Bringing a 1939 '10 engine back to life

[TimMoore]

Yes, last week's weather has been a challenge, Portree fortunate with Storr Loch Hydro scheme meaning we virtually got away with situation. Elsewhere on Skye as you know only too well without power for up to 40 plus hours and compounding that Dunvegan area no water either!

You are always welcome to come over just call before departing to ensure we are in.

Have been doing a lot of work too....

[MarkR]

I have been following this thread as I've started working on my 1939 12 SS. I feel lucky with the relatively calm weather living in Norfolk compared to yourselves. I see the forecast but don't necessarily appreciate the consequences !

[TimMoore]

Mark, I Was born in King Lynn, a very , very , very long time ago. Climate in Norfolk allows wonderful things to happen and many dry days throughout the year are probably taken for granted, old car wise, with few if any of the constraints affecting our use of our cars way up here i imagine. Arguably though, midges and rain aside, our scenery though....may be a little more breath-taking and our roads often empty of other motorists more challenging? (Than the Fens)....?

No doubt you and Stuart will share notes, there is however a wealth of information within the RSR and if you ensure you have the parts book as well as the P2 Club Workshop manual, you will find the 4 cylinder engine rewarding to work on....and look forward to reading of your 12SS

We rebuilt most of our 16 when we lived in Belgium in the 1980's, the internet then an unknown .....

We all have much to thank the likes of Richard Stenning , Basil Brown and Tony Holder for, placing so much historic information and pesonal advice in front of us. Suppliers of parts like Mike Couldrey and Mike Evans allow us flexibility and availabilty of parts that owners in the 1960's and early 1970's of p2's could never have dreamed of once Rover dealers had sold their original Rover parts stocks, and P2's were being scrapped...

Good luck

[stuartbell]

Well, I owe everyone a big apology for the lack of any progress report last Winter (same procedure - remove Lucy from her slumbers, skate her out under the two-post ramps, work on her for 3 weeks solid, then put her away again.....). In brief, what myself and my pal were able to do last year was to;
a) Remove gearbox and clutch, with a manual freeing-off of the clutch mechanism, checking of flywheel - forgot to swap it through 180degrees though - and then rebuild all the powertrain back into the chassis for testing
b) Check through all the chassis components, such as springs, propshaft, brakes, etc. etc.
c) Fabricate a short "sports" exhaust to the manifold (for testing purposes only!)
d) Fabricate a slave engine wiring circuit, fuel circuit, and bulkhead frame, then mount a couple of spare P6 seats to the chassis
e) Take Lucy out for a quick test around the croft, which is the first time she has run under her own power for over 4 decades

This was all after having braced the bodywork (what is left of it......) with inch box tubing throughout the interior to all the critical datum points, having measured and corrected the sagging on the rear offside doorframe (most of the previous repairs have had to be unzipped to achieve this). What this permitted is the ability to lift the body from the chassis for the first time, such that the chassis and powertrain components can be worked-on separately, and also to permit work on the extensive restoration required to the body steelwork (more of that below in this year's update).

The results of the testing were excellent, very encouraging to continue this restoration, and a good morale-boost. Not only did the clutch action feel good (I had to repair a ferule on the cable under the driver's seat) but the brakes were good in action and balance at any speed. The engine started on the first crank of the starter motor without any problem whatsoever after a year of standing, and the weeping from the water-pump front gland had subsided to nothing at-all, meaning that a decent coolant antifreeze mix of 25% glycol could be left in the engine between runs. The engine running itself was good, certainly better than I could have expected on minimal "fiddling" with the carburettor, and it appears to pull well with good oil pressure up to normal running temperature. So in summary, a thorough sign-off of the chassis and powertrain components (albeit that they will all be stripped and overhauled as-appropriate in the course of this restoration) and full-steam-ahead for this present Winter's work.

[stuartbell]

The work this Winter (2016-17) has concentrated on getting the rear of the chassis painted, meaning that the body had to be lifted back off Lucy again, then a thorough strip and clean of all the components from the rear of the chassis, to permit a good inspection and painting.

