proof?

I feel guilty about not being on here more often but the car is still very much firmly in my plans. I am just about finished my 1974 Daimler project and shouldn’t really be sidetracking to the Imp at all before that’s done but for various reason, this week, I ended up digging out all the original interior trim.

It has been carted around various addresses I’ve lived at and has lived in a large box under my bed for the last 15 years or so.

Even tho it is only inches away from me each night it was strange but re-assuring to see it still there and in much the same condition as when I packed it away years ago.

One of the many things that confirmed my pick-up’s ‘authenticity’ to me when I first worked on it was the presence of some Rootes Accessory cardboard boxes on the front and side edges of the headlining.

This may sound like a strange claim but put yourself back in the Rootes workshop (sometime between the 1965 chassis date and the January 1967 registration date) where the little project is being retrimmed. You have been handed the new interior trim: green vinyl (for the area behind seats up to waistline) sewn onto some OEM white headling material and half an OEM headling. You are trying to fix the headlining to the roof and decide you need  something to stiffen the edges up.

You cut up some Rootes boxes that are lying around the workshop. They are then uncovered in 1989.

Now. In archaeology there are always theory and doubts and someone could reasonably suggest that the car was made at home by someone who got an un-registered 1965 Hillman Imp and converted it in a year and a half and also had some Rootes boxes to use after his wife knocked up the interior trim but I believe the first scenario is more likely and I remember when I found the cardboard not knowing all the history I do now it said to me that it was the Real Deal.

seat covers were cleaned before being packed away but picked up some bitumen from the rear faces of the cab trim. it will clean off ok

 

this is rear face of the trim for the cab. the cab wall was covered in bitumen deadening pads which stuck to the foam

this is the visible face of the cab trim. the green vinyl is darker than the original seat trim. I guess even a year or so after the car was first made it wasn’t possible to get the same pattern/shade of vinyl

hidden motifs

A long long time ago I got a letter from the lady who originally owned this car in which she said ‘it had Sparrowhall on the doors’. Sparrowhall was the name of her home (which was pretty big I reckon, possibly huge). A long time ago I scraped all the black paint off the doors and there was no sign of any emblem or signwriting on the doors so I assumed she might have been mixed up with some other car she had.

Move forward 20 years or so and when I was doing more paint forensics on the car last year I noticed that there seemed to be a green re-spray on one of the doors.

I’m not working on the Imp at all just now as trying to finish another project (my Daimler) so that I can then devote all my time to the Imp, which will be my last ever project.

For various reasons  I wasn’t doing any work on the VDP tonight and I found myself out with a chisel doing the archaeology bit on the Imp. There is definitely a later paint job in the original colour on it, on top of some dark grey primer over body filler. Its almost a cm thick!!  Maybe the motif or traces of it will be under that…….

out of the black, into the green

After the Imp arrived at the barn I took time to remove, by hand, all the black paint to get a feel for how the car would have looked when it was first made and also because I plan to send pictures of it to the ‘local newspapers of towns it used to be owned in’ to see if anyone remembers it.

Sounds like a boring job but I took my time and enjoyed it through the winter months. I always feel like I am racing against the sands of time ‘restoring’ too many projects but with the Imp, because it has been hidden away for twenty years or so, I feel like time isn’t a big issue – if that makes sense. Like every month spent on it now cancels out years of neglect.

I discovered that the car was repainted black, to a sort of acceptable standard, over all the original bodywork but then underwent some repairs to the rear arches etc later and more black paint was splashed on these areas.

I aslo found  evidence of some polyester filler over the original modifications but under the original paint on these areas which was interesting.

 There is still some work to be done on the ‘paint forensics’ before I start blasting rust of and it will all be gone for good so worth taking time now to record everything.

I did a bit of blasting (with olivine instead of aluminium oxide) on the front wheel arch wells and was pleased with how solid the car still is here.

Anyway here are some pictures.

RHS of car showing what the black cellulose re-spray might have looked like when polished up

after all black paint removed next task was to remove primer from original green paint

tentative steps

After all the years in exile and not having any running gear on him it was great to be able to trundle the Imp out into daylight. The main purpose of this was to re-organise the space in the garage. I wanted to have him in furthest away from any wind and rain at the door and also to have the bulky engine crane and some other items accessible at the cart-door to move to the vacant space where the Imp used to be to give me maximum room in the barn.

looking surprisingly sound for its 22 years in storage. black 'Pacman' on door was joke to myself in winter 1993 when scraping black paint off

pop on repair panels at rear not removed yet on driver's side

looks OK from a distance

orange stuff on door is reamins of matress the car lay on for some time!

another shot showing various areas opened up in the style of 'Time Team' to check for origonal finish over the converted areas

strange-looking shot although this area completely standard

reasonably sound inside also

half imp shell deailed in 'half load' post some time ago

crane is going to be moved to lock up where Imp used to live to free up space in barn. half Imp will be broken down for repair panels.

sain et suaf

Well, I finally got the Imp moved to my barn/workshop. It all happened so quickly after the 22 years and 3 months period of inertia.

