what happened to my instructor when he banged his clipboard on the dash to signal my emergency brake attempt. Squished against the inside of the windscreen and then a crumpled heap in the foot well.

Being a a proper old school fellow he dusted himself off and told me to return to the test centre immediately. You can't comprehend my delight when he handed me my pass certificate and wished me a happy life of motoring.
Nick Mead

When i took my HGV Lorry test I arrived at the test centre in a different lorry that had been booked with them. The first part of test was the reverse manoeuvre and I couldn’t do it.

When the examiner checked his paperwork the lorry I was driving was 3 metres longer!
😬
He reset the cones further apart and I did it first time no issues, except I was a bag of nerves and failed on lots of minor issues!

2nd time around I passed no issues, but I did check I was booked in with the correct size lorry first
Jonathan Griffiths

I didn't fail, but during my test in Clifton, Bristol in May 1975, I turned into a very narrow side street to be confronted by a Rolls-Royce completely blocking the street as it attempted a 3-point turn right in front of me.

The poor driver was heaving and straining on the steering wheel - it took him so many "back and forths", I had put my Mini into neutral with the handbrake on long before the Roller finally drove away.

The test examiner sat in silence the entire time, simply murmuring, "Well done" as I was at last able to continue my test.
Paul Sweeney

I passed my test first time in 1971, in Slough. I had a practice lesson with my instructor, a sexist old boy who had a constant eye on the young ladies as I drove past them rather than what I was doing, and took the test in his Austin 1300. Having a decent car helped. On arrival at the test centre I was told to stay in the car and the examiner would come out to me.

I did that which was necessary and on return to the test centre i was told that I had passed. I was to stay put and my instructor would come out to me.

The instructor came out and asked if I had passed. Yes, I responded. He then told me that there were 4 females taking their test at the same time. They all failed, demonstrating that males are better drivers than females. I dare not shout that too loud in most environments!
Anthony Osborne

Failed my first test for laughing at the examiner. He was a known miserable old sod. Anyway, midway through my three-point turn the little rear view mirror used by the instructor fell off. It his the right knee of the examiner and he made a right old fuss - you’d have though he’d been hit by an axe. I laughed at him - which was in hindsight a mistake.
Alex Valvasurra😣

My mother drove lots of things during the war (ambulances, buses, mobile operating theatres, etc) but didn't take a test. She didn't renew her licence post-war as the family didn't have a car.

Fast forward to about 1970. She decides to drive again and after a few 'test drives' in the old man's Zodiac (where he said she appeared to drive as though she had a bell on the front of the car) she books a test.

Come the test day she cruises round the circuit and the rather familiar looking examiner hands her a Pass certificate. She looks at it and sees his name: he is a guy who partnered her in the ambulance on occasions during the war, and who never drove except for one occasion when she needed to be in the back of the ambulance!

When they eventually arrived at the hospital he apologised for the slow journey as he had only ever driven a traction engine before and didn't know about changing gear!
Mick Brabrook-Norman🤣

Lad at work was taking his HGV test. After waiting to pull away out of the test centre,he saw a gap,let his foot off the clutch,........in reverse!
Michael Foster🤪

Failed first time in 2015, was queuing for a roundabout stationary in the right lane while a car was inching forward in the left lane a bit too close and scraped my left wing mirror. Any contact regardless of fault is a fail!
Peter Walker

I failed in a Morris Minor with a fierce clutch and stalled it on an uphill start. I was told I failed not because of the stall but I just dipped clutch fired it up and set off holding it on foot brake heel and toe - I should have put handbrake on put it in neutral and started from scratch.
Richard Shaw

Passed my bike and car tests first time and whilst I know that's not the point of the thread, I just wanted you to know 😂😂
I do have a funny story; my late aunt took her test (many years ago) and the examiner near the end said, "You know where you are now then?" (being a local lass) she replied "No, I've had my eyes shut"... i don't actually know whether she passed or not...
Steve Broughton

I was a distracted mess on my test after the examiner got in the car as she was stunningly attractive and wearing a fashionably short skirt; not at all what a hormone-addled 17 year old needs!

I ended up speeding in a 30 zone and completely fluffed the sign recognition questions, so it came as something of a surprise when she handed me my pass certificate!
Andrew Spittlehouse

I failed my driving test after being put in a car I'd never driven. My driving instructor - an ex-Brooklands racing driver, Police driving instructor and Jaguar test driver - age 82, had rolled his Escort on the way to get me for my test practice.

I ended up being driven in a spare car at high speed straight to the test centre without practice beforehand!
Andy Jones

I passed my test first time in 1971, in Slough. I had a practice lesson with my instructor, a sexist old boy who had a constant eye on the young ladies as I drove past them rather than what I was doing, and took the test in his Austin 1300. Having a decent car helped. On arrival at the test centre I was told to stay in the car and the examiner would come out to me.

I did that which was necessary and on return to the test centre i was told that I had passed. I was to stay put and my instructor would come out to me.

The instructor came out and asked if I had passed. Yes, I responded. He then told me that there were 4 females taking their test at the same time. They all failed, demonstrating that males are better drivers than females. I dare not shout that too loud in most environments!
Anthony Osborne
Had a Morgan 3 wheeler for my 16th birthday in '62. Went for test, it was raining. No doors on the Morgan but a working hood easy hinge up and down and 3 press studs holding to the windscreen frame, no sidescreens and hood needed to be lowered to get in and out.

Test inspector was a large man, very large. Did the eye sight test, went to the miniscule car, lowered the hood (seats not too wet) inspector shoe-horned himself in.

Oh, by the way, had no starter motor so had to hand crank which meant retarding ignition by the lever on the steering wheel, turning off ignition, back to the front to turn the enine to the compression point, back to the cockpit to switch on ignition, back to the front and sharp pull up of the starting handle with thumb tucked away safely in casd of backfire and removal of thumb and possibly other parts of anatomy depending on trajectory of flying handle.

If you got the hand throttle and choke settings just right it may start or it's back and fore adjusting until success then dashing back to the cockpit, throwing the starting handle onto the floor, advancing ignition, blipping the throttle and adjusting the choke - both also hand operated levers mounted on the steering wheel - to keep it running, climbing in and pulling the hood over the now soggy inspector.

Set off, the one vacuum-operated wiper scraping feebly away at my aeroscreen. So far so good! But, following instructions about 2 minutes later we arrived at an uphill tee-junction to turn right onto a main road - yes, you guessed, in my nervous condition I stalled and had to go through the starting procedure all over again!

I actually persuaded the inspector to switch the ignition on and off to save time while the traffic built up behind. After that it all went swimmingly, especially the inspector sitting in a pool of rainwater.

Never really understood why I failed but he certainly didn't mention any of the above!
Owen Short
My mother drove lots of things during the war (ambulances, buses, mobile operating theatres, etc) but didn't take a test. She didn't renew her licence post-war as the family didn't have a car.

Fast forward to about 1970. She decides to drive again and after a few 'test drives' in the old man's Zodiac (where he said she appeared to drive as though she had a bell on the front of the car) she books a test.

Come the test day she cruises round the circuit and the rather familiar looking examiner hands her a Pass certificate. She looks at it and sees his name: he is a guy who partnered her in the ambulance on occasions during the war, and who never drove except for one occasion when she needed to be in the back of the ambulance!

When they eventually arrived at the hospital he apologised for the slow journey as he had only ever driven a traction engine before and didn't know about changing gear!
Mick Brabrook-N
I took my test in 79 in my own car, a 59 Morris Mini. It didn't have seat belts and the front seats were just the tip up and down variety (no locking).

I won't go into the finer details but you can imagine what happened to my instructor when he banged his clipboard on the dash to signal my emergency brake attempt. Squished against the inside of the windscreen and then a crumpled heap in the foot well.

Being a a proper old school fellow he dusted himself off and told me to return to the test centre immediately. You can't comprehend my delight when he handed me my pass certificate and wished me a happy life of motoring.
Nick Mead
Passed my bike and car tests first time and whilst I know that's not the point of the thread, I just wanted you to know
I do have a funny story; my late aunt took her test (many years ago) and the examiner near the end said, "You know where you are now then?" (being a local lass) she replied "No, I've had my eyes shut"... i don't actually know whether she passed or not...
Steve Broughton
When i took my HGV Lorry test I arrived at the test centre in a different lorry that had been booked with them. The first part of test was the reverse manoeuvre and I couldn’t do it.

When the examiner checked his paperwork the lorry I was driving was 3 metres longer!

He reset the cones further apart and I did it first time no issues, except I was a bag of nerves and failed on lots of minor issues!

2nd time around I passed no issues, but I did check I was booked in with the correct size lorry first
Jonathan Griffiths
I was a distracted mess on my test after the examiner got in the car as she was stunningly attractive and wearing a fashionably short skirt; not at all what a hormone-addled 17 year old needs!

I ended up speeding in a 30 zone and completely fluffed the sign recognition questions, so it came as something of a surprise when she handed me my pass certificate!
Andrew Spittlehouse
I failed my driving test after being put in a car I'd never driven. My driving instructor - an ex-Brooklands racing driver, Police driving instructor and Jaguar test driver - age 82, had rolled his Escort on the way to get me for my test practice.

I ended up being driven in a spare car at high speed straight to the test centre without practice beforehand!
Andy Jones
I didn't fail, but during my test in Clifton, Bristol in May 1975, I turned into a very narrow side street to be confronted by a Rolls-Royce completely blocking the street as it attempted a 3-point turn right in front of me.

The poor driver was heaving and straining on the steering wheel - it took him so many "back and forths", I had put my Mini into neutral with the handbrake on long before the Roller finally drove away.

The test examiner sat in silence the entire time, simply murmuring, "Well done" as I was at last able to continue my test.
Paul Sweeney

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I modified my Dad's brand new HB Viva SL90

25/8/2020

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by Alan Warwick

Well, it must have been August 1966 travelling back overnight from North Wales that we spotted a pretty dark blue saloon on trade plates coming down the A41 - probably from Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port factory. It didn't have any badges except for a "V" in the centre of its front grille and, as an apprentice at Vauxhall dealer Capital Motors in Hornsey, I knew a new shape Viva was to replace the HA in the latter part of 1966 - so I assumed correctly this was it!

Standard - as delivered

When I arrived back at my Tottenham home I enthused about its attractive shape and encouraged my Dad Fred to order one as our family car to replace the Hillman Husky currently serving us OK.

As the new "E" suffix registration plate was to be issued from the 1st of January 1967 we waited until then for delivery of our Glacier white Vauxhall Viva SL90 with the higher performance engine, black upholstery and DISC brakes. It was delivered with the then new-fangled Dunlop Radial tyres - SP41s I think and 41/2 J wheels.

I was working on the shop floor so was allowed to fit all the extras in my lunch hours; Motorola 5 push button radio, wing mirrors with base-plates, fog and spot lamps etc and an alarm. The alarm was not a success as it went off on windy nights or if someone jogged the car but the immobiliser switch hidden under the dash gave us a sense of security.

I had passed my test in the Husky but my Mum Winifred, sister Ann, girlfriend Sue (later my wife of over 50 years) and my sister's boyfriend Geoff ( later etc, etc ) all had driving lessons in the Viva which consumed clutches at around 25,000 mile intervals. Fortunately I could fit a new clutch in our garage at home in an evening so this was a minor problem, Dad's kindly wallet providing me with a trolley jack and axle stands for the purpose. These were also useful when i carried out jobs for friends and family in evenings and weekends.

Most of the mechanics (the term we used in the '60s, I HATE the word "fitter" - which implies someone who just "fits" parts rather than being competent to diagnose as well. I refer to myself as a "Motor Engineer" which seems good to me. Rant over!) at Capital Motors modified or "tuned" their cars and my Dad trusted me when I suggested modifications at around 30,000 miles.

This was the mileage that a de-coke (de-carbonising the cylinder head) was often carried out, so I proposed this as well as fitting a downdraft Weber 28/36 DCD carburettor to replace the "stroppy" ( as we referred to it ) Stromberg. At the time we had difficulty in getting a good slow-running tickover with the Stromberg on most "90" engines and the superior quality of a Weber was a desirable alternative, giving more performance when required.

Brabham Viva

I removed the cylinder head in our home garage and took it to work, taking the valves out in my lunch hour and getting the local engineering company Johnson Roberts to machine 60 thou (60 thousandths of an inch) off the mating face of the 'head. This was to increase the compression ratio, releasing superior performance from the red 1159cc engine. 60 thou was recommended by the others in the 'shop but the '90 cylinder head was already a higher compression than standard and this was too much - BEWARE other tuners!! More of that later.

I cleaned up the valves, re-ground them into the freshly-machined head and fitted Terrys stronger valve springs, went home, re-fitted the cylinder head (new gasket with Wellseal sealant as Vauxhall instructions) and added the Weber carburettor on its Blydenstein inlet manifold. Bill Blydenstein was a former racing driver of Borgward Isabella cars who moved on to supplying tuning parts for '60s Vauxhalls and Gerry Marshall was one of the most noteworthy drivers of Blydenstein Vivas. There was a lot of "fettling" of the linkage required to get full throttle on both carb butterflies which included a piece of one eighth welding rod with a sliding nipple.

Weber 28/36 DCD carburettors operate the first "choke" or butterfly up to 5/8th throttle and give excellent economy driven this way but, when you floor the right-hand pedal both "chokes" come into play as well as the accelerator pump jet which gives enhanced performance.

This was the Brabham Viva setup I was used to in the Capital Motors workshop

Twin-Choke Weber carburettor

In addition to the cylinder head and carburettor work I had managed to persuade Dad that his Viva "needed" the benefit of the Brabham Lukey exhaust system as we were used to fitting on the current Brabham Vivas. He was very trusting with his wallet.

A Mobelec electronic ignition system was also fitted, replacing the contact breaker points and condenser (capacitor) which was designed to keep the sparks consistent rather than deteriorating as the points gap altered with wear. I didn't bother Dad with the technicalities - he was more inclined to his touring bike Campagnolo gears…...

Back to the 60 thou off the head, after I'd finished the work I found severe "pinking" unless 5 star petrol was used but as this was readily available at the time it caused no real problem. BEWARE others with "90" engines, i think this may apply to all Viva HC engines, too.

Not long after the SL90 was back in use by several family members, I fitted Spax adjustable shock absorbers (dampers) which stopped "bounce" and made it more stable in corners. Really a front anti-roll bar would have helped as well.

Several cosmetic improvements were carried out including getting the original Vauxhall steering wheel and gear knob stitched with leather as one of my friend's family ran the Formula Steering Wheel company. I also fitted a flush spotlight on the rear panel (opposite the fuel filler) as a reverse light as we had a long unlit drive to reverse up to our garage. And it looked cool!

Our SL90 in the garage where I modified it

Not ours, but a 21st century photo of a very similar car

The modified Viva around 1971 in Cuddington, Bucks

The best things about these modifications is that the Viva ticked over smoothly, was much nicer to drive, had improved fuel consumption and my parents thought it an improvement with no side-effects. Even the three-silencer Brabham Lukey exhaust didn't make extra noise to cause complaints from "the oldies"! I don't think they ever "discovered" the performance given when opening the throttle over 5/8ths.

The car gave reliable service until around 70,000 miles in 1972 when it was sold to my sister and her husband to make way for Dad and Mum's new Vauxhall Viva HC model X14 automatic, but that's another story…….

