A40 and other family cars - Spitfire spring

[N Dentressangle]

20 hours ago, captain_70s said:

Especially given a non written-off example could easily have been welded up by the Stevie Wonder Restoration Society and be wonky as all hell with no accident damage required...

Many on Ebay / FB have been. The quality of a lot of the amateur welding repairs (when they're shown) is sometimes bloody awful and unsafe. I'm no professional, but my older stuff gets MoT'd properly if only to check my welded repairs are up to par. For really critical stuff I have a mate who's a coded welder who obliges.

The 924 is Cat C. It's been scraped down the O/S. Nothing structural. Who cares?

[Matty]

Looks like we got ourselves a convoy 🤣

I must be the worst photographer of ever. We went out today anyhow. An A40, two Spitfires (mk3 and 1500) an A35 van and a Standard Ten. Which went well. The poor Ten immediatly developed ignition issues. So everybody else buggered off while i followed him back home to drop it off. Which was nice as it shotgun backfired at me on every trailing throttle. We tried.

How nice is Ronnies van? For context, Ronnie and my Dad were school friends. He then served his time as a truck mechanic at Tillotsons in Burnley with my Uncle Tony. He has restored this from the ground up. Must be one of the best and one of the last.

After ridding ourselves of the poorly Standard we sailed forth for the Great Harwood transport show. Which in fairness wasnt that great. Pretty poor turnout tbh. We near doubled the cars.

Our Ryans finally fitted the hardtop to the 1500. Hundred and twenty quid and already in russet. Absolutely makes the car. The two seasoned mechanics met it for the first time today and pronounced that hed done brilliant for the pittance he paid for the car. So that was nice!

Very bus heavy this show. These two were highlights for me.

Obviously way before my time, but this is a Haslingden Corporation bus. My home town and displaying a street near my house on the destination blind. 

Later years saw unification when all the local town councils joined together to become Rossendale Valley Council. Which brought Rossendale Transport. Which leads me to this.

The 464 is Accrington to Rochdale via Haslingden, Rawtenstall, waterfoot, Stacksteads, Bacup and Whitworth. So right through the valley. It was my bus to school and back (from the bus stop outside the engineering works which now employs me) all aged Atlanteans. I dont know if this was owned by Rossy Transport or has just been restored in their livery. Maybe @Yoss knows? But if so i went to school on this and its mates.

Other random stuff. Nice run out anyhow and good craic.

Thanks lads 👍

 

 

[N Dentressangle]

That Spitfire looks great with the matching hardtop, agree.

Nice to see a locally built Duple Dominant. They were always my transport to school, in Go Whittle colours and with an underpowered Bedford chassis. Atlantean? Luxury! 😉

[Matty]

Bit of work on my Dads Mk3. It must have the hardest rear end known to world after Kim Kardashian. To the extent its quite unpleasant. We had our suspicions it want right, but Ryan buying the 1500 confirmed it. His is so much more compliant so it obviously isnt right. The spring fitted is a British Motor Heritage replacement. Luckily the car came with the spring it replaced. I stripped it at work and found nowt to worry about. So i cleaned each leaf up (bald flap discs are best for this sort of stuff. Never throw them away) lathered it in EP2 and reassembled with fresh bushes and shackle bolts. So lets change it.

Pre strip. Cos im crap i show photos of what it looked like not what i made it look like 🤣

Assume the position

Dampers off bolts out of spring bushes

Retaining plate off. Luckily all the studs wound out with the nylocs. Saved me double nutting them out.

The spring had seized in the mount on the top of the diff, bit of both the bottom leaf corroding in the recess and the locating pin on the base being over sized which made it far too tight. I slung my little 0 to 25mm mic over the pin on the original and what i took out and it was way out. Well done BMH. Battering a pry bar against it from underneath as a drift saw it out.

My work on the left. Even the form of the second to last leaf around the bush void is differant. And the bolts through the clamps were that long that they were worriting through the brake flexis. Again well done BMH.

Mobile workshop.

Comedy wheels. 

When done we ran it down the lane and back with the dampers off then on to prove the new (old) spring was doing both springing and an element of damping like a leaf spring should. Its chalk and cheese compared with before. Total outlay 2 quids worth of unc bolts and nylocs and ten quids worth of bushes (you never count your labour, we all know that). 

Another mega boring update. Sorry lads.

Although our Ryan saw that Rimmers made a gas strut conversion for Spitfire bonnets. Hundred odd quid. So he copied it. 20 quids worth of gas struts and made his own brackets and spreader plates. Clever boy