Nods news , A fixorage happened

[tim sears]

The Husky needs a holiday after getting back from Perth so we will take her down to Wadebridge at the end of next week she loves the B3276 Padstow to Newquay road.

[Impecunious]

Don't forget to drop in at the Smuggler's Inn at Cubert......

Dave W.

[Impecunious]

My four years at college in Plymouth in the seventies weren't entirely wasted - spent a lot of time getting to know the pubs in a forty mile radius

We' would often just drive down to Looe or Polperro for an evening (less than half an hour, especially when I lived in Saltash) - wonderful out of season without the emmets

In those days you could park next to the Boscarne in Looe or the Blue Peter in Polperro - no barriers or 'no entry' signs. Happy days, except when some tw*t put me in Freedom Fields for 2 days when he pulled out in front of my mate's car outside the Great Tree holiday camp (just outside Looe) on 13th May 1973 The significance of the date was quickly noted

Two cars written off, my mate with a broken leg and me through the windscreen (no seatbelts fitted in a 1959 beancan). Got a miserable £750 from his insurers

I drove my first Imp down there - I used to navigate in 12 cars for a guy with a brand new turquoise Sunbeam Sport (MYU 223L) and was instantly hooked. I got a heck of a shock, perhaps five years ago, waiting at a set of lights in Greenford (Middlesex) when that very car came towards me with a female driver What are the chances of that (not the female driver bit... ) ?

Devon, Cornwall, Lake District and the Dales. Does it for me every time.

Dave W.

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Just got back from a day out in Minehead
139 miles all told as we went to Lynmouth as well bringing the total this holiday to 475 miles , hardly national weekend mileage but ive tried .
we did the Porlock hill clamber and the van would have coped fine except for the two cars stuck on the hill just after the bend at the bottom , I had to do a hill start right on the bottom bend ,drivers were both woman , the one two cars up got hers moving but i had to over take the other stuck car , i afraid i gave her a gobfull as i went past both windows were open so she did here , something about learning to elfin drive and other stuff..

PS I am Steven Spielberg as i did a little vid of the van and stuck it on youtube , first one eva so be gentle please.

[kilty]

Very good Dave. Was your camera clamped onto the exhaust?!
Do it again, twice as fast, with the camera suckered to the scuttle!!

[The Nun]

I went up there last week, literally flew up it, had to hold the MINI back in fact, great for a handbrake turn at the hairpin

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Some of you might remember the stainless rad guard i made ages ago .
Well ive finally finished the parts ( arrowed ) that didnt have the stainless edge fitted as id run out out of the stuff I used .


Also I seemed to have picked up a rather angry passenger

[bornagain-imp]

That looks very nice

Rod

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Cheers , took this photo the other day which im rather pleased with.

[welshrover]

Cheers , took this photo the other day which im rather pleased with.

black and white now that's a proper photo is that

[chris d]

the car looks good no matter what type of film is used
stone guard is excellent as well
glad your mojo is back
chris d

[pubcrawler]

That guard is a well made addition, a good idea that might be copied .
Your car always looks good in photo's .

[bornagain-imp]

Really good picture of a very nice car

Rod

[ImpManiac]

Great photo, Noddy! I too like the stone guard.

IM

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

^^^^ It was indeed , copied it from a rather rotten factory example

[pubcrawler]

Thanks for the photo's , they will be of great help .
Strange that one should come up on flea-bay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sunbeam-Hillm ... 3f280c8b15

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Strange that a job that should take ten minutes takes all day
Started as a quick look at the roof trim yesterday that was loose on the drivers side and wouldnt stay fully clipped in , after a bit of trying thought it best to take it off completely and see just what was going on .
Trim appeared to be twisted so i removed all the clips from it and twisted it so that it fitted the roof perfectly without being clipped on , theory being that theres no part of it out of alignment and trying to twang off.
I managed this fine but by the time id finished id wrecked the paint a bit ,
This meant stripping it back to bear metal and respraying it .

I have a bag of new clips for this so it seemed rude not to use them ,

I also painted the inside with waxoil along with the clips and the roof edge .
3 bloomin hours later on Friday it was all sprayed up in primer and today top-coated ready ready for the refit tomorrow.

