project 1951 Lanchester LD10 - Rear Corner Inspection

[Zelandeth]

I still reckon one of the best anti theft devices was described by my folks.  They had a Ford Pilot back in the late 60s which had a built in jack.  Apparently someone did try to nick it from the pub car park one afternoon... they'd made it to third gear and about 40mph going nowhere before folks heard the commotion and a crowd formed...

[jon.k]

Horn connected to the ignition with a hidden switch is my favourite.

[busmansholiday]

1 hour ago, jon.k said:

Horn connected to the ignition with a hidden switch is my favourite.

You could buy a system.like that in 1980. There was a relay in there as well. Press in hidden button, then turn on and start, otherwise horn (and if you'd fitted twin air horns as well) went off to wake everybody up 

Was a bit of a twst when the connections got dodgy and the horn started blareing for no reason whilst driving along.

[vulgalour]

It has been suggested the timing is too far advanced on the Lanchester and I'm inclined to agree, if for no other reason than that the distributor sits a lot further round than I've seen on other cars.  We were very limited on tinker time today so when we had a brief opportunity we did as the book suggested to set the timing.  With me on the crank handle and the other half in the car watching for the telltale on the fluid flywheel coming around, we set the engine to TDC and then took the distributor cap off to have a look.

I've highlight the lobe positions in red here to make it a little easier to see.  The points are opening much too early and well before the lobe has come around so this won't be helping the running problem. Had we more time today we would have sorted this out, as it is we need to spend some time degreasing this area to make it a bit more pleasant to work on, and access to the pinch bolt you need to loosen to rotate the distributor isn't the best, in part because it's quite difficult to see it hiding under the distributor as it does.  Lots more free time tomorrow so hopefully we can get it cleaned up and set correctly then.

 

[Dan_ZTT]

21 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

A Citroen heater fan will create a lot of smoke anyway.

As we say in the entertainment industry, every machine is a smoke machine if you use it wrong enough 

[scdan4]

21 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

The Sith Effricans had a better system: flamethrowers under the floorpan. Seems this was a deterrent to would-be carjackers.

This type of thing:

 

I was told that this sort of thing is the reason that all good township car jackings now  start with a big bucket of petrol over the car.

?

[vulgalour]

Today has been the first day of real disappointment with this project, and we were doing so very well.  The first job was to sort out the timing, we had hoped to simply rotate the distributor to the relevant point and be done.  There simply wasn't enough adjustment available before the vacuum unit was hitting the dipstick so we opted to remove the whole distributor and reinstall it, which solved the problem.  We also took the opportunity to degrease the area so it was a little nicer to work in.  Quite a fiddly job to do and signs that this item had been removed and reinstalled previously.  With the distributor back in and set correctly, we then checked the points gap.  The gap should be .30mm, instead it was .63mm which can't have been helping.  Reset the points gap accordingly, went through all the checks before firing up and then went to start the car.  A very willing crank and right on the verge of firing we had to shut it down because fuel was gushing out of the banjo bolt on the end of the fuel inlet.  At first I thought I'd just not tightened it quite enough, put a spanner on and barely moved it before the banjo bolt popped straight out of the carburettor, almost all of the threads completely obliterated.

That's a bit of a setback.  The bolt wasn't crossthreaded and there's no sign of damage on the bolt thread, being familiar with how delicate aluminium threads are I was very careful when installing the fuel line, so I suspect this is just a failed thread, one of those things.  To keep things safe I went to put the bolt back in the hole, then changed my mind because I realised I can probably helicoil this, then promptly fumbled the bolt and dropped it in the engine bay.  The bolt made no noise, it just disappeared and after about an hour of looking for it, using a torch and various poking tools it simply didn't reappear.  I knew I'd dropped it pretty much where it lived so that meant it was probably just out of view under the horn, or the dynamo, so the first thing to do was remove the horn, which proved quite annoying since the only tool I could get on there was a spanner and the bolts were the one size I didn't have in my ratcheting spanner set.

Underneath the horn I did find some bolts, and one of the new red washers for the banjo bolt.  No sign of the banjo bolt though.

