project 1951 Lanchester LD10 - Donor Car Arrives

[PhilA]

Nice that it decided to run! A big boost. I see that you've already started to suffer the Bloody Stupids.

Where does the wire for the main harness terminate and spur from? Headlight switch? Generally it'll go from the battery pole of the starter motor off to somewhere; the highest current draw is the headlights and from there to the ignition, and off to any ancillaries after the ignition switch.

Sounds like your problems may be at or just before the point it splits.

[SiC]

You might already be doing it, but if the wiring is dodgy, make sure you disconnect one of the battery terminals after a days fiddling!

[vulgalour]

Never fear!  Battery is disconnected as soon as it isn't required, sometimes mid-fettle, just to be sure.

[wuvvum]

I do like that front suspension setup.  Is it normal for lever arm dampers to use drop links?

[PhilA]

  On 15/08/2020 at 20:38, wuvvum said:

I do like that front suspension setup.  Is it normal for lever arm dampers to use drop links?

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Depends on the arrangement. Austin used them as the top control arm in the Minor. Drop links are more common on the rear, where the damper body is attached to the chassis and a drop link fixed to the rear axle.

[vulgalour]

That broken washer bottle is Unipart GWW906, as fitted to some Minis and Morris Minors.  NOS one ordered for a tenner, be daft not to at that price.

[lesapandre]

  On 15/08/2020 at 07:13, Angrydicky said:

Numberplate looks much better! Love the old driving lamps too.

I was quite surprised to see independent front coil sprung suspension under there. I was expecting leaf springs, as I thought these were quite pre-war under the skin. Just goes to show!

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Screen washers were bought in as part of the MoT process in the 1960's. They were obligatory - so were retro-fitted to all cars -  I don't think the LD10 had them from new? Great that you have tracked down an original fitting bottle from the installation.

[vulgalour]

Today I had some help so we determined to try and get a few things done on the Lanchester.  First up was trying to find something lying about that would quieten the exhaust down where the flexi has snapped.  Looking underneath the car the exhaust is a patchwork of pipes and silencers, the whole thing needs to be redone properly.  We had set aside some tin cans to put around the exhaust and found they were actually much too big.  A silicone hose joiner, however, was a close enough diameter to at least reduce the noise if not seal the exhaust properly.  This is a temporary addition just until we've dealt with more important items and is just to reduce the noise output a bit.

We had suspected there was a problem with electrical connectors and started going through what was easy to get to in the engine bay, cleaning up whatever we could reach.  Another attempt was made to start the car and it was then we noticed a couple of sparks and whiffs of smoke from the battery area.  Turns out, there's too many leads back there and the original braided earth strap was sparking and shorting against the battery box.  We also learned that the newer lead a previous owner had fitted had chafed through the protective sheath, had previously been repaired with electrical tape and chafed through again.  After a considerable amount of time we eventually removed the new red strap from the chassis, the nut and bolt holding it to the chassis well and truly stuck together and no access for power tools.

Then a thunderstorm arrived.  This demonstrated quite rapidly that the water that had appeared around the passenger side A-pillar when I washed the car was actually from the windscreen seal which is leaking quite badly.

To mitigate this I improvised with some rubber car mats at least until we could push the car back in the garage.  The storm didn't last long, thankfully, and the mats did a reasonable job.

After that, we fitted a better positive earth strap and re-routed the negative cable following the path that matched the p-clip on the cable and shape of the cable itself.  The old braided earth strap clamp broke so we trimmed that back as far as we could to the bolt that held it to the body mount.  We didn't want to risk trying to undo the body mount bolt and since everything is nice and secure it seemed wiser to trim the old earth strap back  than to potentially shear the body mounting bolt and creating more work for ourselves.  We plan to fit new, appropriate length battery cables rather than relying on what's there now.  That done, we also topped up the fluid flywheel.  I'd previously thought the engine had dropped too far for the starting handle to locate in the pulley, it turns out I'd missed that there was a second bracket with a hole to guide the handle through behind the number plate and was simply putting the handle in the wrong place.  Turning the crank brought the flywheel fill plug into line with the viewing window inside the car and we could top it up.  Well, I say top it up, it must have been empty for how much oil we had to put in and nothing came out underneath the car.  Since we didn't have a syringe type filler, we improvised with a funnel and a spout and using two pairs of hands we could fill the flywheel.  We were optimistic we'd be able to run the car today after all this, which had taken far longer to acheive than seems reasonable due to the difficult bolt for the old red positive battery lead.

