Dicky’s Disastrous Debris - A fascinating discovery made on my 1951 Austin A70 pickup 25/3/26

[SiC]

I don't like this. I much prefer the (more unreliable) Scenic II because I'm weird.

Of course these are fantastic load luggers with their enormous boots in their van like shape. Yet cheaper insurance than a van and isn't as restricted where they can go like a van often is. 

This one I can very much see being often filled to the gills with old car parts being saved from deceased estates and the like. While it's a modern, they are a useful tool which if you get you're fun elsewhere, is not bad thing. 

While I originally didn't really like MPVs as found them all rolley poley and no ounce of fun to drive, in the face of modern SUVs that have replaced them with something much less practical, far more inefficient and worse to drive. 

I have to say it's been a long time since I've seen an early Picasso or Scenic nowadays.

[ruffgeezer]

45 minutes ago, Angrydicky said:

Bugger all I’m afraid, apart from the wheelbrace! I’ve been through all the compartments. The jack is missing, so is the old lady shopping trolley that should be clipped inside the boot!

I might have a suitable jack in the garage, I'll check when I get home.

[Angrydicky]

37 minutes ago, SiC said:

I don't like this. I much prefer the (more unreliable) Scenic II because I'm weird.

Of course these are fantastic load luggers with their enormous boots in their van like shape. Yet cheaper insurance than a van and isn't as restricted where they can go like a van often is. 

This one I can very much see being often filled to the gills with old car parts being saved from deceased estates and the like. While it's a modern, they are a useful tool which if you get you're fun elsewhere, is not bad thing. 

While I originally didn't really like MPVs as found them all rolley poley and no ounce of fun to drive, in the face of modern SUVs that have replaced them with something much less practical, far more inefficient and worse to drive. 

I have to say it's been a long time since I've seen an early Picasso or Scenic nowadays.

Got to say I would prefer a Mk1 Scenic, prefer the styling, but this was the one that came up.

It looks nice and easy to work on and relatively basic compared to the later Scenic and Picasso.

I’m hoping to get plenty of use out of it lugging car parts around! I’m also wondering if I can fit a bike or two in there as well. Shame about the curved back end which might limit bike carrying capacity.

[Angrydicky]

3 minutes ago, ruffgeezer said:

I might have a suitable jack in the garage, I'll check when I get home.

That would be very handy if you did, according to the handbook it should be in a plastic box inside the spare wheel, but it’s definitely not there.

I’ve looked through the paperwork and although it’s local it doesn’t seem to have been through Bullwinkles before.

[High Jetter]

14 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

£280. For a car with 10.5 months mot in 2025.

Barg. Well played, doesn't matter what it is, a bonus if useful.

[ruffgeezer]

I've 3 jacks in the garage, none of which are for a picssso.  It might be worth stopping in at Bully's if you pass as I'm sure he has a scrap one on site.

[artdjones]

On 07/12/2025 at 08:08, Lacquer Peel said:

the supple 306/ZX platform being one of them.

They are a bit of a hybrid, the front end is 306/ZX, the back end is 405/Berlingo, so they don't have the trick rear wheel steering. But the axle is easier to fix.

[Angrydicky]

Fleet updates…

The pickup is coming along nicely, all up and running now, rebuilt the braking system so it now stops as well, clutch freed off and fully serviced. Refurbished the petrol tank and fitted new copper fuel line. Rebuilt fuel pump and radiator recored, new hoses etc. Runs like a Swiss watch now!

Managed to find a replacement Lucas ‘cats eye’ headlight to replace the one with the yellowed reflector. They are ultra rare.

I’ve been running up and down the drive in it and it’s great fun. Made a side exit exhaust using a silencer from eBay and some bits I had laying around.

I replaced the awful 60s motorcycle rear lights and massive reflectors with some period Lucas items from an Austin Somerset which look much more correct. 
I’m not sure what this pickup had originally. The factory pickups with the Briggs body had the numberplate mounted below the bumper with one ‘D’ lamp providing all the rear lighting.

The wiring to the rear lights was a homemade mess and had been chewed by rats, I bought a secondhand Somerset rear wiring loom and spliced it into the original using soldered bullet connectors as per original, it came out well and worked perfectly, once I’d swapped around the wires on one light which I’d got the wrong way round.

There is quite a lot of work to do before it’s safe to use on the road, mostly chassis welding, new tyres and some balljoints. I have set myself a deadline of the Austin Counties Car Club national rally in July to get it done for and I have already booked it in. The rally location is North Essex where it started out life and lived until it moved to Herefordshire in 1979. It will be great to take it ‘home’ but we will see.

