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

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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