I also found that there has been some moderately recent work to the mechanicals under here, possibly a replacement or refurbished lever arm.  I wonder if those old bolts I found under the horn were the rusted remains of the original fixings for this.

After another hour of hunting in the car, under the car, around the drive, in the garage, even my own pockets, I could not find that banjo bolt at all.  We did have a go at removing the dynamo but really need the car out of the garage to do it and unfortunately the other half had other commitments today so moving the car was not an option.  As much as it annoyed me to do it, I had to admit defeat until we can push the car out of the garage tomorrow and start dismantling things and hoping the banjo bolt makes a reappearance.  Highly unlikely we'll have the car running this weekend now too, that stripped thread is a real set back to the schedule as I don't have anything in stock large enough to repair it so I'm going to have to order something and I can't do that without knowing the thread type and size of the bolt we've lost.  Ah well.  The one little victory was cleaning the dirt off the Lucas Windtone horn, I'm going to test this before it goes back on the car to see if the problem with the inoperative horns is the horns, or the button, or something in between.  They're a basic mechanical construction on these horns as far as I'm aware so it shouldn't be difficult to rebuild if I have to.

[ETCHY]

I can imagine how frustrating that is & not being able to find that bolt would be driving me crackers !

However, given all the great progress you've made there was bound to be something  & i'm sure you'll sort it.

On a positive note, that Lucas horn came up brilliantly.

[lesapandre]

4 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Today has been the first day of real disappointment with this project, and we were doing so very well.  The first job was to sort out the timing, we had hoped to simply rotate the distributor to the relevant point and be done.  There simply wasn't enough adjustment available before the vacuum unit was hitting the dipstick so we opted to remove the whole distributor and reinstall it, which solved the problem.  We also took the opportunity to degrease the area so it was a little nicer to work in.  Quite a fiddly job to do and signs that this item had been removed and reinstalled previously.  With the distributor back in and set correctly, we then checked the points gap.  The gap should be .30mm, instead it was .63mm which can't have been helping.  Reset the points gap accordingly, went through all the checks before firing up and then went to start the car.  A very willing crank and right on the verge of firing we had to shut it down because fuel was gushing out of the banjo bolt on the end of the fuel inlet.  At first I thought I'd just not tightened it quite enough, put a spanner on and barely moved it before the banjo bolt popped straight out of the carburettor, almost all of the threads completely obliterated.

That's a bit of a setback.  The bolt wasn't crossthreaded and there's no sign of damage on the bolt thread, being familiar with how delicate aluminium threads are I was very careful when installing the fuel line, so I suspect this is just a failed thread, one of those things.  To keep things safe I went to put the bolt back in the hole, then changed my mind because I realised I can probably helicoil this, then promptly fumbled the bolt and dropped it in the engine bay.  The bolt made no noise, it just disappeared and after about an hour of looking for it, using a torch and various poking tools it simply didn't reappear.  I knew I'd dropped it pretty much where it lived so that meant it was probably just out of view under the horn, or the dynamo, so the first thing to do was remove the horn, which proved quite annoying since the only tool I could get on there was a spanner and the bolts were the one size I didn't have in my ratcheting spanner set.

Underneath the horn I did find some bolts, and one of the new red washers for the banjo bolt.  No sign of the banjo bolt though.

I also found that there has been some moderately recent work to the mechanicals under here, possibly a replacement or refurbished lever arm.  I wonder if those old bolts I found under the horn were the rusted remains of the original fixings for this.

After another hour of hunting in the car, under the car, around the drive, in the garage, even my own pockets, I could not find that banjo bolt at all.  We did have a go at removing the dynamo but really need the car out of the garage to do it and unfortunately the other half had other commitments today so moving the car was not an option.  As much as it annoyed me to do it, I had to admit defeat until we can push the car out of the garage tomorrow and start dismantling things and hoping the banjo bolt makes a reappearance.  Highly unlikely we'll have the car running this weekend now too, that stripped thread is a real set back to the schedule as I don't have anything in stock large enough to repair it so I'm going to have to order something and I can't do that without knowing the thread type and size of the bolt we've lost.  Ah well.  The one little victory was cleaning the dirt off the Lucas Windtone horn, I'm going to test this before it goes back on the car to see if the problem with the inoperative horns is the horns, or the button, or something in between.  They're a basic mechanical construction on these horns as far as I'm aware so it shouldn't be difficult to rebuild if I have to.