Heres the trim all painted ready to fit back on , just hope it actually does

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Well it fits
Not only that it fits perfectly with an even and very small gap between it and the roof.
Also it was very tight to get on using the new clips , .
I found it best to fit the clips to the car and then fit the trim , had to use a rubber hammer to tap it fully home.
Its no longer loose and looks much better

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Well the flippin steering rack on the Vusky which has not been great for many a year has decided to make hideous clonking noises .
Here we go again.

[welshrover]

Strange that a job that should take ten minutes takes all day
Started as a quick look at the roof trim yesterday that was loose on the drivers side and wouldnt stay fully clipped in , after a bit of trying thought it best to take it off completely and see just what was going on .
Trim appeared to be twisted so i removed all the clips from it and twisted it so that it fitted the roof perfectly without being clipped on , theory being that theres no part of it out of alignment and trying to twang off.
I managed this fine but by the time id finished id wrecked the paint a bit ,
This meant stripping it back to bear metal and respraying it .

I have a bag of new clips for this so it seemed rude not to use them ,

I also painted the inside with waxoil along with the clips and the roof edge .
3 bloomin hours later on Friday it was all sprayed up in primer and today top-coated ready ready for the refit tomorrow.
Heres the trim all painted ready to fit back on , just hope it actually does

where did your get your new clips from mine were rotton .the trims not too clever either

[The Nun]

How about a company called Bresco,? they make trim clips for thousands of cars and theres some clips on there that are used to clip the roof trim onto the Triumph Dolomite/2000 range which is a very similar section.
If you send them a sample they can see if they can match it up, and they will send the sample back if not so you dont lose what you have either.

[617sqn]

Yep, I've heard this before. They do seem to be able to match most bits. Also, if you have a part number by chance, try SpeedySpares in Portslade. Or drop a PM to Robin Human (tzarrobin) as he can often find parts in Speedy's that they don't even know they have

Andy G.

[The Nun]

7207399 is the original Rootes part number, 8 off required, if it helps

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Done the steering rack on the Vusky , ive fitted Fiesta T/R ends at the same time.
Had the tracking aligned and it now feels really light and precise

Did an autopsy on the old rack and found the problem , theres a brass bush pressed into the alloy casting on the oposite end to the column , its basically destroyed itself and scored the rack part at the same time and partially siezed , bearing just under where the column attaches was a bit clicky as well.
So its gone in the bin but at least i know now what the issue was .

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Well so they recon anyway

Spent the day cleaning the Singer ready for a show on Sunday although a lot of this was renovating the front number plate.
Bit of a story really but these are the original Hills number plates fitted to the Singer when new , well i say original, its the digits I wanted to keep as Hills aluminium digits are uber rare .
This plate was originally on the back but i fitted it to the front as I hate the original number plate bracket with the fixing holes so close together , i trimmed the edge down years ago .
I made up some new brackets and used rear window prop dome nuts as fixings.
The original front plate was scrapped but i kept the digits and made the square plate thats on the back now .

Anyway i finally managed to get some new starlocks that hold the digits on so ive removed the digits and resprayed the back plate satin black polished all the digits and fitted it back on , hasnt looked this good since new

[Lars Hagermark]

I can see many devils in that picture. Everyone looking very nice.

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Back again
Just been checking the Singer over for its WWW debut , slight leak on the front SU which was sorted via a new needle valve and a float height adjust , other than this its all go.

Have a few piccys just for the hell of it

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Some of you might remember that years ago the Janspeed box on the Vusky rotted through on the inlet pipe and the fact that I just turned the box around and use the outlet as the new inlet and welded a bend on for the outlet ALA like a normal van.
Well the tailpipe started blowing again and was almost rotted through.
Do I buy a new box , Do I HELL as like
went over to my local Zorst fitting place and took on a suitable piece of bent pipe from their scrap pile , removed the box and with a bit of welding I haz newness box again .
Looks like I did the curved tailpipe mod around March 09 so its not lasted too bad.
Total cost was Zilch

Old rusty tailpipe on the floor , Alien is called Barnaby and ive no idea what hes doing there.