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Tales from my apprenticeship - Capital Motors

23/8/2020

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by Alan Warwick

It was my Dad, Fred, advising me to go into cars rather than motorbikes because the opportunities would be greater after finishing training. Dad tried to get me an apprenticeship at the Metropolitan Police in Hendon as well as Henley's, the famous Jaguar dealer at Henley's Corner on London's North Circular Road but neither organisation were able to take me. The Tottenham Youth Employment person knew Leslie Durdin, Managing Director of Capital Motors, Hornsey, a Vauxhall, Bedford ( trucks & vans ) and Scammell ( trucks and trailers) dealer.

I was interviewed by Mr Leslie Durdin and started my indentured apprenticeship in September 1965, having gained GCE 'O' levels in Maths, French , English Language, Physics and Technical Drawing at Tottenham County School, most of these 'O' levels coming in useful in my career.

Day one, 6th September 1965, was strange as they didn't seem to be expecting me and didn't know what to do with me so I was sent to work alongside a man in the Engine Shop rebuilding large truck engines, I remember fitting big end bearings.

Next day they seemed to have decided that I should be trained in the 'Stores' which was the motor trade expression for 'Parts department'. I was trained in using big, thick books to identify the part numbers for vehicle components and then finding and issuing the parts as well as helping unloading stock order deliveries and many menial jobs - being the youngest. I remember asking if we had Fire Alarm drill and was told 'you're not at school now, sonny' , how times change.

During the lunch times and whenever possible, I spent time in the workshop looking at the cars, vans and trucks and discovering more about the technical side of them, one colleague was Brian Stevens a former schoolfriend who taught me a great deal.

After several months in the stores, I went to the management and asked if they'd forgotten about me and they relocated me 'out' into the workshop. The first placement was a six months with the Electrician - Dick Marchant - from whom I gained good experience and several catch phrases including 'use your 'ead, save your 'ands' , which was good advice. I learned a great deal about workshop practice and vehicle electrics as well as going out on breakdowns which was always an adventure. One of my favourite jobs was fitting radios as that gave me the opportunity to listen to pop songs broadcast by the many 'Pirate' stations to the London area.

After the six months working alongside Dick, having started my tool purchasing, I was then placed with Fred Leif, the heavy commercial mechanic specialising in Diesel engines. I was NOT looking forward to that, away from cars, getting really oily and Fred was so OLD! Looking back, he was probably in his late fifties and chock-full of vehicle experience which he generously shared with me. Also, he always wore a tie, no health & safety, then!

Fred rarely referred to the manuals - he just knew what to do. We regularly removed Bedford TK truck engines, having first to disconnect the wiring etc and lifting the cab entirely off the vehicle, we didn't have a crane - just a couple of scaffold poles and several strong mechanic helpers! Fred dismantled the engine, throwing all the small parts, nuts and bolts into a large tray and then reassembled it, sometimes days later after waiting for parts, and knew where everything went-without any bits left over.

Southgate Tech

As an Indentured Apprentice, my Dad had signed a contract for me to complete the apprenticeship including my attendance at technical college on a “day release and evening” basis. The company paid for my training, probably with government grant assistance, and I had one day away from work ( on full pay ) to learn how to become a mechanic. I also had to return in the evening for other classes.

I quickly became best friends with two Peters, Cody and Lawson or Pete with a beard and Pete without a beard to family and friends. We used to take it in turns for our mums to give us dinner before returning for the evening, so we were friends with their families, too.

Initially we were in the “mechanics” stream but we soon were put in the higher grade of “technicians”, I passed Motor Vehicle Mechanics, City & Guilds examinations, with distinction and Technicians with credit as well as being presented with “Technician of the Year” award from The Institute of Road Transport Engineers in 1970. I went on to complete an additional 5th year for the management training involved to join the Institute of the Motor Industry (I.M.I. ) as an Associate Member in 1971. Subsequently, I became a Full member of the I.M.I
( Alan Warwick M.I.M.I. on my business cards )

During my time with Fred I was given one of my 'initiations’ to the Motor Trade, new de-greasing tanks had been delivered but (fortunately for me) not yet filled with a paraffin-like fluid. Several of my workmates grabbed hold of me and put me in a tank, closed the lid, sat on it and banged the side with hammers - could this have affected my hearing, subsequently?

Another time, I was put into a tube of 'mutton cloth’ or stockinette which was used to polish cars, then pushed in a wheelbarrow and deposited outside the Managing Director's office. One of the other apprentices was similarly mutton-clothed, put on a 6 foot canteen table and carried across Tottenham Lane outside and placed on the pavement. A passing lady told him “they're going to leave you here”

Because Fred had so many years experience, we got sent on a lot of breakdowns. Once we were repairing a Bedford TK truck on the M1 which involved getting inside hatches at the side of the cab, whilst under there Fred told me not to step back and admire my work - 'elf 'n' safety!

On another occasion, we were on the Southend Arterial Road stopped at traffic lights in our Breakdown Land Rover - now remember there's not much Fred didn't know about trucks - a lorry driver shouted over 'do you know anything about trucks?' Fred replied 'a bit, what's your trouble?' He had run out of diesel and wanted it bleeding having put more in but it wouldn't go because it had an air-lock in the fuel system. Even I could have bled it, never mind guru Fred. We got him going in minutes and got some 'beer money' which we used for non-alcoholic refreshments.

I ought to move on from Fred, now, as there were many other stories because I held him in high esteem. I think it was during this period that I bought my big socket set which I still have. It was about £20, and bearing in mind my weekly wages were around £6 10 shillings, the company bought the tools and deducted money weekly from our wages until they were paid for. Another deduction was the cost of overall cleaning which I remember REALLY resenting - they were essential for all workshop staff so WHY should we pay towards a company overhead!

After Fred and heavy truck experience, they put me with Goodwin Boodagee who came from an island off Africa, called Mauritius It just seemed from another planet to a boy from Tottenham. Boogy ( as he was known) was highly skilled on cars, getting all the complicated jobs including automatic transmissions ( gearboxes ) which we dismantled and had to wait a couple of weeks for parts to come from DETROIT, Michigan, USA! Remembering how to put this 3D jigsaw back together again was quite a feat, the owners patiently awaiting our efforts.

About the time I worked with Boogy, the overhead camshaft Vauxhall “slant 4” engine was introduced which was very advanced for its time but suffered from oil leaks which involved engine dismantling to put right. I appeared to be quite good at this job which required patience and attention to detail so Boogy left me to work on my own whilst he carried out other jobs which earned him bonus.

Ah! Bonus. This is how it worked and probably accounts for why we got a bad name as motor mechanics. ( I much prefer the word 'technician' which is used in the 21st century, I usually refer to myself as a 'motor engineer' ). Each 'job' carried a manufacturer's ' standard time' , say an hour to complete the job. If a mechanic amassed, say, 60 hours worth of tasks in a 40 hour week, then he was paid an extra 20 hours at the bonus rate. I never earned much bonus, partly because I wasn't very fast and partly because I would rather do the more interesting jobs that took longer than standard time. The best bonus jobs were routine servicing partly because you did them so regularly and got fast at them and partly because the apprentices could do them leaving mechanics free to do other, more complex jobs knowing that the apprentice was earning the bonus. Unofficially, the apprentices were given cash by the mechanics if they had earned well that week.

It was about this time that Vauxhall Dealers were involved with converting ordinary HB Vivas to Brabham Vivas by adding an extra carburettor, special exhaust system, other customer requirements and stripes across the bonnet and down the front wings sides. I enjoyed carrying these out as they were the sporty side of the job before the two litre Viva GT was released by the factory.

After Boogy I worked for Brian Inns for a short while carrying out general car repairs and servicing. Brian was three or four years older than me and quite a good mechanic as well as keeping me in line with my attitude and thinking both towards the job and socially. One memorable occurrence was the time he let me carry out the engine tune, spark plugs, contact breaker points, air filter and carburettor settings while he overhauled the brakes on a Victor 101.

He told me to let it back onto the floor and take it out into the yard, as I reversed (not slowly) across the 'shop, the brake pedal went straight to the floor and BOINNNNGG! I hit an iron support holding up the mezzanine floor. After replacing brake pads, the first press of the pedal brings them against the brake disc and the next press they start working - a lesson for my lifetime in cars. I can't remember if I was in trouble or whether Brian was because he ought to have pumped the brake pedal before letting the car onto the floor, I probably ought to have checked anyway.

Every now and then during apprenticeships we boys were used in the Cost Office where the charges for each job were worked out and the mechanics’ bonus calculated. I think this was when other staff were on holiday or times of staff vacancies. I was also drafted into Service Reception occasionally, which was my first experience of dealing with customers and I found that this was something I liked.

After working with Brian I was experienced enough to work 'on my own’ as it was termed, and I had passed out as an apprentice with the Managing Director noting on my “papers” …..an excellent student... deserves every success in his future career…... After a few months my friend Alan Potifer had left the company to move to Kent where housing was cheaper as he'd got married.

Alan had been one of three Service Receptionists and, as I'd had experience working in Reception, I approached the Service Manager and asked if I could have Alan's job - and I got it! One of the other service receptionists was called “Bill Bodger” - yes, really! Would you leave your car with Bill Bodger for service and repair?

The vehicles I had regularly worked on were Viva HA & HB Models, Victors ( FB & FC )
Cresta PA to PC ( including Viscount ) Bedford trucks, mainly TK, lots of Bedford CA vans and Scammell three wheel mini-tractor units which had to be split in half to replace clutches. Also I had to dismantle crashed cars prior to the paintshop doing their bit and then “fitting up” with grilles, bumpers and pieces of trim after painting.

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Trying to remember that song title ... what have YOU forgotten about during Covid?

18/8/2020

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by Paul Sweeney

It’s all Stan Barnes’s fault, this blog. I wouldn’t have started it if not for him. Why? Well, Stan posted this in the “Enthusiasts of British Motor Vehicles" group:
“I'm probably as guilty as many owners in neglecting their boots. 🙄 The felt under the S-Type's parcel tray has been sagging for a while.....finally got around to sorting it today. Having a P6 as well, I can certainly appreciate what a decent boot size looks like. 🤣 So c'mon......don't be shy.....let's see your boots!”

I thought that was a pretty good post – something a little bit different – then carried on about my day. It was only later after a mug of coffee that I thought, “Have I got a photo inside Queenie’s boot? Don’t think so”. Then a little later still (after another mug of coffee) I thought, “She’s parked downstairs – it would be no trouble to nip down and take a photo in the boot”. So I did, and here it is.

Queenie's boot

If you’re not familiar with my relationship with Queenie, what began so well some five years ago when I bought Queenie in 2015 – it was love at first drive – had gradually faded away. The affection I once felt had slowly been eroded by a series of incidents – a combination of bad luck and “stuff that happens to old cars” until I saw the old car as no more than a business tool. If I'm really honest it had become a love/hate thing and I felt I had been foolish to buy an old car in the first place, given that I don't even like wielding a spanner.

Early in 2020 I began seriously thinking about putting her up for sale. However that wouldn’t go well while there were problems with the pre-select gear change, and so I waited until that had been fixed (huge kudos to my mate Clynt). After a great deal of asking around, researching, many hours spent with Queenie in bits and more than one false dawn she was finally working well again and was ready to resume work as a vintage car tour vehicle in Napier. I could hardly just sell her right away after all that time, blood, sweat and tears could I? So I decided to run her on the tours for a while longer and see how things went.

But then Covid-19 struck in early/mid March this year and all the international visitors upon whom my business depends had gone home, so Queenie has been sitting quietly in my garage with nothing to do ever since.

Back to Stan’s post – I took the boot photo and posted it in his thread. It happened to be a sunny day and I didn’t have much else to do, so I thought “I should start Queenie up – it’s been a while” and sat in the drivers' seat, struck as always by the almost overpowering smells of leather, wood and engines. The starter turned very slowly as the battery was low on charge, but after a few pulls she fired into life. Having got her started, I thought, “Shouldn’t just shut the engine down – she needs a run to recharge the battery a bit” – and so I took her out, intending to return within 10 minutes or so.

After a few minutes reacquainting myself with the car's little peculiarities (I’d not driven her for at least 6 months, maybe more) I began to relax and even enjoy myself. In fact I REALLY enjoyed myself cruising around in the old girl. Older gents stopped to peer at her as we passed, no doubt wondering what model she is – Daimlers are definitely not the most common British classic on the roads here.

Some smiled and waved …. and bit by bit, I felt the old pleasure returning as she cruised serenely around bends, cushioning bumps in the road surprisingly well and generally keeping up with modern traffic. I stopped at the local supermarket and took a couple of photos (below) - how incongruous she looks between the moderns. Queenie is genuinely a car from another era years before supermarkets were a thing, let alone Covid-19.

On leaving the supermarket I found myself taking the scenic route home to enjoy the drive, even pausing to take a photo (below) of Queenie's dash as I thought it looked good in the sunshine. I finally parked Queenie back in the garage at home and was surprised to find we had been out for almost 2 hours. "Mustn't leave it so long next time" I thought.

And so I come back to the song I mentioned in the title … it's come to me now. You can play it by clicking below.

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A tale of two lucky VDP's - part 13

14/7/2020

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by Andy Perman

We find ourselves in part 13 of these blogs and it’s now early 2017. The VDP had been safely stowed away for the winter, but its slumber was about to be cut short; the Enthusiasts of British Motor Vehicles group were planning a day trip in February to see the Vulcan Bomber at Wellesbourne Airport. This was to include a full tour and then a line-up of our cars for a photo in front of the bomber. There was no way I was missing that! So on a cold, squally Saturday (it was winter after all) I headed north to Warwickshire. I was first to arrive but within half an hour several classics and other members started to rock up.

The day has been well covered in another blog by our own Fat Controller Gar in his blog, so I won’t go into details here but the Vulcan was simply awesome and the staff showing us round really took their time and knew their stuff. Several had actually worked with the bombers during the Falklands conflict and their stories were really engaging. We then all arranged our cars in front of the grand old lady for an excellent photo shoot. A brilliant day, I was rather enjoying this new group!

April through to July I attended quite a few shows, including my last trip to Pride of Longbridge where I picked up 1st Prize at the Allegro National, rather humbling. The VDP was running and driving like clockwork having sorted out all the niggles over the past few years and although great for me to enjoy, as blogs go, vanilla!

In August I attended another event organised by the Enthusiasts of British Motor Vehicles. This one was a steam rally (one of my favourites) and it was at South Cerney Airfield so just a short hour and a half drive for me. The show was on for three days but I could only make the Sunday. The rally was brilliant, a great mix of steam, cars and old ‘stuff’ and was right up my street so I put it in my diary to attend the following year! It has also been covered excellently by Mike Peake AKA ‘Fat bloke’ in his "Fat Bloke & Poppy" chronicles, and a full account of the whole weekend is to be found here along with the relevant photo gallery.

The following weekend was MOT time. Just a couple of advisories came up; one of the CV gaiters was approaching the end of it’s life and one of the ball pin joints had a bit of play in it. Nothing serious. Middle of September on a fine day I jacked up the front of the car, removed the drive shaft and changed the gaiter. The MOT chap was right - it was rather tender in places! I decided to change all four ball pin joints rather than just the one with play in it. All done in a day and just in time as the end of the month was the close of season Milton Keynes show which was excellent.

