project 1951 Lanchester LD10 - Rear Corner Inspection

[PhilA]

L is for auxiliary lights- fog lights particularly. Despite the law allowing you to run just a single fog light with no other lights on, it was advised the fog lights are run with the sidelights only so you at least are forced to have marker lights on in poor visibility. 

It is inadvisable to have the wattage of 3 bright bulbs on the generator because that puts you over what it can put out, so it'll switch the fog light off if you put the headlights on.

[vulgalour]

@Rocket88yes, same result.  Thing is, nothing changed between putting the car away when the lights worked and getting it out today when they didn't.  Also, the wiper motor will only run when power is supplied directly rather than off the switch as it did before (dashboard out job to get to the switch).  On the plus side, the semaphores at least work like they should.

 

@dozeydustman Switch has been bench tested and proved totally reliable, all functions operate as they should.  Indeed, it's getting power where power should be.  The issue comes in when you try and get things to work together and that doesn't really make any sense at all.  You can get the light unit to light up if you provide power directly.  We've got a healthy amount of volts getting to the light unit. We've got good continuity where it should be and nice good earths.  The trouble is as soon as you put any of it together, the rear lights just won't work.  It makes no sense at all.

 

Personally, I reckon the wiring is quitting time now.  Time to get someone else in with some experience.  We're not making any progress.

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, vulgalour said:

@Rocket88yes, same result.  Thing is, nothing changed between putting the car away when the lights worked and getting it out today when they didn't.  Also, the wiper motor will only run when power is supplied directly rather than off the switch as it did before (dashboard out job to get to the switch).  On the plus side, the semaphores at least work like they should.

 

@dozeydustman Switch has been bench tested and proved totally reliable, all functions operate as they should.  Indeed, it's getting power where power should be.  The issue comes in when you try and get things to work together and that doesn't really make any sense at all.  You can get the light unit to light up if you provide power directly.  We've got a healthy amount of volts getting to the light unit. We've got good continuity where it should be and nice good earths.  The trouble is as soon as you put any of it together, the rear lights just won't work.  It makes no sense at all.

 

Personally, I reckon the wiring is quitting time now.  Time to get someone else in with some experience.  We're not making any progress.

You say the switch is working - but is it?  I'd want to test to ensure that you do NOT have voltage across the pins involved in operating the relevant item when it should be powered.  Wouldn't be the first time I've seen contacts in something work absolutely fine according to a test meter, but when asked to conduct a couple of amps of current they just can't handle it.

If you probe the switch contacts when the accessory in question is turned on and you see there's anything more than a couple of hundred millivolts there there's most likely issues with the switch.

[vulgalour]

I'll see what I can do.

Honestly, I'm beyond done with this particular job and wish I'd never started it.  I just want to throw some money at someone and have the car back all working and sorted.

 

[vulgalour]

Let's go back to a simpler time, a time before I knew how much of an arse the rewiring was going to be.  A time when I had to remove dozens of tiny flat head screws and some mystery cocoons.

 

[vulgalour]

In real world time, rather than Youtube time, it's been a while since Pat or I have done anything on the Lanchester.  There simply hasn't been time.  In some ways that's been a good thing as we've been able to step back and assess possible issues that we were struggling to work out.  We've come to the conclusion that the wiring issue probably is a duff ignition switch and given the fact that the kind of switch we need is available, as soon as we have some spare pennies (the other reason Lanchester progress has ground to a halt) we'll get a new one, wire it up, and see if it magically fixes things.  If a new switch doesn't resolve the issues then we can be pretty certain the old switch is fine too and move on to more expensive potential failures like the voltage regulator.  Process of elimination and all that.

In good news, I finally managed to find a replacement rear light lens for the one I dropped and broke.  The car came to us with a Lucas 464 lens on one side, and a later Lucas 464a lens on the other.  464 lenses have a thick ribbed glass and no built in reflector or focus dot.  464a has a flat face to the lens, built in reflector and a single focus dot (there are some variants with two focus dots for light units with two bulbs inside, ours has a single bulb hence the single focus dot).  As far as we can work out, our car originally had 464 lenses on the back which is why it has the reflectors screwed onto the boot lid, something that wouldn't have been needed with the 464a.  Both types of lens are hard to find now, and expensive when they do come up since they were used on prestige stuff and end up with the badge tax applied as a result.  They're also glass, and while apparently they are being reproduced in plastic, I'm yet to find a supplier.

