General Old cars remembered by Old Farts

[Motorcyclist Colin]

In response to universal demand (well one request anyway). here goes.
Newly married, just bought first house ,and a new job in London. Result absolutely broke, and my home made James/Francis barnett/ villiers engine/ Matchless bitza/motorbike was also hors de combat. However quite by chance I found I was living around the corner from a bloke I went to school with. He had a 1950,s Ford Anglia . Charlie (school mate) said he kept it running for next to nothing by visiting a big car and boat breakers on the Medway nearby, for bits. Shortly after I bought a similar Anglia or Popular for a couple of quid. and although it did run after a fashion there was a terrible "clang, clang clang" from the back axle (amoung other things). probably a broken tooth or teeth on the diff. So I started visiting the breakers with Charlie every Saturday morning to try and find bits. I found lots of useful bits and started getting the old banger better, but no back axle bits could I find. I did jump off a car right on to an upturned nail which went through the sole of my shoe, my foot, missing all the bones, and out the top. Charlie pulled it off for me and some how got me to hospital for a clean up and tetanus. So visits to the breakers were off for a week or so.
However luck waswith me. I was living in a new estate fairly close to the M2 near Strood, when an old Anglia/Pop left the motorway and rolled down a bank in some trees, finishing upside down. It was there for a few weeks and it became clear, no one was going to get it. So up I went with a wheel barrow some tools and managed after a huge struggle to get the entire back axle, brakes, torque arms and wheels off the thing. some how loaded it on the wheel barrow and trundled my limpy way home.
Could't dimsntle any of it, could't even check the diff for oil, bit with eternal optimism, and Charlies help fitted it in place of my rear axle/brake/wheels/etc. where it performed faultlessly for some considerable time. The car failed it's next MOT for "faded orange" rear lights, very quickly sorted by a coat of red plastic model paint 0n the inside of the lens.
The old beast eventually expired because the drop arm and drag link steering became beyond repair/bodge, so that even I thought it dangerous.
I still have the "half an onion" drift tool for removing split valve guides on the side valve E93A fords. Charlie sadly died long before his time, but we had some fun with the old Anglias. I would not know where to start on my Panda for a big job, but fortunately have more money, and maybe a bit more sense, so can employ a proper mechanic

 

[Goudrons]

I have a story about my fathers VW.
In early 1975 my Dad swapped out his 1972 Ford Transit camper van for a newly converted VW Camper van. I was four at the time.
We were a large family and the rear seats in the Transit were side on, so we all slide back and forth when braking.
The new VW had forward facing seats so was far better.

We went everywhere in the VW, all around Europe each summer for years.
Spain, Yugoslavia, you name it, we went there in that Van. Before I was seven I had been over the Alps, over the Pyrnees (never on a toll road) and knew what tax free shopping was all about in Andorra!

We usually acrossed the la Manche on the Hoverlloyd service from Ramsgate, but we did have a trip across one year on a ferry to Zeebrugge, the Hearld of Free Enterprise it was called. I think it stopped running the year after for some reason.

When I say we were a large family, I mean it.
Mum and Dad, two older sisters, an older brother, me and my gran (mums mum) used to pile in this thing on my Dads magical mystery tour (he was the only one who knew where we were heading).

Roll on 20 odd years and the van was still in use though it travelled a bit closer to home, Wales, Scotland etc without gran and us older childern, but now with grandchildern.

By now you will understand this van was part of the family.
Nothing was too much for it and it soldiered on through interior refits, new engines and resprays. If it needed it, it got it.

Back in the early 2000's my dad became ill, really ill.
In a moment of probably fear, he told my mum if anything happened to him I was to have the van, I was made up, it was a massive part of my life even at that age.

Luckily, he stayed with us for another 18 years but unexplainingly, once fitter he sold the f**cking van without mentioning to me it was even for sale!

I know someone came up from Hastings to buy it and I trawel the classifieds regularly to see if it's turns up.
I know it's insuranced, so it is about, somewhere.

On the odd free days we have, my other half tends to suggest a day out somewhere, I ask her where she'd like to go and she always says Hastings as she knows I'll look for the thing as long as I have breath in my lungs.

 

[bugsymike]

Since the late 60s, probably like many of us, I have had lots of cars,commercials, motorbikes ,scooters etc. at last count and taking old timers disease in to account it was over 200, but I am sure there are many of you who can beat that. Most of them were bangers, basically all I could afford at the time and often sold for less than I paid for them. I paid £500 for this one as a "birthday " present for the wife of the time . Slightly less shakey second pic.
I had to get it registered as it had been used on trade plates most of it's life , the first number the Reg. people tried to give me was a Q plate, but in the end got a WSV and 3 numbers which I believe is Scottish ? It was a 1947 Karrier Bantam Series 2.