Show over and back home I stowed the car for what should have been the winter……… however……

The Enthusiasts of British Motor Vehicles group had organised a whole weekend tour of Snowdonia national park in October, with two full days of driving. I really fancied some of that, so booked a local B&B and packed the car. I met Mike Peake and Poppy at Frankley Services where we could refuel the cars and ourselves then in a convoy of two we headed West into North Wales. The first part was busy with traffic and dual carriageway dullness but half an hour later after a left turn we were transported back to 1969 halfway up a mountainside in Italy on the film set of the Italian job for a most exhilarating drive! Cue the music.

Again the weekend has been fully covered in the ‘Fat bloke and Poppy’ chronicles - click here to read it but I’ll just add a couple of things. The ‘Gar weather’ feature of our tours had undergone a full software upgrade since Coventry and ran a full power sequence Friday evening through to Sunday morning! Funniest moment was Gar hearing the Coleman shelter giving up and collapsing in the storm during the early hours of Saturday morning and just casually unplugging the extension lead before rolling over and going back to sleep! And just the sound of Nick’s Jensen growling around the dry stone walling scaring all the sheep! My first tour with the group, I was hooked and vowed to attend plenty more.

Monday morning, tour over and with another of Wales finest breakfasts inside me I headed back along the Italian Job road and then East to Telford for an appointment with Ian Kennedy to get my Hydrogas displacers re-gassed. This is a complicated and highly specialist job, way beyond my skills.

The suspension system on the VDP is of the Hydrogas type and consists of four displacer units above each wheel then interconnected front to back. There are essentially two parts to this; a gas part - in this case nitrogen - and a fluid part, essentially a type of antifreeze. The gas part provides the springing and is kept separate from the fluid by a rolling diaphragm. The fluid carries the weight of the car and is used to trim the height of the suspension and provide the front to back interconnection.

There is a semi non-return valve on the rebound side of the fluid and this provides the damping factor. Extremely simple but awesome to drive. Problem is the units were sealed for life, at the time this was set at 15 years at which point they would have been replaced with a new unit. Roll on 45 years there are no new units and the existing ones are all low on gas which results in a harsh choppy ride so Ian has devised a method of drilling and welding in a high pressure injection point on each displacer then re-charging the nitrogen. This also requires the fluid to be evacuated and the displacers disconnected from the car first.

It was humbling to watch a true engineer at work - a highly skilled job all carried out in less than a day. On the test drive afterwards Ian directed me into a road that had speed bumps and said in no uncertain terms ’40 miles an hour’! Well previous to the work that would have been suicidal and the car would have crashed over them probably going into orbit in the process. True to say you couldn’t feel or hear the bumps even at that speed, it felt like a magic carpet! Back at the workshop Ian connected his Sun analyser to the engine and made a few adjustments to the fuel settings which made it run even smoother. Top bloke.

Job all done I made the long journey back home but it was a pleasure, the car glided along soaking up every bump. Anyone who has not experienced a well set up Hydrogas system needs to get a ride in one, it really is something else.

That should have been it for the year but a week before Christmas I got a call from my local garage, it was James the owner. He said ‘remember the blue VDP you saw in here last year?’ Oh yes I said. ‘Just had the owner on the phone, he’s had an accident and rear end crashed it, he’s bringing it in later today for me to remove all the displacers so he can sell them then he’s getting the car scrapped’. Then came the hook, he said ‘I don’t want to kill it and I’m sure you don’t want to either, Just call in around 6 tonight and see if there is anything we can do’. On the spot or what!

Rear end crashed? What could that mean? Could mean it’s a write-off of course but I wanted to be the judge of that so I grabbed a tape measure and took loads of careful measurements around the rear of my car, paying particular attention to the boot opening, rear glass, arches, and some! Allegros have no chassis or sub-frames so any distortion in the body is game over (the windows fall out don’t you know).

Armed with the figures and cash in my pocket I headed for the garage a little earlier than 6. It paid off because the car was parked up and nobody was about. The damage was fairly significant, but on closer inspection not horrendous. However when I compared the actual measurements with the ones I’d written down you could have knocked me down with a feather. Millimetre perfect. So it was game on.

I marched inside.

To be continued...

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A tale of two lucky VDP's - part 12

13/6/2020

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by Andy Perman

After the very "Gar" wet weather run up to Coventry where I’d inadvertently blown water into all the electrickery by leaving the cooling fan override switch on, I thought it would be a really good idea to fix the dash warning light cluster so I didn’t repeat the mistake again. Only the low fuel light in the cluster worked, although hugely inaccurate so I assumed there was something sinister lurking in the console electrics. Obviously there was no rush as it was now winter, Christmas was coming and I wouldn’t need the VDP until the Austin show at Brooklands in March., which meant I could pick a mild day to investigate as I am a southerner and not used to ‘bracing’ weather.

What that meant was my arm chair was way more comfortable than the workshop and there was obviously no suitable day as it was winter. Brooklands was almost upon me when I thought I’d better hurry up and take a look.

Armed with screwdrivers and a multi-meter I set about dismantling the centre console and removing it from the car. With it on the bench I rolled my sleeves up and got my probes ready to get stuck in proper as I rather enjoy diagnosing electrical problems. Imagine my massive disappointment when I found in the first five minutes that it was just three blown bulbs! With them replaced it also gave me a chance to adjust the low fuel warning mechanism as it was coming on quite early so I usually just ignored it.

All in all it took longer removing and replacing the console than it had to fix it. Never mind, with the engine running I now had all the lights doing what BL intended them to do - problem solved!

I attended several shows over the next four months; Brooklands (which was excellent), the Allegro club show in May and my favourite local show, the SHVPS and I was pleased to see even more rust than in previous years in the auto jumble. I picked up a couple of AVO 8 multi-meters for very little cash here, and they both worked too! Then in July there was the second meeting for the Enthusiasts of British Motor Vehicles, which was to be held at Gaydon. Again BL Dan was going, so knowing his love for all things Allegro I asked one of my fellow Allegro buddies Jon Bennett to join me. He agreed and said he’d bring his white estate that had spent the majority of its life in Sri Lanka and had quite a tale to it.

The show was excellent; I recognised a few faces from Coventry the year before and of course there was a pile of cake so high there was snow on the peak. The Stig even joined us for an hour taking a look round but not saying much! Asked him to stand by my VDP which he did for a camera roll, still use it as wallpaper to this day! BL Dan voted Jon’s estate his star of the show and had a sit in the rear of it as a treat. There was also a photographer taking lots of action shots of all the cars and I was really pleased with how the VDP looked poised on the road, a view I don’t get to see from the driving seat.

More shows followed throughout the summer, including my last visit (didn’t know this at the time) to the VDP show where I actually picked up an award! Then in August it was MOT time so I rocked up as usual 8am on a Saturday morning to be greeted by a bright yellow MG Midget and…… drum roll…… a metallic blue VDP! Upon quizzing James the garage owner he explained it was owned locally but not used a lot and it was in for a few running repairs.

I took a few pictures, noting it was a MK2 and had a gorgeous black vinyl roof. Then my attention was interrupted by James who was halfway through the MOT by now saying there was a bit of play in the steering arm, not severe enough to fail but wanted investigating before it got worse. I mentioned the shimmying hub problem and he agreed it had most likely caused something to wear out within the rack as the steering arm was attached directly to it and I’d felt it coming through the steering wheel.

The following weekend I went to see my friend Jon Bennett in London who owns a massive nine Allegros! He had recently acquired a 1500 special HL but was having trouble getting it started. As the engine is exactly the same as the VDP we could copy the settings from mine (which runs like a metronome) onto the Special. This we did, but it still refused to start. Few more checks of all the obvious drew a blank so we had a break for some strong coffee and a think. Bingo, the one thing we hadn’t checked, compression! Well the best reading we got was 60psi, the worst 40psi. No wonder it wouldn’t start! With a good squirt of oil in each bore and two batteries connected we pulled in the starter and it fired up. We even managed to keep it going for about 20 seconds until it died.

With the engine needing an overhaul that put an end to things, so we decided to remove the sump and check the gearbox. We were greeted with long spirals of swarf in the strainer so it looked like the auto box was toast too. At this point we gave up and went for a spin in his Ford Model T, like you do.

September rolled around again and I was booked into the Milton Keynes show at the end of the month. I wanted to take a look at the steering rack play before the show, so the weekend before I removed the rack from the car & got it on the bench. Whilst I was visiting Jon the previous month he’d said there was a nylon bush inside the rack that after forty-odd years becomes brittle and breaks up, causing the play and knocking I was experiencing. Fortunately another Allegro member had some bronze bushes re-manufactured to replace the nylon part and I’d bought a few from him. I’d never worked on a steering rack before, but it was surprisingly easy to dismantle and remove the failed bush. The new part fitted like a glove and it was soon all back together and back on the car with no play. Getting the tracking checked the chap said ‘you got that within 1mm, well done!

The Milton Keynes show was excellent. My VDP picked up another award in its class! I was fast running out of space on the parcel shelf for them all. Again the car drove superbly, the steering was sharp and focused, however I’d had a really interesting conversation with Ian Kennedy about the Hydrogas suspension units and the need to get the nitrogen replaced in them. The symptoms of low gas I was now noticing - choppy at the front and a bit tip-toe over rough surfaces. I decided to get the units re-charged next year when I was a bit closer to Telford where he is based.

The final show of the year was an MG show that I’d not been to before but had been invited to. It was a short drive along the coast to the town of Lancing and it was right on the sea front with great views over the Solent. More than can be said for the views of the cars - it seemed pretty much everyone who could drive had turned up, I was parked next to a Vauxhall Corsa with bigger speakers than its wheels in a line of similar dull moderns. Needless to say I spent the majority of the show on the sea front and have never been back!

So another year had passed, I’d fixed a few niggles on the car but mostly just enjoyed driving and showing it off. The most poignant moment had passed, at least to me, almost unnoticed in the MOT test garage where I’d looked at and photographed the VDP that would come my way in somewhat unusual circumstances the next year, and bring with it a whole bunch of problems, top of them all would be another difficult conversation with the wife……

To be continued.

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The herd mentality

9/6/2020

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by Gar Cole

I hope those of you who are our members enjoy the group and like that we are 'enthusiasts' of all British vehicles. The Admin team along with loyal members have long tried to combat deeply entrenched opinions about certain cars or marques that aren't based on experience but word of mouth. In this regard I believe we have had some success, myself included in that group that's been educated about some vehicles, which brings me to the autumn of 1986....

Back then I was a gobby car mad 8 year-old; everything I knew about cars came from Dad, uncles or guys down the local Working Men's Club, where I was allowed in if I kept quiet while the Rugby was on 😀. In those days school yard jokes were about Skoda, Lada and Reliant, despite none of our families or friends owning any of these cars it was drummed into us they were no good and to be avoided.

Walking along the canal bridge one rainy day a Reliant of 70s vintage buzzed past me with that distinctive note they have. 'Alright plastic pig' I cheekily waved at the driver. Immediately he screeched to a halt, did a quick turn around and stopped next to me. I had that dread feeling you get as a kid when you know your in for a rollicking.

Living in Birmingham, I was surprised when the window wound down and a booming Scottish voice called me a 'cheeky wee @@@@@' , but said while laughing at the same time, 'Don't you like these cars son?' Well my Dad says they are horrible'. 'And has your father ever driven one?' Nope, he's got a 3.0 Granada Ghia, I bragged like the precocious spoiled brat I was.

'Hmmm well thats very nice for him, your father is obviously doing well for himself, but we can't all afford posh cars, or even want them for that matter. This car suits me fine, it's very economical, the insurance premium is low and I can take the wife and wee one with luggage to the coast which I couldn't do with my motorbike. And did you know you can drive these aged 16?' This pricked my curiosity. 'Just think' he said, 'would you rather be soaked on your push bike at 16 or warm and dry with the radio like I am now?' I took his point as the rain was pouring off my head by now but I didn't dare walk off.

Trying to have the last word I played my Top Trump. 'Ahh but these have only 3 wheels, they tip over easily so my Dads mate said. 'Ohhh is that right is it? Tell me boy, how many normal 4 wheeled cars have you seen crashed and rolled over?' (a common sight in 80s B'ham). 'Errmm, well loads I guess'. 'And how many 3 wheelers have you seen upside down?' My eyes looked at the ground as I sensed my Top Trump was failing. 'I've never seen one rolled over'.

A big meaty hand came out the window and patted me on the shoulder 'You see son, it's never the cars fault, just the big Numpty behind the wheel! Now away home with you before you catch your death' and off he buzzed in a puff of blue oil smoke leaving me feeling thoroughly chastised. That day always sticks with me.

Fast forward 8 years to 1993 aged 16 visiting family in Wales.

My Uncle Roderick was a nutter for small British cars. He had a Morris Minor convertible, a proper Mini Cooper S and a Reliant Robin, all 3 of them in British racing green. We were visiting so he could put a new A series engine in my mom's Mini Clubman. I'd not known him long as he came into the family by marriage and I'd not seen his collection before. Naturally I swooned over the Cooper S and admired the Moggy convertible before I opened my gob yet again, 'What you want the Reliant for Uncle Rod? It must be a nightmare on these twisty pot holed valley roads'.

He dropped his oily spanner and walked over wiping his hands on a rag. 'You ever driven one?' 'I haven't passed my test yet, not 17 until next year' I stuttered. 'You can drive these though'. I shrugged my shoulders, he threw the keys at me and said, 'Come on then big man, let's see how you can handle this 'nightmare' '.

Now at this point all I'd ever driven was a 25cc moped on some fields behind the house. Unbeknown to me with Roderick being a mechanic he had that 850cc running well, mildly tuned with a bigger SU carb and a fruity exhaust, some stiffer rear shocks and a pair of fat minilights. I asked why he hadn't put 3 alloys on it and he said 'Who's going to see the front one underneath the car? Waste of money you wally brain!'. I nervously pulled out onto the quiet village road and accelerated away. Having never driven on the road before it felt quick despite never passing 30mph' it felt more like 60. I'd just started to get into it on the twisty roads between Pontlottyn and Bargoed when Police sirens wailed from behind. I stopped and freaked out, omg what's Mom gonna say, etc etc.

The policeman leaned in looking first at me, then my uncle. 'Alright Rod, ows it going? 'All good cheers Dai, just letting my nephew have a go, he don't like Reliants apparently'. Before I could say anything Dai the copper said 'I thought it had been stolen, I saw this spotty kid with the silly spiky hair doing 27mph and knew something was up - you never drop below 55mph between villages!' then he laughed and went back to his car.

At this point I'd sweated through the back of my T-shirt and told Uncle Roderick he could drive back. What followed was a 4 mile white-knuckle ride taking bends at quite high speeds with total control, even though I was convinced we were going over the mountain edge. Uncle Rod confirmed that day what the Scotsman had said 8 years before - it isn't the car, it's the Numpty behind the wheel.

From then on I've had a more respectful admiration of these basic little cars that owners seem to love.

I was prompted to write this as today is my cousin Molly's 13th birthday. Sadly her father Roderick passed away 2 years ago aged just 55. He was in the process of restoring a Reliant at the time of his passing; they even had Reliants on the cakes at the wake. His daughter Molly wants the car for her prom when she's 16 - the car is a 76 P reg Robin similar to the one in the photo. The engine and box are removed as is the steering, but the body and interior are intact apart from a broken rear window caused by local yobs. The family are trying to decide if we're going to try and find a company that's willing to reassemble the car and MOT it in time for May 2023; failing that we will have to hire one.