new home for Lonesome George on a snowy night Friday 26th Feb

 

my friend said 'I see the stars came out to see it'

 

this side has been facing up to the lock up roof! for 20 years or so

 

good view of the mysterious load bay

 

cart-door shut and home and dry

four on the floor

Many years ago I wrote ‘ My next move was to roll the shell over onto two matresses to get at the underside. The plan was to hire a compressor and generator (I only have a 32 volt electrical supply in the lock-up), sandblast the necessary areas, weld in new metal and prime it all. This did not happen. I couldn’t find a suitable petrol driven compressor to power the sandblaster or a generator big enough for the welder. Most hire shops don’t want to know when you say it is for a welder. The manufacturers of the welder said 2.8kw would be sufficient but none of the hire shops agreed.

Plan B was to buy and adequate compressor and build a jig round the shell, then move the lot to a rented workshop and work round the clock. I’ve built the jig and bought the compressor and a spot-welder (another bank-loan) and am now waiting until I can afford to rent the work-space.

Plan C is to pay-off the current bank-loan then buy some oxy-acetylene welding gear (no power problems there) and hire a generator to power the compressor. Until then I’ll just have to be patient!‘ and that is sorta what happened. I tipped the shell over onto two matresses and if I remeber correctly it was held in that position with ropes &  jacks. Shortly after I got two ‘frames’ made from angle iron, by a local fabricator, which bolted on the front and rear bumper mounts to support the shell meaning I could dispense with the matresses.

The shell has sat in that position for about 20 years and the problem now was how to tip it back again!!  It was quite central in the lock-up so if you tipped it over it would hit the wall so how was I going to over come this. Also, as the frame were square it didn’t make tipping it over easy. After days of planning I set to work and it wasn’t too difficult. I hacksawed the corners off the frame and started tipping it the using a combination of piles of tyres and some ropes & chains attached to the frame gradually jacked one side up until it hit the wall. Then, by removing tyres and gradually slackening the ropes and dragging the frame by hand it slid down the wall  and back onto its four feet – hooray. The pictures will give a better illustration of this.

frame hits wall

another view of frame-versus-wall situation

similar situation at front

restoration effort in 1993 consisted of scraping 1980's cellulose 're-spray' off to reveal original Glenalmond Green

front view part way thru tipping process

shell would come down right next to wall but frame is wider so prevented this but also hekped to cushion the blow

wheels left off side on grounduntil shell over far enough to get jacks in

put on your boots

 

In the last installment I had fitted the front shocks and was planning to get the shell moved somewhere safe and dry.

To do this I need wheels and steering. I had all the metal fittings from the Imp powder coated around 1993 and they have been in storage in various tubs since then. I dug everything out and wasn’t too impressed with the condition of the parts after all the trouble I went to all those years ago to have them re-furbished (sometimes I was getting a bus with a rucksack full of bits to drop off/collect bits from the powder coaters which was about 15 miles away and other times my brother wasted his Saturday mornings taking me there) and I suspect now that the parts weren’t done very well as some of it looks pretty thin and rust is coming thru.

When assembling the suspension there is inevitably some tapping-into-place-of-parts which cracks the powder coat off (rear hub/driveshaft and front kingpin carriers for example). I wasn’t too bothered however as I will be refurbishing several area myself when the time comes so the ‘cracked off bits’ weren’t too annoying.

The various threads cleaned up well with a cheap tap & die set I bought and it is all on the car now. I was amazed at how easy it was to change the steering arm bushes:

 I have several old Yamahas motorcycles and removing the swing arm bushes on them by pressing or drawing out is practically impossible so they usually need to be cut out. I expected to have to do this with the Imp parts. The original bushes melted during the powder coating and I tried to buy ‘slave’ parts from Ebay for the move. I got a couple of NOS inner track rods but haven’t managed to locate the half with the ball joint or the long fixed one but at least I could use the bushes out of the Ebay bits. I feared I’d need to cut away the metal round the bush on one of the Ebay parts to free it and put it in the original part. For some reason I had a quick shot at pressing it out with sockets & a vice and it was out in no time : )  

using die to clean threads. no room for T-handle so used mole-grips

original Tech Del sleeve nuts wound onto newly cleaned hub studs

original front and rear hubs. actually same part both ends but if you look close my 'pairs' have different casting marks

the original rear springs - powder coated many moons ago

rain & rust

Today and yesterday I set about fitting the slave front shockers to the shell. When I removed the original Armstrong shocks years ago I did it by undoing the top nuts not realising you can also remove them by unscrewing 2 nuts and 2 bolts that hold the strut cap to the body. This cap holds the whole spring/shock assy in place.

 The second hand parts I bought had the top caps in place so I decided to remove my originals and just bolt in the new units. To say my caps were rusty is an understatement but things always look worse when its wet and dark. I could hardly see what I was doing as there are no lights in the lock up and not much daylight coming in from outside but my trusty mobile phone meant I could take pics of hidden areas to asses the situation and also use as a light source.