 

[Motorcyclist Colin]

Bought another old E93A engined Ford from a building site , sight unseen. in the 1960s, It was running around the site delivering cement, concrete etc. It was absolutely filthy, inside and out with cement and hardened concrete. All 4 wings were battered and dented and it had a bad knock in the motor. Can't remember how I got it home to Paddock Wood in Kent, cleaned it up and the inside was very good indeed, and body not too bad. I hammered out all the dents and,as I could not get the right blue colour of the body, painted the wings with black Brushing Belco. They came out OK. Made a hoist out of some clothes line pulleys and rope and hoisted the engine out by hooking up to the garage beams.
Astrip of the engine showed one big end eye had stripped off all the white metal, (big end eyes in the con rods were white metalled direct on the rod-no separate shells) I gave the rod to a colleague who had a contact with a small engineering firm and asked him to get them to remetal it. A couple of weeks later he brought it back and said the engineers would not remetal one rod as it would put the engine out of balance. I persuded them "out of balance " would not matter, and reluctantly they did it. £12 if I remember correctly. I rebuilt the engine and commuted between Folkestone and a new job in Liverpool, for about 6 months each weekend, until I could move house to the Wirral. It never let me down but the Vacuum operated wipers used to stop if you were pressing on (maybe 50 mph) in heavy rain, which made visibility a problem.
Managed to fit a "heater", cut the steep hose from engine to top of radiator( no pump but a "thermo syphon system") insert a little radiator with a cardboard hose into the car, and it worked! This one eventually died as I could get no spares anywhere to fix the very very worn steering box.
A good solid honest car, for £5 plus £12 for the remetalling plus a quid or so for paint clean up etc.
Sorry I can't post any pics as all mine are prints made way before digital pics and I have no idea how to scan/ copy them. Far too complicated

 

[bugsymike]

I didn't start mechanicing until the late 1960s so it was mostly a few 100Es and then 105Es etc. So didn't do any white metal bearings, though did see the onion valve tool you mentioned.
I did have a couple of E93As, one was a 1949 Ford Anglia, I recall borrowing the garage breakdown Land Rover and towing it home from a farmers field, the passenger door had been used by someone with a shotgun so it looked a bit like a Bonny and Clyde job, I paid £3 for it and true to form sold it to a friend for £1.50 including towing it to it's new resting place . The other one I bought as a doner for a Canon Trials car frame I acquired but never completed, that one had a old green logbook with a reg containing four sevens and two letters, I found out later with owners club help I could have retained that number .
Re the steering box and scrapping cars, I had a Humber Super Snipe from a friend for £5, it was absolutely immaculate with no rust ( unlike any a later one I bought) but the recirculating ball steering box was so badly worn, it was possible to turn the steering wheel a half turn with out moving the road wheels, all the play was in the box, so in the end I returned that Humber and it probably ended up on the banger circuit!

 

[bugsymike]

Here is a thought, I wonder if in fifty years time people will talk about old EVs (electric vehicles) they have owned and loved. I think probably less so, as it is when working on your cars you become attached to them creating memories. EVs are certainly at the moment a specialist dealership job generally.
I can still remember as a child coming back from a stay with an aunt and uncle, stopping the "sit up and beg" Ford Pop at the side of an A road to break up the journey with a picnic sandwiches and a flask of tea

 

[Marcus Daly]

EVs will be viewed like appliances. Hundreds of identical ones made in China with the same generic parts sold under various made-up brand names via Amazon and AliExpress. They’ll be cheap enough to bin when they fail. No one will have any emotional investment in them. It’s already happening with motorbikes.

 

[mowermender70]

m/c colin thanks for that i allways remenber my first car a e type, my father gave me (1939 morris 8 series E ) then followed by a 1948 wolsely 8 first overhead valve model, had a blind in the back window (on which a note dont laugh mrs your daughter may be in the back) oh thows were the days mowermender70

 

[bugsymike]

EVs will be viewed like appliances. Hundreds of identical ones made in China with the same generic parts sold under various made-up brand names via Amazon and AliExpress. They’ll be cheap enough to bin when they fail. No one will have any emotional investment in them. It’s already happening with motorbikes.

For me it will be a long time before EVs are cheap enough to buy let alone bin, mind you what I said about picnics at the side of the road, maybe the memories will be of wishing they had brought a picnic whilst waiting for the recovery vehicle when the batteries have died

 

[Marcus Daly]

Like they did when they ran out of petrol?

 

[bugsymike]

Like they did when they ran out of petrol?

Exactly, accept it is hard to walk back to the car with a "can" of batteries when you run out

 

[porta]

Exactly, accept it is hard to walk back to the car with a "can" of batteries when you run out

The way musk goes on it will be the equivalent of a pack of 3 AAAs …that’s wehn they’ve finished digging up all the rain forests for the precious metals

 

[porta]

Oh look, mobile charging utilising ‘green hydrogen’ and ‘other’ green fuels…doesn’t say what the ‘others’ are, probably Soylent Green

Plug Charging | Directly to your electric vehicle

We deliver the charge that you need directly to your electric vehicle. Our fleet of mobile rapid chargers is fuelled by green hydrogen or other clean fuels.

www.plugcharging.co.uk

 

[Motorcyclist Colin]

I did forget to mention, my £12 for remettaling a con rod also included regrinding the appropriate cranckshaft journal! Something of a bargain I would say

 

[bugsymike]

I did forget to mention, my £12 for remettaling a con rod also included regrinding the appropriate cranckshaft journal! Something of a bargain I would say