So am I a Reliant convert? Yes I think so; I appreciate them for what they are and what they were built for. My personal favourite is the Regal saloon with the Anglia-style fins and rear windows. If any of you owns one, please bring it to one of our driving tours or shows 😀

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The things people say about our classic cars

2/6/2020

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by Paul Sweeney

I recently asked our group members, "What is the most ridiculous comment you have ever heard from a member of the public about your classic?". The response was fantastic - here is a selection of the more amusing responses. My thanks to all the contributors.

A Muggle said, "Oh look, it's a horsebox!" - sent in by Dale Scutter

I had a mechanic who when looking at my Volvo 480 tried to tell me it was the same as the Civic Aerodeck
Steve Hancock

Nice car , shame it’s an MG tho
Nala Reklaw

It will be nice this time next year when it’s finished
David Bevan

“I like your Vitesse.” “Thank you but it’s a Herald 13/60.” “No it’s definitely a Vitesse. You can tell by the bonnet.”
Mike Peake

Guy looked at the front of my car which has a large union flag with Standard Coventry on the radiator and says to me ‘nice Austin 7’.
Colin Clatworthy

Nice car mate, is it a Ferrari?
Paul Steel

Can we tie our marquee to your Scimitar?
Zachary Marshall

A guy looked at the engine of my V4 Corsair from the side and commented on it being 2 cylinder.
Richard Norton

Mate of mine who was in his 30s was asked if he owned his 1959 MK2 Consul from new
Kevin Zms

If you have a Herald, they had a Vitesse, if you have a Capri, they had the 3 litre special, something else, they had the Ghia and on and on it goes until they get in their little shopping car and go home.
Andy Campbell

A herald - they don’t go round corners though.
Andy Brooker

Why d'you bother driving that old banger?
Ross Adams

Blokes at work... when you going to get a new car ?
My answer- when I’ve worn this one out ! (Triumph 2.5PI .. 31 years and counting)
David Harvey

Is that going to be a classic car when it's finshed?
Leon Guyot

I have two Allegro Vanden Plas, so there is a list, but the most common are;
An All-Aggro
The wheels fall off
If you jack it up the windows fall out
Where's the square steering wheel?

What amazes me is they think its the first time I've heard it and they are being hugely funny.
Andy Perman

Some people ask, "Why do you drive a Beetle when you got a modern car?" I reply, “Why do people ride horses when they have cars?”.
Their faces drop when two girl dancers get out and I am 70 in January!
John Newbury

Best reaction I had when driving my Magnette through town, an elderly well-dressed gent walking with his wife, stopped and stared, then applauded and said 'bravo' as I drove slowly past.
Steve Favell

You only keep it cos its tax exempt
David Sambrook

It’s got the wrong hub caps
Bill Catherall

I've been asked if my Austin Maxi is American, is it Russian, is it a Lada? The mind boggles.
Kev Sharp

Employee of Ferry company ”Do know your car is dripping oil”... me “when you’re nearly 60 you’ll leak a bit mate”
Graeme Whiting

Driving my Alfa GTV6 into a seaside car park in Cornwall and the attendant saying “you’re the first Ferrari we’ve had in here”
Howard Godolphin

At a car show I was asked if my 1968 E type had been remapped.
Peter Talbot

How could you do that to a Rover p5?
What a waste of a rover p5.
My eyes, my eyes, this can never be unseen, someone needs to be hung drawn and quartered for doing this to a beautiful rover.
Sacrilege.
That's shocking.
That's awful.
I love it.
I hate it.
Kill me now.
Yada yada yada.
Tony Tosh Brooks

About 20 years ago a committee member of the local vintage car Club said my Hillman Californian would never be a classic. Mmmmmmm.yup!
Ernie Greenwell

Is it a Cortina?
I was in my Triumph Stag with the top down...
David Reason

Driving home from a New Years Eve party with the roof down on my Herald somebody shouted out "Aren't you freezing driving that?" My retort "No just cool"
Paul Girling

I'd drop a 2.0 litre engine in that , do the arches and put some wider wheels on.
John Lonergan

That’s a girl’s car
Korey Craft

They called it a piece of junk.
So I informed them that if I wanted their opinion, I'd beat it out of them.
David Harmon

Someone at a show coming up to me and saying “Nice Zephyr mate”.
I politely explained it was a 1959 Cadillac.
Pete Curran

It doesn't look very rusty
James Butler

Driving home one evening in my black ‘54 Morris Minor, pulled up at some traffic lights and the car I’d noticed had been behind me for the last mile or so pulled up on my right, wound down his passenger window and asked me (in all seriousness); “What make is that car mate, is it an Aston Martin?”
Lee Hallam

How do you drive it without air bags and ABS?
Bruce Jones

My mate was at a petrol station and some youth said look wooden alloys!
Steven Chisnall

Man looks at my 1966 Land Rover and told me it was fantastic to see an ex-WW2 army vehicle being used properly.
(N.B. 1st Land Rover designed 1948...)
Joe Farrow

Had one chap come up to me saying 'I had one of those , it was a Ghia though ' ... 'This is a Vauxhall mate '
'I know , just saying mine was a Ghia ' ...
Zebidee Habib

Can I have a smell...?
Matt Harris

It didnt come out of Dagenham with a CD player in
Ian Woodward

A woman riding in the back of Queenie my 1954 Daimler told her horrified (now adult) daughter sitting beside her, "You were conceived in a car just like this"
Paul Sweeney

Very first outing in my Ford Corsair, it had no badges on as it wasn't quite finished. Someone asked what it was, so I told them, and they replied "Ah a Corsa, didn't know Vauxhall made them that far back!!" and yes they were serious.
Ken Bridges

I had an AA man warn me that my power steering and brakes won’t work with the engine off when pushing my Herald onto my drive.
Mike Peake

"Lovely car, is this the one with the 2.7 V6?" - standing next to my Rover P6B ("3500" badges on both front wings and bootlid, "V8" badge on grille and bootlid)
David Beadle

So its a TR7 - asked someone about my TVR 400SE
Ian Shippen

I went to look at an A40 Farina which was rotten
The seller said " You won't find a better one!"
My reply " You better look at mine parked around the corner '
James McLernon

My elderly father saw my Morris minor for the first time and said " it's so modern looking"
Rob Earwicker

My Cortina Savage estate was on stand at the NEC...Chap comes over and tells me that Raceprooved only ever built one estate Savage....I replied that the other one I had at home must be a replica....
Jack Major

Some youths as I was driving up a residential street in Plymouth- "Your car's old as f*** mate!". Didn't really have much of a comeback to that...
Matt Fowles

Rear windows on those pop out when you jack it up
They were banned from the Blackwall Tunnel
Rear wheels fall off on those
Has it got a square steering wheel?
George Beresford

I own a taxi, always roll my eyes when I'm asked if it's fake.
Roy Coker

You should keep that in a garage, you’ll wear it out if you use it.
Mitch Crancher

"Did you buy it new?“ to the twenty year old me driving a thirty year old Herald.
Andrew Spittlehouse

My sister once asked me if everything was ok? Was I struggling?
When I asked her why the concern? She said it was because I always seem to be driving the oldest car in the car park.
Nick Arthur

CEO of a well-known construction company crashed into my Morris Traveller while he was queue-jumping in his Audi (of course) last year; during the rather heated exchanges afterwards he claimed it was my fault for 'driving a stupid small car' and he was 'glad he crashed into it'!
Toby Bruce

I went to the local shops in my classic Jag and parked next to the little coffee shop. There was a cosy group of 50-something ladies supping their lattés. One leaned over the railing and said 'I suppose you think this is your chick magnet'. I was surprised as I am of similar classic car age and said that if it is, then it's not working, but maybe it's finally starting with you today. I didn't continue the dialogue. I have standards
Peter Lloyd

When I broke down in my Vitesse, a woman passer by said she didn’t know a bra company made cars
Edward McNab

A guy told me the correct vinyl roof and steering wheel on my MK4 Cortina were wrong and totally missed the MK5 seats and Capri wheels!
Richard Norton

An "enthusiast" at a show here in Australia that insisted my MG RV8 was an MGC, completely ignoring the difference between a straight 6 and a V8 ! and then argued with me
Steve Hodgson

I've got a 1955 Norton Model 19R.
At one of the rally's I went to, a man came up to me and said: "Young man, I once owned a BMW like yours, when I was your age!"
Lewis Williams

Is that a Jensen Interpreter?
Mark Rivron

Telling me my Maxi should be lowered!
Peter Thomson

All of us Singer owners are continually asked 'what's the connection with the sewing machines then?'
John Hadfield

"Why are you getting so irate, it's only an old car" by an er "elderly person" who'd just reversed into the front of my just rebuilt Spitfire 1500 outside my office.....
Simon Stock

“Did they really make them to look like that from new?” Ford Squire.
Allan Broadbridge

"What is it mate?" - "A Morgan" - "No, I would recognise a Morgan, seriously, what kit is it?" "No, really, it's a 1954 Morgan." "No, listen Mate. Morgans never made 4 seaters and are not that old" "What do you think it is then?" "Dunno, some kind of kit, that's why I asked YOU!"
Guy Loveridge

While studying the badge on the grill. "What car is it?" 'A Morris 1800.' "Is it like a Morris Minor?" 'No! More like an 1800!' "What engine's in it?" '1800' "So what is it?" 'It's a Morris 1800.' "So what kind of car is it?" 'A family saloon car.' "Is it a Morris Minor?" 'No! It's an 1800!' Walks away clearly dissatisfied.
Jacob Theunissen

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Mildred in a lockup - in a Lockdown

1/6/2020

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by Mark Smith

Great Aunt Mildred gets some Lockdown Pampering....Eventually!

Not sure when you will get to read this but at the time of writing it’s the last few days of May 2020, some three months into the Coronavirus Lockdown. I hope you and your families have come through this unprecedented world pandemic safe and well.

I made a mistake when the Lockdown was announced. I should have gone round to Mildred’s lock-up and liberated her but I didn’t. I left it too late to move her and so there she had to remain. Oh, some would say I should have just gone and got her anyway. After all, the lock-up is only in the next road, which is about half a mile away. From our upstairs box-room at the front of the house I can look over the gardens of the houses opposite and across the track of the Great Central Railway and see the roof of Mildred’s garage, she is that close!

I could have taken a chance and gone and got her but perhaps unlike some more modern classic cars, Mildred is a bit more conspicuous. Her design being more akin to pre-war cars than those of the early 1950’s when she was built could make a Mayflower a bit more noticeable and the last thing I wanted to do was to draw attention to myself and have someone complain that I should not be driving the car when we’ve all been told to stay at home. It would be just my luck to find there’s a Policeman stood on the corner as I drove Mildred round to home! Maybe many would say I was being a bit paranoid but as I see it, rules are rules so before doing anything I contacted Leicestershire Police and explained my plight and what I wanted to do and asked if it would be OK for me to go and collect the car, drive it straight to my house where it would be kept off the road and behind locked gates so I could carry out a few little maintenance jobs while we were all confined to home. The reply was courteous but adamant, it would be ‘an unnecessary journey’ and was therefore forbidden under the Lockdown rules in place at that time.

Time drifted by and eventually the government eased the Lockdown rules enough that I thought gave me wiggle room to legitimately move Mildred round to home so, after spending a Friday afternoon jet washing all the winter cobwebs from under the carport (which led to jet washing the whole of the drive way as it does) I eventually brought Mildred home on Saturday 16th May and work could begin. I had three particular jobs I wanted to do; one necessary and two that were mainly cosmetic.

The first of the cosmetic jobs was to sort out the rear number plate. As I am writing this piece for publication within a number of different club magazines as well as internet platforms, I had better explain to the uninitiated that the boot lid of the Mayflower was designed so that it could be lowered and used as an extra luggage platform, perhaps to strap a wicker picnic basket to. This was very much a pre-war idea and as the number plate has to be legally visible at all times, the Mayflower’s number plate was hinged so that it would hang vertically with the boot lid open. This was a problem on Mildred. An owner in the distant past had fitted an extra high visibility brake light above the number plate, obviously as a result of finding that even the traffic in the 1970’s was moving at a faster pace than Mildred was designed to do. Plus, the original small round brake lights fitted to the lower outer edges of the Mayflower’s rear wings just could not be seen clearly enough.

The additional brake light was a brilliant idea back then but as even the smallest of modern cars is now able to out-accelerate the boy racers of forty years ago, I am more than grateful for it! However, it was fitted to the boot lid immediately above the number plate mounting bracket so when the lid was lowered, the number plate light which moves with the plate, jammed on the auxiliary brake light, preventing the number plate from hanging vertically. OK, this was probably never going to be a problem to me. The chances of driving the car with the boot lid open is probably not going to be very high but I suppose I must be a little bit OCD as I like things to work as the designer intended.

The auxiliary brake light only needed to be raised up the boot lid by around a quarter of an inch but these jobs are never as simple as they first appear, are they? Of course not! Yes, I could have just moved the light, but the number plate mount was rusty. Can’t have that! As my parents would have said, ‘If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing properly’ so off came the number plate assembly! The number plate was removed from its back plate first and then, after the wires were removed, the light was also unbolted and then the whole assembly was unbolted from the boot lid. The various parts were cleaned with wire brushes etc before rust killer was applied and then given a coat of black spray paint.

While the number plate assembly was drying, the auxiliary brake light was removed. As I said earlier, it only needed to be raised by a quarter of an inch but I had been concerned that the original fixing holes would be left visible which would be unsightly and had wondered how I was going to fill them. As luck would have it the problem was sorted for me as the mounting plate of the light was so deep that it covered the old holes once mounted in its new position. The plate fits nice and tight so should not have allow water ingress that would cause the holes to rust but as an extra precaution, I cut a gasket out of a small sheet of 1.5mm thick rubber gasket material I had ordered off eBay to complete another of the little jobs I had lined up - details on that to follow. Once dry, the number plate mount along with the number plate and light were refitted and now the assembly hangs vertical when the boot lid is open, just as it should do. Of course the auxiliary brake light can’t now be seen if the car is driven with the boot lid open but that is a whole new kettle of fish and anyway, the car is unlikely to be driven with the lid open.

Job number two was not cosmetic it was absolutely crucial! On a family Lockdown walk, we ‘happened’ to walk past Mildred’s garage and so stopped by to say hello and check she was OK which of course involved starting the car’s engine. Mildred was driven out of the lock-up just far enough to be able to raise her bonnet and do a visible check and that’s when the problem came to light; the gasket between the float chamber lid and carburetor was leaking! This was not good as the exhaust manifold is directly below the inlet manifold. This could have caused a nasty fire if not sorted so the float chamber lid was removed and the fragile gasket carefully lifted away. Luckily, I had the remains of a sheet of gasket material left over from a job I did on my 1978 Lada some years ago and that was plenty big enough to cut out a new float chamber seal. After placing the remains of the gasket on top of the gasket sheet and drawing around it, I cut it out with a crafting scalpel and fitted it in place, another job done.

Job number three was another of those ‘unnecessary but it should work’ types. The bonnet catch was made to be lockable but none of Mildred’s keys worked it. Now this could have been a problem with the lock barrel or it may be that the key had been lost in the distant past. Either way, the only way to find out was to remove the bonnet catch assembly from the car and strip it down. The catch assembly was easily removed from the car but then things got more difficult! In order to remove the lock barrel from the catch assembly, the bonnet mounting shroud had to be first separated from the handle shaft but that was easier said than done! The locking action of the bonnet catch requires a crude metal bar to be slid through a hole in the shaft where it lines up with a square hole in the shroud casting that then stops the shaft turning when locked.