 

[Angrydicky]

The Honda PC50 won in a roffle in 2024, formerly owned by @reb and @RetroShite

After realising I wasn’t going to get around to doing the full restoration it required, I sold it cheap to a mate who owned one in the 80s and fancied another. He has restored quite a few bikes so was the right man for the job.

He completely stripped it down, and found that under the scabby bits and peeling silver hammerite it had been painted in was a very original and genuinely low mileage bike. The engine was like new inside and just required new seals and gaskets. 
It’s a budget restoration. A lot of original bits are still there even though they aren’t perfect. Bits of pitted chrome etc. The cost of wheel refurb was difficult to justify with the value of the bike so it’s got the original scabby rims still on it, plus corroded/pitted handlebars.

Still, I was very impressed with the work he had done in a short space of time.

A few weeks ago my pal mentioned to me that he was thinking about selling the PC to free up some cash,  was I interested in having it back? I was, so I went and fetched it from Suffolk.

Pretty good eh! It starts first kick and is good fun to ride as well.

One job that still needed doing was the petrol tank which stood out a bit. It had been repainted white but didn’t match the cream coloured plastics. I had an aerosol mixed up to match the toolbox cover and resprayed it, then applied the Honda logo.

Came out pretty well I reckon.

I also managed to buy a nos headlight rim on eBay for £20 inc postage which looks so much better than the deeply corroded original.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

13 minutes ago, Angrydicky said:

Fleet updates…

The pickup is coming along nicely, all up and running now, rebuilt the braking system so it now stops as well, clutch freed off and fully serviced. Refurbished the petrol tank and fitted new copper fuel line. Rebuilt fuel pump and radiator recored, new hoses etc. Runs like a Swiss watch now!

Managed to find a replacement Lucas ‘cats eye’ headlight to replace the one with the yellowed reflector. They are ultra rare.

I’ve been running up and down the drive in it and it’s great fun. Made a side exit exhaust using a silencer from eBay and some bits I had laying around.

The wiring to the rear lights was a homemade mess and had been chewed by rats, I bought a secondhand Somerset rear wiring loom and spliced it into the original using soldered bullet connectors as per original, it came out well and worked perfectly, once I’d swapped around the wires on one light which I’d got the wrong way round.

There is quite a lot of work to do before it’s safe to use on the road, mostly chassis welding, new tyres and some balljoints. I have set myself a deadline of the Austin Counties Car Club national rally in July to get it done for and I have already booked it in. The rally location is North Essex where it started out life and lived until it moved to Herefordshire in 1979. It will be great to take it ‘home’ but we will see.

 

Love the look of this thing. I like the conservation rather than shiny restoration approach, too. It suits this old girl just right. 

Is the rear bed a home-made job or factory? When you replace the tyres, brownie points for trying to source some similar knobblies for the back end!

[reb]

13 minutes ago, Angrydicky said:

The Honda PC50 won in a roffle in 2024, formerly owned by @reb and @RetroShite

After realising I wasn’t going to get around to doing the full restoration it required, I sold it cheap to a mate who owned one in the 80s and fancied another. He has restored quite a few bikes so was the right man for the job.

He completely stripped it down, and found that under the scabby bits and peeling silver hammerite it had been painted in was a very original and genuinely low mileage bike. The engine was like new inside and just required new seals and gaskets. 
It’s a budget restoration. A lot of original bits are still there even though they aren’t perfect. Bits of pitted chrome etc. The cost of wheel refurb was difficult to justify with the value of the bike so it’s got the original scabby rims still on it, plus corroded/pitted handlebars.

Still, I was very impressed with the work he had done in a short space of time.

A few weeks ago my pal mentioned to me that he was thinking about selling the PC to free up some cash,  was I interested in having it back? I was, so I went and fetched it from Suffolk.

Pretty good eh! It starts first kick and is good fun to ride as well.

One job that still needed doing was the petrol tank which stood out a bit. It had been repainted white but didn’t match the cream coloured plastics. I had an aerosol mixed up to match the toolbox cover and resprayed it, then applied the Honda logo.

Came out pretty well I reckon.

I also managed to buy a nos headlight rim on eBay for £20 inc postage which looks so much better than the deeply corroded original.

A reminder of what it looked like when it was here:

[Angrydicky]

Another old bike joins the fleet…

Fatha_AD bought a brand new Suzuki GP125 in 1979 when he was 18. The reg was CMO 638V, probably long gone. He was browsing eBay this week when he saw this one, which was nearly identical. It is two months older than ‘his’ one, being on a T reg rather than a V.

