MAKE DO AND MEND

[J D 8]

Thing with modern cars there is hardly enough room to put your fist in the engine bay.

With the MKII Cortina you could almost get your whole body in there with the engine in place!

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

...and what about a Herald? You could sit on a front wheel while working on the engine (assuming you hadn't taken it off for the weekly trunnion change!)

Edited By Martin Harris on 05/01/2016 16:29:28

[ken anderson.]

early 1980's one of my neighbours decided to renew the clutch in his Cortina..... he told me he was going to the scrapyard for one! .... i told him it was unusual to fit a 2nd hand clutch to a car....more so when a new plate was circa £25.00...anyway he and another neighbour started 1st thing saturday morning and were still busy...saturday tea time--i asked why it was taking as long...he told me he thought his helper new how to do it...and his helper thought he new how to do it! ....another neighbour who did know how to do it had to jump in and keep them right...

ken anderson...ne...1....... clutch dept.

[Whatgoesup....]

... and a Hillman Imp ? I had a wooden frame on a trolley which rolled under the engine from the rear .. an hour disconnecting all the bits n pieces and roll the engine out the back on the trolley - those were the days !

[ChrisH]

What memories these tales above bring back.

My first vehicle was an '52 Aerial VB, 600cc side valve, with a chair. 55mph downhill was flat out with either just me on board or me plus one on the back and one in the chair. And left hand bends certainly could be hairy!

Had a couple of Rover P4's, a '60' and a '90' with overdrive, effortless comfortable driving, lovely motor, bench seat too, just what a young man out courting in those days required. Gear lever was a long armed effort with a sort of pivot point near the box. Managed to snap off two of them at said pivot, but I found if you used a spanner to select 4th, then gently slipped the clutch on take off, you could drive everywhere - carefully - in 4th no worries.

But a true bodge job came to light in late 1971. I was up in Liverpool on a ship and courting a young lady. My mate was on another ship in the same docks and had his Morris Oxford I think it was, like a big moggie with the handbrake between drivers seat and drivers door, up there too, so persuaded him to loan it to me one Saturday night. Thought the brakes were a bit weakish and didn't pull straight, but what the hell, not interested in his car other than a means of transport, my eyes were just for the young lady, but drove it carefully round the city that night anyway, 'just in case'. Later, much later, my mate confessed the brakes were more than a bit dodgy, also had a leak on one of the front wheel brake pipes so had just employed the age-old stop-leak emergency trick of just hammering the copper pipe flat and look - no more leak! Apparently he later 'off-loaded' the car later in the same condition. Health and safety, morals, how did that work then? The important trick was to know which was the 'right' MoT shop to use in those days!

Happy days all of them now it seems, things are very different now, mainly for the better and safer, but agree that the young lads of today miss out on the self reliance stuff that we HAD to employ to survive then with very limited funds.

Chris

[trebor]

I'd forgotten about all the hours of looking round scrapyards for parts they used to be stacked 3 or 4 cars high. If you went in with a big tool box you could get some real bargains

[onetenor]

H.A. Viva s had a habit of snapping gear levers just above the the ball joint stranding the driver who then called us out. Imagine the look on their face when we snapped on a big pair of self grip wrench on the stub, engaged gear and drove back to the garage. A sort of Duh! why didn't I think of that. We also found that a PROPER weld using the gas torch lasted longer than a new lever. Cheap repair and a bit of a small quick profit for us

[Shaunie]

Posted by Dai Fledermaus on 05/01/2016 12:03:39:

Posted by Shaunie on 05/01/2016 11:52:25:

Dai, but the Bantam was a DKW really!

Shaunie.

Correct up to a point Shaunie. DKW sold it as the RT-125. As part of war reparations the design of the RT-125 was passed to the Allies including Harley Davidson in the US who produced the Hummer based on the RT-125

whilst BSA came up with the Bantam

I had no idea Harley took the design as well but I was well aware BSA took the design as war reparations that was the point of my post 😉

Shaunie.

[gangster]

Even in these risk adverse days we still have one of those old scrappys in this area and you can still climb around in thee stacked cars. Brought back the thrills of my youth. I bought an old escort when my daughters learnt to drive and frequented the place regularly for that car and for the old bangers both daughters had for a few years. The girls loved that place

U

[gangster]

A few have mentioned the valve rockers on Vivas What took me a while to learn was that they could lose their hardening and dimples could wear in them so carefully setting the tappets with a feeler gauge was a futile activity as the gauge simply bridged the gap. This reminds me of another bodge. Possibly as a result one lobe on the camshaft wore badly. It was an engine out job to replace it, not a big job on a Viva. Having reassembled it I realised I had a timing error the points were not opening at the right time I discovered that by exaggerating the turn on the distributor to about 90degrees from the norm it would make it. So I did just that and replaced the vacuum advance pipe with a much longer length of coax cable outer. Who remembers the issue of the gear lever on an HB viva coming out in your hand when selecting reverse. Didn't snap like the HA but just unscrewed.