My problem was that to remove the shroud, the locking bar needed to be slid through the shaft on the ‘open’ side and into a special groove that runs the height of the shroud, allowing the shaft to be pulled though the shroud once the retaining clip is removed. Unfortunately, the locking bar was positioned so that it was neither far enough across to lock the catch assembly or far enough over in the ‘open’ position that it was located in the groove and in order to move the bar over, a key was required which of course I had not got! This caused a lot of head scratching. After looking at the catch assembly from various angles, through gritted teeth and making another mug of coffee and mentally willing the bar to move, I hit upon the idea of trying to ‘pick’ the lock with a couple of jeweler’s screwdrivers. The theory being that if I carefully mounted the bonnet catch assembly in a vice I could slide one screwdriver down inside the lock to push the spring-loaded brass tangs into the side of the lock barrel, therefore disengaging the lock and after simultaneously sliding another jeweler’s screwdriver in down the side of the first one, it might be possible to get enough force to turn the lock and slide the locking bar into the correct position. It took a few goes but it eventually worked and I was able to slide the shroud off the shaft…..phew!

With the parts separated it was just a case of driving out the pin that held the lock barrel into the shaft with the aid of a small nail and tack hammer and the barrel was out. Now I would be able to see what the problem was and it didn’t take long! All these old lock barrels are stamped with the key number and it was clearly visible on this one and it did not match either of the other two key numbers, one for Mildred’s door and boot lid locks and the other for the ignition switch. On closer inspection I noticed that the only difference between the door lock and the bonnet lock barrel was the very first brass tang. The door key was missing a space for the tang to drop into. As I had a few door keys I cut an additional niche into the top of the key with the Dremel and hey presto, it worked! The lock barrel could now be turned. The bonnet catch assembly was rebuilt and after and a new gasket to replace the one that sits between the shroud and the bonnet was cut from the small sheet of 1.5mm thick rubber mentioned earlier (the original was too far gone), the whole assembly was fitted back onto the bonnet of the car. Once fitted back on, the lock was tested again and worked fine. Two new keys of the correct code were ordered plus a replacement for the butchered door key and the bonnet can now be locked as the manufacturer intended.

However, this is not quite the end of the saga as there is quite a bit of play in the catch handle when in the locked position. I believe this is caused by wear in the small bar that slides through the handle shaft when the key is turned, locking the shaft and stopping the bonnet from opening. The metal plate mounted on the end of the shaft that actually forms the bonnet catch is also quite worn. Both of these parts could do with replacing with better condition ones. It is possible there are some serviceable replacements in the Triumph Mayflower Club’s spares cache but due to the current Lockdown situation searching the stores stock will have to wait for another day!

In addition to the work carried out on the vehicle itself, I have also been filling spare moments with building a ‘period’ tissue box cover for the rear parcel shelf. The intention was to make something that could pass as being an after-market accessory, sold to the discerning Mayflower owner of the 1950’s! The cover is made from 6mm MDF, obviously a material not available in the 50’s. The top and sides are all held together with glued dovetail joints and the removable bottom is held in place by magnetic catches. The whole structure has been covered in a deep red sticky-backed felt dolls house carpet material that blends quite nicely with Mildred’s interior. For anyone that likes doing craftwork and model making, I can thoroughly recommend these sheets of dolls house carpet. They are not expensive and are easy to work with. To finish off the tissue box and connect it with the Mayflower, the Mayflower script was traced from the front of the Owners Handbook, transferred onto the reverse side of some black felt carpet material and then cut out with the modeling scalpel. Two were made and one carefully stuck onto either side of the tissue box cover. In my simple mind the result is just how I would imagine such an accessory to have looked had one been available in those early days of post war marketing.

So that is the updated situation on Mildred. A number of small jobs completed, most of which are cosmetic rather than necessary but all help to take Mildred back nearer to the condition she would have been in at the time she left the Standard Triumph factory, in function at least! All that is needed now is a return to a more normal way of life that allows the classic vehicle shows and meetings that we all enjoy to resume.

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Lockdown Blues. Fatbloke and Poppy Pt 61

30/5/2020

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By Mike Peake

Hello Chaps! Wow, it’s been a while hasn’t it? You thought lockdown couldn’t get any worse didn’t you? But now I’m inflicting a blog on you so I’m really sorry.

It’s been over 6 months since our last little chat and quite a lot has happened. Classic car event after event has been cancelled. Poor Nelson, Gars Minor Triumph, met his Trafalgar in a ball of flame prompting us all to buy the fire extinguishers we’d been meaning to get for years but never quite got around to it (or was that just me?)

I can’t imagine how upset Gar must have been losing his pride and joy like that and we all commiserated fully with him. Of course Saint Brian of Enthusiastshire had to show off in his level of sympathy by giving Gar a spare Triumph 2000 he had lying around. Naturally, this level of generosity means that he is officially exiled from his home county of Yorkshire for bringing its name into disrepute - but what a lovely thing to do. He’s a very, very nice man. The story even made it into Classic Car Weekly.

Of course Gar is cock-a-hoop and has spent lockdown fettling and polishing to his heart’s content and winding Brian up with tales of how he is going to deface Errol’s natural beauty with all sorts of hooligan mods. Brian isn’t fooled by this for a minute though. We all know how much Gar has fallen in love with Errol because he’s even dropped his plans to two-tone the car with a different colour roof and he can’t find a rear window louvre kit for the big saloon.

The Brooks aren’t letting Lockdown affect them in the slightest and have been churning out stunners like you wouldn’t believe. They’ve even developed a bit of a fibreglass fetish.

Of course all are for sale at very reasonable rates if you would like to step into Tosh’s office. Although, there has been rumours that Tosh is actually planning on keeping one of them but no one really believes that.

His next project has also been announced and we’re all really looking forward to seeing the results.

Our very own Ninja assassin Liam is really taking current events seriously; he has locked himself away in his Secret Squirrel Survival Bunker and is living like a king on stockpiled MRE’s and Lucozade whilst monitoring his CCTV ready to set off the claymore mines if anyone approaches.

Nick Arthur is being banished to a caravan in Jo’s garden so he can be closer to his cars. Graham and Sue are panicking about their planned wedding in September and Andy ‘Two Pants’ Perman has discovered the Joys of writing blogs about his VDPs. In fact, go and read them now as they’re far better than this drivel.

Two Pants Perman's Blogs

Me? What have I done? You're still here then? Well I grew a beard. Impressive eh?

Everyone said I looked like Tosh Brooks though so I immediately shaved it off again.

I have been fortunate enough to be working from home full time during the crisis. The new commute has tuned out to be a bit of a problem though as the stairs quickly become gridlocked during rush hour.

Poppy? Well she was fine but very, very bored and lonely in her lock up far from home. (Well, not that far really but it sounded better in a literary sense.)

Winter was really horrible with not a single day with good enough weather to take her for a spin. Then, just as the weather turned glorious, we were put into lockdown and I couldn’t go and get her. Of course if I’d known at the time that we were allowed out to drive as part of an eye test I’d have been out like a shot.

However, lockdown restrictions were eased a bit in early May so I went to get her. She fired up on the 1st turn of the key. I washed off the New Forest dirt, gave her a wax and Emily and I took a grin-laden drive around the green lanes of Wiltshire to get some milk. I did notice that my headlights were no longer working when I pulled her out of the lockup but as it was a bright summers day, I didn’t let this bother me. I then parked her on my drive so I would be able to sort out a few niggles.

Niggles? Surely not? I hear you say! Well yes. 3 to be precise. Well 3 I planned to look at anyway.

My heater hasn’t worked since I’ve had the car. I know that this may seem a bit slovenly to some but it’s only been 19 years and what’s the point of a heater in a car with no roof? Well if I want to go on winter tours with the chaps and want my wife to come with me, it turns out that a working heater IS quite important.

Since I’ve rebuilt my Carb I’ve been having trouble getting the tune right and suffering from a very fast tickover. I think I have now narrowed this down to a sticking throttle cable so this needed changing and while I was at it I’d change all the return springs to fix the floppy peddle.

Finally, I had to find out where all the electrickery for my headlights had gone. So I ordered all the parts I thought I would need.

The following weekend, with a box of shiny new parts to hand I set to work. I thought I’d do the easy job 1st which I deemed to be throttle cable. I removed the cable from the carburettor and immediately, my fast running issue was solved so that’s good. What wasn’t so good was when I went to remove the pedal. Turns out that the bracket was rusted quite badly. I couldn’t even see the old spring or split pin.

It would have to come out. It’s only two bolts though so will be easy. 3 hours, 1 broken ratchet, a broken hacksaw blade and a shattered grinding wheel later, the pedal bracket was off. The cable and pedal were also now separated and a new shopping list started.

£10 on eBay if anyone wants it?

As I could proceed no further with my pedal assembly, I turned my attention to the heater. I suspected that the valve was at fault as it was very stiff to operate and I had a shiny new one in my box of shiny new parts. So, the cable and pipes were removed from the old valve and the valve removed from the heater matrix. I then attached my hose pipe to the matrix and flushed it through until clear clean water was flowing out before fitting the shiny new valve, new rubber pipes and shiny new jubilee clips. Just the operating cable to attach now and job done. Well, it would have been if I hadn’t broken the pinch bolt doing it up too tightly.

It took a while but amongst all my “parts that will come in useful one day” supply, I found a new one that will do at a pinch (Haha! Get it? A pinch bolt that will do at a pinch! Hahahaha….ahem… sorry). The only trouble was that it was still attached to the brake cable on my daughters bicycle. She won’t miss it. The important thing was that it is now all back together. The heater still doesn’t work and the pipes to it aren’t getting even warm so I suspect an air lock. Anyone know how to cure this?

Having not yet fixed anything despite hours and hours of work, I thought I’d see if I could relocate my headlamp electrickery. First, I spent an hour looking for the inline fuse that someone said was behind the dash on the passenger side. It wasn’t there. Someone had decided to move it into the engine bay. It wasn’t the inline fuse though. It was fine.

So I followed the power wire from the fuse through the car dismantling stuff as I went to ease access and checking various connections with my trusty multimeter as I went. I found electrickery everywhere it should be and no holes in anything where it could leak out. I was now suspecting the master switch. Now this is only £20 for a new one (It really is!) so I wasn’t worried. I was worried however if the fire brigade would be able to get me back out from under the dash where I’d need to go to get to said switch.

When able, I checked the inlet side of the switch and there was electrickery. So I checked the outlet side and found none! Aha!! Then I turned it on and the power flowed. It wasn’t the master switch. I continued to follow the electrickery towards the column switch. I was a little nervous now because the column switch comes in 4 parts and each part is £20. To my vast relief though, I found the problem. There was a blockage preventing the electrickery going through the connector where the rear lights branch out.

Flushed with the success of my detective skills I went and added more parts to my shopping list. I managed to extricate myself from under the dash without the aid of the fire brigade so it may have been that I was flushed with.

Now, you know that picture from the interweb of the wrecked house that someone had painted “Got the Spider “ on?

I know, made me chuckle for ages. Well I’m not chuckling now!

Found the trickery gremlin!

I’d spent most of the day working on my car and hadn’t actually finished fixing anything other than a new shopping list of required parts.

I did manage to successfully fit the new number plates the girls bought me. After all 23rd of May was Poppy’s 50th birthday, so I had to do something nice for her.

I shut and locked the car door, tidied up, poured myself a glass of squash, fired up the computer and ordered more parts.

The next Friday afternoon with another box of shiny new parts, I set to with real conviction that today would be a productive day on the car!

With a lot of help from Emily I soon had the accelerator pedal assembly properly assembled and was finally able to get the carb properly tuned and had Poppy purring like a dream in no time.

Next I cleared the blockage in the wiring and had electrickery flowing where it should and fully functioning lights.

As you can see above, I’d made a bit of a mess of the original 50 year old under dash millboard when diagnosing the failure to light, but it was already in very poor condition so it gave me the excuse to buy the new one I’d been promising Poppy for a while. It was an absolute swine to fit and Emily learned lots and lots of new words but we got here in the end.

You can’t actually see it unless you are laying in the floor well, but if you do happen to find yourself laying in the floor well it now all looks rather lovely now.

Then I had to reassemble the radio and speaker, reconnect and refit the 12v supply/cigarette lighter and the electric washer pump switch. Along with the steering column and steering wheel. Of course, when I drove the car, the steering wheel was 90 degrees out but this was soon corrected. It is also a record for me as I removed the steering wheel twice in a week and didn’t break my nose.

I’m now very pleased with my interior.

We were on a roll so I went ahead and fitted the new horn that has been in my garage for a year. The steering column on the Herald is adjustable and the last time I had it apart, I think I set it too far forward as every time I went round a corner or over a bump the horn used to sound of its own volition which led to acute embarrassment and the odd fight. It kept touching the steering wheel boss and therefore earthing the horn. This time, I made sure I set the column further back.

Then, with Emily’s help, I changed the old horn which had gone from sounding when it felt like it to not sounding at all. Who’d have thought, the ability to do an arabesque would come in handy when working on a classic car.

I then gave her a quick wash to rid her of all the dust that had settled over the last week - Poppy that is, not Emily - and went for a lovely test drive on the country lanes. Poppy was running sweeter than ever and I was enjoying sounding the horn whenever I felt like it. Which was quite often. Just for giggles.

So finally, a productive day. Hopefully, I’ll have something else to write about soon but in the meantime, stay safe everyone and see you on the other side.

More by Mike Peake ...

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A tale of two lucky VDP's - Pt 11

28/5/2020

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by Andy Perman

So it was now October 2015. It was five years since I’d spotted and rescued the VDP from the scrap yard and it had been performing flawlessly since replacing the shimmy hub. It had picked up quite a few awards at various shows, been to the NEC and sparked many interesting conversations. So from my perspective this was great, but from a blog point of view it’s a bit vanilla.

That however was all about to change. I’d joined this new Facebook group called Enthusiasts of British Motor Vehicles and they were having a meet in Coventry. This was going to introduce me to a phenomenon now known as ‘Gar’ weather, something that is not seasonal or even desired. I’d also been told a chap called BL Dan wanted to see my car in the flesh, so there was no question, I was going.

The night before I watched in horror the ‘Gar’ weather forecast. It was awful, a band of very heavy rain the whole length of the country pretty much all morning, all blown in on a stiff wind. Well I’d driven back from the NEC the year before in pretty bad weather so it couldn’t be any worse than that, could it?

I’d set an alarm but it wasn’t required. The rain lashing on the roof woke me up about 6am. Unable to get back to sleep I got up and made an extra flask of strong coffee so I wouldn’t need to stop at the services half way and get soaked. I opened the workshop door to load the stuff and if a car could wear an expression it would have been ‘really’?

I set off early, about 7.30, but with about 180 miles in front of me it meant I could take it easy in the vile weather and not have to push the car too hard. The first leg along the M27 was uneventful, the wipers and lights all working hard but otherwise fine. The heater was producing plenty of heat and the car didn’t seem to be leaking which was a bonus.

My exit onto the M3 to take me in a more northerly direction was approaching so I moved over into the slip lane in readiness and felt a hiccup. Or did I imagine it? Ah, the cats’ eyes along the slip, must have gone over one of them. Five minutes later, another hiccup, unmistakable this time, something was not happy but I did what we all do when in denial, sped up a bit to ‘flush it out a bit’ and turned the radio up.

