KR 5670

[Ian Grace]

Big day today. I finally got the nearside front road spring replaced. Not the easiest of jobs, specially as it is pushing 80 degrees here today. After a bit of swearing and much liquid refreshment, it is in, the car is off the jack and on an even keel at last, with plenty of air between the rubber buffers and the chassis - which was decidedly not the case before.

Next job will be replacing the water jacket sideplates. Then I have to refitting the nearside front brake cable, cam, etc. while waiting for the brake shoes to come back from Ian Harris. That will just leave the small job of re-wiring the ignition, made more complicated by the fact that the ignition switch is seized and won't switch. Hopefully I'll be able to sort this with a bit of judicious WD40'ing when I pull the panel back to get at the wiring.

Anyway, the critical job - the front road spring swap - is now behind me.

[Ian Grace]

Here's what I found when I removed the nearside water jacket:



Clear around the water exit, but piled up thick round cylinders 3 and 4. Of the 14 securing screws, three sheered off in the threads and will have to be drilled out. I'll run a 1/4" tap through the holes to see which threads are good, but may have to tap some out to 7 mm. Next will be to remove the plate from the other side.

On the positive side, with both front road springs replaced, the frontal aspect of the car has been completely transformed, raising things up a good two inches makes all the difference!

I also managed to fit the nearside brakes yesterday - all except the shoes which I am waiting for. So all in all a good day's progress.

[Ian Grace]

Managed to make some more progress over the weekend. I had both front hubs off, washed out the old grease and re-packed them. On both sides, the inner bearings were left on the stub axles when the hubs were pulled off, and I didn't have a puller that would extract them, so I cleaned them out in situ and managed to get the new felt seals over and behind them. Once the hubs were replaced, I fitted the re-lined shoes I brought back from England (thanks to Ian Harris for the re-lining in proper material), and connected up the front brake cables, so in theory I now have fully serviceable and functioning front brakes. I pulled on the cables to confirm that all four brake cable pulleys were operating properly.

When connecting the cables at the brake cross-shaft, at first, I had the problem of them being way too short. I sorted this by lengthening the adjustable rod between pedal and cross-shaft so that now the levers on the cross shaft pull towards the perpendicular with respect to the cable. I guess that, over the years, this adjustment was incrementally taken up as the linings wore down.

Having completed the front brake and hub ovehaul, I've started on the rear hubs. I need to obtain some neoprene axle seals, but I can fit those independently of sorting the hubs and fitting the brake shoes. I started on the nearside rear yesterday afternoon, but had to stop as the temperature outside reached 97 degrees! However, with a couple more sessions, I should have all of the hubs, brakes and suspension dismantled, sorted, re-greased and re-assembled ready for the road. The other big task is to flush out the block and fit the new sideplates, but this will involve some delicate drilling out and tapping where a number of the setscrews broke off in the block when I undid them. I shall definitely uses some sort of glycol coolant in future - water has a terrible effect on the inside of the block. Any suggestions?

What else? Well I want to get the rear cover off the diff housing and check the teeth on the diff., clean out as much muck as possible before refilling. I should also have all of the steering/tracking off for cleaning/re-greasing. And I need to drain and re-fill the gearbox. Then I have the electrics to sort - right now, the ignition switch is seized solid so I'm running a wire directly from the battery to the coil. One way or the other, the plan is to have the car back on the road in the next month or so - and for the first time since the sixties or seventies.

[Ian Grace]

After some considerable thought, I think I have decided to restore KR 5670. Right now, the fabric, although original, is very brittle. There is already a shilling-sized hole on the rear nearside which was punctured during shipping over here and from the torn fabric it is obvious that it can no longer take anything more than a light touch before breaking up. Also the interior trim material is in a similar brittle condition, and the seats wouldn't take much sitting on to start breaking up and stitch lines failing. This means that the car is not really a practical driving car in any meaningful way, which is one reason why I have not been in much of a hurry to get it running.

I was happy to preserve it in this manner because the fabric is the original, and may well be the last Minor fabric saloon with its original fabric in such good condition now (except, of course, it is a Hornet body!).

The tipping point in my thinking was that we plan to retire in about nine years’ time in the USA, and so we have been thinking that we’d like to at least spend our summers in England. Tax laws preclude us staying more than 90 days, but that would give us plenty of time to rent a cottage and attend a number of rallies through the summer. So with what car? It could be the fabric saloon, it could be the McEvoy, or we could buy something in the UK. Option one – the fabric saloon has much to recommend it. The car is all up together and complete, and its paid for! So we could gently upgrade it over the next few years and then ship it across to the UK to have the fabric and interior re-trimmed professionally, and by someone who would absolutely accurately re-trim it per the original material, mouldings, stitch lines etc. And of course we would photo-document the entire operation and keep fabric samples for the record.

