Saturday 20 August 2016

General Update


Hi all, well to both of my blog readers, ( my wife and I  ;-) )

It’s been a while since I posted a Humber Update, I’ve been busy with all the other projects,  so thought I’d post about them. I was working on the Humber, (fitting the  1916 T Ford mudguards/fenders), which turned out trickier than I thought. I started by trying to fit the front ones, when it soon became obvious I should have started with the rear guards. To do this I had to mount the running boards to get the correct height, then it became obvious again the rear T Ford guards were not long enough at the front to reach the running boards. It’s a bit like that old kid’s song – ‘There’s a hole in the bucket dear Liza, dear Liza’. So, I had to make panels to fill in the gap between the guard, of course these had to be rolled to the same diameter on the edges the same as the Ford guards, otherwise it would look shit. I did buy a bead roller before I started the Humber project to put beads in the upper parts of the body panels, which I didn’t because it would have been a nightmare to try and do – my skill levels aren’t up to that. Anyway the bead roller was the perfect tool to make the rolled wire edges, BUT! I didn’t have the right rollers. I purchased a set from where I bought the roller itself, unfortunately their set was for a smaller gauge wire edge than what was on the T Ford guards – Bugger !  So I called on my inner Fitter and Turner and made up a new flat roller and widened the gullet roller. Oh, the other thing I did was to adapt a winch motor onto the bead roller so I didn’t have to ask someone to wind the handle for me - my boys either wound it too fast or too slow....


It was about this time that the auto body guy who I had lined up , (two months previous),to cut the rust out of the 1955 Studebaker bailed on me – if you are reading this Richmond, you Sir are an Arsehat, and so is your mate you recommended me to, wanting twice the price and heap of conditions. Then after the third guy messed me around I thought, ‘Hey, I can weld, I can manipulate metal, I’m gonna give it a go’ !!!  So that is another project taking up my time at present.  The third project is the cut-away engine I’m making for the Studebaker shop as a promotion tool. After putting the word out Dick Adsett donated two 1948 Studebaker six cylinder engines, both were in bad shape, but hey I’m going to cut holes in them ;-)  The plan is to take a sectioned engine to car shows on a frame in the tray of my ’47 MR Studebaker pickup, and run them on three cylinders with all the moving parts exposed.  So without further ado, please see the pics below of my time killers.
Flat and wire edge roller.


Rear left hand guard showing gap.


Front LHS guard of '55 Stude


With rust removed


LHS sill with rust cut out


LHS Sill with patch welded in


Cut-away 6 cyl



Head sectioned and in place on Stude 6 cyl.