My denial lasted about five minutes more when the hiccups returned with all his mates and proceeded to rock the car whilst stealing all the power. I moved into the emergency lane and backfired to a halt, the wipers mocking me as they swept the now biblical rain from the screen. One final cough and the engine cut out, leaving an ignition and oil light glaring at me ‘really, told you so’.

Great, it was absolutely sheeting with rain and I’d failed to proceed on the hard shoulder of the M3. I’d tried to restart the engine but it was having none of it so resigned myself to having to take a look. Good job I’d packed some waterproofs - I was going to need them. They were however in the boot. I leapt out quickly and winced as the cold ‘Gar’ rain instantly soaked into my shirt. I ran to the boot only to find it locked, ran back to the car to get the keys, back to the boot where I could finally get the waterproofs out but by this stage it was far too late as I was already soaked right through.

With my ‘Gar’ waterproofs now on I popped the bonnet and had a cursory look. Everything was covered in a fine spray so I was sure the rain had played a part so grabbed a can of WD40 (other alternatives are available) and began the process of chasing the water out of the electrickery. This got the engine started, but rough and certainly not capable of the trip in front of it, so I slapped the dwell meter on the coil and Bingo! The reading was all over the place. I removed the points and grabbed some emery paper then jumped in the car to re-face the surfaces. And dry them out!

Re-faced and fitted I started the engine, still rough but the reading on the dwell meter was stable now, albeit out of spec. Quick adjustment and got it spot on, engine now happy idling smoothly. Then I spotted the cooling fan was running continuously. I’d left the override switch on! No wonder there was spray everywhere, it had sucked it in! Satisfied I shut the bonnet and jumped in then tried to wriggle out the waterproofs as only an overweight middle aged man can. Un-elegantly!

I switched off the cooling fan and pulled back onto the motorway, picked up speed and headed north. The rest of the journey was good, but the rain wasn’t. It didn’t let up for a second, lashing me all the way. Once I got through the horrendous road blocks and one-way systems in Coventry I found my way into the museum, more by luck than judgement and parked up. As if on command, the rain eased then stopped.

I was the new rookie on the block and didn’t know anyone but one thing I learned quickly is this is a friendly group and I was welcomed by smiles and cake. Lots of cake. Then I met BL Dan, a real enthusiast for anything British, but particularly Allegros. He had been man and boy at several large dealers back in the day when Allegros were commonplace and had a real soft spot for them. Shouts went up and the Admin chaps assembled in front of my humble VDP and the picture was taken that has become synonymous with BL Dan, this group and is still his profile picture to this day. Proud moment.

L-R Keith, Gar, BL Dan and Zebidee

My VDP beside the MK1 1500 Special

As ever the day flew past and as the light was fading it was time to head home, but not before getting my VDP alongside another rare MK1 1500 Special Allegro that had also joined us for a camera roll. Interestingly that Special now lives just along the coast from me in Bognor with a real Allegro nut, but that’s another story. The journey back was fabulous, no wipers required. The car safely stowed meant the end of another eventful season, but things were going to take a change; this group were about to embark on tours in the next year. In ‘Gar’ weather. Camping. In North Wales. In October.

If a car could have an expression…… Really?

To be continued.

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Embarrassing motoring moments

28/5/2020

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by Admin

A fine collection of embarrassing motoring moments from our members - thanks to you all for sending them in!

Finally realising what that knocking noise was as the front wheel came off and bounced across the road while I came to an undignified grinding halt.
Steve Favell

Back around '81, I attended a family funeral in hilly Bath with my (now ex) wife in my '67 Cortina 1600 GT.
We were invited to follow behind the funeral cortege up the steep hill towards the cemetery ... and as I pulled away, a hole appeared in the silencer - leaving me to continue VERY noisily all the way up the hill behind the hearse. Oh, the shame ...
Paul Sweeney)

When I took my 13/60 Herald into central London one Saturday night in the ‘80s, and the horn decided to sound everytime I turned the steering wheel...
Charlie Jeffreys

I have another equally embarrassing story 1981 I was riding across the Greek island of Kos when me and my mate stopped at some road works we were on mopeds. It looked like they were spraying the road with tar and throwing down some surface gravel. I had a mad moment and decided to ride across the fresh surface. Unknown to me the surface was soft and 3 inches deep and I rode about 30 meters ploughing a trough the width on my moped tyre. I was glad to get to the end and all the Greek road workers just stood mouth open unable to believe what i had just done to their new road. I rode off quick with a 30mm layer of tar all around my moped tyre. It took me ages to get it off the tyre and I sprayed my mate with tar who was following me. I threw lots of dust over the moped before I took it back to the hire shop. I kept a low profile for a few days it was a small island.
Carlo Gambardella

Brake fail towing a caravan down Porlock Hill many many years ago. Ended up in some ones front garden while they were in it. OMG as I sat there with smoldering brakes I got the bollocking of my life. Luckily no major damage just extremely dented pride.
Gary Martin

I just bought a Honda Prelude with the 2.2 litre engine and 200 Bhp and was going down the Autobahn at 248 kph, (Full throttle) as a freaking Beetle just left me standing and my fiance at that time, just was laughing her head off!
Lewis Williams

Was driving through Birmingham city centre in 1980s and cut in between two car the driver waved at me, I thought he was waving me through but unknown to me they had a very long tow rope between the two cars. When the car in front moved off my car cut the rope leaving the other car stranded. I drove off quick.
Carlo Gambardella

Bike rather than car. First time bump starting, jumped to far, fell off the other side. I did laugh at myself a lot before I had a second try.
Alan G Garrett

I pulled the handbrake lever out while on the hill start section of my driving test , it was a Peugeot 205 and bent the mounting plate 90 degrees
David Ford

On honeymoon in the Land Rover. Rural Ireland. Snapped the exhaust in 2 atop a old mining road in the mountains (great day aside from this)

The slow & noisy return to our accomodation featured a pass through Bantry town centre.

The funeral cortage & mourners were not impressed with the rapid cannon-fire effect of a 2.5n/a diesel being caned up the hill past the church in 3rd OD. !!

We drank outside of Bantry that evening.
Joe Farrow

Another 1 was only a few years ago with the Cortina i had to get a new rear silencer and it wasnt the right length to meet the middle 1 properly so anytime i hit a bump it would separate which i still get reminded of now thanks to a certain Richie Moore lol
David Aikman

During my Moped driving test (1974) around Clifton The Raleigh Supermatic handlebar suddenly folded (a very large split appeared around one of the bends). Fortunately I was temporarily out of sight of the examiner so I took a firm grip and pulled them back into some kind of normal position... and carried on. I passed the test but the handlebars never made it home and I had to push the last bit.
Robin Spencer

I do not. want. to talk about it.
Michael Smyth

Taking a friend Mike Halloran to the chemist because his car was broken down, I executed a one-point turn in my Herald estate saying, "You can't do this in your Marina". It dropped the front suspension, Saturday afternoon, on the main road in the busy shopping area, I had just finished work and was stood in full AA patrol uniform...........
Chris Allen

Took my wife’s Capri 3.0 Ghia to the local jetwash, with a friend, getting it ready for a show.
Applied Gunk, covered dizzy, air filter etc. Washed all over, under bonnet. Looked a million bucks.
Got in, turned key...nothing!
Not even a click!
Checked all connections.
Lights worked.
Stereo worked.
Everything worked...except the starter.
Mechanic from local garage walked by...looked in car...laughed...walked off.
Me and my mate were going frantic.

About 10 minutes later, mechanic passed by again...reached into car...put it into ‘park’.
Started first turn of the key!

I’d switched her off in ‘drive’, and hadn’t moved the selector before trying to start her.

Red faces all round!
Phil Golding

I had a bit of a disaster in the late 70s with a Bedford CF van. I was working as a computer service engineer and needed to pull a large piece of equipment from a customer site. This horrible little van had a tail lift, but the equipment was so heavy that in trying to lift, it compressed the rear suspension and almost got the front wheels off the ground. That created quite a crowd. Then, having got it loaded, i couldn't get more than 20 mph out of it. Not fun driving along the M4 out of London in the rush hour at that speed.
Kevin Warrington

Reminds me abit of my 2nd mini the gear selector stabiliser rod bolt fell out so had to drive everywhere with just 1st and 3rd
David Aikman

Got one for trying to avoid embarrassment, heading back from Harewood house classic car show in 1985 in our beloved Morris Minor (balanced 1100 A series, MG head etc...but standard to look at) 1/2 way back a Citroën Dianne appears someway back but gaining, so I upped the speed until clear then back to 70, damn thing starts catching me again, not Avin this! So nailed the poor Moggy to within an inch of its life for about 1/2 an hour to be sure.🤪😂. I was young!
John Stockdale

I got beaten in the traffic light GP by a Vauxhall Nova. I was driving a Jag XJ40. My mate hasn't let me live that down. I don't think the Nova had the original engine somehow!
Matt Fowles

Mine was also in Brum, I decided to take the GT6 for a ride into the city, on route, actually just as I hit the Bristol Road, it developed a horn malfunction, the horn would sound with any movement of the steering wheel until it was straight again, normally a simple fix, but not at that point in time. I got some attention anyway, and a few angry looks from drivers and pedestrians!
Paul Steel 😂

In my first car, a rather tatty Renault R8 (which I loved), with my 14 year old brother in law to be, the near side lower ball joint failed in dramatic fashion. I managed to safely guide the car to somewhere safe, thankfully. The only saving grace was that literally 2 minutes prior, I'd been flat out on the A20 at Swanley. Dread to think what would have happened if it failed then.
Dave Lang

I had a Mini 998. Auto. What a stupid idea that is, sharing engine oil with an auto box. I got quite competent at setting up the clutch bands, but the torque convertor or one of the two extra oil pumps was playing up and as soon as the oil got hot it wouldn't engage. A few times I couldn't pull away from traffic lights on slight gradients, it just sat there squealing at me.
Matt Vallins

BSA Bantam overtaken by a house...
Dave Veart

I was in a Bond Mini 3wheel convertible aged 16 with two mates and decided to go the 70 miles to Cleethorpes . We had the longest tailback ever. Well it was only 197 cc.
Nook Elliott

Back in my biking days I had a Suzuki GSXR600 and was attending a big ride-out in respect for the fallen.

Arrived at the meeting point and shortly after we were told to get ready. Hit the starter and got the bike running but it would not rev and would die if I put it into gear. It had full fuel and freshly charged battery and had ridden there fine.

A friend came over and tried helping but was scratching his head too, nothing we did would get the bike running properly, I had to watch as hundreds of bikes filtered past me.

Worst thing was that I had a camera on so the whole thing was captured in glorious HD.
Callum Tooey

My wife was overtaken by a tractor pulling a hay wagon in our old Volvo 340. Even the sheepdog on the trailer looked as though it felt sorry for her.
Peter Smith

Towing a Holden Commodore in 8:30am traffic, and the tow-rope breaking in the middle of a roundabout - an interesting exercise retying the rope and trying to get the traffic moving on.
Shannon Stevenson

Driving a mini van on Dual Carriageway and was about to overtake a large vehicle ahead waited whilst a big vehicle overtook me and pulled out behind it. Realised the vehicle now behind me was his trailer and I was under the large bridge section he was transporting.
Irvin Mehlman

One night driving along in my moggy van it spluttered and stopped. I eventually came to the conclusion that the petrol tank had fell off so being inventive I had a spare can of petrol and filled it to windscreen washer and to the carb it only took a few hundred squirts to get me back home 35 miles.
Gordon Davis

Putting diesel in my TR6 last summer on way to Stratford on Avon. Car smoked the whole weekend
Derek Carroll

Was being towed with me in a Chevette and an ex girlfriend driving a Land Rover when we got to a roundabout, came to a stop. And when my ex spotted a gap in the traffic, she accelerated hard forcing the nose of my car to violently bounce, which continued half way round the roundabout. When we got to where we were going I asked if she had noticed the bouncing and no she hadnt!
Jan Olin

Driving my Austin Seven Ruby in a narrow lane and met an E type Jaguar. He decided to back up and I couldn’t keep up with with and never saw it again!
Frederick Emery

Company Honda Acty van and badly slipping clutch. Battling a strong head wind on A19 it became obvious what little clutch it had , had now gone. Unfortunately I was about 5 miles from where I was supposed to be. Came off at next exit and discovered it went better backwards than forwards. Reversed about 3 miles to get to phonebox , near to where I was supposed to be, to ring boss , and tell him there was something wrong with the van
John Eden

Descending the Honiston Pass in a TA MG...drum brakes just do it !
Peter Rhys Thomas

I've reached the stage where I've been stood up, both feet on the pedal pulling myself down on the steering wheel, eyes watering with the smoke...

Only once - it was when a S2 diesel started running on it's sump oil - I'd pulled the engine stop, to find effectively I was running with the throttle wide open & no way of stopping.

Drove it into a ploughed field at 40mph +, and the damn thing stalled. Walked home.
Joe Farrow

Based in Germany, my first trip home on leave for Christmas '68 on the ferry to Hull. I was in "pole position" at the pointy end ready to be first off. In those days you had to leave your keys in the ignition in case the crew needed to move cars during voyage. So as soon as the bow doors opened I was ready.....then found I'd locked the doors before leaving the car and couldn't get in. So NOBODY could move. It took half an hour before a crew member used a wire coat hanger forced down the quarter light to unlatch the internal door lock. There seemed to be an awful lot of disgruntled passengers watching me.
Dennis Weatherill

I had a 2.5 88 Landy with a Disco on a trailer when I had to pull on to the hard shoulder to let 4 artics by with wind turbine blades on overtake me
Still got home all intact.
John Newbury

Back in the 80s I bought a fiat 500 that had been stood for many years, brakes partially seized and a fair bit of rust in the floor pan, so I thought i would tow it home after dark, only around 3 ml, so hooked it up to my 3.0L Cortina and basically dragged it down road, it towed ok with my brother driving as if I slowed down so did he as the brakes were partially sized, we turned the last corner to my house and in the wing mirror I could see my brother waving frantically and a massive shower of spark coming from under to fiat, so I stopped and had a look, couldn't stop laughing, the floor collapsed and the drivers seat was on the tar filing the rails away, he was stood on the door sill with the door open and the other foot on the gear tunnel, so we threw the seat in the back and did the last mile like that, got home though, he said never again haha, wish we had camera phone back in the day.
Bryn Thomas

Driving a 2CV, tried overtaking a truck. Spent so long in his slipstream I fell asleep. Fortunately the cross wind at the finish shook the car and me awake...
Graham Jones

3 up in a mk1 Mini coming back from a night fishing trip and the wipers packed up in the pouring rain so we jerry-rigged a shoelace through the windows and the front passenger operated them , then to make matters worse the throttle cable snapped so out with the string a boot lace and that was operated by me on the back . I thought it would be funny to mess around revving the engine out of sync with the driver! A few miles from home we were stopped by the Police for ‘understandably’ erratic driving. We politey explained our situation and they let us go , this was before in car computers so they didn’t realise we had not tax , mot or insurance and only one provisional license between us!!!
Andy Elias

Not me personally because I was used to it being slow, but I came back from holiday once, and the foreman said to me, "That lorry of yours is no good is it?. "I was going up the hill from Bulwark Roundabout to the top, (A48 Chepstow roundabout), and a cyclist went past me !!! " We had several 4 wheelers with the 75 engine in them, but my Trader 6 wheeler was older, had a smaller engine, a four speed gear box, and was two and a half ton overweight if loaded with 3000 of Derv/Gas Oil. (And still had room for another 300 galls on top). It would do 40 flat out, and was down to bottom gear at every pimple.
David Hunt

