by Anthony Osborne.

In Part 1 I told of the refurbishment of Herbert, our 1938 Austin Lt12/4 New Ascot for my daughter’s wedding. We were running out of time to get the car finished and there was no ‘Plan B’! I continue…

​We were rather close to the day of the wedding and still did not have the car completed, in fact we had less than a week to get the job done.

​The headlining, which was the worse for wear, needed replacement as by now it was covered in green paint. Back in 2005 it had been necessary to strip out the rear of the car, including the head lining round the rear windows, whilst we exterminated some woodworm (well it is a little different to tin worm!) and we had bought enough material to do the whole car.

​When we got that out to start that phase of the car we found that it had been attacked by moths. Could we get more in time? We were lucky that it arrived the day after it was ordered. It had gone up rather dramatically in price between 2005 and 2018, from about £12 to £40 per meter! Sat Nag Pat got stuck into her sewing machine and a new headlining emerged from the dining room.
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It was decided to take several days off work in an endeavour to achieve the objective. Andrew assembled the door mechanisms, including the new window guides, windows and regulators, whilst I set about the interior trim and provided assistance to Pat who was fighting the head lining into place. We also had to trim and refit the sunroof.

​Some of the electrics that were disconnected to the lights and trafficators had to be reinstated, although the car really needed a complete rewire. The 80 year old rubber insulation was failing, in some places the conductor could be seen through cracks in the rubber and cloth covering. This was temporarily repaired locally as there was no time to do a proper job. The car has since been rewired during the first lockdown of 2020 when all the 80 year old wiring was replaced, but that is another story.
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However, during the week we just about managed to get all the jobs done, working a few late nights. The head lining was the big fight and it took three days to get it in from 13th to 15th June, at 4:00pm.

This was the Friday before the wedding on the Saturday. The plan was to drive to Chipping Norton to collect my mother and then on to Newbold on Stour for a barbecue the night before the big day.

Fortunately, our bags were packed and it just required a clean-up before setting off. We were late getting away and Chipping Norton is about an hour away with Newbold being about a further 40 minutes further on. We got less than a quarter of a mile before Herbert refused to go. A bit of fiddling at the side of the road got him running again for a couple of minutes and with two or three fiddles under the bonnet I managed to limp home.

​Pat took the Jag and went to collect Mum whilst I fought under Herbert’s bonnet, unsure of the actual issue, other than it was fuel related. There were no blockages in filters etc. and the fuel pumped up by hand. I set off for Talton House, a 35 minute drive away that took well over an hour with Herbert struggling up hills with me pumping up petrol by hand.
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With dirty hands I eventually made it to my destination with Pat and Mum coincidentally following me down the drive to the house, in the dark. Not knowing where to park I ended up round the back of the building to be welcomed by cries of ‘They are here’. We had warned that we would be late! The Groom’s mother and two aunts were in the hot tub in their underwear and trying to entice me into the tub with them (I didn’t want to leave an oil slick in the tub – that was my excuse and I stuck to it). They had saved some barbecued nosh for us and a jug of ale was thrust into my hand. Things were getting better.

After a good night’s kip in the mansion (which was a bit like staying in a National Trust property) and a hearty breakfast I disappeared outside to go through Herbert’s fuel system in an endeavour to resolve the problem. After much playing around and dropping a screw from the carburettor into the gravel below then spending much time to find it, I had the car together and running, but would it last?

Stratford-upon-Avon Town Hall was ten miles to the north and Shipston on Stour five miles to the south. If I could get to Shipston and back without a failure we should be good to go. Herbert behaved well and didn’t fail at all.

When Andrew arrived I explained that there had been a problem but I did get ten miles of trouble-free motoring out of Herbert. Andrew was happy with that and when the time was appropriate Sarah and I jumped in the back and we set off for the ceremony. We pulled up outside the Town Hall and Andrew turned the engine off. We made it!