[ken anderson.]

as gangster mentions above..the scap yard was the ideal place to see how a part was fitted and removed from cars of the time...we spent many an afternoon getting new wheels c/w tyre's...any part-you name it.....for a few bob....and who remembers the dogs they had for security after hour's...they were like something from the hammer house of horrors....

ken anderson..ne..1.... scrap yard challenge dept.

[Phil Claridge]

i used to work at a motor factors years ago and get bits at cost price , but when i needed a full exhaust system for an old consul it would need to be special order and two weeks wait (nothing changes). i went to a local scrappy to see if i could find any thing there to make do while i waited for the new one. the scrappy told me there was a fullsize removals van chock full of old ford exhausts he had just cleared out of the local ford main dealers.as i could identify most exhaust by eye i said give me a felt tip pen and i will mark up any i know whilst i dig though them . two hot hours later i had found a full system including the manifold pipe and marked up 50 other parts for the scrappy, he was so impressed when i asked how much he told me to sod off as i had earned itmy boss laughed his head off when i told him to cancel the order

[kc]

Back in 1962 I bought my second car a 1937 Fiat 500 - the original Topolino - as a non runner due to a snapped gear lever and as we towed it home the seller assured me the engine was OK " I wouldn't sell you a duff engine" he said. It took a few weeks to get the gearbox out and repaired so it was many weeks later when I put the engine back in. Fortunately this engine had the firing order and all the spark plug numbers cast into the cyl head and also the distributor cap had the numbers moulded into the bakelite -the only car I have had that had this innovation.

After days of failing to start the engine and trying everything possible I remembered the Sherlock Holmes saying about when you have eliminated the impossible the solution is .what remains ...........eventually I removed a spark plug and put a finger over the hole to find when the compression occurred and to ensure the rotor pointed at that plug lead .......that's it - the cast in cyl head numbers didn't tally with the dist cap numbers! Unbelievable!

[Myron Beaumont]

Does anybody remember doing "De-cokes" My first was on a Rover 105 when I was12 years old for a close neighbour who was a professor at Nottingham university & didn't trust garages.He saw me mending/ tuning motorbikes .Those were the days alright !

[Erfolg]

It was one of you lot i bet, that sold my wife a Beetle with the heater ducts/sills filled with cement.

[ken anderson.]

i used to know people who swore that washing machine cases were spot on for to use for patching up car bodies.....c/w a few pop rivets.....

ken anderson...ne...1..... pop rivetting dept.

[Myron Beaumont]

Ken

We never had "pop rivets" in my hayday ,only proper ones! Happy new year !

[ken anderson.]

early 80's...not long married and with a young family...make do and mend was the motto....sunday evening...one of my neighbours was waiting by the bus stop heading in to town for the evening...i told him i had been fiddling with the car(Mini) and needed to take it for a run to check it out-i would drop him off........ he hopped in and we went for a run and broke down...outside of the town...a fair way from his destination...so off he went walking and ...asked me to remind him not to accept a lift from me again... ..

ken anderson...ne....1...... good turn gone wrong dept.

[Geoff S]

Posted by Whatgoesup.... on 05/01/2016 16:40:56:

... and a Hillman Imp ? I had a wooden frame on a trolley which rolled under the engine from the rear .. an hour disconnecting all the bits n pieces and roll the engine out the back on the trolley - those were the days !

My cousin worked in the development dept at Rootes when the Imp was being finalised. I also worked in Coventry (at GEC) and had a lot of rides in prototype Imps. The only proviso was they weren't driven through the city centre. He gave me some very fast lifts back home to Nottingham at weekends a lot of it sideways! A case of a borrowed horse and your own spurs.

At one time they were testing the gearboxes and if there was any engine trouble (they were thrashing up and down the M1 flat out) an engine could be swapped keeping the same gearbox, whilst Derek had lunch in the works canteen. He also got to test the car in Kenya thrashing round the Safari Rally courses. He moved to Lotus afterwards and I was surprised he managed to survive but his driving calmed down once he was there for some reason.