Having started on the restoration in-anger this Winter, the fascination of working on a P2 '10 is beginning to sink-in. Lucy was built in 1939 (July), so is likely to have been requisitioned for duties. Unquestionably, one of the main interests has been in the paintwork on both body and chassis. Whereas the body has been primered and colour-coated in black, then subsequently recoated at some later point in black, there are several areas of both chassis and underbody that show green paint (of one particular, and faded, type) against the steelwork, without any indication of there being black paint first. In particular, the middle of the nearside chassis rail, for 360degrees around its C-section, has originally been painted in a green colour. Yet alesewhere on the chassis, black chassis-paint pervades.

Other interesting features are the specific uses of different fixing systems for different pipework/cabling. For example, the Bijur fitter/s has/have used 3/16"Whitworth round-headed screws with square nuts, yet the electrical fitters have used (as is normal in electrical work with Lucas components) 6BA screws and brass hex nuts.

The chassis is looking beautiful in a fresh coat of satin-black chassis paint, which will suffice as protection on Lucy until the final fit-up for the road, at which point a second coat of paint will be brushed on to rectify any damage between now and then. At this present time, only the rear half of the chassis has been worked-on; after stripping the components off the chassis, supporting the frame just aft of the gearbox crossmember, then removing rear springs and axles, the whole steel structure has been hand-scraped of oily sludge. At this stage, the very bent and punctured differential crossmember (tow-recovery damage, we believe) and the split and lozenged offside body mount nearby were straightened and welded. The frame was then rinsed in brake solvent, power wire-brushed, then degreased again with brake solvent, before evenly wetting the whole surface with a spray-film of Jenolite, then allowing it to dry overnight before vacuuming and soft-brushing the powdery excesses away. The whole process has taken three days, which has resulted in some slightly puddled areas around the rivet heads, needing further slow-drying. So the work has moved onwards to the body steel panels....

The body structure is in an appalling state, with very little to work from. In particular, the sills have almost disappeared on both sides of the car, and most of the rear offside structure aft of the doorframe and below is unusable. The lack of any anti-corrosion protection by paint to the interior of the panels has meant that the rust is universally bad across all the body panels. Perforation of the steelwork is, mercifully, non-existent on cosmetic panels, but everything behind is lacey, to say the least. What is making the progress even slower is the lack of any knowledge on our part of what the structures should look like, nor how the panelwork was built-up and assembled from individual panels into sub-assemblies, then into a Rover 10 body. We have been to derive some information from the nearside, and translate that into measurements for the offside (and to some extent, vis-versa), however there is a fair bit of complicated structure that fillets the boot area of the body back into the rear of the sills, via the inner wheelarch panels, stiffeners, and rear seat-back framework.

We are presently using a fair degree of forensic analysis to determine the precise positions of each rusted panel to its neighbours, then lightly tacking the panels together to make a temporary jig over which the new steelwork can be fabricated and fitted. The main cause of failure in structural integrity of the rear bodywork has come about due to corrosion undermining very poor quality gas-welding penetration of the steel either side of the joints. This has resulted in many panels cracking and splitting apart, meaning that each of those panels has had to be reconstructed by MiG weld tacks at regular intervals along the crack-lines.

Today has been a very satisfying and successful day; the bodywork has finally had the majority of the hard datum points defined and fixed over the main box-section jig, which we know to be good to the chassis datum points (i.e. the body mounting points on the chassis). The rear bodywork around the boot-lid (which is a replacement) is beginning to straighten and move back into position (slowly) meaning that the lid is beginning to fit a lot better. We believe that some of the damage to the steelwork has come from the use of a towing-hook and/or suspended-tow straps having been used on Lucy to recover her from "a place of rest", which caused the area on the offside of the car at the rear to be pushed upwards and backwards. It remains to be seen whether the twisting of the panelwork can be dressed-out, having now got the boot-floor area around the spare-wheel cut-out to the correct shape (several cracks tacked together again). That is a job for tomorrow......