So when I found the above entire unit for about half the usual asking price of just the lense, I thought it'd be rude not to.  Yes, I could have invested that money in a new ignition switch - they're £70-100, depending on seller, even though they're always the same switch - but since the lights are far harder to acquire, it seemed the more sensible purchase at the moment.

There is a new Lanchester video arriving on the channel this coming Tuesday, and while it's not wiring it is wiring adjacent and you'll get to see the inner workings of the wiper motor.

Another consideration has been on the lighting, which is to convert it from the existing headlights to halogen equivalents.  This would allow us to move the sidelights into the headlight bowl and have the indicators in the original sidelights.  This would make wiring a lot easier, and eliminate the need for special dual-function bulbs in the sidelights to do sidelight and indicator.  More research is required here to find a suitable conversion kit that doesn't look like absolute trash.

[vulgalour]

Oh, just went out and measured and the Lanchester uses 7" headlights.  That made things a whole world easier and cheaper.  There's a lot of choice, including headlights with domed lenses so they still look original, and for the price of 3 standard Lanchester headlight bulbs we could have a halogen headlight conversion kit that contains new bulbs, wiring, and headlight bowls where the silvering isn't bubbling.  How handy.

[vulgalour]

The Lanchester is equipped with a Lucas Model SW4 electric wiper motor.  We knew it worked when we got the car, but the more it was used, the worse it got.  Time to dig into it and find out what's amiss.

[vulgalour]

It's payday so an additional little Lanchester update here.  Because the Lanchester uses 7" headlights it does mean I can upgrade what's there.  The original lights are 40/50W BPF bulbs and they're... rubbish.  It also doesn't help that the silvering on the bowls is bubbling in places and while we're not likely to drive at night a lot, having your headlights on does make you more visible to other road users who might not otherwise see you so an upgrade makes sense.

Originally I was considering re-silvering the headlight bowls and getting new original style light bulbs.  The cost of this for what you end up with seemed prohibitive in all honesty.  Given how easy it is to acquire a good H4 upgrade kit, and how affordable, it made more sense to modernise.  I've gone with the same sort of kit I used on the Princess which I've had no issues with, and while I did have to buy some extra pigtails since the Lanchester wiring hasn't got the modern three slot plug for halogen bulbs, it still came out at a meagre £35.

I also opted to go for headlight bowls that have sidelight bulbs in them.  Nothing fancy, no LED rings or anything like that, just a single bulb pushed through into the bowl.  There's no real need for the sidelights to be separate from the headlights on the Lanchester so it doesn't really matter where they're located and if I move them into the headlights that frees up the original sidelights completely.  This then makes wiring up the front indicators a lot easier since I can reuse the original bulb holders and fit some nice bright amber single function LEDs in there.  It's a really good location for the indicators since they're high up on the body and very visible and because we'd not be adding any other lights anywhere, it keeps the front of the car looking completely standard.  Funnily enough, the sidelights are mistaken for indicators by younger (folks under 40) people anyway, so it makes sense to put them in there for that reason too.

What I'm not sure of is whether or not I'll need to fit a relay for the headlights.  The H4s will be brighter than the original BPFs but I'm not sure if the draw on the system is going to be such that it will be an issue.  I'd welcome opinions and recommendations on this one since I want it to be safe but I also don't want to be adding complexity if it's going to be perfectly fine without them.

[Asimo]

If it was my car I wouldn't worry about the extra current drawn by the H4 bulbs, 60W/55W is little more than an extra amp increase on the original bulbs.

With the bulbs lit, check the voltage at the bulb connector and if there is a significant voltage drop anywhere, sort it and then I think you can trust the wires and their connections.

[Momentary Lapse Of Reason]

If it were my car I would fit relays.

So that the original (elderly) switch gear is only switching the low current to trigger the relays and also I could fit some fuses.

I would wire the relays so the high current side is fed by a fused connection direct to the battery.

There is a company making just such ready made Headlamp relay wiring harness called Boomslang

(Why they are called after a poisonous snake I have no idea)

They have become fairly popular on old Land Rovers.

Linky to a retailer selling the kit

Wiring diagram

Easily removed should you want to return to "as it left the factory".

[vulgalour]

That looks like a nice bolt-on solution and not terribly expensive.  Given the Lanchester's similarity in size and construction to a Landrover, it shouldn't even be that difficult to make everything go where it needs to physically, I should hope.