I used to have the tool for bearing scrapping white metal bearings, not that I would have known how to use it

 

[Motorcyclist Colin]

Hi Mowermender.
Thanks for that. I, very briefly had a Ford 8 of about 1938/9. It looked very similar to the Morris. I bought mine for peanuts to race in the "Banger racing" at Lydden Hill near Dover. somewher around the late 1950s. In my very first race I was safely strapped in with a length of old rope found near the track and I think, not sure , maybe my "Pudding Basin" bike helmet. It was very, very, dusty and as I was some way back on the grid, as soon as we set off I could see absolutely nothing. Somewhere maybe near the first corner I was shunted off, and stopped with a pain across my shoulder. Next thing I knew was the face of a St Johns ambulance peering in the window, UPSIDE DOWN. Actually he wasn't upside down. I was! he turned out to be a bloke I had worked with some years previously. I was fine, and the old Ford was righted and and started on the button. That however was the end of my Banger Racing career as ther was a very nasty accident a little while after when a Stock car driver doing a stunt of jumping several cars. touched the last one, hit his head, (NO helmet), was knocked out, and ploughed straight on into the crowd, lining the track (only a singe rope as barrier). Visitors cars were parked behind the spectators and several people were killed trapped between the stock car and the parked cars. It made front page of The Mirror I think, which was seen by my girlfriend on holiday with her parents in Spain. When she got home eventually she said she had been so frightened knowing it was my first Banger race, that I had to swear I would never race again.
Again I have a pic of the old Ford upright with a big dent in the roof side with "Col's Car" painted on it, but it's a print,so........ I left the car at the track.!

 

[bugsymike]

I managed to turn a racing kart end over end in the wet during an Endurance race at Dunkerswell airfield(funny how slicks don't work in the rain) I fell out sideways, was promptly picked up put back in and restarted.
A fellow mechanic did his first and last banger race at our local circuit by rolling a Mk2 Consul right on the bend where his girlfriend was watching, we did have steel barriers by then in the early 70s at Newton Abbot.

 

[Steve gt]

I remember going on holiday from chesterfield to woolacombe in my parents hilman imp van in the mid 70s , it must have been around 76 it was so hot but the van made the journey ok , I remember passing lots of cars that had overheated on the way , we did a few more holidays that way travelling around the Cornish coast to lands end in a bright orange hilman avenger estate, the space in the rear was massive & we did have the little camping gas burner and kettle to have a cuppa . Great memories

 

[Cornish Ian]

Probably the most vivid memory of a car from my youth was a faithorpe electron minor. For those who haven‘t come across one it was a small two seater sports car with a lightweight fibreglass body. First time out and filling up at the garage I heard a young lad say “ look daddy a toy car”. (I did say it was small), I’ve just looked up the weight and the spec said 475kg.
It started life with a 1147 triumph engine but ended up with a warm 2 ltr ford that I came across. When I took it for its mot with its new heavier engine the garage wanted the weight to check the brake readings. I can’t remember the exact figure but it was less than 600 kg with about 50 kg of my tools in the boot, no seat belts or roll cage just a windscreen with a light aluminium frame so not a great deal of rollover or driver protection. One day after succumbing to temptation and severely embarrassing a RS2000 I decided I must either drive it more sedately or sell it, so it had to go.

Not to be outdone a good friend of mine built a lotus 7 type car with a light weight space frame chassis to do some sprint racing. He spent a lot of time making it as light as possible even down to the small aluminium fuel tank. 2 ltr Vauxhall DOHC red head engine I believe. I’m not sure what the engine spec was but he reckoned he could accelerate faster than most big bikes at that time.

 

[bugsymike]

Early 70s, finished my apprenticeship, still living at home"when I was single my pockets did jingle" as the saying went . Amongst the cars that went through my hands, 65 Chrysler Valiant, 50s Austin Champ, 60s Humber Super Snipe, 55 MG Magnette, 2x 105E Vans, 1x 105E car,Fiat 600d (suicide doors),55 split screen Morris Minor 803cc ohv (paid £10 for it and claimed it was the only automatic Moggy,as if you screamed it up a steep hill in first it would jump straight into second gear and carry on!), Mk3 Zephyr 4 (Cyl), Mk4 Zehpyr V6 (2.5), 60s MG Magnette (Farina Body),55Matchless 600 G11 with side car, Greeves Scottish 250cc SDTC? Trials (leading link front forks) and many more bikes and cars before 1975.The most I paid was £125 for the V6 Zephyr.
The garage where I worked had on the forecourt two trials Dellow cars for around £40 each and a Nash Metropolitan for around £70 all road legal.
If only now we could buy some of those at the prices then.
As Steve says 76 was a hot year, mind you living by the sea every Saturday in the Summer it was a "liquid lunch" then walk to the beach, all buying big bottles of cider (Natch) on the way, quick splash in the sea, borrow some kids football and get beaten by them happy days, hotels full of tourists.
Then cheap package holidays abroad came along, the guest houses became bedsits,the hotels became Bail hostels and now some have accepted the Governments £1,000,000 and housed illegal immigrants, so it is all going down the toilet!
Welcome to the sea side