[ImpManiac]

Er, hi, Barbaby. Have you been inhaling too many fumes, Nodders?

Nice work on the zorst.

IM

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Ive put this in my natterings rather than clutter up Sammys GLAddis thread with photo,s of other peoples cars .

Rear window seal fits like so .



Top N/S corner



Bottom O/S corner inside



bottom O/S corner outside.



Ive had experience of rear windows refusing to shut in the past , one reason was a twisted top hinge , ie . they were not aligned with each other , look along the top lenght of the window just to check.
The other was a pattern part rear window seal that had a ___
A, Sealing flap was too stiff
B, sealing flap was too long
C, Rear lock sufficiently worn so it doesnt catch properly , again for me at least a NOS one solved the issue .

After replacing the pattern seal with a NOS genuine seal it shut fine , body work pattern seals seem to be OK , Mine has one fitted and its not caused any issues.

[sammy the sturgeon]

Thanks for the pics Noddy,
Thats the way that mine are fitted, I do think the window frame seal is very stiff thoughso that might be adding to the problem. more on GLAddis's thread!!!!.......

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Well the Singers screen decided to leak yesterday , first time for everything I guess .
I recently fitted a van screen seal and also changed the screen for a slightly less scratch one.
I pulled the screen out last night and it came out really easy , too easy really.
I had 5 screens here so had a look at the shape and sizes of them all just to see if theres any variation,
Variation in size is huge , up to 5mm taller on some . Also the corners vary a fair bit .
After fitting and removing 4 screens i found a fairly good fitting one.
Singers currently soaking up the rain here as a test .
Anyone else spotted this , ive scrapped 3 screens as the are too small , maybe its the van screen seal ive no idea but i haz had enough of windscreens for now.

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

First off thanks to everyone who voted for our Singer at WWW .
We were stunned to say the least , especially given the other top class cars there .
Anyway boring technical rubbish now follows.
We did 384 miles on the WWW , Singer ran perfectly and used a mug full of oil during the whole trip and no coolant.
Didnt do a MPG check as I didnt want to know
After a good blast like that its the perfect time to check plug colours so heres the Singers , look quite even to me although the back carb might be a tad richer , Given that I reprofiled the needles myself Im quite chuffed
L e C will im sure tell me if they are a decent colour or not.

[chris d]

plugs look excellent dave
but wait a minute
whats this voting lark
you won something
about time
congrats from me and sue
well deserved
chris d

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Bit of playing today on the Singer , the exhaust tailpipe was getting a tad rotten , luckily no one noticed at WWW or i wouldnt have got a trophy .
Anyway what to do about it , the easiest way would have been to cut the frilly end off with a grinder but this would mean the bend would have ended up 2 inches shorter so i looked into those chrome ends you can get . Halfords had some but they were either too small or too big.
I stumped up for the slightly too big one after hatching a plan .
Simple really , I reverse fitted it after removing some of the curly end inner so it was a tight fit on the exhaust , i then cut off the other end removing the crappy fixing bolt efforts these seem to come with , once bashed on I tacked it in place by welding inside the pipe so nothing was visible , finally a sanding off of the chrome which im not a lover off on zorsts and a spray of zorst paint and voila i haz fixed it

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Following on from the request for a door latch plate and a blatant copy of an idea on there from impbarn ive tried his idea on the latch plate repair.
He used stainless and glue whereas i used brass and no glue .
Here was the initial result of playing



Anyway after a tiny bit of adjustment i fitted this on the Singer

And the result is -----------------------------------------
bloomin fantastic
The doors on this have always shut well but now just feel perfect , door shuts every time and will " push shut " from 3 inches away with minimal effort

Im going to do the passenger side as well just because i can ,The brass should wear less than the monkey metal these are made from .
Time will tell i guess but for now at least its perfect.

[Bobbycham]

Can't quite make out the rest of the stamping on the unit , looks like +++rwood lane ?
Couldn't you just pean over the rest to leave D Lane , as l've seen you've signed your seat upholstery haven't you?
nice to leave your initials and dates on your repairs, all history of car.
Bob

[ImpManiac]

Nice work, Noddy et al. I think I'll be doing similar on my Chamois to head problems off at the pass, rather than await their arrival.