The horns have something like points in them if my memory serves me going back 40 years . Giving the mechanism a firm tap can sometimes free them. You can also tune these horns I think by adjusting a screw on the mechanism. 

I dropped one of the retaining screws for the distributor into the engine bay on my '95 Trafic...using a torch, poking into every nook and cranny and moving the van etc...never found it. 

[somewhatfoolish]

The banjo is quite likely  to be BSP, but as you say without the missing  component you're stymied.

Burlen may be able to tell you what the thread is and supply a replacement if the banjo is irretrievably gone to the same dimension as odd socks and that dropped screwdriver. If you have a vernier gauge to measure the hole in the carb and an approximate number of threads per inch it may be possible to ID it.

[Mr Pastry]

46 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

The banjo is quite likely  to be BSP

Surely a standard Zenith part?  Plenty of 1950s cars had that arrangement (and carb for that matter), there must be some around.  I may even have one, will check.

Good luck with the helicoil in zinc alloy......

[somewhatfoolish]

You'd be surprised; I've done a few in monkey metal and unless it's totally rotten(that swollen and cracked look that presages utter structural collapse) the result will be a lot stronger than the original.

[vulgalour]

4 hours ago, lesapandre said:

The horns have something like points in them if my memory serves me going back 40 years . Giving the mechanism a firm tap can sometimes free them.

It does, I opened it up to have a look before work and the points were pretty dirty.  Cleaned them up and still no joy.  I've got a tutorial to work my way through, there's a couple of other things it can be and none of them seem to be any more of a problem than cleaning connections.  Someone has had these horns apart before and they've been painted at least twice so they've probably not been entirely trouble free.

[vulgalour]

Now I've finished work and it's the weekend (for me) I can confirm that the banjo bolt I've lost temporarily misplaced in the engine bay is still available new, though the little mesh filter I haven't found yet (would like to replace that too if I have to replace the bolt) so if we can't find it, that's not a huge problem.  It does seem this stripping of threads issue is caused when the banjo is over-tightened and I can confirm than when we tried to undo it the bolt was so tight I wasn't entirely sure it was supposed to come undone, so that could well be the issue there.  Again, helicoil seems the way forward rather than drilling and tapping to a larger size, so once I know what size I need we'll get the relevant one.  Just before work as I was packing away car stuff, a neighbour appeared and we got chatting, he suggested it might just bite as a temporary shuffle-around-the-drive solution with a fair amount of PTFE wrapped around the banjo bolt so I'm going to give that a go tomorrow if I can find the bolt. Nothing ventured, nothing gained with that one, it might just take enough that we can start and run the car long enough for getting it in and out of the garage which would be a good thing.

Regardless, tomorrow providing the weather plays nicely we'll be pushing the car out of the garage so we can see what we're doing a bit better.  Even if I can't find the bolt, there's plenty of other jobs we can be doing and I'd rather crack on with whatever I can regardless.

[phil_lihp]

The only logical explanation with the bolt is that there's a parallel universe where a version of @vulgalour with a slightly different haircut is working on a red LD10 and has posted on Autoshite wondering where this second banjo bolt appeared from.

[Zelandeth]

Sounds like me managing to drop the spring out if a switch I was cleaning up a few weeks back, only realising I'd lost it when I came to reassemble it.  Something like four hours wasted but I did eventually find the sucker!

[PhilA]

Boo on the fuel, that'll be ok to remedy though.

Horn- it should be almost zero ohms from terminal to terminal. If not, check wiring and points.

Adjuster may also be wound all the way in which will make the points open up. 

They're well made and quite difficult to break, even if operated on 12V.