It was then that a little man came out from the Town Hall entrance and said ‘You are five minutes early, please would you go round the block and you should arrive back in time. So off we set.

​On the trip of less than a mile Herbert failed four times, and each time Andrew or I, or both, of us jumped out and pumped petrol up by hand and we were away again. In the middle of Stratford-upon-Avon Herbert failed at traffic lights, we went through the routine and in no time he was up and running again.

I asked Sarah if she was all right and she was apparently loving it. She had seen so many wedding cars with people pointing cameras at them and now she was in one. Not many people will have a photograph of the car with the bride in the back and the bonnet up, though! Andrew worked out that if he could keep the revs up the problem seemed to hold off. With a bit of interesting driving we were back at the Town Hall for the ceremony on time, and all went well. I successfully saw responsibility for Sarah transferred from me to Adam, now her husband.

Afterwards we had to get back to Talton House and of course, the Bride and Groom went in Herbert with Andrew. I was in the minibus. I had said to Andrew that if the car was not there when I arrived I would come out in the Jag and collect them. What a relief to see the car outside the front of the house. On asking how the return journey went Andrew advised that Herbert had only failed once! What a relief.

The following day the journey back home was interesting, but we made it with the Jag parked behind Herbert with its hazard light on when there was a problem. On the Monday I took the fuel pump off and installed a spare that had apparently been overhauled before I bought it.

​We took a run back to Stratford-upon-Avon and blow me, if it didn’t fail at the same traffic lights that it had failed at two days earlier! We ended up limping back to within three miles of home but Herbert was failing every 50 yards, just using the fuel in the float chamber. I was not prepared to go on like that in the rush hour and a very nice man from the AA towed us back home. An examination of the two fuel pumps showed that the top joint on the original pump had dried out through lack of use over the best part of five months and that has been successfully overhauled, whereas the other pump I fitted was absolutely knackered (that engineering term again) and fit only for the scrap bin.

The car went back to the body shop and the outstanding jobs were finished. All is well now and I as write Sarah has just given birth to their first child, Joshua.

​A happy ending all round and a big thanks to Andrew, and of course Sat Nag Pat, for their help.

By Anthony Osborne.

In December 2017, just before Christmas, my daughter, Sarah, rang me up to tell me that she and her long term boyfriend were going to get married on 16th June 2018. I was delighted that they had, at last, set a date as they had been engaged for a quite a few years, been a couple for almost ten years and known each other for much longer. The arrangements were almost cast in stone and the wedding would be in Stratford-Upon-Avon Town Hall with the celebrations centred on Talton House, a mansion at Newbold-on-Stour some ten miles south, owned by Christabel Carlisle who successfully raced (real) Minis in the early 1960s. I obviously approved!
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Having given me all the good news she then dropped the bombshell. Herbert, my 1938 Austin Lt12/4 New Ascot was to be the wedding car. However, Sarah was concerned that I might not let anyone else drive him. On the contrary, I advised that her Godfather, Andrew, could drive it. Andrew and I were Apprentices together at ‘The Austin’ at Longbridge and Andrew has had several pre-war cars over the years, Austins and a Rolls Royce, and was well experienced at handling such vehicles.

So, there we were no problems at all, except that the tin worm had been feeding well on the car’s bodywork and the 80 year old cow hide on the seats was falling off. The carpets were well past their best and the headlining, which had probably been fitted in the 1980s, was in a reasonably poor condition. As Sat Nag Pat had fitted a new section round the rear windows we knew that we had plenty of material in stock having purchased enough to complete the car. The sunroof was knackered (that is an engineering term incidentally) but there was a replacement in stock that needed a little work and some paint. There was a NOS near side front wing in the lockup but Sod’s Law dictated the off side front wing was in need of replacement or major welding.

In just under six months we had to do something dramatic to the car to make him presentable for the occasion!
Negotiations started with our body shop and a price was agreed with Andrew and I taking the car apart to minimise the expense. We started the dismantling in February and the neighbours were yet again fascinated by the goings on in my garage. They still have not got used to engines hanging from the garage roof or cars on axle stands without any wheels on after 30 years here.
A dismantled Herbert went to the body shop on 27th February and its panels would follow a few weeks later in a Transit van.