[vulgalour]

New headlights arrived, new wiring arrives in a bit.  I'm not up to much today, off sick at the moment (nothing serious, happily) but I needed to get some movement and fresh air so decided to have a look at these headlights and how they fit.  They're a straight swap.  Wiring aside, you literally take the old headlight bowl out and fit the new one in exactly the same way.  Could not be easier.

You can see the bubbling the silvering on the old bowls here, they're both like it for most of the bottom half which is hardly ideal.

Chose domed lenses rather than flat ones so the shape would be correct, I really dislike the look of flat lenses on classics, especially when it's in the teardrop shaped headlights like these.  The sidelight bulb sits in the bottom in line with the headlamp clamp and there's so much room inside the headlight bucket that wiring those up isn't going to be an issue.

If you know what you're looking for you can tell the difference between old (on the left) and new (on the right).  To the casual observer they look totally normal, only the H4 branding and the lens pattern really gives the game away from normal viewing distance.  It's a pretty stealthy upgrade really.

[vulgalour]

Time for the boot lid refurbishment written update.  This was part of the car I was actually looking forward to investigating because it would give me a look at how the body was constructed  since the boot lid is an ash frame with an aluminium skin.  The first job was to remove the dozens of chrome plated flat head screws from the aluminium interior panel so that it could be removed and expose what was going on inside the boot lid.  Primarily the reason for undertaking this job was to find out what was happening with the wiring since there wasn't any present for the number plate light when we got the car.

We found some weird cocoons.  These are probably moth cocoons, they're on the same side as the one bit of moth damage to the wool covering the rear parcel shelf and the moths and caterpillars would have an easy route into the car between the two areas.  If you know what these are for definite I'd love to know, because bugs are interesting.

It all cleaned off very easily.  There was nothing living in the cocoons any more and no signs of any moths in the car or the boot lid so they've probably vacated the premises a long time ago.  No damage inside the boot lid either, the wooden frame is nice and solid and dry with no signs of insect damage, the aluminium is in excellent condition and the steel edge that runs around the wood frame and under the aluminium outer skin has little more than a bit of surface rust here and there.

The interior aluminium panel has some damage on it, one puncture from the boot lid probably being shut on something inside the boot before we got the car, and a curved line of missing paint that seemed to correlate with the old tyres that were being kept in the boot.  You can see the o-ring at the top of the panel here too, that's where the wiring should exit the boot lid.  When I drilled some of the chewed up screw heads out, the drill skipped and damaged the aluminium in places.  It couldn't be helped, unfortunately.

The old screws look to be flat headed chromed steel.  While most of them came out, some snapped, and some the heads were too soft from rust and just chewed up.  I had to drill some of them out.

Interestingly, we were made aware of some sale advert photos from eBay in 2008 when the Lanchester was wearing a differently coloured boot and bonnet.  It also sported a much nicer looking rear bumper.  When I recorded this video I didn't know about this and could only speculate about the extra bolt holes for the number plate and the chopped off bolt I found inside the boot that had been rattling about.  I wonder if the boot lid in the photos is actually a different one to what's on the car at present and the original number plate was swapped over.  The boot lid on the car does have a dent that doesn't appear to be there in the photo below and we do know the car was possibly a parts car at one point in its life so it's entirely likely we've got slightly worse parts on the car now than it had in 2008 because the good stuff was sold off or used in another restoration.  It happens.

Other discoveries were where the wiring should run inside the boot.  There's a guide staple on the central beam, and a couple of holes drilled in the frame for the wire to pass through.  More on this in a bit.

There's no grommet for the wiring to the number plate lamp which simple bolts through the outer skin.

I spent some time with an improvised dolly and a hammer to dress out the puncture on the aluminium interior trim as best I could.  It's not perfect, but it's not a hole, so it'll do.  I have zero experience doing any sort of aluminium bodywork so it is what it is.

It was then time to remove the broken screws from the wooden frame before I could refit things.  This took a while making use of a pair of pliers.  The vast majority of the remaining screws did come out, only a couple snapped inside the frame where I couldn't get to them so that's about the best outcome you can realistically have on a job like this.