 

Phil

[vulgalour]

Monster update today since we've done a lot of busy work.  First thing, after pushing the car out of the garage, was to get on with degreasing some more and trying to find the magical disappearing banjo bolt.  A lot of the oily deposits weren't that bad, it hadn't built up the usual thick crust so we wondered if maybe it was only leaking from the rocker gasket since we haven't seen any other obvious leaks.  We'll get in on all this for a deeper clean eventually, for now it's just nice to be able to see what we're doing and not have grease all over our hands any time we touch anything.

Happily, we did eventually find the banjo bolt.  It was completely invisible and it was only by first degreasing and hosing down the dynamo side of the engine and then groping and fumbling about in the tiny gaps that we eventually found it.  With both of us working blind, we found each other's hands and got the banjo bolt out that was firmly wedged underneath the dynamo.

I now know it's a 7/8ths" width thread, what I don't know is the thread pitch so rather than take a guess I've ordered a thread pitch guage since I don't actually have one and it'd be handy.  It's probably a 7/8ths" BSF thread and helicoil kits for that size are quite pricey so I want to be certain before I order the kit.

It was such a relief to have found the bolt, even though there are alternatives out there that would replace it, there's something reassuring about finding something like this that you've dropped.  With that out of the way and put safe, I decided to take off the other horn.  Other half and I have decided that since both horns need an overhaul anyway, and it's in the engine bay, we're going to restore them rather than keep them grey, a visual marker that we're done some work on the car in a way and also because the grey paint is pretty thick and unattractive.  I noticed straight away that this horn was only held in with one bolt, that wasn't tight, and the missing bolt is also missing the captive nut.  I'm not sure what's happened here, but the hole where the captive nut and bolt should be is stretch out.  I'm thinking the sensible solution here is likely to be a rivnut or similar since these horns do apparently benefit from being very firmly attached and one bolt doesn't feel adequate.

Next was the sediment bowl which had caught my eye and was annoying me by looking dirty.  I had assumed it was old yellowed plastic when we first got the car, it wasn't until I removed it that I learned it's actually glass.  Simple, if fiddly, to remove.  There's a wheel under the bowl that you spin loose and then you can finegle the bowl out and it's pretty much impossible not to spill some of the contents in the process.  It's pretty grim inside which at least means its doing its job, it also means it hasn't been cleaned out in quite some time.  I wonder if this is from another car too, there was some dark blue paint on the bowl and a little on the holder.

Much better.  Refitting was straightforward and it does look much nicer now. We'll be able to get a quick sight on the state of the fuel coming through too.

While I was in this area I noticed there was a P clip floating loose on the fuel line.  There's also a little bracket on the chassis leg that the P-clip fits, so I put a new nut and bolt through it all to hold it in place.  I'm not sure this P-clip is actually for the fuel line because there's some wiring that goes to the coil from here along almost the same path.  Regardless, it's nice to have another item fastened down instead of rattling about.

Poking around the car was very much the order of the day and we decided to have a closer look at the jacking points.  None of them are pristine, as is usual on older cars, and none of them are completely ruined.  There's an interesting repair on the rear driver's side one where someone has strengthened the jacking tube with a thick piece of metal and a bolt, I imagine this even works quite well since it's making use of the strongest part of the tube and reinforcing the weak top part where it looks to have torn a little, possible due to rust and/or the original style jack falling over or something of that sort.

The underside of the outer sills has a closing plate that runs along the bottom, it's just flat steel to stop moisture and dirt getting thrown up inside the sill.  Most of the back end of this one is missing though the rust is entirely limited to the non-structural bits of the car, it doesn't spread into the chassis or outriggers beyond a bit inside the jacking tubes as you'd expect.

The jacking points are strong enough to jack the car with no scary noises and we've been making use of them so they definitely aren't that bad.  The metal on this car is so much thicker than I'm used to, when you see rust you can pretty much brush it off and you're back to good metal fairly quickly, so repairing this sill shouldn't be too difficult.  While we were under the car, it's a good opportunity to show off perhaps the newest thing on it which is the Frankenstein's monster of an exhaust.  It's definitely function over form on this one and I suspect if we fixed the snapped flexipipe at the front it probably works perfectly fine.  Even so, we do want to replace the whole system with something that fits the car properly.