Also, the McEvoy is probably a more practical car to run over here and of course it is not VSCC eligible, but the fabric saloon is, so this means we could enter events such as the Light Car Section’s Summer Rallies in it each summer – just like we did over 20 years ago with our fabric saloon WL 7995.

The car is unique in that it is a driving chassis delivered from Cowley to Maltby’s in Kent and fitted with a discarded Wolseley Hornet body, with black fabric painted black and yellow. This is the last surviving Hornet body in such original condition – hence the need to ensure that the re-fabric and re-trim are carried out to the highest standards of authenticity.

So in the meantime, with such a goal down the road, I can now get on and continue going through the running gear and engine, etc., bringing everything up to spec. so that once the coachwork is completed, we’ll have a great little car for our summers back in England. The plan is to rent a cottage for three months each summer, and position the Minor, a trailer and a modern for use every summer. That way we should be able to get the car anywhere in the UK for events/touring and of course use it as a local run-around wherever we are renting, probably somewhere in the Cotswolds and not too far from Prescott.

Finally, I would of course plan to keep all of the little modifications that were carried out over the decades, including the horn ring, luggage rack, GB plate, vacuum dipping system and the various dashboard rally plaques from the sixties, including the Brooklands 60th Anniversary and the trip to Italy for the FIAME rally.

I’d value any suggestions/guidance regarding this plan!

[Ian Grace]

The car has given up one more secret! I was looking at the build data for the Wolseley Hornet that donated its fabric saloon body to this Minor chassis:

Body No.WF.527 (fabric, coach built cars are WM).
Car No.82420
Engine No.1260/5PU
Distributor No.789(Lucas).
Dynamo No.16943(Lucas).
Axle No.1352/5RA, (ratio 9/43).
Black with Cream top.
Red Rexine.
Black wheels.
Date of delivery 24 June 1930
Date record sheet 26 June 1930

The body is described as "black with cream top", but we all know the top half of the body to be painted mustard yellow - in fact yellow enough to make it difficult to describe it as 'cream', even accounting for some mellowing (or yellowing ) over the years. The sales blurb for this car also describes the fabric model as black and cream. And the mustard yellow superstructure doesn't really go with the red/brown interior trim - a most odd colour scheme.

I know that some manufacturers were in the habit of applying a coat of paint over their fabric bodies, and the lower, black areas of KR's fabric are also painted black. However, I always wondered about this back in the time before we identified the body as being of Wolseley origin, and assumed that one of the past owners had applied the paint. Indeed, it has quite obviously been brush-painted, and not to what I would think was a manufacturer's coachwork standard.

So perhaps the Hornet fabric bodies were fabric covered in two colours, and not painted at all? For this to be possible, the fabric had to be joined under the waistline beading, so last night I took a close look - particularly where the fabric wraps around the B post. Sure enough, there is a join. Further close inspection of small areas where the paint has peeled revealed a very much lighter fabric under several layers of paint.

So my conclusion is that this body was originally black and cream fabric, so when I finally come to re-fabric the car, I will return it to this original scheme at which time I might re-name it the Guinness Special!

[martinng]

So for car restoration as for Guinness "Discover a timeless ritual and savour the rich reward"
........ and the final result sounds very exciting.

[Ian Grace]

Ha! Reminds me of the days gone now when one used to put a Guinness bottle label in the windscreen because it looked like a tax disk to a short-sighted copper!

I was never a Guinness drinker - more a real ale enthusiast. So when I used to drive through towns in my 2-seater (with a Morris 8 tourer windscreen), I'd simply fold the windscreen flat!

[Ian Grace]

Progress! Fitted the new nearside water jacket sideplate today and now the engine is watertight. First, I had to clean out the pile of rust inside - see the picture above. Much of this mass was so solid that even some gentle hammer and chiseling wouldn't break it up - so I decided to let sleeping dogs lie unless I broke through to the sump! I cleaned off the old gasket which was cork - not rubber, and was almost certainly the Cowley original. I also tapped all of the holes to clean up the threads, so the new bolts would screw up without any problem. The new Sports & Vintage plate went on well with a new rubber gasket and some bathroom caulking goo. Filled the radiator and not a drop coming from anywhere - phew! I fitted stainless washers all round.

The driver's side plate is another story! Unlike the nearside plate which was rusted right through, this late looks sound, but i decided to remove it anyway and clean out the rust inside. However, even with taking great care, the fourth bolt sheered off - damn! I stood back and took stock. many of the bolts on this side are blinded by the steering column. If any of those broke off, I'd never get a drill in there to drill them out. So I decided to tap out the holes for the bolts I had removed and fit new ones. I'll replace the plate when I have the engine out for rebuild.