Everything now cleaned up, it was time to rewire.  The wire for the number plate light isn't provided with the wiring loom so I had to buy some more.  Since this wire is for the most part hidden, which just a small part visible where it exits the boot lid and hooks up behind the trim under the rear window, I opted for a black vinyl sheathed 2-core since I needed a red and a black wire with a protective covering.  I ordered a couple of meters because it's a fairly long run since it goes from the bottom of the boot lid, up to the rear screen, across to the driver's side of the car, then all the way down the inner arch inside the boot to the bottom outer corner where the rest of the wiring loom enters the car.

Once the wire is fed through the hole for the number plate lamp, feed it under the vertical beam to the opposite side.

Then guide it up (boot lid is upside-down here, the shape meant I had to film it this way) through the hole drilled in the horizontal beam before tightening the bolts for the number plate lamp.

There's a staple to hold the wire down to the vertical beam, another hole in the next horizontal beam, and then the wire exits through the hole in the aluminium interior trim where the rubber grommet is in the earlier photos in this update.  Once the wire is threaded through, turn the boot lid over and put the push connectors onto the end of the wires.  This is very fiddly, there's not a lot of room for the wiring to go inside the lamp housing because of how it's designed.  It took me a while to find out what these connectors are called, I found them as Push-in Bullet Connectors on Paul Beck Vintage Supplies www.vintagecarparts.co.uk listed as 560-push on their site search function.  These are the same as used on the original headlights and semaphores.  To fit, you strip back the sheath from the wire, push the wire through the hole in the connector and then bent the wires back.  This gives a friction fit into the holder without need of soldering and works very well.  I took a guess at which way around the wires should go and got it right, remember our car is positive earth.

After that it was the task of screwing all the dozens of screws in to hold the interior panel in place.  I decided against using any sort of sealant or adhesive in the end just in case I have to get in here again for any reason.  The first screws I got were just a bit too short so I had to undo them all and redo it with slightly longer screws.  I'm also using cross head wood screws rather than the original style of chromed flat head screws.  This was a practical consideration since I couldn't get hold of the chromed ones at the time of recording, I may go back and correct this in the future.

All back together and looking like none of this ever happened.  Sign of a job well done is that.  I opted not to repaint the interior trim to avoid project creep.  Next up, to do something about the missing trim that goes over the latch mechanism.  I have no reference for what this should look like and limited materials so used some hardboard.  Trial and error got the shape I wanted.  Eventually I'd like more of a pressed blister shaped panel, possibly in steel or aluminium, to full enclose the mechanism since what I've done is okay but I don't think is right.  If anyone knows what this should look like, I'd appreciate reference images.

I didn't like the colour. I had wanted to use millboard to match the other original bits of trim but didn't have any and couldn't get hold of any at the time of recording, so I just used some satin black spray paint and it got me close enough.

With the boot lid now ready to go back on the car, the next thing was to sort out the hinges.  We'd knocked out the brass pins to remove the boot lid and found one was bent.  Later we learned about the location of the hinge bolts which would have made removal a lot easier.  I spent some time straightening the pins as best I could and turning the burr on one end of each into a mild chamfer using a hand file.  This would aid in refitting.

When we got the car, the hinge pins weren't flush but after some effort, Pat and I had them seated properly and looking much better.

The panel I'd made for the interior was cosmetically a waste of time.  Practically it should protect things from going into the boot lid a bit more so I don't feel it was a total waste.

The other thing we noticed on refitting is that the bolts holding the hinges to the boot lid are incorrect.  Instead of a countersunk head, they're a flat bolt head.  I don't have any of the correct fixings so just put them back in. 

With that all finally back together and the wiring ready to be hooked up - which we now know is correct, but I didn't at the time of recording - I could demonstrate how horrible the boot is to use on this car.  Lift the boot by the handle at the bottom, it is at an awkward height.  Then hold the boot lid with one arm while pulling out the hinge on one side with the other to lock the boot in the open position.

Do your very best not to hit your head on the boot lid when putting items in the boot, or removing them.  Everything is at the wrong height to make this easy to do and the boot lid will usually get you on your way out.

To close, merely brace the boot lid with one hand, push the hinge in without trapping parts of your hand in it, and try to gently lower it to close.  You'll probably end up slamming it because you're not expecting the weight and at one point the balance of the whole thing changes and if you're not careful it will try and slam whatever you do.

It's a terrible bit of design, both in function and appearance, definitely not one of Barker's finer moments.

 

[vulgalour]

 

In this update, we get as far as beginning to test things.

