nigel

Can’t believe its  been 18 years ago this  month that I bought my first Wheelhorse, have got some good memories and I’ve still got it.

Bloody Fantastic Richard 👍👍

One of my US colleagues put me onto this on the bay of e so a purchase was made...
 
Image blown up on photocopier
 
 
 

Hi All Snow almost gone now so just enough time test the Colt tractor with loader  and have some fun as well    

You just can’t help yourself can you Paul 😂

Oops, seem to have bought another one...
 
I think this is a model 19.
 
 
 
 
 
 

November 6th 2020,

I decided that while I have the engine off anyways, and not to mention I messed up and sprayed some yellow paint to my starter generator that I would paint that too. Plus and a 3rd reason is because it had some chipped paint spots. I decided instead of unbolting and taking the heavy generator off I would paint it right on the tractor, and that is what I did. On November 6th 2020, I taped off anything and everything so no black paint would get on the yellow like I originally did......

Before the tape.....

 
With all the tape and outside with a coat of paint on it already....... I really do appreciate everyone who is following these builds, it means a lot. Thanks!

Paul’s got some

I’ve got £1.50 for it Harry 😂

It'll come as no surprise,  HVC committee has unanimously decided that the annual ploughing match and rally will not be taking place this year.
 
  Neither will the annual Allonby Charity ploughing match.

Started today off by swapping the tyres onto the smaller wheels ...
 
wheel as it came on the tractor


 
first step, split the wheel
 

 
second step, clean out all the horrible dried out grease
 

 
one wheel was missing its gasket and the others was in an awful state so I cracked out some gasket paper
 

 
finished article, unfortunately I’ve not been able to fit it as the previous owner had used metric bolts to fit the wheels ... at her fix for another day!
 

The finished article



It looks alright outside a new barn conversion where the local builder allowed me to use the concrete drive to make final adjustments to the engine and brakes before taking it out on the road.
What started as a mechanical makeover turned into something a lot bigger and I wish I could have kept more of its originality (I have all the interior trim in a box for the next custodian) but it still has all the dings, dents, scratched and chipped paintwork that it collected over the last 83 years and the chrome is showing its age. On the other hand I can take it out on the road and go to rallies and galas without worrying about people touching it or kids with sticky fingers making a mess on it.
In August 2019 I entered the Garioch Vehicle Restoration Society rally where it attracted quite a lot of attention although 'his lordship' sitting in the back seat may have been part of the reason



Sam isn't in to car rallies, ' I'm bored, can we go home now?'



I'm hoping that we do get to some rallies this year as the car is less than 20 miles from where it was first registered in 1937 and when we got the car it had yellow bulbs in the headlights and fog lights, a GB plate on the back and a transfer of French road signs on the windscreen so someone had taken it to France at some point. I'm sure that someone in the area has old photographs hiding in the loft as you wouldn't take a car like this to France without taking photographs.
That's it then and I hope you have enjoyed my ramblings.
 

The engine is a 4 cylinder 10.8 HP (1232 cc) overhead inlet, side exhaust Coventry Climax made under licence by Triumph and during the late 1980's would overheat and boil after about 8 miles.
It was either rubbish around the exhaust ports in the block or a blocked radiator so radiator was removed followed by the engine which was partially dismantled short block status.
Over the years I had read in the club magazine about the amount of rust and debris that had been found in similar engines along with aluminium corrosion - the water inlet confirmed this when removed, the rear port was completely blocked and the top flange broke off in the process




The cylinder head and studs were removed as were the sump and its studs before all the core plugs were knocked out.
The amount of rust and rubbish was horrendous which explained the overheating problem, the block was probed and poked with a variety of screwdrivers chisels and lengths of bar and power washed until all the areas around the cylinders and exhaust ports were clear.
The radiator had always had a greasy film around the filler which I think was due to pumping water pump grease into the pump bearings to stop it leaking so much but what to use to try cleaning it. I was wary of using some of the chemical cleaners on an 80 year old brass cored radiator and after some research found that a lot of people in the US used their equivalent of Fairy Liquid to clean out oil contaminated radiators on old trucks. An old zinc bath, my submersible pump and warm water with plenty Fairy Liquid was connected to the radiator and I reverse flushed it several times and then left it overnight full of the mixture and then flushed it a few times next day. There was no restriction to flow and the greasy film had disappeared so it was back to the engine,
I don't think the engine had done more than 1,000 miles since being bored and having new bearings in 1963 and after checking the bores and a couple of the big ends didn't think it was necessary to strip it down any further. A couple of the cylinder head stud threads in the block were a bit suspect so I retapped as far as I could and sourced some new studs, fitted new exhaust valve guides, ground in the valves, treated it to a new timing chain, selected the best cam follower housings and followers from spares that had been removed from a scrap 6 cylinder engine from a 2 door Gloria Coupe that my father had broken for spares in the 1950's (wish we still had that one) and fitted a set of new brass core plugs.
The engine was re-assembled with new water inlet and new water pump 




The clutch had some surface rust on the flywheel and pressure plate and was easily cleaned up with emery cloth before being bolted back on and the engine was installed with new rubber engine mounts - the old ones were past their best



The carburettors were then fitted - there is a small side draught and a larger down draught working on the same principle as the progressive twin choke weber where the small one opens to half throttle and then opens the large one until they are both fully open as this is a Gloria Vitesse engine.