Geoff

[Kim Taylor]

Posted by Mike Etheridge 1 on 02/01/2016 20:07:48:

After I bought my Sunbeam Alpine 5 at an auction, some younger friends also acquired Alpines of different marks through the same auction which was sited off the Purley Way in Croydon not far from the airport. One reckless friend drove his Alpine 4 to the coast the day after bought it and in the process of showing off to his girl friend he blew the engine up at 100 mph. Somehow he got the car back to Beckenham where he lived. He then acquired a Sunbeam Rapier 1600 engine which we went to pick up in the boot of an Anglia 105 E. We spent the next couple of days changing over the engines and had to substitute the Alpine gear box for the Rapier gearbox as they were slightly different . Neither gear boxes had an overdrive unit like my MK 5. Well everything worked OK so my friend arranged to drive with the same girlfriend to Tarvin near Chester where his mother had moved. He got 100 MPH out of the car with no trouble. The following morning he drove the Alpine to the local newspaper shop only to collide with a BMW and write the Alpine off. I must have been daft but I agreed to drive over to Tarvin to help dismantle the Alpine and I therefore acquired any number of spares. Some years later in 1981 my Alpine 5 was stolen and totally wrecked, but all my spares still live on in another Alpine on the left of the photo..

Edited By Mike Etheridge 1 on 02/01/2016 20:10:04

Edited By Mike Etheridge 1 on 02/01/2016 20:15:50

Ahhh - Dingwall Auctions in Beddington Farm Road. Most of the lots were only fit for the scrap heap in my experience.

Beddington Farm Road wasn't a proper public road, it was owned by the CEGB (if I recall correctly it ran across the Croydon B power station land). Used to be our test track although it got a bit bumpy in places.

I got an old Beetle from there which had a knocking engine. When I looked I found that the entire 'pot' including barrel, piston & head had come loose from the crank case and was flapping up and down (well side to side really) as the crank rotated. Tightened up the nuts and it was good to go and lasted two years before I sold it on, still running.

Kim

[Phil Claridge]

first of all hello myron how are you i did loads of decokes over the years from side valve engines on the old 100e up to a 1955 bentley with overhead inlet and side exhaust valves. favourite job was to loosen all the carbon and junk with a pint of redex through the carb first the bentley had 49 head bolts which were a real pain to torque down leaning over the front wings. my brothers old a70 would keep running even when you switched off for about five mins unless you stalled it. that was my first decoke three months after i started work after leaving school

[Mike Etheridge 1]

Spot-on Kim, that was the auction where I got my Sunbeam Alpine MK 5 GT for all of £278 forty years ago. To think now they are priced in good order at about £15,000. I had my Alpine for about 5 years before it was stolen. I believe it had been owned by the Dingwall Motor Auctions business owner's wife?. The car was always subject to regular repairs and was capable of blowing head gaskets every six months. This meant that I became so familiar with replacing the gasket I could manage without the usual Haynes manual. The cheapest Alpine won by a friend was an early version for only £20. This car had an MOT but had noisy big ends. However about that time there was a company in Coulsdon, R.J.Grimes who were offering brand new short 1600 engines to suit the early Alpines for only £60.

I must admit there was a lot of old bangers sold at the auctions, but this made the events quite entertaining especially to see proud owners of newly acquired cars drive off in clouds of smoke! Another auction we visited was at Shoreham in Sussex where they had two auctions running at once. On one side of the auction house old bangers were sold, and on the other side of the house better quality cars such as ex fleet cars were auctioned.

By the way Phil, two of the repairable planes you gave me have been repaired but only the unnamed smallest plane has flown.

Mike

[Keith Evans 3]

In the seventies I found myself driving home , in the out side lane , in a Cortina down the M6 when the ignition light came on .The motorway was very busy at that time of day and I couldn't find an appropriate gap in the traffic to get to the hard shoulder There were some road works coming up with the centre carriage way coned off. I managed to drive through the cones into the now empty middle lane ,I lifted the bonnet to find that the alternator support/tensioning arm had snapped .Luckily I was doing some jobs around the house at that time and there was a load of junk and old tools in the boot .I managed to find an appropriate chunk of three by two ,jammed it in place between the engine block and the alternator with a couple of hefty blows with a King Dick spanner . Luckily I hadn't lost the belt .

It was somewhat terrifying and dangerous to work in the centre lane but it did the trick and got me home to South Wales .

[Gordon Nicol]

We had a landrover sent into the workshop to get a new big ends fitted( as this was the army that meant a replacement engine and it would be sent back to base workshop for repair) Asked why it had been sent in as it appeared to be running fine and not noisy we did a strip of the crank case to have a look ... big end bearings were definitely worn away , but hats off to the section fitter who used the metal from a couple of tin cans from the ration packs to pack them out... apparently it had driven for about 1500 miles on and off road since the "bodge"...( its only a bodge if it doesn't work)

[ken anderson.]

dont forget we are remembering when tyre's had tubes in them and everybody took the car with them to the pub.....driving ....        take notice now

 

ken anderson...ne..1 good old days dept.

 

Edited By ken anderson. on 11/01/2016 17:37:45