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Hard to forget those bloody things Steve, i always got the job of repairing the gear linkages..... What a poo job being column change
One of my gaffers customers at the time had four of the damn things.
What job have you got on that one Steve?
Tony.
It's basically a recommission, it's a California import that has been here a while, UK registered and used, then laid up for a couple of years. It needs brakes (wheel cylinders are almost unobtainable) 5 new tyres and a complete rewire as rodents have chewed the already fragile looms to death. Interestingly it also has an early Datsun motor in it, a 1500cc pushrod unit that is such a pefect copy of the BMC B series that it fits the car without need of an adaptor plate. Everything is in exactly the same layout, carb, distributor, starter, oil filter and dynamo all correspond to the B series positions, the only visible changes are the rocker cover is secured by 4 peripheral screws instead of 2 central cap nuts and this particular one has a Nikki twin choke progressive downdraft carb.
There's still a debate going on in the owner's mind, restore or keep the original "patina" it's solid enough structurally to go either way. But that's outside my remit, i'll only comment that old saw "it's only original once"
Talking of the gearshift (which is as excruciating as normal on this example, even to someone like me with many years experience of column shift from an addiction to MkII Zodiacs in a past life) I learned recently that though you can only access 3 forward gears, there are 4 in the gearbox! The impractically low 1st gear being blanked off! What a wonderful piece of 50s butchery!
This little job will keep me busy for a few weeks once the more urgent stuff on hand has been taken care of!
Then after that I have an abandoned project Jiminy (a sort of GRP Mini Moke) to do!
I'll sort some pics for general interest when I get a few minutes.
Steve
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