[vulgalour]

Feeling a whole lot better about the condition of ours after seeing this one.  Obviously dropped the seller a message since there are a couple of tiny items on this that ours would benefit from.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364010959862

[Datsuncog]

Crumbs.

Literally.

 

Still, if it can yield some useful bits and bobs for your own, then that's all to the good - spares for Barker-bodied LD10s don't exactly grow on trees, I understand.

[vulgalour]

The rear lights and the headlights are wired up and made to work for the first time.  All is not as it should be though.

 

I will add, since recording this I did get to the bottom of the problem but for the sake of video narrative, I'll fill you in on what that was in the future.

[Zelandeth]

10 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Feeling a whole lot better about the condition of ours after seeing this one.  Obviously dropped the seller a message since there are a couple of tiny items on this that ours would benefit from.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364010959862

Oof...how is that remaining vaguely car shaped and not simply folding in on itself in a stiff breeze?

[De Selby]

I've just had the pleasure of reading this thread from the start - what an adventure. That rewiring would have tried the patience of a saint (appropriately enough, given the car's ecclesiastical connections).

[vulgalour]

13 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Oof...how is that remaining vaguely car shaped and not simply folding in on itself in a stiff breeze?

The cobwebs are probably structural.

[vulgalour]

When it arrived, the interior light in the Lanchester didn't work.  Now it does work... mostly.  Here's a video all about that.

 

 

 

[vulgalour]

We have a high level rear light solution for the Lanchester now.  Royal Enfield Electra rear light unit.  It will require some modification, as expected, because the factory chrome lump it all bolts to is too big and won't let things drop into the gap behind the seat.

You'll have to use your imagination a little bit at this point.  Inside the car you can see how much too big the chrome middle bit is.

Outside demonstrates that the size of the lamps is pretty good for visibility.  Tiny LEDs would have been more subtle, definitely.  This should work well enough and be a good bit cheaper.  I can tint the lenses to obscure them further if need be but I probably won't.

What I'm planning to do is bend up a bracket to drop all the lights down to the bottom of the rear screen.  The bracket will bolt to the parcel shelf directly since it's steel and the wires will then run into the boot to join the rest of the harness.  Small shrouds around the lights will help prevent glare and it should make the car a bit more visible from behind without spoiling it's general look.  Best of all, this is all very easy to reverse should the need arise.  Here's a scruffy mock up of what' planned.  The lights can probably drop down a bit further than that, they'll barely be higher than the back of the back seat.

[alcyonecorporation]

On 8/3/2022 at 5:38 PM, Momentary Lapse Of Reason said:

If it were my car I would fit relays.

So that the original (elderly) switch gear is only switching the low current to trigger the relays and also I could fit some fuses.

I would wire the relays so the high current side is fed by a fused connection direct to the battery.

There is a company making just such ready made Headlamp relay wiring harness called Boomslang

(Why they are called after a poisonous snake I have no idea)

They have become fairly popular on old Land Rovers.

Linky to a retailer selling the kit

Wiring diagram

Easily removed should you want to return to "as it left the factory".

'Boomslang Headlight Loom' sounds like the name of a PWEI cover band. 

 

[vulgalour]

More rewiring.  I've actually learned a few things since recording this so some of the mistakes you might see could well be rectified already.  First thing was to get more of the bullet connector sleeves that aren't provided with the harness, I was just waiting on a replacement bullet for the one that fell off here.

Then a case of figuring out what wires do what.  This purple-black with a white-red inside is for the brake switch, it turns out.

That comes out under the driver's side front footwell where the brake switch lives.

The other two purple-black both have a plain white inside, one of which is for the wiper and one of which is for the horn.  Happily the wiring for the wiper is pretty close to the wiring I'm trying to identify so doing a continuity test to work out which is which won't be too difficult.

Then I found out the battery in my multimeter had died and being an A23G it wasn't one I happened to have a spare of.  Rather than let that stop me, I moved on to a different job, namely the dim-dip switch.

This was one of the items where the original wiring on the back of the switch matched the colours on the wiring diagram I was using so that made life a bit easier. I did each wire individually before moving to the next one so I didn't get anything muddled, I knew the switch worked so the wiring on it should be correct.  The connectors are an open spade connector so you just slacking the screw, slide the spade connecter in, and tighten the screw down.  Aside from the awkward access since you're in the footwell to do this, it actually went quite smoothly.  The plate bolts to a cross beam but because it's nuts and bolts that aren't captive, it's a two person job to reinstate it.  I couldn't get tools to stay wedged to do it up myself and my arms simply weren't long enough to reach both sides simultaneously.

