Your routing and bending of the brake pipes is just a piece of pure perfection
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Thank you Andrew and MINIKIN, I've been in contact with the owner of the car in 1968 and he kindly forwarded me an image of the engine bay which has been most helpful and also the clear images (in so many respects) from Andrew 1967 re HOY. I had to make a few tweaks to the 'servo nose pipe'.
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I'm endeavouring to complete the installation of the 1.5" H4 carbs and would appreciate learned eyes to see if the protrusion above the bonnet aperture allows enough room for the bonnet to be fitted.
I won't have a hand to help in fitting the bonnet for a few days and would like to complete this phase before then, especially the fixings below the carbs that ideally need the hands of a 2 year old child to apply and really don't want to be taking these off. There seems very little space between the float chamber and the clutch master cylinder?
It might well be that the bonnet rises toward the centre and therefore just enough and with the experience of Maniflow with their inlet manifold I'm sure it will be ok (unfortunately the boss at Maniflow is away for a couple of days so cannot get his comment.
A further question: is it essential to fit a PCV valve? there is no spare outlet on the manifold bar the one for the servo - although I guess a T piece could be fabricated to provide a fixing point?
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All most to the day it's been a full year since my last post! at that time my ambition being to have the car on the road by April/May 24. Not a chance other things have inevitably got in the way but mostly the issue has been that to restore a car that's been apart for decades and more or less out of the box is fraught with parts not fitting due to items that found there way into boxes in NZ that were of no relevance.
Also I wanted to build a legitimate Downton spec car due to my life long fascination with the Downton story which developed from reading road test reports back in the 60's by John Bolster and from the Autocar - fortunately this has just about been possible given that Maniflow through their exhaust and induction systems are still very much in business and speaking to David was able to to know exactly what I wanted from his experience of being an ex Downton employee.
The engine side has been carried out by Neil Slark whose father Brian Slark - ex Downton employee has been able to build me the engine in accordance from what was carried out back in the 60's. Once the car has been completed the car will return to NS and tuned on the rolling road at which point we will have the accurate power outputs.
I have endeavoured to restore as many original components as possible, this has necessitated a complete strip down of each item to it's component parts and cabinet blast with glass bead to then re paint or electroplate with Zinc. The re plating has been essential to do in house as often the part is minor and sending off to a plating house is just a pain from the aspect of waiting, posting, sometimes lost items and finish.
Modern plating always comes back too 'out of period shiny' and by using less brightners in the plating tank I've been endeavouring to better replicate the period and most likely cadmium plated slightly dull finish.
As I now go through the images taken during this assembly phase I realise that at times I got out of the habit of taking regular images as each image does tell a story but to this point last year I was endeavouring to complete the engine installation and during this discovered that the 'Downton' inlet manifold was setting up the carbs too high in the engine bay and was in all likelihood correct for the lower engine height of the 1071.
I spoke with Maniflow and we were going to remake one to fit the 1275 but then discovered that I had an old standard manifold that had been ported to 1 1/2" and that these were often fitted in a Downton installation and so I decided to restore this but as can be seen the chamber had been capped with a NEW Zealand coin! I managed to get a new core cap but this entire procedure soaked up a good few days of time and effort - pretty much as the whole project has...
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The job I had been dreading was to fit the black vinyl covering to the windscreen surround and the lower dash cross rail, there is so much to consider (as a novice) adhesive drying time v working time. Only wanting to do each thing once i.e. not removing and re application due to misalignment, ensuring the the recess is receiving the vinyl covering i.e. no air pocket, keeping the adhesive soaked vinyl taught, correct cutting around the edges especially at the top of the A pillar and of consequence is how to get comfortable while working sideways on so you are always twisted. One of the wise words picked up over the years being "understand the nature of the products you are working with"
In the end you just have to get on with it - is it a 100% finish - NO!!! but I've had to console various errors under the heading not even god gets it right every time and mostly the nasty errors are known only to me...
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The Dash area is another area of physical discomfort and a hoped for result in that I don't want to find some silly issue and then have to start stripping it out to get to the hard to reach areas to correct.
One of the things I just couldn't find an answer to was the chrome strip that runs across the front of the parcel shelf. Whatever I did the centre section below the instruments just couldn't be levelled - there was always a gap. In the end I decided to attach it by fitting a couple of self tapping screws - yuk. This foul decision was arrived at by being completely flummoxed and that I wanted to move on and therefore if and when I can sort the issue I will purchase another strip - any advice therefore gratefully accepted.
The Smiths rev counter I found on Ebay but with the typical two angled chrome bezel and sent it off with all the other instruments to be inspected by 'Speedograph' the chrome bezel on the rev counter was damaged and so managed to find a bezel to match the one angled style of the Mk 1 instruments.
The Les Leston steering wheel was another Ebay purchase but will probably not finally use it as it's just a tad too large in diameter.
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my experiences .. there are two re-build jobs "NOT "to be done on a cold winters day .. Fitting Dash Vinyl & Windcreens .
Both jobs seem to be much easier on a warm Summers Day
But we are following your rebuild & it looks good
Back in the day..Maybe the reason why the "Trim Shop" located in "Q" Building at Pressed Steel Cowley, was always nice & warm whatever time of year. .
