Doobies Allegro now named Rex ... Better than i thought

[doobietoo]

Allegro VDP arrives tomorrow, I am excited and apprehensive in equal measure as I have yet to see it... in other news I will be at the Hampton court flower show with Mrs Doobietoo quaffing pimms while my friendly recovery man picks the car up and drops it at mine... I am just wondering whether heatstroke will be a suitable reason to leave London early enough to get home and see the car before it gets dark.......

[vulgalour]

Some would say the VDP is best viewed after dark.

[blguy1975]

No such car ..It is a Vanden Plas 1500 

[Craig the Princess]

MoTed worse. Hope it arrives safely. Let us know what it needs were have some bits from broken ones (not vps but regular Allegros).

[doobietoo]

You may well be right although according to Howmanyleft there were 24 Austin Allegro Vanden Plas registered in 1994 and none now so I might just have bought a "unique" and therefore highly valuble car

And Cheers Craig I appreciate the offer as I am sure I will need a few bits and bobs....

[Alexg]

Nice one, I think VDP 1500's are great! They're proper grand inside and I think they look amazing with that nonsense on the front end. You're a lucky bloke.

[New POD]

Unique because conceptually they were shite, and in actuality they were shite ? And people scrapped the few that actually got bought ?

 

My Granddad had a Wolsey 3L and he was somehow persuaded by a BLMC sales twat to px it for a 1500 5 speed twin carb piece of shite in 1976.

 

I don't think he actually used any gear other than 3rd. Occasionally reverse.

 

Between 1976 and 1994 he did 30K in it, and eventually stopped driving, when I was desperate for a car, any car.  He had given it to my uncle, who refused to sell it to me, saying it was a classic, and worth £2K. Given that my budget was £500 I bought a fiat 126.

 

When my granddad died aged 90 in 2000, it turned out my uncle had removed the private plate, and stuck the car in his 3 car garage for the last 6 years, and as soon as his father was dead had scrapped it. What a twat. I could have driven it for 6 years and scrapped it for him.

 

I am still pained by this.  I've told my nephews that if they are ever desperate for a car, I'll find them something suitable, from somewhere (here probably)

 

 

I particular remember the rear head room being claustrophobic for a dwarf

[doobietoo]

Ha ha its here..... and not as bad as I thought although I haven't had a really good look round.... as its just started pissing down here and its under its nice shiny silver Chinese car cover. I have work tomorrow so update Friday with more pics if its not raining

[doobietoo]

Couldn't wait until Friday so had a good look round Rex today. Luckily he is on the DVLA database so that is a relief as I was worried I would have to go through the whole re-applying for registration rigmarole. The car was registered on 07/07/1977 and was last taxed in June 1988 so only 11 years on the road.

I found this pic of the car on the VDP owners club site just in case you doubt its "barn find" status lol. They reckoned the body was shot which makes me wonder how many "shot" cars they have scrapped as I have seen 15 year old cars with more body rust !!!

 

 

Once I worked out how to open the bonnet (the cable had snapped) It doesn't look too bad.

 

 

 

 

 

The inside is also pretty good, bearing in mind its been sitting for 27 years

 

 

 

 

The drivers side floor is the worst but no holes apart from the one that is supposed to be there, even the boot floor is pretty good with the only bad holes from the back of the left hand wing.

 

 

 

 

Havin said that the top of the boot is a bit crusty.

 

 

For such an old car the cup holders were a shock...

 

 

I think the tyres might need changing though...

 

 

I found a few goodies in the glove box... Green shield stamps oh happy days...

 

 

And finally under the drivers carpet there was a copy of the Times from May 1983...

 

 

Spookily the date was Friday 13th............ do de do do do de do do.....

 

One last thing I turned the engine over with a big socket and it will turn about 45 degrees in either direction and then stops... all the tappets are unstuck, before I take it to bits is there an obvious reason for this I have missed?????

[anonymous user]

Those are not cup-holders, they are for the base of your stemmed glass, to reduce the likelihood of it sliding across the picnic table and spilling the sherry

 

PS I apologise for putting it in the ebay tat thread and suggesting that it would have been better staying barn lost rather than found, well done for taking it on, especially as it appears less worse in reality than the photographs suggested

[alf892]

Would imagine a piston is encountering a stuck open valve. Probably more than one too.......I'd use the piston to give it a tap. The valves are straight so it shouldnt make things any worse. Or remove rocker cover and give them all a tap from above

[catsinthewelder]

I'm so glad that someone on here had the balls to buy this,  can't wait to see it on the road.

[doobietoo]

Removed the rocker cover already and as its the 1500 ohc engine the cams act on the tappets which all can be pushed down under spring pressure when pushed....

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Check where the tie rods join to the body just below the front valance, #1 ALLEGRO ROT SPOT

[trigger]

Excellent stuff again, I'll be watching this with interest to see how you get on.

[alf892]

Removed the rocker cover already and as its the 1500 ohc engine the cams act on the tappets which all can be pushed down under spring pressure when pushed....

 

 

soak and turn then?

[406V6]

Good luck with this. Keen to see more pics and words as the recommissioning progresses. I owned an Allegro once though not a VDP (which is not an Allegro anyway as all Shiters ought to know).