I then spent some time identifying what wires went were and trying to get all of the instrument panel wired up properly.  Not the easiest job to record or do as access isn't the best and removing the cluster from the dashboard didn't really give any better access due to wire lengths.

One issue I did encounter was the telltales for oil and ignition had yellow wires with bullet connectors on that couldn't reach anything else on the wiring, including each other, and the two wires that were probably to feed them had ring connectors on.  Initially I didn't know what the problem was with this and when I found it, I was a little bit disappointed.

The new battery for the multimeter was got so I could do a continuity test and figure out which wire was for the wiper motor, and then I connected all the wiring to the voltage regulator in the way I thought was correct according to the information I had at the time.

I also figured out the flasher cans (that were provided) go on the custom wiring spur for the indicators.  Whether this means the semphores are going to flap in and out in time to the indicator flash or not, I don't know.  Some people think they will, some think they won't, but I can't see how you'd provide power to activate them and flash the bulb without deactivating the power to them.  Maybe the flash rate is such that the arms stay stuck out but the bulb flashes, I won't know until I test them.

I figured out what was amiss with the telltale bulb holder wiring too.  Not only did the new bulb holders not like to stay in the instrument binnacle, they didn't actually have the correct provision as standard for the wiring. There's probably some way to modify or complete the wiring provided to make them work, instead I opted to fit the old known good holders to the new harness.  This did then resolve the connectivity issues.  The old holders have an additional tang on the side with a screw which allows you to connect those eyelets that I couldn't connect to the new wiring, it also did away with the mystery of the bullet connectors and where they're supposed to go.

It was then a case of reinstalling all of the spaghetti, including the ignition switch wiring, to get everything ready to go.

Another thing to do is to connect the harness inside the car to the harness that comes in from outside the car.  Again, not enough sleeve connectors provided for this so I had to acquire more for that

The last thing was to see what happened when I turned the ignition switch on and, happily, the oil and ignition light came on like they should, the fuel guage jumped to full (it's not actually connected, but it's good it moved) but the panel lights didn't come on as I didn't have that fully connected yet.  Progress at least.

 

[vulgalour]

The wiper motor did work when we got the car, sluggishly, and then just didn't seem able to move at all.  A quick look inside soon revealed the culprit.  I don't know what I'm doing so this isn't a tutorial on inspection and improvement, merely how to dismantle, clean, and reassemble one of these Lucas SW4 units.  To remove it from the car you undo the nuts from the studs that go through the bulkhead and into the cabin.  Access isn't great, and isn't terrible, it is what it is.  Being made pretty much entirely of cast metal parts, it's got a decent heft to it.  Our unit has been repainted at least once in its life.

The screws aren't in great shape on it, the slots are a little chewed up, so I was careful as I undid things.  The end plate on the right gives you access to the gears that convert the motion from the worm drive on the end of the motor to the output of the drive shaft, this is where you'll find old hard grease.  I suspect this is ancient white lithium grease, so I took care because I have some sort of contact allergy with lithium based stuff.  It had really gummed everything up in there.

The other end of the unit has a bakelite end cap, this is pretty dirty and I wasn't sure if it was cracked or had a mould line at this point.  It's been painted too, quite heavily in places.  I was careful with this item, I didn't know if replacements could be got or what condition it was really in under the paint and grime.

That allowed me to see the general condition of the carbon bushes which are in those two sprung arms.  While they are worn, they're not worn away, so I opted to leave these as is.  They're already shaped nicely to the other components and I know the unit works so I could come back to this with new brushes in the future if need be.  Happily, things were looking pretty clean in here, no signs of corrosion or water ingress which should mean less work for me.

The back of the bakelite cap was a little grimy but in mostly reasonable shape.  An ultrasonic cleaner is very useful for parts like this and that's exactly the treatment I gave it.

With all the main components apart I could assess what I needed to do next.  I wasn't originally going to strip it down fully but I thought it made sense to figure out how to get the commutator assembly out and just check for any excessive wear and dirt.  I could have tried to find some schematics on this or, given how simple a thing it is, use some common sense and care to see how far I could go.