New oil, plugs, plug wires, points, condenser filled with water and some petrol in the tank it fired up and ran with good oil pressure, it did require a bit of tweaking of the jets to get it running reasonably well and that is how it ran last year but the more miles it did the smokier the exhaust became until it was becoming really bad when hot. The last thing I needed was some tree-hugging do-gooder phoning the police complaining about an old car belching out smoke - I had already a run in with Police Scotland about carrying a shotgun on the roadside a couple of years ago. I also had water leaking up the cylinder head studs and when tightening them a little further felt a couple of them let go in the block
This year I took the engine out again thinking that the piston rings were rusted and allowing oil up the bores but when all stripped down they were in perfect condition and discovered that the inlet valve guides were badly worn. They had felt quite good last year and I think they had been gummed up with oily carbon that hadn't come off when I power washed it but as it ran more the new oil had slowly washed it away - 4 new inlet guides duly sourced and fitted.
The cylinder head studs were a different story as the threads in the block were stripped on two of them and another three were suspect. A club member had repaired his by making some 1/2" UNF OD inserts and tapping them 3/8" BSF for the studs but he had the benefit of access to a milling machine and I don't so I needed a different solution. By chance I had some Jaguar 3.8 waisted cylinder head studs with 7/16" UNF threads and 3/8" dia waist section.
I made a steel block with 3 different ID sized inserts that I could clamp on to the block face - a 3/8" one to line it up using original stud, second one for 7/16" tapping drill and a third one to line up the 7/16" UNF tap as the hole was threaded. The Jaguar studs were cut and a 3/8" BSF thread cut on the waisted section



The engine was assembled once again with a thread sealant applied to the cylinder head studs this time to stop any water coming up the studs.
Another change I made was to fit a single downdraught Zenith carb as the throttle spindles on the SU's are very worn and I couldn't get the engine to run properly, it is now a lot more driveable with just a slight hesitation on take off but isn't a problem on the road.



I may try to refurbish the SU's at some point to return it to Vitesse specification.
 
 

Photos are becoming a bit thin on the ground now.
Under the back seat there were two crossmembers on the chassis with plates for holding two six volt batteries, one of these had to be replaced and I decided to convert it to one single 12 volt battery while I was at it. I test fitted the new battery and noticed a bit of a spark as I put the terminal on and thought that everything was switched off and it was. I knew the wiring to the back of the car was needing replacing but when I added an ammeter to the main cable there was a 3 amp discharge with nothing switched on, so the rest of the wiring was now suspect.
There were a couple of burned wires under the dash, several added wires under the bonnet and a couple of duplicates to the front lights, the club came to the rescue with a wiring diagram and it really isn't a complicated system and I removed the lot to start from scratch. Although cotton braided cable is available the thought of measuring the various lengths, making sure I had enough and getting the right colours seemed a bit too much like hard work. I had plastic covered wire from 2 Triumph 2000's a Mark 10 Jag and an XJ6 all in BL colour codes so decided to follow their coding system and make up my own loom and use some vintage style trunking to hide most of them.



It was a cold spell and paint wasn't drying, glue wasn't going off so I thought I'll do the wiring but hadn't reckoned on trying to straighten out cold plastic wire that had been coiled up for the best part of 25 years, it was a real pita to feed six or seven cables through the trunking and had to pull some through two or three at a time with a squirt of WD40 to help it along.
Once done it looks quite in keeping with the rest of the car with only a couple of inches at the control box showing



and fixed to the chassis with brass clips



Two solenoid were added for the horns and the headlights to lessen the load on the wires passing down the inside of the steering column and the underside of the dash is also a lot neater.



The reconditioned steering box was also fitted at this stage before a new plywood bulkhead section around the pedals and steering column was installed.
This is the final tally of all the woodwork that was replaced

Its that time of year to do a bit of maintenance on the E tank as all the time its quietly removing rust the anodes are being eaten away - so today was the day.
As you will see, they've been hard at work and it was time to put some old gang mower and triple bottom blades to good use.
 

on the final model it was the steering wheel mechanism and an option for a higher ratio of gears to give a higher road speed, it is not recorded if the one machine sold to London Docks had the higher gear option. The machine was also fitted with the flywheel driven electric kit to power the lights.

Unlikely to be a timing issue as it has a keyed flywheel. Even if someone has messed with the stator positioning in its slots , mid way should be ok for test purposes. If it has a kill wire going to a kill switch on the throttle  / Governor plate, disconnect it. Also, are the points spotlessly clean? After that, you need to find someone who can test the coil and condenser.

Next came choosing material for the interior trim, a lot of which could not be removed intact in order to gain access to the framework , I decided to go with a modern type green vinyl similar in colour to the original along with dark green rubber backed carpeting. The original carpeting was a short pile hessian backed type but I could not find it in a suitable green and I did not think dying it to the correct colour would be a feasible proposition. As someone had coloured the leather rear seats and arm rests with a hideous blue in the past  I also ordered a leather renovation kit in the same shade of green as the vinyl and if the original side panels which I was going to re-use didn't look right I could do them as well.