Another item for under the car was the oil leak.  Because the garage floor is unsealed concrete the leak looked significantly worse than it was in reality. Once the car was pulled out of the garage, it's barely leaving more oil on the floor than my considerably newer Princess so I'd say that's pretty impressive for a car of this vintage that still has oil in it.

The oil seems to be coming from somewhere around the gearbox or back of the engine, it's difficult to tell really because there doesn't seem to be one single point.  We're wondering if maybe a gasket or seal is weeping somewhere.  It's not very oily underneath really, so whatever is dropping the oil can't be that serious.

That's the mechanical out of the way, so let's break here and I'll do the cosmetic update next.  Mechanical progress is now merely held up by waiting on parts arriving.

 

[Rocket88]

Top bombing, Mr Vulg...............need to pick your brains ref hydralastic suspension..........

[Mr Pastry]

27 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

I now know it's a 7/8ths" width thread,

 Looks like 1/4 BSP.  0.518" O.D, 19 TPI .

[vulgalour]

Since the opportunity was there, I decided to pull the passenger seat out of the car so it could be repaired.  It also meant that while the car was in the garage it would be a lot easier to get to the battery since there wouldn't be a seat to clamber over.  At first, it look fairly straight forward to remove.  Both front seats tip forwards (this seems to be a standard thing in cars up to the 1970s for some reason, even 4 door Austin 1100s did it) and the only thing holding them down is the front hinge brackets. It looked like a case of simply unscrewing four flat head screws and so that's what I did.  Only, the seat was still very firmly attached because there were two more screws with no way to get to them.

That bar blocking the screw head is the seat hinge, you can't move it any more out of the way than it is there.  On the reverse side is a non-captive bolt so I have no idea how you're supposed to separate the seat from the floor.  As a result, I just removed the floor with the seat since that's also held down with a handful of flathead bolts.

With that out I could at least get a better look at the seat and it's pretty good news.  The worst looking cracks on the front panel of the seat have no missing material so, providing I glue something to the back of the leather, this should be repairable, a little suitable filler and dye and you'll never know.

The cover is held on with tacks that go into the wooden frame.  Those are going to be a little more awkward to remove but it will at least make my life easier when it comes to removing, repairing, and refitting the cover.  I do hate fighting with hogrings so it's nice not to see any here.

The cat damage is a little more annoying to repair because some of the leather is missing.  Fortunately, a reader who is a professional costumier sent some leather offcuts along with those tyres so I can replace this panel with some leather that's dyed to match.  The damage across the top of the seat will probably fill and dye without need of replacing the fabric, it looks like it's just the surface that's damaged with no perforation, fortunately.

U

Underneath the passenger floor is a... thing.  I'm not really sure what this is and it has two threaded holes with nothing in.  I couldn't figure out what it operated, and there's no mention of it in the manual.  It's not for the gearchange, that's on the inboard side of this floor, and it doesn't seem to be for the brakes.  Suggestions welcome.

While we were getting into everything we tested the wipers now we had wiper blades fitted and while the motor can be heard running and moves the blades happily when the arms are lifted, it only moves them a tiny amount on the screen, even when the screen is wet, as though the resistance of the rubber blades against the wet glass is too much.  We suspect the wiper box probably needs servicing or replacing, it does sound quite loud even for what it is and it's likely the internal grease has dried up.  Underneath the dashboard we found the purpose of the mystery toggle switch which is to turn the dash illumination on and off.  Because it didn't look original, we didn't think to look in the manual for what it was, it seems to be a factory item.  The dash illumination itself is actually working as well as it ought, both bulbs installed are as bright as they should be, we'll upgrade them with warm white LED equivalents to improve the light output and reduce the demand on the system, that feels like a sensible upgrade in this instance.  The other items in this image are the fresh air lever (large black ball below the toggle switch), the clock adjustment, and the odometer reset (I've forgotten which is which, they're the black and silver ones, I know which is which when I'm in the car).