What I wasn't sure of is what was holding everything inside the main body.  I could see some screws on the outer casing and thought I might need to remove that to get inside. I didn't, as it happens, but it was still worth doing anyway.  You can see more of that crusty old grease on the end of the worm drive here.

I set that aside so I could prepare some parts for cleaning in the mean time.  The drive cogs could be levered out carefully with a screwdrive and then pulled free by hand.  The old grease had just gummed things in place and I couldn't get in otherwise, normally these are a nice sliding fit and you can just tip the unit to release them rather than having to use a prying tool.  There's two cogs with shafts, I didn't attempt to remove the cogs from the shaft as there didn't seen to be any advantage to that and I don't think they're supposed to come apart anyway.

With that out and a whole wealth of hardened old grease to contend with, I could turn my attention to removing the bent steel U shaped cover thing (I don't know what it's called) which even after the screws were removed and penetrating fluid applied was pretty firmly in place.  That's okay though, because I had just the right tool for the job.

All joking aside, it took a bit of patience tapping, wiggling, and pulling to get the u-shaped piece free.  Normally, I don't think you'd bother with this bit.  I'm glad I did though, it helped with cleaning up and painting later.  What it didn't do was make any difference at all to removing the motor from the housing.

To remove the motor you just push the bushes out of the way and slide it out.  Happily, there was no items of concern in here (to my untrained eye) and it all looked in reasonable good shape.  A very light amount of cleaning just to remove the dust of years of use was really all that was needed.  Even the hole it lives in wasn't that bad, just very dusty and carbon-y which means it's probably the remains of the bushes that have worn off.

I would then spend some time cycling some bits through the ultrasonic cleaner, struggling to remove that old white grease which was as stubborn and sticky as toddler handprints, and just a whole world of patience to get it all ready for reassembly.  I used a variety of ultrasonic fluid for alumimium, soapy water, thinners, paper towels, and cotton buds.  Anything that would cut through the stuff really.  To get the paint off the bakelite the ultrasonic cleaner got the bulk of it off and a few stubborn bits were carefully chipped off with a slightly blunt craft knife.

With everything cleaned I could see the damage on the bakelite end cap.  What I wasn't sure was a crack or a mould line turned out to be a crack.  In the past, someone had screwed this down too tight and once the grime and paint was removed there was nothing holding the crack together and one small piece fell off.  A nice clean break at least and after some research online it was suggested a thin superglue or epoxy resin was best for the repair so I used the former to create the smallest bond I could, epoxy resin can sometimes step a broken piece out and interfere with fitment.

The main body of the wiper motor came up really nicely, as cast aluminium often does, and the central bore cleaned out lovely with the contents literally just being dust.  Not interested in polishing this or soda/sandblasting it (I don't have a blaster anyway), I'm happy to keep the raw finish with a bit of age to it so it blends in with the rest of the car.

Dry fit with everything cleaned so I could figure out what I wanted to paint and what I didn't as well as checking it all moved freely now and I was happy to do the last cosmetic job which was redoing the steel parts.  I made sure to mask these off internally since that's how it was when I took it apart and since there was very minimal corrosion inside I didn't regard it as an issue.  After sanding, I applied rust converter to the bare steel surfaces that were to be painted and I could have almost left it like that since the finish wasn't far off what I was aiming for.

It's always nice seeing the stamped text reappear when you clean parts up like this, you couldn't really read any of the end plate before.  This confirms it's a Lucas SW4 for a 12V car.

To paint, after masking the relevant areas, I used a red oxide primer followed by matt black paint and finishing with a clear satin varnish.  This gives a pretty close finish to factory.  To help prevent things sticking to the surface I was spraying on I used some small pots for propping them up, if you mask the pots it helps keep them clean and give the part a little more grip so it doesn't get moved by the spray.

Once the paint was cured it was a matter of reassembling with some lithium-based grease - I opted not to use white lithium here, modern convention seems to be to use a more general purpose lithium based grease since it doesn't go hard and gummy - and then bench tested it with the old Princess battery.  The motor runs a lot smoother and looks a lot better.

I then popped it back in the car but didn't connect up the wipers as there's a bit more work to do there before those are ready to go.  Was an enjoyable little project this one that didn't throw any nasty surprises at me.