A video was taken, though I apologise in advance for the poor recording, my camera is very old now and not great.

We now have a car that's incredibly willing to crank, producing a good spark, delivering fuel, and coming very close to actually starting.  The biggest problem was that while the car would almost run, even with some new fuel, we couldn't quite get it to idle and, after a while, we flattened the battery since we've barely been able to put any charge back in it while we've been trying to get the Lanchester going.  Our main suspicion now has turned to the carburettor which likely needs a good clean out and rebuild.  Since the car is so willing to crank, providing a good spark, and delivering plenty of fuel to the carburettor, it seems sensible that the carburettor is the bottleneck in the system and preventing the car from running.  Rebuild kits are available for the Zenith 30 VIG-3 that the Lanchester uses and we have an ultrasonic cleaner which will help get the carburettor as clean as possible.

[Zelandeth]

@PhilA showed me a good hack to make stuff which might otherwise not all fit in your cleaner fit, making a 3 litre cleaner essentially work just as well as a 5 litre one.

This allowed me to dump the carb I was cleaning in and properly submerge all the components which previously I'd had to do in halves, turning them over periodically.  This removed an order of magnitude more gunk than my original method despite nothing else having changed.

Also means that you only need to clean out a plastic bottle too, all that goes in the cleaner itself is a little bit of water.

[captain_70s]

  On 16/08/2020 at 17:59, vulgalour said:

A video was taken, though I apologise in advance for the poor recording, my camera is very old now and not great.

 

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There is something quite nostalgic seeing footage from a camera as old as the car itself seemingly from 2008, reminds me of my youth.

[SiC]

I've seen classic Pathé videos with better video and audio quality than that! ?

[vulgalour]

You're not far off with the age guess there, it's taken on one of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Wildfire

[anonymous user]

  On 16/08/2020 at 09:50, lesapandre said:

Screen washers were bought in as part of the MoT process in the 1960's. They were obligatory - so were retro-fitted to all cars -  I don't think the LD10 had them from new? Great that you have tracked down an original fitting bottle from the installation.

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Screenwashers are not required if you have an opening or fold down windscreen 

[vulgalour]

Barker bodied cars have a fixed screen, Briggs bodied cars have an opening one.  So we have to have washers (I don't mind, I like having washers).

[SiC]

  On 16/08/2020 at 18:19, SiC said:

I've seen classic Pathé videos with better video and audio quality than that! ?

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I'm not even joking! 

I know this is effectively a tourist industry promo film but still interesting to see the country as it was when this car was made. 

Edit: Even better quality, but also more interesting to see more "normal" life

 

[captain_70s]

  On 16/08/2020 at 18:25, SiC said:

I'm not even joking! 

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You couldn't fit a 1951 film camera in your pocket though, nor could you easily convert the reels of film to a format viewable on a computer. It's all relative. 

 

[lisbon_road]

Very impressed that you can just buy a new wiring loom.  Presume someone has a diagram and all the parts are relatively standard.  Couldn't do that for many a younger car.

[SiC]

  On 16/08/2020 at 18:29, captain_70s said:

You couldn't fit a 1951 film camera in your pocket though, nor could you easily convert the reels of film to a format viewable on a computer. It's all relative. 

 

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But the recording from a modern camera isn't likely to last as film though. 

[Christine]

Are you sure those plug leads are on the right plugs ???

 

Hmm it seems ok ....zooming in on your pic....

[vulgalour]

Moderately certain it's correct having looking at the diagrams in the manual and pictures and videos of running Lanchesters.  Also, we've had the car running like this on all four cylinders so we assume that it's correct.  Shortening the leads will make the routing more obvious, it's a bit spaghetti looking right now.

