Dicky’s Disastrous Debris - free Somerset gets brakes, 15/1/24

[neil1971]

1 hour ago, Angrydicky said:

 

So that's what Bill Bailey has been up to since Strictly.

Well found and bought, look forward to updates on progress in due course

[Vantman]

Well saved that man--another car from my era!

[phil_lihp]

Nice one, never heard of these before.  It'll be interesting to see what it's like when you get a closer look.

[Skizzer]

Oh wow, what a purchase! You can certainly count me among the people that Austin Hampshires had passed by.

Very much looking forward to updates!

[spartacus]

Good save, are you tackling the work yourself?

@worldofceriearned his money there by the looks of it, some proper trailer contortions to get it on.

[Mrs6C]

Winnah winnah chicken dinnah!

Fantastic save of a lovely old car - well done!

[ETCHY]

Brilliant utterly brilliant.

I look forward to the updates.

Very well done for saving it.

[Angrydicky]

31 minutes ago, spartacus said:

Good save, are you tackling the work yourself?

@worldofceriearned his money there by the looks of it, some proper trailer contortions to get it on.

Yeah, fortunately I like welding! There's nothing there that especially phases me. I've repaired worse. At least there's a lovely strong separate chassis under cars of this age!

[2flags]

Great save. It looks fantastic. Slow, old, thirsty, unpopular and rotten. Proper autoshite! Well done.

[Angrydicky]

2 hours ago, wuvvum said:

So slow, thirsty and comically undergeared but will climb a vertical wall in fourth gear...

What would the "normal" upgrade be for one of these engines (equivalent to the 1489 in your A40)?  Was the big four used in the Austin Healeys a development of it or was that a completely different engine?

The 2660cc engine used in the Atlantic and Healey 100/4 is a bored out version of this block, with twin SU carbs instead of a single Zenith.

The engine in this is a Gold Seal exchange engine, fitted in September 1964 at a cost of £71 15s 2d. I have the receipt for it! There's quite a lot of lovely old paperwork that came with it in fact, and the old MoTs back to 1965 back up the mileage, so that engine has only done 10,000 miles. For what that's worth, bearing in mind I have no idea when it last ran. The oil is lovely and clean on the dipstick though!

[Angrydicky]

6 minutes ago, 2flags said:

Great save. It looks fantastic. Slow, old, thirsty, unpopular and rotten. Proper autoshite! Well done.

Love this 😂

[wuvvum]

2 hours ago, Dick Longbridge said:

You'll be filming the first startup, aye? 

It's a 1950s Austin - a decent battery and a glug of fresh pez down the carb and it'll be away.

I actually saw this car's successor (Hereford) in a local petrol station last summer.  Had to do a double take as I initially assumed it was a Somerset but the proportions weren't quite right.

[LightBulbFun]

38 minutes ago, Angrydicky said:

The 2660cc engine used in the Atlantic and Healey 100/4 is a bored out version of this block, with twin SU carbs instead of a single Zenith.

The engine in this is a Gold Seal exchange engine, fitted in September 1964 at a cost of £71 15s 2d. I have the receipt for it! There's quite a lot of lovely old paperwork that came with it in fact, and the old MoTs back to 1965 back up the mileage, so that engine has only done 10,000 miles. For what that's worth, bearing in mind I have no idea when it last ran. The oil is lovely and clean on the dipstick though!

and im guessing the last V5 for it as well?   I was just about to ask since I was going to then ask if it would let you do a keeper change online with it

from what I can tell it should as I already verified as long as it is indeed the last V5/11 digit number for that vehicle, you can still use 11 digit numbers dating back to the Mid 1970's even!, to check taxation rates but I obviously was not going to try and do a keeper change for a vehicle I dont own etc etc, so the oldest V5 iv seen an online keeper change done with, was  with a V5 from 1994

but when I went to double check the date of V5 last issued I see todays date, so I assume that will be a Yes you can indeed still use a 1980's V5 to do a keeper change as I thought  

still breaks my mind a little, as a computer enthusiast how a computer system from 40+ years ago long before the internet as we know it today, is still going now online today!

[Asimo]

Data is data. Has no qualities, nothing to age. 
 

And that is a very interesting old Austin.
So good it is going to be fixed and used rather than modded, rodded, slammed, pineappled, bangered etc.

[Ghosty]

I quite like the way that looks. Never heard of one before though, every day's a school day. 

[Angrydicky]

Yeah @LightBulbFunI didn't really want to send the 1987 V5 off to Swansea in the middle of their Covid backlog. So I tried doing the keeper change online. Didn't really expect it to work as it asked for a V5c reference number. Amazingly enough though, it did recognise the number, so I should get the new V5 issued under the automated system, and I get to keep the old V5 with the car's history. Very pleased about that.

[Angrydicky]

6 hours ago, Asimo said:

And that is a very interesting old Austin.
So good it is going to be fixed and used rather than modded, rodded, slammed, pineappled, bangered etc.

Thank you. I think so, even though a lot of people would look down their nose at it. I intend to keep it all standard, even finding a pair of original front sidelights (fitted to early Morris Minors and Series 1 Land Rovers as well as Devon/Dorset, if anyone has any they want to part with) and removing the flashing indicators and welding up the holes. They have been on since the early '60s, it's a Trico system with the installation instructions still present. But it's quite a messy installation, so I'm going to remove it. I really don't like flashers when they've drilled through the bodywork!

[Spottedlaurel]

What a pleasant tale to start the day with! Good luck with it Richard.

