1950 Saloon project

[colin addison]

Youngcamper
The next thing I can advise is about the bores. Mine were at +60 thou and sha.... In the days of the tank engine the army did not rebore and fit larger pistons, they resleeved the bores and fitted standard size pistons, thus only needing to stock the standard pistons. So look carefully at the top of the bores and you may see a sleeve. I have had to have mine sleeved, the Club have both sleeves and pistons in stock at very reasonable prices, ex-army stock and thick with protective grease. The sleeving has kept my old engine going, hopefully?? and returned it to standard size.
hope this helps
Colin

[willcoxg]

Hi Colin...I am in Maidstone and would be interested in your studs. I have the same engine with oil coming up the studs and coming out onto the cylinder head. Not a great amount but makes a mess. Just taking the head off because of pressurisation associated with overheating so want to cure the oil leak at the same time. Many thanks
Geoff

[mike.perry]

I have been puzzled by oil rising up the head studs as they were nowhere near any oil galleries and screwed into the water jacket

[MarkyB]

Are you sure it's oil and not sooty water?

[colin addison]

Geoff
The two full sets of head studs are with ESM now, so contact them.
best of luck
Colin

[youngcamper]

Well I've finally managed to crack on with this, Isadly it's a bit rustier than I'd hoped but nothing too bad I've got two wings off with the other two to follow, I will be repairing and refitting the front wings and replacing the rears with some correct highcut ones. The next job will be to get the last 2 wings off and put it in the tipper for rust repairs.

I've also been busy accumulating parts, I managed to source some correct lowlight bumper Irons and blades, and I have a lead on where to get some valances. I've also picked up a good condition steering wheel(cheap too £15!) and some material off an old door card to repair the seat. I need to get a new carpet set, any idea on the correct colour ?

Pictures to follow.

Will

[chickenjohn]

Yep thats the one, she was built in june 1950, and seems to have only done about 40,000 miles from new, I'm hoping to be able to keep her original but smarten her up ready for next years national .

Sounds great! Please do keep us updated with photos.

cheers

John

[youngcamper]

A but more progress to report, the remaining two wings have been removed revealing some holes. It isn't that bad really, just the ususal rust traps. The front wings have also been 'repaired' in the past, so I've got a bit of a task to get them looking respectable.













She's now in the tipper ready for welding, thankfully there aren't too many holes here either.

[DAVIDMCCULLOUGH]

I had to cut up a couple of good later wings to fix the back of my lowlight wings, seemed a shame to do this but was much easier than trying to make the complicated shape by hand.

[youngcamper]

I had to cut up a couple of good later wings to fix the back of my lowlight wings, seemed a shame to do this but was much easier than trying to make the complicated shape by hand.

That seems like quite a good idea David, what did you do to ensure the wing was the correct shap afterwards ?

[irmscher]

Will put the other wing inside to use as template

[chrisryder]

Or bolt the front good bit and the rear donor bit both to the inner wing. Then you've got the bonnet and door to help you follow the lines.

[youngcamper]

Or bolt the front good bit and the rear donor bit both to the inner wing. Then you've got the bonnet and door to help you follow the lines.

Just as I was thinking, good plan

[youngcamper]

Thought it was time I gave this a wee update...

I've been lucky enough to get my hands on some nice original lowlight bits, namely a drivers door, front and rear bumper irons and blades. I've also ordered up some Valances from Fairmile restorations, not cheap but they'll certainly go a long way to making it more original.

On the welding front I've made fairly good progress, although sadly there was an absolutely huge amount of bodges and sins hidden underneath that layer of underseal, and sadly much less solid metal than I'd hoped, but anyway I pressed on regardless.

To Date I've cut out and replaced the 2 front spring hangers and made a start on the nearside sill, there's still a huge amount left to do but thankfully I'm getting somewhere

[MarkyB]

Great work!
60 odd years is a lot of bodging to undo!

[IaininTenbury]

Odd, about your wheel studs. My 'other' lowlight, the 1950 one has had 12 of the wheel bolts replaced with studs, and not just on three wheels they're randomly distributed around the car so presumably a repair to a problem similar to what you mentioned. I was going to leave them as they're the least of my problems with that car (see below) and work ok. And you can't see them whenthe hubcaps are on....

[youngcamper]

Yikes!

What happened to the Lowlight Iain ?

The car seemed to fail it's MoT on loose wheels ( or something along those lines) so I can only assume the threads were well and truly worn out, anyway it makes putting the wheels on much easier

A small update on the lowlight, I've replaced the other spring hanger and happily the axle slotted back in with no problems, He's now back on the ground ready to have the sill replaced.

I will endeavor to get some pictures up here soon

Cheers,

Will

[IaininTenbury]

It was an MMOC stand at the NEC quite a few years back now. We did a Police theme with a lot of Panda cars a mock police chase with a pickup with a safe in the back and the 'road accident' attended by a Police traveller. I was the only one daft enough to offer a car for the accident scene. It's really rough and the prev owner had started breaking it for spares and had sold off the interior and engine and registration (grr). It was hurriedly re brush painted so it looked a bit more road worthy and got a lot of attention and did help win the best stand award for the MMOC. It will live on, possibly as a tourer and not standard. I won't be messing with an original car anyway, the '49er will be standard and is about the same state as yours. This one can be something different. One day....
As I said, the wheel studs are the least of its problems!

[mike.perry]

Soon after purchasing my Series MM in 1978 I noticed a knocking noise in time with the wheel rotation which turned out to be loose wheel bolts or at least the bolts were tight but the wheel was still loose. It was fitted with 5/8 af head wheel bolts which had worn the bolt holes in the wheel. Whilst pondering a solution I spotted a wheel nut in my nuts and bolts tin which had the same thread as the MM wheel bolt, the later 7/16 unf not the early bsf, and had a 3/4 af head. Further searching found a 7/16 unf threaded bolt.
I screwed the bolt through from the inside of the drum, fitted the wheel and tightened the new wheel nut which solved the problem. I bought 16 bolts and wheel nuts , fitted the bolts, cut the heads off and had them welded to the drums.
As has been said, when the hub caps are fitted who can tell.
Also available are 3/8 whit head wheel bolts fitted to early Series IIs, however if you have the earlier bsf thread wheel bolts your options are somewhat limited

[youngcamper]

Sadly still not a lot too report in terms of acctual progress, building a shed to keep the lowlight in and January A level exams have sapped up most of my time. still when I do get a chance to work on Brian it least it'll be in the warm!

I was lucky enough to get pretty much all the panels required to weld up the car for Christmas: the full length inner and outer sills with boxing plates, the rear quarter panels, some front inner wing repair panels a 1/4 floor. I've just got to find the time to weld it up now!

all hope of putting it back on the road without a respray is diminishing, and I've now stripped the car of it's glass and headlining, it's pretty much a bare shell bar the engine and gearbox, It MIGHT need a re-wire too (thanks to the previous owner who bought a job lot of red wire) as the wiring loom is in pretty poor shape.

So the plan at the moment: weld up, respray, resemble. I'll hopefully see you at the National rally and maybe Beaulieu in the spring...