Driving my MK C Bond Minicar. Had lifted bonnet to kick start and drove off without locking bonnet. Hit about 25 mph when it shot up, snapped off and flew across the road barely missing an elderly lady on a bicycle. Picked it up and apologised.
Clive Matthews

When crossing an intersection in my wife's Hillman Imp the engine sub-frame dropped onto the road pulling the car up instantly - if that was not bad enough my passenger was the Sales Manager of the company i worked for as a junior representative!
Robert Bothwell

The nearside wheel lower balljoint coming apart pulling the driveshaft out of the diff and me scraping the road with the hub for 50 yards. The garage recovery guy sent by the RAC said his chains would smash my front bumper until I suggested we use some tyres he has on board for protection!
Andy Jones

Early 80s in a Mk2 Escort Ghia 1600 (flash!) was taking my sister to look at a car, went over a hump back bridge and the front wing fell off right in front of two policemen! One of them lectured me on road worthiness while the other one helpfully put the wing in the back seat!
Richard Hunniford

Moving the car from the road to the drive, late at night in my Jim Jams. Saying hi to Jane my neighbour, then realizing my todger was out!
Tony Franklin

Can't say too much .but it involved the back seat of my Jag..a young lady and a Policeman's torch..!!
David Waters

In my Fiat 126 racing a Citroen 2CV off the lights. We were neck and neck, giving it our all as we went screaming up through the gears. Then I glanced in the mirror and saw the queue of bored drivers stacking up in both lanes behind us.....
David Church

1970 Hillman Husky cost me £65. Head gasket basket case. Had head skimmed, & checked block was 'true', new gasket & rubber grommet, lasted two weeks! Took 1/2 hour to climb "Tarmac Hill" (B4111 Nuneaton) - approx 1/2 mile - white smoke / steam filled the cabin, had to open the tailgate to clear the fumes. Took it straight to the scrapper!
George Dodd

Driving MkIII Cortina in Haverill Essex at a roundabout when the gear lever came out in my hand. Copper started to tell me I needed to move the car now! I got out handed him the gear lever and said "You F***ing move it". That shut him up!
Nigel Champken-Woods

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BLOG: A tale of two lucky VDP's - part 10

13/5/2020

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by Andy Perman

The day after the Hovercraft Museum shoot and breaking down, I got a message from an eBay seller that he had a passenger driveshaft and hub complete, but it was still attached to the car he was scrapping and I’d have to remove it myself as he didn’t have the ball joint separator and puller for the job. Fortunately it was located in Bognor Regis which is a short drive from me, so loaded with a bag of tools I headed over after work. The chap was really pleased to see me saying he’d been messed about so much by tyre-kickers that I’d restored his faith in humanity! An hour later and with loads of dirty grease on my hands I’d removed the whole part I wanted and just in time as the light was fading fast.

Once home I cleaned up the whole thing and replaced both ball pin joints and the CV rubber gaiters as it’s much easier to do when removed from the car. The following weekend I removed the shimmy hub and driveshaft that had caused me so much trouble and once on the bench I could actually feel the driveshaft binding in the hub as I turned it, wouldn’t have been long before that failed again so consigned it to the bin!

An hour later I had the replacement hub fitted and excitedly took the car out for a test drive. Well, what a transformation, it glided along the road, no shimmy or shaking. I loved the way the steering now felt, so much feedback from the road, you really felt like you were driving it.

I’d also returned the call of the recovery chap that had a deceased estate VDP that he’d been trying to shift on eBay after rejecting my offer at Christmas, obviously unsuccessfully! He wanted to know if I still wanted the car for the same price I’d offered him 4 months ago! In a moment of madness I said yes bring it over, no rush. He had other ideas though and wanted to clear space in his yard and could he drop it off this coming Saturday! Yikes! That meant two things; clearing some space on the drive and a conversation with the wife. I had no doubts which one I would fail at and I did, spectacularly. I had to eat humble pie for weeks I tell you!

Saturday morning the chap arrived bright and early with the car, it looked worse than I remembered and my wife certainly pointed that fact out before disappearing indoors with a scowl. Unlike the undignified tipping off my mirage VDP got he gently winched the car down and then helped me push it onto the drive. Paperwork done and paid he was gone. I was surprised to see the car had only one owner from new, had 78k on the clock but looked like it had done most of them off road! An hour later after giving it a good wash and a coat of polish it looked like a different car, much better. I thought it was just brown but it was actually a metallic brown paint. It did have quite a few patches of rust that was going to take some time with a welder though. Anyhow at that point the heavens opened and that put an end to any further work so I took a few pictures and covered the car up.

First wash

Over the next couple of months I went to several shows, the Allegro National at Nuffield Place, home of Lord Nuffield, founder of the Morris motor group. It's a fascinating place full of history then more locally the SHVPS show which has a massive auto jumble where you can buy all manner of stuff in various shades of rust! The VDP was transformed; it felt right, difficult to explain what, but just right. It was starting to pick up a few more awards too, must have been that shiny boot lid. Or those number plates!

I’ve struggled to write this next part as it upsets me a lot but here goes, my sister had wanted to go to Kempton Park Engines since seeing pictures of the place from when I’d taken my son there a few years before, and she wanted to go in the VDP. It was on her bucket list and she only had a certain amount of time to complete it as she was terminally ill. In July all the stars must have aligned because she had a gap in her medication and the engine was in steam - it only runs about 6 times a year.

We set off mid-morning as it’s about an hours drive and wanted to get there in time to watch them start it up. We made it in plenty of time and watched in awe as 1000 tons of engine rumbled into life. Anyone who has been knows what I’m talking about. If you’ve not been and like engineering on steroids, go! We had a fabulous day; it was exactly what she imagined it to be and she really enjoyed herself. It was over all too soon and time to leave as she had another round of chemo the following day and needed to prepare for it so we headed home. She died five weeks later.

Over the summer I joined my company up with a local conversion company which basically doubled our turnover, but proportionally kicked up my workload too! That left little time to tinker with the new VDP but I did spend one Sunday afternoon investigating the non-running engine and pumping up the suspension. After checking a few things on the engine I worked out that somebody had got the coil cables on back to front! That had killed the condenser and burned the points out. Once I’d rectified the wiring and fitted a new condenser and points I cranked it over and without hesitation it burst into life. Sorted.

Tried the auto-box, it went backwards and forwards on the drive so it would certainly make a solid base for a restoration. But there was no way I had the time for that. A chap had been asking on the club site if there were any VDP’s for sale so I offered it up as running but otherwise unknown. He turned out to be a decent honest chap, rocked up a week later, paid the money and took the car away the following week. I often wonder should I have put it away and done it when I had the time, the brown paint didn’t float my boat but maybe repainted in cosmic blue or black tulip……

Towards the end of the summer I’d started to notice this Facebook group cropping up a lot on my feed – "Enthusiasts of British motor vehicles built before 1985", so one evening filled in the entry questions and as a qualifier attached a picture of the VDP saying ‘I have this, does that count?’ Within minutes a chap called Gar came back and said "Our BL Dan is going to LOVE this! We are having a show in Coventry, in November. You are coming aren’t you?" It wasn’t really a question.

Coventry in November, in a 45 year old VDP. What could possibly go wrong?

To be continued……

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BLOG: A tale of two lucky VDP's - part 9

10/5/2020

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by Andy Perman

I’d been invited to show my VDP at the NEC show in November 2014 which pretty much marks the end of the show season. Remember this predates the EBMVBB85 group by a few years where we have winter gatherings, or summer gatherings with winter weather.

at Brooklands

After the debacle of the wheel bearing setting me back I had a bunch of detailing jobs to tackle in preparation for the show. I’d spoken to a few club members who’d previously shown their cars at the NEC and been warned about the rivet counters and those ‘knowledgeable’ comments we all love (not). However there were a few things I needed to tackle beforehand to try and limit these undesirables, which were; replacing the headlining as mine was shot and hanging down in places, repairing the boot lid which was badly chipped and scuffed - probably from it’s time in the scrap yard, order a set of decent number plates, mine were a basic modern type and I wanted something period and finally give the car a service.

I hit the internet and ordered a set of correct period plates, again £20; it’s the law and at the same time sourced the material and glue for the headlining (£20). Trimming was not something I’d ever done before but given the timescales and cost I was ‘giving it a go’. Well I got there in the end, but I have to say I really hate trimming! A dusty, fiddly job that took ages but the results were pretty good. By this time the plates had turned up so these were fitted and also looked really good, so now it was time to tackle the boot lid. After a good look I quickly worked out it was WAY beyond my skills so removed the whole thing and dropped it off at a local paint shop. That left me a bit of time to detail a few paint chips at the front and carry out the service. A week later the boot lid was ready so I collected it and bolted it back on. It looked stunning. I was ready for the show.

I set off for the NEC on the Thursday morning, stopping for some lunch about half way there making for a pleasant drive. Once there I found the correct hall and our area, then spent the rest of the afternoon building up the stand, raising the rear of my VDP and drinking coffee. I have to say I really enjoyed the show taking turns manning the stand and going for a wander round. Highlight of the show was getting offered a fairly significant sum of cash for my VDP from a collector who recognised its rarity. ‘Where are you from?’ he asked ‘Portsmouth’. He then said ‘go home on the train 1st class’. I declined his offer anyway but wonder what would have become of my VDP had I accepted. Low point(s) were the damn awful lighting, come on guys there are plenty of LED solutions available, and the fair number of rivet counting shuffle bottoms declaring ‘the wheels fall off’, ‘oh look, an all-aggro’ and ‘where’s the square steering wheel?’ I worked out the most effective reply was ‘I’ll let you know when you’re being funny’. Worked every time!

at the NEC

Sunday evening soon came round and it was time to go home, after saying plenty of fond farewells to people that were now becoming friends I headed out the NEC into the full force of the November weather. The car worked hard all the way home the wipers, blower and lights all on all the way, but it performed beautifully all the way. More than can be said for myself, I was completely knackered! I stowed the car the next morning after a wipe down ready for the New Year’s Day gathering at Brooklands.

Before that however at Christmas I got the nod through the club of a VDP that had been pulled out of a deceased estate and was now in the hands of the recovery company that was local to me. Was there anything I could do? The chap was no enthusiast and was likely to weigh the car in fairly soon. As it was Christmas week I had plenty of time so went to take a look. It was pretty rough and a non-runner but was a solid base for a restoration. Chap wanted to know ‘how much?’ pretty much from the outset so I said after taking a look £300. His reply was unprintable here and he said ‘I’ll get truckloads more on eBay’, so I wished him good luck with that, made a report back to the club and assumed that would be the last of it.

New Year’s Day was a cloudy but still day, bitterly cold but no snow or ice! I rocked up early as I was warned it gets mobbed to be greeted by the marshal saying ‘You beauty!’ I hope he was referring to the car but anyhow said ‘Park as high along the banking as you can then we can form a cavalcade behind you’. After doing so and getting out somewhat awkwardly due to the extreme angle I took what is still my favourite picture of my VDP.

Poised high on the banking there is just something about it that does it for me. The show was awesome, really busy but managed to get round the bits I’d missed previously including a second visit to the Barnes Wallace laboratory. All too soon though it was time to go home so I said my farewells and headed off. Again, I had that feeling all was not well pretty much from the off. Within a mile of Brooklands the shimmy gave a shake and almost instantly locked up the front wheels; I had failed to proceed again! The AA were really prompt, arriving in less than ten minutes, whereby I was unceremoniously hitched up and towed home!

Again by the next morning it had loosened off and it didn’t look like the wheel bearing either. I removed the LHS wheel and found the caliper looked lop sided, upon removing the caliper found one side of the pads completely scuffed out, although the caliper itself was absolutely fine. I stripped it anyhow, new seals and re-greased everything and fitted a new set of pads. On the test drive it all seemed fine, that light shimmy still there that I had gotten used to now, and I’m sure the more knowledgeable among you will be screaming the obvious but to me It seemed fine and just assumed it was the caliper that caused the problem. How wrong I was!

In March I received an invitation from Practical Classics. They were preparing an article on cars that didn’t use springs for their suspension called ‘no springs attached’ and wanted my VDP to participate. The shoot was local to me at the Gosport Hovercraft Museum, again a place I’d wanted to visit previously but now I was getting in for free! The shoot was booked for mid April weather permitting as the site is right on the coast and gets very lively if its stormy - something I witnessed first hand quite recently, also for Practical Classics but more of that later!

The date arrived and the weather wasn’t great but deemed OK to proceed, so I turned up at 9 o’clock as instructed. I was greeted by Andy Taylor from PC who is a giant of a man both in stature and personality. He directed me where to park and thrust a coffee in my hand. Top bloke. Whilst they shuffled the cars, played with lights and lots of stuff I didn’t understand I got the chance to look around. I was shocked at the condition of the two cross-channel hovercraft. Their structure was so rotten no access was permitted onboard and all the engines had been removed. Such a shame these two leviathans have ended up this way.

The shoot lasted most of the day and we were all interviewed about our cars, then by about 3pm the weather was deteriorating quite rapidly so they wrapped it up and we went on our way. Again I got no more than a mile from setting off when the shimmy went up on steroids and locked up the front of the car again. I was seriously questioning why I’d not left the VDP in the scrap yard to rot and again phoned the AA. The patrolman turned up within 15 minutes and instantly took a liking to the car having ‘worked on them back in the day’ and wanted to fix the problem.

He questioned me in detail regarding the previous breakdowns and work done. He went Hmmm, lifted the front of the car and felt each wheel. Something not right here mate he said rotating the passenger wheel, "Jump in and start it up". I did and engaged drive whilst he stood back and watched. Hmmm he said again and dived into his van and emerged with a spanner. I jumped out and watched, my curiosity piqued. He undid the master cylinder from the servo, ‘That’s better’ he said, ‘got the brakes out the way, now both wheels are going round’ He again stood back and watched. After about a minute he said ‘You got a problem with your driveshaft end, look at the left hand side wheel, there is a slight shimmy on it’ That’s what is killing your wheel bearing, knocking the brake pads out and causing it to lock up. Won’t have done your steering rack any good either all that shaking. You need a new drive shaft mate. I’ll get you home now", which he did.

Back in the workshop I was dumbfounded, but elated! It was as simple as that. Sometime in the past it must have hit a kerb or something causing a slight distortion in the shaft where it entered the hub. The shimmy shouldn’t be there! I’d seen a few complete hubs with driveshafts on eBay for £20 a few weeks back so went inside and ordered one straight away.

I’d also noticed a missed call on my phone and a voicemail. When I listened back it was the recovery company chap from Christmas asking if I still wanted the car.

To be continued…….

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BLOG: A tale of two lucky VDP's - part 8

5/5/2020

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by Andy Perman

One thing I like to do is take one of my VDP’s out for a drive on Christmas Day if the weather is not too wet or icy. This is something that started in 2013 and it was great fun driving into the city and the seafront on mostly deserted roads. (Who knew what was coming in 2020???) I had noticed during the Winter the starter was struggling a bit, especially with the low temperatures and long spells between starts, so decided to take a look before the show season kicked off.