 

The rear arm rests along with the rexine attachments had to be fitted first before the boot floor as these formed the inside of the boot.
The boot floor was duly cut to size, covered in the new vinyl and fitted along with the repainted steel covers.

  



The old rexine side panels don't look too bad against the new vinyl and the arm rests turned out quite good as well alongside the original rear panels, this is after the seat had also been done.



Before the side panel could be fitted a new door seal was required, not just any door seal but a 3/8" dia piece of wing piping, you can see it running down the door pillar here



You can't buy 3/8" wing piping and certainly not in green so as always we'll just make it.
Sewing machine was already there as I had bought it to do the Carlton interior, 



and a new 3/8" foot was purchased



The original piping had an orange rubber pipe running through it and I managed to get some 10 mm bunsen burner tubing which was the perfect size for the job but I just couldn't get the vinyl to feed through the machine. I tried various methods of lubricating it until someone advised using tissue paper and it worked a treat but a bit of a pain to remove from the thread afterwards. Once a new piece of carpet was sewn on the bottom of the side panels they were then fitted along with the back seat.

Hello all, and thanks for the positive comments. Finally got to a point where I could get the tank primed during a dry and low humidity weather window.
Had been busy making the (tiny) tank lid furniture out of mainly Nickel Silver.
The latch bolts are 3/64" (1.2mm) dia silver steel with 1/16" (1.56mm) stainless balls brazed on and fixed with 1/32"(0.8mm)rivets-
 
  
 
Next job is permanently fix the woodwork to the tank and finish ready for paint
Not completely successful with the soldered lettering, as a couple had moved slightly in the process...never mind!, just glad to get past this stage-
 

 
I really need good, dry painting weather now, as I have to paint and assemble this and the T/Engine to fix the dimensions for the towing bar frame for the Water Cart.
 
Regards.
 
 

Well it goes like shit off a shovel 😂
 
 

All sorted 

It's been a bit damp lately, water 18" from top of the pit and rising.



Hope I don't need under the Land Rover for a while.

Nae happy !! Doing a bit more last night and just about to load the last photo and internet crashes and lost the lot.
With all the tools and raw materials gathered it was time to start dismantling, the chassis was levelled on two wooden blocks and rear bodywork supported by two adjustable scaffold feet and some aluminium tube under the boot top rail, wheels were removed, rear wings removed and all the interior trim from the back seat rearwards.
It was evident that the rear body section was sinking causing the sides of the rear wings to bow out and the front of the doors to rise above the front bulkhead level.



On the offside you can see the wooden chassis mount is tilted along with a broken bracket and a makeshift repair with some sheet steel.



The nearside gives a better view of how it is constructed with the chassis attachment plate half lap jointed to the cross member, a fairly solid support block attached to a length of angle iron bolted to the steel inner wheel arch. The boot hinge is bolted up through the cross member with one bolt coming through a steel bracket coming round and up along the lower wheel arch frame which is again attached to the back of the support block.



80 year old wood screws are not the easiest of things to remove especially in such confined spaces but using small cutting discs in the dremel the slots were tidied up and with a selection of different sized flat screwdriver bits and various ratchets and sockets to fit all but two came out and  I was lucky enough to have space to drill them out with a right angled drill and some short stumpy drill bits that I had bought for this job some time earlier.
The bolts were also dispatched using the dremel and cutting discs but it was all too easy to shatter them and quite a number were used.
I had to cut the crossmember to ease removal of all the bits but was still able to measure them and get dimensions for the new pieces, the chassis mounts and support blocks along with the crossmember were relatively easy to make as they were all straight sided, the lower wheel arch extension needed to be curved but after some trial and error I worked out the radius and used the router to form this piece.



By fixing the workpiece and pivot block to a 8 x 4 x 3/4" sheet of plywood the radius was set and the inner radius cut then adjusting the threaded rod by the required thickness the outer radius was machined -  a lot of playing about but it worked out OK.



Behind the boot hinge bracket there was some evidence of a solid piece connecting the boot side rail, another body rail and the lower wheelarch extension which had been screwed from the outside before the aluminium had been formed around it, I managed to make a couple of pieces that would fit to all three wooden rails but just could not get the correct profile to fit the body.
After two attempts and even trying some modelling clay I finally managed to get the correct profile by using one of my trial pieces, covering it in a good layer of body filler, covering it with a polythene bag and gently pressing it in to position.Once set I was able to use a profile gauge every 1/4" along the piece to copy to the new one.



With all the new pieces made and trial fitted, broken bracket welded back together, pilot holes for the screws were marked and drilled and holes for the bolts drilled, final assembly took place with all pieces glued and screwed together.



 







The rear body was now solid and firmly attached to the chassis for the first time in over sixty years.
The fun really begins now.

Yep turned out quite easy in the end Alan , it’s now sold, so some little person will be happy this christmas

Well it goes like shit off a shovel 😂