Amazingly the nuts all came apart without anything shearing so the pronts are now on and the rears I fitted a few months ago. Next step is to fit the steering mechanism up front then tip the whole thing back on to solid ground and get it wheeled on to a trailer.

The rain coming in is truly depressing so it will be nice to get the shell to somewhere dry and get working on it.

Snap-On 1/22 single hex socket good fit on old nut

driver's side front strut bracket

passenger side strut bracket with old cap still in place underneath

underside of driver's side strut with top cap still in place

driver's side strut bracket with cap still in place

old cap after removal

underside of driver's side strut bracket after top cap removed

top of passenger side strut bracket after cap removed

passenger side front strut bracket after top cap removed

second hand 'slave' strut with top cap in place

warped

A major factor in the lack of progress on the Imp recently has been the problems I’m having with my welding. I had an SIP Migmate 100 for about 15 years and welding with it was never a problem. I quite enjoyed it as I always got good results. In March 09 the Migmate stopped working and I ended up with a Clarke 100 EN gas/gasless machine and the results I’ve had with that have not been good. I decided I would use it throu to the end of repairing the panel I’ve been working on then by something else if I couldn’t get good with it.

As detailed in previous posts I spent many hours preparing the ‘sub panel’ for repairs trying to get the new metal to match the original corroded areas as closely as possible. The pics below may show how the repairs could have been succesfull.

many hours spent creating perfect patch to repair end of strut but with only minimal welding it bent out of shape

sub panel looking a lot better with new metal on the corroded ends

on 1st side repaired problem with deeper-than-original-flutes was tackled by hammering reliefs into metal to clear strut on rear

new metal to repair corroded end of strut

sound end of strut showing how flutes need reduced in depth to sit properly on strut

on 2nd side repaired different technique used…. flutes cut down middle folded in and re-welded to lose some metal

this side tackled first. strut on rear needed repair section as well as ribbed panel

I spent many hours working on the panel above trying to replicate the original corroded areas as closely as possible only for it all to be ruined by warping of the metal which I have never encountered before. The pics below will show this.

another view of distortion which occured at final stage of repairing RHS of panel

many hours spent creating perfect patch to repair end of strut but with only minimal welding it bent out of shape

 

I can now bring myself to deal with this problem as I have bought another Migmate 100 :  )  and am filled with enthusiasm thinking that in a week or so I’ll be welding away again. Tomorrow I am also starting the task of getting the shell back on four wheels again to be moved to the barn where there is a space waiting for it.

time to move on

Last summer I had plans to move the Imp bodyshell to my rented barn to start on the bodywork. This isn’t a easy as it sounds because the car was stripped of all components and turned on its side in the lock up garage shown in the 2nd picture below (one with the doors open).

All the running gear was stripped to be powder coated and that involves removing bushes etc so it can’t usually all be bolted straight back on without some new parts. I embarked on refitting it all so I can get the shell rolling again to move from the lock up to the barn and by about October ’09 I had assembled some 2nd hand shockers etc and it was nearly ready to go but the barn is also full of other projects which I have been busy on (Daimler Double Six VDP 1974 and 5 1970’s motorbikes) so I didn’t make the move over the festive period etc. 

Anyway I visited the lock up on Saturday gone, where the car has sat without rusting any further than when I got it, to find water pouring in the roof from the thawing snow because the local kids have ripped all the felt off the roof. I could have killed someone! and it is pointless trying to get the council to repair the roof as all they want to do is take the rent for the garages but not maintain them. The doors are hanging off, the lights don’t work and the roofs leak.

They say ‘every cloud has a silver lining’….well in this case it is that it means I will be moving the Imp now. I cleared some space for it in the barn last night and searched for the original front shocks to get the mounting bolts for the slaves I bought.  At the moment I can only find one but the other will turn up or I can use a metric bolt of similar size.

The original shocks are actually pretty special as they are adjustable armstrong ones from the 60s. You can see the model no. etc on them and I recently bought a CD Rom online with the original Armstrong sales literature for the shocks to compare with mine. They are AT9 models i believe and there is an article in the June 2001 edition of Impressions which gives a list of parts fitted to the Works Rally Imps by the Rootes competition Dept and their part no. was 1208 Armstrong adjustable AT9 front shock absorbers £6 10s. 

Armstrong AT9 adjustable front shocks

I also dug out the original wheels which, at first site, look like Minilites but have a slightly different rim. 

front and back views of Tech Del magnesium alloy wheels (12")

The February 2002 edition of Impressions (the monthly magazine of the Imp Club) shows a period ad for the wheels I have. They were Tech Del magnesium alloy wheels costing between £12 15s 6d and £15 18s depending on rim width. Mine were originally painted gold but I had them powdercoated silver a long time ago and got new tyres fitted. Looking closely at the add I can now see that the tyres in the ad were what was still fitted to mine when I bought the car!

period article (Autocar 16/8/66) featuring Tech Del alloy wheels