I had a look at the listing and the location was Lingfield. That’s Sussex isn’t it, I said. No, the map shows just north of Birmingham. Ok that’s a bit closer.

Won the auction, then realised that the eBay map was wrong and it was indeed darn sarf and right around the bottom of the M25, down the A22 near Godstone. Well that was going to take all day to collect, which it did. Another long trip for the trusty old Rover 600.

I made it as far as the M11 before I heard a pop and the trailer started vibrating. I limped it to Birchanger services where I stopped and discovered a tyre had gone on the trailer. What had happened is the rim had rotted through and lost all the air. I had no spare with me. The nearest trailer spares supplier that wasn’t 20 miles in the wrong direction was FS trailers in Huntingdon. I phoned them and they had the wheels with tyres ready to go and put two on the counter for me. One of the others looked pretty ropey so I decided to change a pair. So I then had to limp it 42 miles up the M11 and A14 at 45 mph with a horrible vibration through the car, not a lot of fun but I did make it. Changed the wheels outside using the car’s scissor jack and eventually made it home about 6:30.

As for the bike. It’s not too bad really. The engine is seized but it’s complete apart from the mirrors, so quite a viable project. It’s had a few extra stickers and bits added on over the years, and a dodgy looking repair to the gear lever but it can all be sorted.

Unfortunately there wasn’t any history with it, the chap selling it had a big collection of bikes (and a couple of maestros!) and liked my Rover. He was having a clear out of projects he was never going to get around to. All he could tell me was that he bought it from Wales, which ties in with the original dealer plate and stickers from Bob Wilding Motorcycles of Merthyr Tydfil. I love stuff like that and have already started restoring the number plate. I bet it was great fun to ride on the Vallies roads in the 1980s. 

 

This one will be restored by another good friend of mine who knows these bikes inside out, having restored several. It will cost a few quid but it will be like new when it’s done.

 

[Angrydicky]

Following the demise of the Picasso in a large ditch, I was forced to get the Rover back on the road. The MoT was fast approaching so I went and splashed out more than the value of the car on: 

Cambelt kit, auxiliary belts and water pump.

Exhaust back box (an expensive Klarius one this time as the last one only lasted 3 years)

Fuel filler neck as the original was rotten and leaking, causing a petrol smell and leaks when parked. 
Managed to find the last new one in captivity and got that fitted.

Two new calipers and sliders on the back.

Four new shock absorbers, as two were leaking.

I put it in for the MoT. It did pass with a handbrake cable adjustment but the tester said the top balljoints at the front need doing ASAP as they’re both well worn. This is obviously the cause of the horrible wobble it’s been doing for the last few weeks when going over bumps, the car was all over the road.

I had a right game with the local factors getting the right balljoints, they kept sending me the wrong ones. But eventually got the correct parts and got the job done, not too bad really with the arms off the car (two nuts in the engine bay on each side) some heat and a handy sized socket saw the old ones drifted out and new ones fitted. The old ones were very worn, the new joints have transformed how the car drives, it now feels like it’s done half the miles it has (153k).

I also gave my mate a hand with the ex @SpottedlaurelCarina. New discs and pads on the front and four new slider pins on the calipers with fresh grease. The brakes had been getting squeaky, the discs and pads were about 50% worn. One slider was stuck completely, two were very sticky and only one felt ok. I couldn’t find my big G clamp for pushing the pistons back in (they were out quite a way) so used a big panel clamp which did the job. All back together and the brakes, now carefully bedded in feel fantastic and are most importantly quiet. My mate did the majority of the work himself with me assisting and he was quite pleased with himself.

There is a blow from the exhaust, I had a look and there’s a crack in the very front of the cat near the flange. It’s booked in at the local garage next week for this to be welded and for them also to investigate a couple of suspension clonks. I think it needs maybe trackrod ends/drop links and there’s something else at the back but we’ll see what they say.

The drivers door mirror glass was very wobbly, and the electric adjustment didn’t really work. I popped the glass out to have a look and found the adjustment actuators all broken, then found someone had glued a new mirror glass over the broken original.

I then managed to break the glass trying to fix it so it would stay in place, bugger..

So I bodged it with blue tac around the outside to hold it in place, and give him some kind of rear visibility, while I tried to find the correct mirror on eBay. Even that was a bit of a mission as the one sent wasn’t what I ordered, it was a manual one off a completely different car. Eventually got the right one, (nos in original box!) and he says he will fit it tomorrow.