[Steviemillar]

Well saved!

[greengartside]

Fantastic save! Looking forward to the jet wash pics amongst others! Interesting to read about the news back in 1983 - the cannibal Dennis Nilsen and trialling of wheel clamps in London!

[doobietoo]

So got a half day to do some car stuff up bright and early... got my tool bowl ready....

 

 

And took the front off....

 

 

Along with the radiator...

 

 

As the engine is naff I have a new one coming but with no engine hoist I am going to have to drop it out the bottom. As the hubs and bearing rubbers are all perished It make sense to replace all the joints and bearings especially as I need to remove the drive shafts to get the engine out...

 

Seen worse on allegros I owned 20 years ago...

 

 

 

 

 

So the drivers side hub and drive shaft came out/off easy but the passenger side was a bit more trouble So state of play is drivers side stripped passenger side tie rod off. hopefully I will get the hub off in the week and start getting the engine out...

[Asimo]

The DJ who was scammed by an inventor was Noel Edmonds. The invention was a black box that would make any car do 100mpg plus.

 

I think Edmonds was doing the BBC car show at the time.........

[doobietoo]

Got a bit done to Rex over the weekend.... I now have an engine and seats and carpets in red so the VDP leather is being stored in the loft... Once the interior was out and the sill covers were removed I could see how much rot there is on the body, The inner sills are remarkably good. The brown stuff on the sills inside is carpet glue and the floorpan is just surface rust.....

 

 

 

 

The passenger side outer sill is like new and looks like it was replaced shortly before the car was parked in the barn....

 

 

 

At this point I was quite excited as you can imagine.... I was quickly bought down to earth when I removed the other sill cover as the drivers side will need a sill and some welding to the floor by the jacking point....

 

 

 

Hopefully when I get back from holiday my storage will be ready and I can empty the garage of the 1100 and all my junk and put Rex in so I can work on him over the winter,  also got lucky finding a NOS set of front to rear suspension pipes as mine are rotten. Next job is to remove the rear subframe and petrol tank and check for rust there..... Hopefully I will not spend too much in Spain and will have enough left to buy a mig as it looks like I am going to need it....

[vulgalour]

These things really are like Princesses in miniature when you get down to the bare bones of them, it's quite surprising to me to see how similar the various panel shapes are.  You've dropped on really lucky though, the usually crusty bits on cars of this age seem pretty sound here.  Will look lovely with a red interior, like a proper car.

[Bear]

You know what's sad about that? I bet it was much better before being laid up, and an hour with some waxoyl would have saved many parts.

 

They are lovely things, really, just for having a handle on the whole 'aspirational' nature of car ownership, just, not quite getting what people aspired to. Like all the middle-class types that insisted on calling them Van Den Plaaaahhh.

 

(Same people would call Jeeves a Vaalay I expect).

 

Love the Hydragas stickers. There's a pride there that is hard to imagine when we think of BL now, like Audis with Procon-Ten or Volvos with SIPS in the back window. "Our stuff, making cars better for you, and we want everyone to know it!".

[Noel Tidybeard]

i do like the colour of this wee beastie- makes a change for it not to be harvest gold or sandglow

[Squire_Dawson]

Could've been special order black, or Aconite purple, either way an unusual colour for a VP. The strangest of all is the Applejack VP, which someone had actually specified and was factory painted new.

[Jim Bell]

Looking forward to this thread getting longer. Great save and fair play to the size of your manballs for signing up to a winter at Club Rex.

[doobietoo]

Could've been special order black, or Aconite purple, either way an unusual colour for a VP. The strangest of all is the Applejack VP, which someone had actually specified and was factory painted new.

 

Special order black.....

[Noel Tidybeard]

Special order black.....

i thort it was dark bloo

[doobietoo]

So Mrs D has friends round for lunch so that means I get a whole days tinkering.... The plan today is to get the car rolling as I need to move it out the way to get the 1100 out of the garage along with my mountain of crap and get it off to my storage container which should be ready by next weekend. Then I can get Rex in the garage and finish dismantling ready for welding.

 A cursory inspection showed that all four wheels were seized solid, no surprise after sitting in an open barn for 25 years. How my delivery mate got the car on and off the transporter is beyond me.

 So I put the front hubs back on and then removed a pad from each side so the wheel would spin. This was more difficult than it sounds as the calipers were seized solid and there is no brake fluid so forcing them open is not an option. Luckily the discs look almost new and have no lip at all as if they had the pads would have been almost impossible to remove. Much tapping and levering later and the pads were out and the front wheels were turning. No pics I am afraid as I was too busy concentrating.

 Onto the rear drums then. Once again they were both seized solid. now the adjusters were also seized solid so no chance of slackening them off so it was off with the nut and bearing and with the help of a club hammer and a couple of large prybars I eventually got them off. 

 

A bit of rust but re-useable

 

The suspension seems ok

 

But the fuel tank might need replacing....

 

 

 

 

 After removing the shoes I put it all back together and it actually rolled for the first time in over 25 years. I just need to get the front tyres replaced and it should roll easily. All in all a good days work.