Underneath the dashboard there's a bit round thing with two white handles, this is the heater.  While we don't know if the heater core is good, we do know the fan works.  We also know the bearing in the fan is quite loud so that will need some attention.  Heater is factory fitment too, so far as we can tell.  The big silver button beneath it is the foot operated headlight dimming switch.  You can also get a glimpse of the patchwork of wiring.   It's not that the wiring is bad in the usual sense, the new wires that have been put in have been done very well, it's just that they're bridging the original wiring which really doesn't look that great and clearly isn't doing its job properly because we're still getting intermittent issues with various items on the car even just in short periods of testing what works and what doesn't.

On the outside of the car, we noticed the rear bumper was a little loose, it wasn't just the overrider, and closer inspection revealed an interesting solution to bent bumper irons.  We'll get the bumper off and straighten the rear bumper irons properly and then reinstall everything, just to neaten this up.

The weather was very kind today, not too hot, not too breezy, a little overcast.  I spent a very enjoyable few hours hand polishing all of the passenger side of the car which came up a treat.  The black T-cut works wonders as a finisher on this car, it dulls down all the bright spots and dries black in the textured areas rather than white of the plain T-cut which brings out the best of the patina.  I still use the plain T-cut for the first four or five passes (even more for the boot lid and roof) because the black just doesn't seem to be able to cut through the oxidised paint as well.

There's about 6-8 hours of hand polishing so far on this car and I'm about three quarters done.  Personally, the finish it has on the passenger side I find ideal for a car of this sort.  It looks used, but not neglected and it has a bit more character than if it were just a pristine black paintjob that in this instance, feels more appropriate.  There's a few areas, like the wheel arch lip, that may get some fresh black paint let in just to protect what's there, we'll just have to take the same careful approach as was used on the front number plate so it looks like we haven't actually done anything at all.  A tricky balance.  Still, one side done, most of one side and the top to go.

[Dick Longbridge]

This car looks like it really wants to come back to life. I love the oily rag look- it's what I'm aiming for with my original paint 1961 Lambretta. 

What was the story of your car prior to your ownership, or has the story been forgotten? 

[vulgalour]

It's a short and boring one.  First owner was a priest or something of the sort and had it from new, tax expired in 1984 and it was parked up alongside an assortment of other Lanchesters he'd amassed until 2008.  A farmer bought the car in 2008 to add to his collection of projects and it lived in a barn until we bought it this year.  We're not sure who did the wiring or the other slightly newer looking bits and pieces and there's no real history with the car beyond that.  There's plenty of signs the car was loved for much of its life, and used well, that it was put into storage for such a long time is probably the most unusual part of its story, clearly the intention was to do something with it some day which is probably the only reason it's survived.

[busmansholiday]

31 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

Underneath the passenger floor is a... thing.  I'm not really sure what this is and it has two threaded holes with nothing in.  I couldn't figure out what it operated, and there's no mention of it in the manual.  It's not for the gearchange, that's on the inboard side of this floor, and it doesn't seem to be for the brakes.  Suggestions welcome.

Is it a heater control valve of some sort?. What's at the end of and where does that Bowden cable go.

[egg]

Love these kind of updates Vulg, proper spirit of AS stuff here.

That engine block is far less oily than my 90's 'daily driver' Mondeo!

[SiC]

Excellent work here and really enjoying this thread. 

As a side note the Top Gear one is up for sale for anyone wanted a bit of a similar project: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/143695886259

[somewhatfoolish]

48 minutes ago, Mr Pastry said:

 Looks like 1/4 BSP.  0.518" O.D, 19 TPI .

Given the ruler indicates the OD is 7/16" that makes no sense.

  Edit to add; I see the ruler is offset slightly, and the TPI would indeed appear to be 18-19 ish, so on reflection you are right! Hat doffed.

[busmansholiday]

7 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Given the ruler indicates the OD is 7/16" that makes no sense.

Looking at the pic, unless it's the camera angle, then the 0 isn't at the edge of the threads. I'd be going with 1/4 BSP as well.

[Christine]

Is the THING is a  disused petrol tap , Reserve  tank ... you can get cork seals on ebay for it .

 

 

[Christine]

2 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

Looking at the pic, unless it's the camera angle, then the 0 isn't at the edge of the threads. I'd be going with 1/4 BSP as well.

Cock up !! Sorry!