[vulgalour]

The car community is making dealing with Covid that little bit easier.  Thanks to Reuben and Tony from the wider community for facilitating collection of some difficult to get Lanchester bits, namely some matching Rexine (not pictured, I need to clean and prepare that properly so I know what I have to use exactly) and a complete boot lid.  The boot lid is in worse condition than the one on the car and would need a fair bit of effort to make good.  However, it has many useful bits that will make the existing boot lid much better and that's really what it was bought for.

The lock mechanism is frozen up, that's probably because all the pivot points are rusted solid.  The handle is salvagable, as is the number plate light so they'll serve as spares.

The hinges are pretty shot, the studs are bent and broken, but the pins are probably okay and the little spacers could be reused.  I can't remember if our car has the chrome spacers or not right now so if it doesn't, those will be handy to have.

Providing they come out okay, the countersunk bolts for the hinges will be useful since someone has fitted non-countersunk ones to our car and I was wanting to put proper ones back in.  Finding exactly the right fixing can be a bit of a chore, so this takes out the guesswork.

The main reason we got the boot lid is for the lock mechanism cover, a very specific bit of trim we were unlikely to find anywhere else and which, until seeing this spare boot lid, I'd been unable to find a picture of.  As suspected, it's a pressed blister that covers the lock mechanism.  What I hadn't expected is that it also folds over the edge to tidy up where the latch pops out.  You can also just about make out the rotten steel frame with the very dry looking wood beneath.

The other thing that might be useful is the interior trim panel and the rubber grommet, both of which look to be in better shape than what's on our existing boot lid.  If I can remove the trim panel without damaging it I can then swap that over to our boot lid.  I'll also salvage the aluminium skin from the donor boot lid since I have need of some aluminium sheet and there's quite a bit here.  There's a couple of big dents in the outer skin so it's in worse condition than the boot lid on the car and would be difficult to make better, the paint is also completely shot so it would be a lot more work to sort out this donor boot lid than the boot lid on the car.

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, vulgalour said:

The car community is making dealing with Covid that little bit easier.  Thanks to Reuben and Tony from the wider community for facilitating collection of some difficult to get Lanchester bits, namely some matching Rexine (not pictured, I need to clean and prepare that properly so I know what I have to use exactly) and a complete boot lid.  The boot lid is in worse condition than the one on the car and would need a fair bit of effort to make good.  However, it has many useful bits that will make the existing boot lid much better and that's really what it was bought for.

The lock mechanism is frozen up, that's probably because all the pivot points are rusted solid.  The handle is salvagable, as is the number plate light so they'll serve as spares.

The hinges are pretty shot, the studs are bent and broken, but the pins are probably okay and the little spacers could be reused.  I can't remember if our car has the chrome spacers or not right now so if it doesn't, those will be handy to have.

Providing they come out okay, the countersunk bolts for the hinges will be useful since someone has fitted non-countersunk ones to our car and I was wanting to put proper ones back in.  Finding exactly the right fixing can be a bit of a chore, so this takes out the guesswork.

The main reason we got the boot lid is for the lock mechanism cover, a very specific bit of trim we were unlikely to find anywhere else and which, until seeing this spare boot lid, I'd been unable to find a picture of.  As suspected, it's a pressed blister that covers the lock mechanism.  What I hadn't expected is that it also folds over the edge to tidy up where the latch pops out.  You can also just about make out the rotten steel frame with the very dry looking wood beneath.

The other thing that might be useful is the interior trim panel and the rubber grommet, both of which look to be in better shape than what's on our existing boot lid.  If I can remove the trim panel without damaging it I can then swap that over to our boot lid.  I'll also salvage the aluminium skin from the donor boot lid since I have need of some aluminium sheet and there's quite a bit here.  There's a couple of big dents in the outer skin so it's in worse condition than the boot lid on the car and would be difficult to make better, the paint is also completely shot so it would be a lot more work to sort out this donor boot lid than the boot lid on the car.

Be worth getting as many precise dimensions and photos as possible of that lock cover, that looks to be the sort of thing that a serviceable replica of could be 3D printed without too much bother for folks who are missing theirs.

Nice little haul of little-but-useful parts there.

[vulgalour]

Time for another Lanchester update.

 

This is one of those mixed bag sort of videos with a little bit of everything that couldn't quite be its own video so you'll get to see progress all over.  It's mostly getting lights working, with some other bits, and some mirrors.

[vulgalour]

Something that's Lanchester adjacent here for you.