Over the following months it became apparent that things were not going as quickly as they could. Eventually, we were relieved to see the body of the car in the body shop in primer and a little later it was painted in its lovely new gloss green. Whilst the body of the car was away being worked on other aspects of the refurbishment were on-going in the garage at home and elsewhere. Parts were sourced to replace defective and decomposing components at the Restoration Show at the NEC with further trips as far afield as Peterborough to obtain specialist trim parts. A broken internal door handle could not be replaced with an identical one and the only available replacement looked the same but it sat at 45 degrees to the originals, so two were obtained, one for each back door, and arrived through the post in time to be fitted.

Various rubber components had perished beyond reuse with replacements as common as rocking horse manure. Rubber blocks to keep the closed doors off the bodywork and stopping them rattling were cut from a block of neoprene but half way to through the production process a stock of 8 were found with an Austin spares supplier. Their whole stock of 8 was purchased as they had to be better than my carving them with a Stanley knife! At weekends, when Andrew and I were not at work, the car would be brought back to us on a recovery truck so that we could get on with some of the jobs, returning to the body shop after the weekend.

There was much hard labour making and painting new window channels, the old 80 year old ones being mostly rotted through towards the bottom but fitting would have to wait until the car returned with the doors fitted. Another item that needed refurbishment was one of the near side ‘front Step Support’ (that is the parts list description – I would describe it as a running board support bracket). These are prone to dissolving, the off side one had been repaired previously. Fortunately, I had lent one of them to a fellow New Ascot owner who had a pair made. He had two extra tops cut out and one of these was used to replace the missing metal that had been dissolved along the top of the bracket.

Andrew and I debated who should do the welding as it is not a strong point for either of us. I was told it was my car so I should weld! Andrew would do the grinding as my welding looks rather like it has been done by a pigeon from 50 yards. It did not disappoint either. After a couple of grinding discs and several coats of paint it looked good enough to hide out if sight under the running board.

The running boards themselves had been replaced a long time ago and were planks of substantial timber, now rotting, finished with a fibreglass cover. Andrew took the old boards home and made some new ones, the fibreglass covers were fine and were given a coat of non-slip paint. The end results were great.

The 80 year old cow hide was past its best on the seats, so bad that when helping out at friends weddings we had to cover the back seat with a white blanket because there was a danger that the cracks in the surface would damage an expensive white dress. All the seats were taken to our local trimmer who did an excellent job recovering them with new green leather.

The carpets were also taken there to be copied. We did not have time to take the car there so that they could be made to fit, but they came out quite well. The photograph of Herbert being collected from home was taken on 16th May, with just a month to go. Stress levels started to go up, very high, but my blood pressure tablets kept that under control. We didn’t have any of the missing panels like, boot lid, doors, sunroof, bonnet or the front cowl!

As appears normal with body shops working on classic cars, there is little urgency, even though a drop dead date was given and they were advised that 15th June was too late because of all the other works we had to do! In order to speed things up a little Andrew and I booked time off work to assemble some of the panels onto the car at the body shop, on 6th June. Whilst we were doing that some of the doors were still being welded up and work was going on with other panels in the spray booth, applying primer and paint, with just 10 days to go!

There were doubts that spending all the time and money on the refurbishment would result in completion in time for the wedding. There was no Plan B. Panic was setting in, a lot!

After several weekends at home the car was beginning to take shape. On its last trip home before the wedding, Herbert was paneled up including his doors but less his wings, which needed fitting. With 8 days to go it was decided not to risk sending it back to the body shop for a few outstanding works. Whilst it looked nice and shiny you will notice that the wheels are a slightly different green to the body as well as the grille being green instead of silver, issues we decided would be resolved after the wedding.

​To be continued!