[wuvvum]

  On 16/08/2020 at 18:25, SiC said:

Edit: Even better quality, but also more interesting to see more "normal" life

 

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Strange to see the traffic coming over Magdalen Bridge at the start - everything else looks exactly the same as it does today so all the vehicles being >60 years old looks odd.

[Rocket88]

Ref the wipers probably being less than efficient............Rainex on the screen would probably work better.........

[lesapandre]

  On 16/08/2020 at 20:38, vulgalour said:

Moderately certain it's correct having looking at the diagrams in the manual and pictures and videos of running Lanchesters.  Also, we've had the car running like this on all four cylinders so we assume that it's correct.  Shortening the leads will make the routing more obvious, it's a bit spaghetti looking right now.

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It may also be old fuel? Could you drain the tank or syringe it out? Machine Mart did a big syringe (500ml)  for taking oil out of marine engines and with a long tube or going in through the fuel float housing could get some out. Just an idea.

[DSdriver]

You may already be aware but there is a company called car builder solutions at Staplehurst who do a load of stuff for classic cars. Watch out for the green puddle in the car park where I stopped the DS  when I went to pick up some new reversing lamps.

[vulgalour]

Old fuel isn't helping, but it's not really any better on new, which is why we suspect it's the carb that's the issue more than anything else at the moment.

[Christine]

Perhaps the fuel has water in it ? 

I would spray cheap under arm deodorant down the carb while it was being cranked... And once its running at idle speed , should it try to stall , give it another shot  or two . If it was running before , could the oil you replaced in the flywheel be creating too much drag ?

[PhilA]

  On 16/08/2020 at 22:34, Christine said:

Perhaps the fuel has water in it ? 

I would spray cheap under arm deodorant down the carb while it was being cranked... And once its running at idle speed , should it try to stall , give it another shot  or two . If it was running before , could the oil you replaced in the flywheel be creating too much drag ?

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If it's in gear, possibly?

Is there any sort of inhibitor mechanism that prevents you from using the starter motor if the gearbox isn't selected to (and engaged to) neutral?

The way it coughs suggests crappy fuel and/or a crappy connection somewhere. Does the IGN light flicker at all when it's being cranked (not just the dimming you'd expect when it's being cranked over)?

Phil

[DeeJay]

That rip in the seat isn't going to get any better. Take the seat cover off and glue a lining on the back (use flexible glue) then restitch the seams. Something to do when it's raining. 

[DSdriver]

Use 'super' grade fuel which although it says it is up to 5% ethanol may not have any depending on supplier. Ethanol turned the rubber fuel pipes on my DS into black goo.

I expect you already know this but it may save others from a world of pain.

[vulgalour]

No IGN flicker, just a bit of dimming as you'd expect when cranking and even that isn't much since we fitted the new earth cable.  It really does just seem like a gummed up carb so there's not much we can do about that until the rebuild kit arrives and we've had chance to clean it out.  It does run on what's in the tank and it seems to run no better on fresh fuel from a remote supply, so that suggests that it's not the quality of the fuel that's the problem and as we've discovered in this thread, this engine is designed to pretty much run on anything even vaguely combustible.  At this point, I don't think chucking Easy Start or equivalent in it is going to tell us anything we don't already suspect anyway.  On the fuel hose front, there's barely any rubber hose at all on this car.  Most of the fuel line is metal, with a couple of plastic (or so it seems) runs in the engine bay to and from the sediment bowl, a big rubber pipe at the filler neck, and possibly a rubber line between the tank and the hard line that runs along the inside of the chassis.  If we do need to replace any of that it shouldn't be that difficult and problems should be easy to see.

I don't know enough about how the fluid flywheel works to say whether or not that would cause any issues with drag.  My gut feeling is if that were the issue, the car would cut out fairly predictably, but it doesn't, so it probably isn't that?

We'll get to the seats eventually, the passenger seat isn't being sat in at the moment so it's stable enough as is, and the driver's seat isn't getting any worse than it already is.  There's no point pulling those apart until we've got the materials to repair the covers so it's safer to leave those as is for the time being.  Just getting the car driveable is what's going to help the most at the moment and that's really at the mercy of parts delivery times.