I look forward to seeing it in the metal one day, even if it's just as a WIP.

[Amishtat]

Congratulations, well found! As a long standing Austin licker, I don't think I'd ever seen one before this at the NEC a couple of years ago. Looking forward to seeing you progress with it. 

[anonymous user]

Lovely car.

I have memories of a neighbour owning one in the 1960s which was replaced by a Hereford and later by an A105. Does the Hampshire use the same doors as the Devon?

[Angrydicky]

9 minutes ago, anonymous user said:

Lovely car.

I have memories of a neighbour owning one in the 1960s which was replaced by a Hereford and later by an A105. Does the Hampshire use the same doors as the Devon?

Thanks! Sadly not, they look similar at first glance but the sweeping curves down them are different.

[Vantman]

Info from my BMC identification booklet--

 

[LightBulbFun]

4 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

Yeah @LightBulbFunI didn't really want to send the 1987 V5 off to Swansea in the middle of their Covid backlog. So I tried doing the keeper change online. Didn't really expect it to work as it asked for a V5c reference number. Amazingly enough though, it did recognise the number, so I should get the new V5 issued under the automated system, and I get to keep the old V5 with the car's history. Very pleased about that.

ah awesome glad to hear that  and yeah despite it asking for a "v5c reference number" from what iv researched, a vehicles V5 never expires as long as the V5 is the last V5 issued for that vehicle record, then its 11 digit number will still be valid, as although the V5 has changed in format and become the V5c etc from what I can tell the 11 digit number system has never changed since it was introduced in 1974!  

one thing ill be interested to hear about is, I assume the 1987 V5 has "Keepers: None since such and such date" with the date being when it was computerised as you probably know, but I am curious to know if that computerisation date will still there on the new 2021 V5c or if the DVLA have dropped that bit at some point, so if you could let me know about that if you can when you get the new V5c that would be much appreciated  

4 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

Thank you. I think so, even though a lot of people would look down their nose at it. I intend to keep it all standard, even finding a pair of original front sidelights (fitted to early Morris Minors and Series 1 Land Rovers as well as Devon/Dorset, if anyone has any they want to part with) and removing the flashing indicators and welding up the holes. They have been on since the early '60s, it's a Trico system with the installation instructions still present. But it's quite a messy installation, so I'm going to remove it. I really don't like flashers when they've drilled through the bodywork!

I have no idea how rare those side lights are so I might just get laughed at, but if you get really stuck, theres a chap who I give invacar technical support to for his 4 to 6 (5, 5 and a half?) Model 70's, and he lives and breaths all things Land Rover (like he has the oldest production Land Rover Chassis in the UK I think!)

so if you say they where fitted to Series 1 Land rovers then if anyone has a Box full of the things lying around randomly its probably him! so I can always give him a poke and see what he says if you get stuck  

[beko1987]

Oh how fabulous! 

[Datsuncog]

Wow, what a find!

Will be following this one with interest.

I thought I might have a pic of a similar one in a local-ish scrapyard, but it turns out that I misidentified it as a Hampshire when it's actually a later Hereford.

Looking forward to more on this!

[somewhatfoolish]

20 hours ago, wuvvum said:

So slow, thirsty and comically undergeared but will climb a vertical wall in fourth gear...

What would the "normal" upgrade be for one of these engines (equivalent to the 1489 in your A40)?  Was the big four used in the Austin Healeys a development of it or was that a completely different engine?

I'd imagine more or less what was done to the Healey 100/4; overdrive, overbore so that the dimensions are just long stroke rather than "visiting Australia every rev" and twin SUs, maybe a lower ratio diff to enable better fuel economy. Better brakes would be a good idea prior to any of that though.

[Angrydicky]

After a few hours, Ceri arrived with the Hampshire.

It did look pretty ropey in real life, but it had arrived safely. The front nearside tyre had a great big hole in the sidewall, so in anticipation of having to push it slightly uphill into its new parking space, I popped the spare from the Somerset on. Here I am changing it over.

Proud owner!

What a beauty! A thing of deep joy, as Nick Larkin would say.

[ETCHY]

Nice old thing.

From an era when basically a car was  still quite a posh thing to have but was first & foremost transport, that got you & your family where you needed to go, out of the rain.

None of this lateral g round the Nurburgring shit, just a solid dependable thing to be proud of.

Cool.

[Amishtat]

Nice to see it properly under cover at last. Good job you like welding.. 

[Angrydicky]

I took the day off work because I was itching to get started on the A70.

I started by removing the boxes of spares from the car so I could have a proper look at the interior. Some great stuff there, that four blades fan is from an Atlantic, there’s a couple of decent overriders there (one of the original rears has rotted through!) nos distributor cap, head gasket set, new hubcaps, a set of new crossply tyres, new brake fluid reservoir, and loads of other useful bits.

The interior of this car was horrible. It was dripping with damp and mould and had been damp a very long time.

Its difficult to see the headlining but that was really mouldy too.

I started by removing the carpet and underlay. All was wet through and stank. It also fell apart when I tried to remove it. Ended up filling two bin bags with the remains of the carpet, snail shells, random old bones and huge amounts of droppings from some unknown animal (rat?)

Now I could see what I was dealing with.

I had bought some baby wipes for cleaning the dirt and mould from the interior, and they were pretty effective.

You can already see the colour difference between the drivers seat and the passenger seat, in this picture. The Hampshire used the Austin 16 seats which featured twin armrests on both front seats. 

I found this in the back window. Reg comes back to a Talbot Avenger, last taxed in 1991.