IM

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Just fitted the passenger side one , all is well , door shuts nice , just have to see how they hold up with use

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

I spent most of Friday afternoon and some of yesterday adjusting both doors to see if its actually possible to get them spot on , the stripe on the doors doesnt help.
Had to change the top hinge pin on the passenger door as it was a bit worn.
Also had to make up some hinge shims for both doors to get this result , two on the drivers side and one on the bottom of the passenger side , all three slightly different thicknesses
Anyway by some miracle i think ive almost matched Mooses door gaps
They really do shut VERY well

[HARTWELL MK1]

A year ago when you said that your cars were finished I got in trouble for finding you jobs to do on your cars, well you don't need my help!

Next you will be painting your dash needles!

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Tim ( the font ) Morgan , Vickie and Ben popped in for a visit this afternoon , Me and Tim went out in the Singer and I naturally let him have a drive of it.
Actually we took a long detour to KFC but its got to be done. ( Great to see you all again )
I did tell Tim the clutch was rather snappy which he agreed on , a bit of nattering later and we plumped for a hydraulic issue although what that was is anyones guess ,
Flexi pipes a Aeroquip one so that wasnt it .
After they left for home i felt compelled to have a look even though its been like it for many years.
I went for the slave cylinder first as its the easy bit to do , just as well as that turned out to be the problem
The one fitted had the thread adaptor fitted so was a really early one , the one i fitted is the later one with the larger thread and no adaptor.
After a quick bleed of the system I went off for a spin.
Its SO much better , less switch like and more smooth and lighter as well .
After a good look it would appear the slave cylinders which need adaptors have an inlet pipe hole half the size of the later ones.
I can only guess that this is what caused the problem.
Im guessing the early adaptor type is really for the 5 3/4 clutch and the one without for a 6 1/4 later clutch , well it seems logical to me anyway

[Bobbycham]

Good day all round then Dave, visit from very nice people that prompts you to investigate a problem with car .
And to top that, "easily solved"
Bob

[impmann]

Glad you got to the bottom of it. To be fair, your Singer drives better than 99% of the Imps I have ever driven. It is so composed and pulls like a train. The clutch was a bit snatchy so that's really interesting to note.

It was great to see you and Annie. Catch up soon:-)

[Meltdown]

Tim's one of the few people who can honestly claim a true 99% statistic!

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Well things havnt gone to plan with the slave cylinder.
Well they have in as much the clutch feels a million times better but not as the bloomin flexi pipe to slave was leaking or should that be weeping slightly.
Its suppose to seal via a copper washer but was having none of it , I tried three different washer thicknesses and even made my own.
Did it work --------- did it hell as like.
In the end I resorted to butchery . I noticed that the Aeroquip flexi has a taper on the end exactly like a bleed nipple and the slave has the same so the taper will fit into it , trouble was the two didnt meet up as the pipe inlet on the slave was too deep ( or the pipe too short ).
Anyway as a trial i removed 2.5mm off the flat that the copper washer is suppoed to seal too thus allowing the two tapers to meet up.
It now seals exactly the same way as the bleed nipple and touch wood so far doesnt appear to leak even after a drive out .
You can see where ive filed the alloy away in the pic
I HATE IMPS

[ImpManiac]

I have the adapter on my slave cylinder too, Dave, so shall emulate what you have done. Great work!

IM

[moose]

just use a bulk head fitting aeroquip on the end that goes into the slave cylinder these are much longer and bottom out on the taper as yours does now you have modded it simples

[Dave ' Linwood ' Lane]

Anyone got any idea what shocks these are , They are NOS Van or Husky ones but theres no markings on them.



Normal ones are usually blue and stamped with a part number , these are 7103647 Van and Husky ones by Woodhead Munrow that are fitted on the Singer , insidently the paint they stick on shocks when new seems to me a micron thick so these were stripped back to bare metal , etched primed and given a good coat of electric motor paint which is crazy tuff stuff

[colin rooney]

Im sure they are woodhead shocks mate