Next job is to replace the manifold and carb. and bolt up the exhaust, at which point the car should be ready to drive. But before I do that, I'm going to fit an inline fuel filter between tank and carb.

[Ken Martin]

Ian – I was disappointed to read that you plan to redo the fabric on this car (and by implication a thorough going over). I had thought your intention was to do the minimum necessary to use it. It seems a shame to molest it even if it was changed in the distant past.
Ken

[Ian Grace]

Hi Ken,

I feel your pain! It has taken me three years to get to this point, and if I do refabric it, it won 't be for another 8 or 9 years when we retire and start spending our summers in England. The problem is that the fabric has become so brittle and frail that I think deterioration would set in seriously if I started to put any significant mileage on it. And if it gets wet, I don't want the underlying ash frame to suffer. There seems little point in keeping it as a museum piece that isn't driven - the only person who has used it as a reference so far is Martin Redmond and I was able to send him a wealth of photos - and I would certainly record every stitch before any rework.

I had thought of keeping it in 'oily rag' condition, but the car looks so scruffy and much of the steelwork is covered in surface rust or worse where the paint has gone. So I have decided to refinish the wings, bonnet, wheels and running gear, etc. to at least make it look better and protect it from further corrosion - a particular concern in the damp Pacific NW climate. I think the important thing is going to be to make sure any rework is done 100% authentically, while also keeping anything original that doesn't actually need to be reworked. For example I think I can save the interior trim panels, the fabric covered dashboard, etc. and probably the rear seats, but the front seats are a mess (and have been recovered at some point anyway), the original carpets are in tatters and the headlining is in a state of collapse having shrunk and pulled off the attaching pins. Fortunately, the ash frame appears to be like new - the doors 'slamming' like it has just been built!

[Ken Martin]

I see what you mean...it is very difficult keeping an 'oily rag' car and I know I would find it very hard although in the case of my car there was no option but a complete makeover.

[Ian Grace]

Yes, surprisingly so - you'd think it would be easy! This is such an enigmatic vehicle because in one way it is highly original, but in another way it is a 'bitza' made from two vehicles! Also, it has a number of non-original modifications and bolt-on bits made by Olive Willats for the Italy trip which I want to preserve!

I hope you are in better health and able to enjoy your beautifully-refurbished saloon this season.

[Ken Martin]

Thanks Ian - yes better than last year and hoping for some good motoring this summer.

[Ian Grace]

I recently entered KR 5670 in the DVLA search engine and it drew a blank - even though I recovered the number and obtained a new V5 three or four years ago. So I wrote to Mike Worthington-Williams, who had recovered the number for me in the first place, as I was concerned that I had not SORN'ed the car and may have lost the number for a second time!

Here's his very interesting reply: "Any car which had been off the road since before January 1998 (when SORN was introduced) didn’t need to be SORNED and would have automatically be classified NOT LICENCED. Cars so categorised are not kept on the main computer because there is simply not the capacity to accommodate the thousands of non-licensed vehicles."

So that explains why the search draws a blank. I must admit that I have often put numbers into the search engine (usually to find the original date of registration for the Chassis Register when adding 'new' cars), and drawn a blank when I am fairly sure the cars have V5's. This would explain it. So the lack of a response from the DVLA search engine doesn't by any means mean that the vehicle no longer exists, and now I know that it also means that it may well have a current V5, but is simply 'not licensed'. Interesting!

[Ian Grace]

KR is responding very well to some painstaking and careful cleaning and detailing. Lots done, lots more to do. The interior likewise.

In between sessions, I'm driving the car up and down the drive - dozens of times - not yet insured (and not licensed in the US either), so currently limiting it to our property. Its starting instantly on the button and without any need for tickling the carb. Ticks over and runs like new!

Compare the photo below with earlier photo of the car just prior to shipping from Colnbrook, below.

Among the next tasks is the fitting of the missing sidelamps when they arrive courtesy of Tony Gamble next week. And this will trigger the big one - the re-wire. Currently the two instrument panel switches are seized solid, so I'm running jury rigged with a wire directly from the battery to the coil with a switch in the loose wire sitting on the passenger side floor. When I take the panel out, I'll be replacing the original and now very frail factory wiring which I will replicate as accurately as possible.

One potentially serious problem has arisen though. With warmth in the engine, the oil pressure is struggling to reach 25 psi - perhaps not surprising as it has sat idle for over forty years? I must admit that I haven't changed the oil yet - it is clear and clean, but I think the next task should be to remove the sump, see what's in it and refill, then see if there is any improvement.

But to end today on a high note, with the deep cleaning producing such promising results, I don't think there is any urgent need to think about a re-fabric any time soon.