However, I got the nod early in March about a show at Brooklands, a place I’d had on my visit list for a while so decided to go before I’d had the chance to look over the car. Brooklands is a fascinating place with as much aircraft history as it does racing, so much so I couldn’t get round everything so made a note to come back on New Year's Day for the main open event. The Barnes Wallace lab and stratospheric chamber were particularly jaw dropping. I was definitely going to take a better look.

Later the same month I removed the starter only to find they are not designed to be un-mantled and repaired, just binned and replaced. In the absence of suitable replacements, the auto has a number of special to type parts, the starter is one such part. I decided to ‘have a go’. After an hour of chin-stroking and Hmmm ing, worked out how to get the solenoid apart, which I was sure was the problem. Ten minutes with the soldering iron and small spanner set I had it in bits and bingo, the top main contact was badly oxidised, hence the problem of slow cranking. Quick polish with a fibre glass brush soon had that shifted, then I could re-mantle the solenoid. Quick test and all good, sorted!

May saw the annual Allegro show which was held at the Needle Museum in Redditch. Another very interesting place showing how needle manufacturing was done during the industrial revolution and all water powered. Also had an opportunity to line up a MK1, 2 and 3 VDP. Never been done before and made for a nice line up.

Next appointment was my son and daughters prom. I have twins so it was going to be a busy night! The old girl was polished to as shiny as you can make mirage and all the bright work detailed. I had a fabulous evening ferrying back and forth to the Holiday Inn where their evening function was. Highlight of the night for me was a nod to the Italian Job with three Mini Coopers dropping off and then powering out simultaneously. Goosebumps.

I’d received an invitation in August to the Vanden Plas show and been told it was almost a concourse type show - not one of my favourites but decided to give it a go. When I rocked up I was directed to the 1500 parking area and found myself alongside a D registered model which was odd as VDP production stopped in 1980. Turns out the original owner stored the car until the registration EES came up as they were his initials. He’s also responsible for the two tone paint work. Definitely a marmite car but the picture of mine next to it represents the earliest and latest surviving VDP’s.

The show over I headed home and you get a feel for when something is not right. The shimmy on the steering seemed slightly more accentuated than before, and the car seemed sluggish. After about an hour the shimmy turned into a shudder, coupled with a nasty crunchy grinding noise and a definite loss of power. Fortunately I was on top of some services so I pulled in and ground to a halt, literally!

Great, I was 100 miles from home and it was 6 o’clock on a Sunday evening! I rang the recovery services and booked a relay home, was warned it maybe a significant wait as there had been a large Ford show in London and that was already keeping them busy. So what to do, I spotted a burger place so went and got a bite to eat. That done I had a quick look at the car and quickly worked out the passenger front wheel bearing had done something nasty internally and now it had cooled down had seized up pretty tight. There was still a lot of play in something though which I was sure wasn’t the bearing, but with the light fading whatever it was would have to wait.

The recovery home wasn’t as bad as feared, but it was done in several stages due to the way the AA works with zones. It was almost 2am when we arrived back so got the guy to unload the car onto the drive for me to sort out the next morning. Weirdly the following morning the wheel had freed off somewhat, but still sounded nasty when you turned it. That odd play looked like the lower radius arm; something was not right about it. As the car could be moved I backed it into the workshop and went in search of a new wheel bearing and radius arm thingy. All £20 each. It’s the rules.

A week later, both the parts had turned up so lifted the workshop door to place the parts inside. What greeted me was like a scene out of demolition derby. My workshop doubles up as my materials store for my business as well as a place to store and work on the car. Something in the roof had obviously given way and all my timber and tubes had dropped and been deposited on top the car! Once my heart had stopped hammering out my chest I looked around more carefully it appeared the majority of the stuff had glanced off the car and slid down the side. The only way to inspect further though was to pull it all out and get the car out. I was going to need some strong coffee!

An hour later I had a pile of stuff and a car on the drive. Remarkably there wasn’t a mark on it. Obviously made of strong stuff. It took me the rest of the day to clear out the workshop, fix the roof problems and get everything stowed safely. The next day I lifted the front of the car and removed the passenger side hub complete with the drive shaft. On the bench and stripped apart the wheel bearings literally fell out, some of the balls were in half! Fitting the new bearing was quite an unpleasant job, it just felt very tight in the hub and on the drive shaft, but it seemed to go back together OK. Next I removed the lower radius arm; the inner bush was sheared off its housing entirely. Why? At the time I’d no idea, but alarm bells should have been ringing. With the new arm fitted and the hub re-installed I went for a road test. All seemed OK. No crunching and the shimmy was back to the level it had always been. Again, alarm bells should have been ringing, but being a humble plumber, all seemed good.

My final appointment of the year was at the NEC in November where my car was going up on a stand. I had lots of detailing things to be getting on with in the meantime to keep me busy. But what about that shimmy?

To be continued...

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BLOG: A tale of two lucky VDP's - part 7

30/4/2020

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by Andy Perman

I’d set my alarm early for the following morning but there was no need, I was up early and actually getting nervous. The night before over a beer I’d got all the necessary paperwork together so should I be successful I could pick up the tax on the way home and be road legal ready for the drive up to the Gaydon show on Sunday morning.

With a coffee in hand I opened up the workshop, jumped in and turned the key. She roared into life and I began easing out of the workshop, round the awkward bends and down the drive. Once on the road I got my first experience of driving the old girl. Loved sound the engine made and the gentle whine from the auto gearbox that reminded me of the Mini I’d had years before. I was also more than aware this car had not turned a wheel for the best part of 15 years but felt confident I’d done everything I could to bring it back to life.

MOT time

The drive to the MOT garage was only a couple of miles and was over way too soon, I was proper enjoying myself in the leather loveliness. It was like driving around in your favourite armchair. As I arrived the shutters were up and James was waiting with a coffee in hand and wearing a massive cheesy grin. I jumped out and handed over to him. Once on the ramp I got my first proper look at the underside and it was remarkable. Not a mark or scabby bit on it, completely original. Whilst I was distracted by the view of the car one of the old boys that works there came over and said ‘I heard that come in, recognise that sound anywhere, not running quite right is it?’ I explained my rush at tuning it the night before to which he replied ‘leave it with me, be my pleasure to set up once the boss has finished’.

The next 40 minutes went by very quickly and I watched James go over the car then put it on the rolling road for the brake test, then finally the emissions. "Couldn’t find anything wrong with it", he said. "Credit to you, well done". "Oh, it’s passed then?" "Yes of course it did, in fact your front brakes were pulling 148% efficiency so well done!" Ticket done and paid for, the old boy came back over and said ‘jump in and start it up’.

After a minute of listening said ‘off’. He took off the distributor cap, fiddled about, put it back and said ‘fire it up’ Already it sounded better. He then tweaked the timing, all by ear for a few minutes then with a satisfied grunt said ‘that’s tuned’. And it was, you could balance a coin on the engine it was that smooth. Didn’t want paying for it either so I put a donation in their tea boat instead. Well I hardly remember the drive to the Post Office to collect the tax and change the status from SORN to on road. I’d done it and was elated - I was going to Gaydon!

The next morning I was up early and nervous again, but more of a nice anticipation this time. So loaded with some tools just in case and a large coffee I set off and pointed the car North with 165 miles to destination on the sat-nav. It settled into a nice mile-eating canter at about 60mph where the top gear was engaged. I’d noticed a very slight shimmy on the steering wheel and put it down to slight wheel imbalance and ignored it.

Unbeknownst to me there was a serious underlying problem that was going to occur and bite me several times before I got to the bottom of it, but that’s yet to come! The oil pressure gauge I noticed never got any higher than 35psi, whether this was an issue or not I had no idea, so I decided to take a look in the workshop manual when I got home. About 100 miles in I’d also noticed the lovely sound the engine and exhaust was making seemed to be getting slightly louder, so as some services were coming up I pulled in to re-charge my coffee and investigate.

Coffee replenished I had a quick look and it was obvious, the manifold clamp that I’d recently put on that joins it to the new exhaust was letting by a bit so no drama. I could sort that out when I got back home so again pointed North and pressed on, turning the radio up a bit. The other thing I’d noticed was the kick-down wasn’t doing anything. Even a good shove on the throttle didn’t produce any change down. Probably why it had been removed in the first place by a previous owner, but no drama - I could use the stick shifter which worked great, changing the gear instantly.

Well I arrived around 10 o’clock and was immediately surrounded by various excitable people saying ‘where did you get this car?’ ‘We didn’t even know this car still existed’ and ‘Do you know how rare this car is?’. Once I gave them a chance to calm down and explain one at a time It turns out my humble old scrap yard car is a very early MK1, one of only 3 known to still exist, in a rare colour (mirage) and with an even rarer Tuscan leather interior. It’s the earliest one surviving, being registered only 3 weeks into production and remains to this day the only MK1 on the road. Then after all that the chairman of the Vanden Plas club came over and said ‘Can I have some pictures of your car please for my history books? Only I don’t have any of a MK1 and certainly not in this colour’. So my car is now in the pages of the VDP handbook at Gaydon!

Well the bad weather that was forecast turned up with attitude, so we all went inside, had lunch and a wander round. Then at 2pm Harris Mann gave a presentation. What a lovely humble chap, talking about his original designs and the inner wrangling of BL at the time and what eventually emerged as the Allegro. Fascinating. Then a few awards were given out and my VDP picked up it’s first one, winning the "Best Early Series" award. ‘Something else to dust’ was my wife’s response when I phoned to tell her, so to this day the awards live on the rear parcel shelf out of her way! The show over, we said goodbyes and I headed the 165 miles back home with no issues other than the rain. And that shimmy I’d dismissed……….

The following weekend I looked up oil pressures and 35 at best was not right, the spec was 65psi running, 25psi idle so I started to investigate. With the oil head taken apart all seemed OK so I dug deeper and removed the sump and the pressure bypass valve. The sump was pretty grubby and the strainer pick up worse. The main problem though was the bypass valve, it was jammed open and no amount of persuading and swear words would release it. Quick word with my Dad and he suggested leaving it in a jar of diesel for a while, so I did.

About an hour later whilst I was cleaning up the sump and strainer I heard a 'plink' from the jar it was in, the valve had freed itself off. Dad you’re a genius. Everything back together I fired it up. Perfect! I had 65 at fast idle and just over 40 at idle. Job done. I also got the local tyre fitters to sort out the manifold clamp which they truly did as they are the experts! I had ironed out those niggles, so I thought - but don’t forget that wheel shimmy, I had and it was going to cost me!

I got another three shows in before the end of the year all with no issues and picked up another award, but winter was coming so it was soon time to put the old girl to sleep. Busy year next year - I had my kids prom and I’d been invited to show my car at the NEC that Autumn.

To be continued……

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BLOG: A tale of two lucky VDP's - part 6

29/4/2020

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by Andy Perman

Early April saw the cold weather come to an end and the temperature start to rise. That coupled with the lighter evenings gave me more time and I was going to need it! I basically had a month to finish the car, get an MOT and tax it before the Gaydon show in early May. Being a 1974-built car it missed the frozen nil duty on classic cars by one year so I had to pay up!

I’d ordered a new exhaust system a few weeks before which had now arrived, so there was that to fit plus changing all the suspension metalastic parts including the engine mountings as the engine was definitely not sitting level. Oh, and a new set of tyres and tidy up the wheels at the same time. A steering rack to change and finally there was a series of interconnected rods that I found in the boot that turned out to be the kick down mechanism. Why they had been removed was unknown so I had to figure out how they went back on and how it worked, but more of that later. I roughly worked out to get this all done over the next three weekends leaving one spare weekend for wiggle room before the MOT.

I decided to lift the front of the car first so I could remove both wheels and tackle the engine mounts and suspension bushes. With the wheels removed I rubbed back the scabby paint, rust proofed and treated it to a couple of coats of wheel Silvereene. Not perfect but certainly presentable. So off to the tyre fitters they went for a new set of boots.

Now I could tackle the engine mountings and the decidedly wonky-sitting engine. The workshop manual said to lift the gearbox and power unit to just take the load then remove the 4 bolts securing the mount to the body, remove the top engine stabiliser bar, then to lift the whole power unit 4 inches before taking off the inner nuts connecting it to the gearbox housing. Then repeat for the opposite side. Amazingly it all went textbook. The new mountings went back in and I got my first look at the engine now sitting level.

So next I removed the tie bars and the bushes to replace them. It was weirdly cheaper to buy the whole tie bar and bush kit than just the bushes, so whole new ones went back on. While removed it gave me a chance to rust treat and paint the front under body heavy gauge parts that would otherwise have been difficult to get to.

Next job for the front of the car was a new steering rack. There was a lot of play in the passenger side arm so that clearly had to be rectified. What I was unaware of at the time was this was a simple bush change, but more of that later! Removing the rack was very simple. Separate each track rod end ball joint. Undo the 4 clamp bolts, then finally undo the lower steering clamp bolt. As I did so I heard the clonk of the rack dropping free onto the inner wings. With the rack removed I lined up both the old and new racks on the drive to set the track rods as I was seriously running out of time and didn’t think I’d get the opportunity to get the tracking professionally checked and set, so I could get it damn close myself just in case. Then before fitting the new rack, injected the gear oil into each set of the bellows.

The re-fitting was fairly straightforward except trying to get the lower clamp connection to line up. I spent ages climbing in and then under the car trying to get the two parts together and not getting anywhere, then swearing at the stupidity of the design making this such a difficult part to fit, before I realised you simply slide up the steering column then drop it onto the rack spline. Simples!! Last job for the front was to re-fit the newly shod wheels and lower it to the ground.

I could now raise the rear of the car and again refurbish the wheels so I could send them to the tyre place. However the job I’d been dreading was changing the cross tube mounts. Both mine were shot and had come apart like the engine mountings had and there is no way they would get past my MOT guy.

The big issue was that the full force of the suspension fluid cantilevers on the mountings, so you really need to de-pressurise the system before removing them. Problem was I didn’t have a pump unit so I had to use method 2 in the manual which assured me by the use of 3 jacks and wood packers it was possible to carry out the job without de-pressurising, but it looked terrifying.

With the three jacks in place and the radius arm packed up I undid the main bolt and………. well, nothing happened. I didn’t all fly apart and squirt fluid all over the workshop as I’d feared. It was actually very straightforward and was all done in 6 bolts and half an hour. Result! With the opposite side also changed I refitted the newly tyred wheels and lowered the car. Job done. Last job of the day was to fit the new exhaust. Really simple, one bolt on the manifold clamp and three rubber hangers saw the job done in an hour.

That just left the puzzle in the boot - the kick-down linkage. There was little information in the workshop manual and very few people knew much about the auto gearboxes, so I was on my own. I had found a diagram online for a Mini automatic set up and that turned out to be really useful. It enabled me to lay the parts out on the bench and work out how they connected together. With that done it was fairly easy to then connect them to the appropriate throttle arm point and onto the governor housing lever via a cam on the gearbox. I’d spotted the odd looking lever not doing anything whilst fitting the exhaust but now it all made sense.

One final job; I’d bought a Boyer Bransdon ignition amplifier. Simple four-wire fit and it removes all the points issues. It certainly improved the running of the engine when I fired it up. Quick check of the dwell and timing - it wasn’t perfect but good enough given I was now out of time. So that was it; I’d done it. MOT was 8am the following morning. The Gaydon show was 10am the day after! No pressure then. The car was on all 4 wheels for the first time in over 2 years. I shut the workshop for the night and had a well earned beer.

To be continued……

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