5000 miles down in the Carina now and it’s proving itself to be very reliable and capable, which is good because he doesn’t have anything else. The only other thing I noticed that will need attention soon is quite a bad oil leak from the top of the engine, presumably the cam cover.

I also went to the Austin Counties club ‘Spares day’ in Kent and there was a bloke there who turned up in a Carina. He was very deaf so wasn’t easy to talk to but I did get out of him “very good car, I’ve owned it 21 years”. I noticed the extra mirrors he’s fitted which interested Marcus as he said the rear visibility on the estate is not great, the mirrors are quite small although hopefully it will improve when he’s got a drivers mirror he can actually see in and adjust properly.

there was also this dreadful Golf there, a base model Mk3 with saggy headlining, no power steering and four speed gearbox. Being sold on behalf of an elderly friend who had been doing about 20 miles a year in it since 2008 and had never washed it. It was grim. The only redeeming feature was that it had a surprisingly clean interior. My mate was trying to get me to buy it for £475. I didn’t want it but fortunately he found a buyer in the end after being messed about with on eBay. I did start it up and the engine sounded rough and noisy but I suppose the ancient petrol in it probably wasn’t helping. Either way I don’t like Golfs and I couldn’t be arsed trying to get it home from Kent so I’m glad someone else bought it.

[Angrydicky]

58 minutes ago, Dick Cheeseburger said:

Love the look of this thing. I like the conservation rather than shiny restoration approach, too. It suits this old girl just right. 

Is the rear bed a home-made job or factory? When you replace the tyres, brownie points for trying to source some similar knobblies for the back end!

Honestly, I have no idea regarding the rear body. The previous owner spent over 40 years trying to find information about it to no avail. It is completely different to the ‘factory’ bodies which were built by Briggs in Dagenham.

One thing is for sure, it’s not something someone’s built in a shed. It’s a very well built, professional coachbuilt body. Unfortunately no makers plate on it.

Perhaps it was rear ended early in its life and had a new body built, unfortunately the people who would have known the answer will be no longer with us.

I have a pair of perfect nos Town and Countries for the back which came with it (rarer than a rare thing) so just need to buy two very expensive front tyres for it from Longstone. These are 17” six stud wheels rather than the 16” four stud on the saloon (I also own a saloon that I rebuilt a few years ago) tyres for that are a lot cheaper. You even have the option of fitting 175 16 radials (taxi tyres) which are even cheaper.

[Angrydicky]

1 hour ago, reb said:

A reminder of what it looked like when it was here:

It’s come a long way hasn’t it!

You wouldn’t know it was the same bike.

[Spottedlaurel]

11 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

5000 miles down in the Carina now and it’s proving itself to be very reliable and capable, which is good because he doesn’t have anything else.

Excellent news! He's already done almost what it took us two years with it.

[RetroShite]

21 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

It’s come a long way hasn’t it!

You wouldn’t know it was the same bike.

 

That's an amazing transformation. Well done!

[Angrydicky]

 

Thought I’d try putting one of the bikes in the pickup, which went swimmingly until the front wheel went through the rotten floor.

i knew there was woodworm in it and it was a little tender in places, but I thought it was better than that!

So have made a start ripping out the floor ready to replace it all.

fortunately, much of the structural wood underneath is hardwood and has escaped the woodworm.

Bit of a shame as the old planks had fantastic patina, but when they’re literally crumbling in your hands there’s not a lot you can do to save it. I’ve taken some careful measurements and I’m going to the wood yard next week, to get some suitable hardwood planks cut to replace them.

 

[mk2_craig]

On 14/03/2026 at 20:35, Angrydicky said:

 

 

That bike plate looks like they ran out of number 3 digits and had to cut down a B to get that one made up in a hurry. 

[Angrydicky]

Found something really interesting today. 

My dad spotted some ghosting  of old signwriting under the paint on the side of the pickup’s body tub. I had long suspected some lay under the green paint which was applied circa 1964, and when the light caught it in the right place you could clearly make out ‘Maldon, Essex’ on one side of the wheelarch and something else on the other side, ending ‘NG’

After a lot of careful sanding this is what I’ve managed to uncover.

Looks like it was once a service vehicle for Ernest Doe, back in the fifties. 

 

[Dyslexic Viking]

That's amazing, hope you'll keep this either as is or new painted.

[Asimo]

Ernest Doe has an interesting history.

 

[RoadworkUK]

11 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

Looks like it was once a service vehicle for Ernest Doe, back in the fifties. 

That is utterly fantastic. You MUST drive it down there for a photo. Give me a shout and I could Rover on down and join you (would be the first trip in the Rover this year).