Inhaltsverzeichnis für December 2016 in Classics World

Historic vehicles over 40 years old could soon be exempt from annual MoT testing, dependent on the outcome of a Department for Transport (DfT) consultation. Subject to feedback, five proposals to revise classic car MoT tests are on the table until Wednesday, November 2. The government wants to deregulate historic vehicle MoT legislation as the UK prepares to leave the European Union (EU) in addition to changes that would have to be made to domestic laws anyway, as John Hayes MP, minister of state for transport, explained: “Until exit negotiations are concluded, the UK remains a full member of the European Union and all the rights and obligations of EU membership remain in force. During this period the government will continue to negotiate, implement and apply EU legislation. The outcome…

Based at a former RAF bomber training station, Bicester Heritage – known for its historic vehicle events, restoration specialists, storage areas and aircraft facilities – has been cleared to start a round of improvements on its historic listed buildings and test track thanks to a new agreement with the local council. This winter will see the few unrestored buildings left on site renovated – part of a wider programme to turn Bicester Heritage’s 348 acres into a national centre for aviation and motoring. In April this year, the site celebrated three years as a ‘hub of motoring excellence’. There’s an auction house and the possibility of a hotel complex in BH’s future; currently, four rooms are available as accommodation, converted from RAF Bicester’s old pumping and power station. The Federation…

Hatching a plan Last month’s Sunbeam Ti restoration was a great thing to see and I must admit I hadn’t realised how rare these cars have become. I had a Ti back in the ’80s – I really wanted the Lotus but couldn’t quite scrape together the funds – and loved it to bits, doing all sorts of amateur motorsport in it. I kept it for years until deciding to modernise and letting myself get talked into the front-wheel drive way of things with a Mk1 Golf GTi. The VW folk won’t like it but the Golf wasn’t a patch on the Sunbeam for fun... although to be fair I probably span it fewer times! David Ruskin Aberdeen CARAVELLE CONFUSION I’ve been following your VW Caravelle project car and these…

Making a truly great car can be akin to catching lightning in a bottle – a one-time coming-together of events, people, ideas and circumstances that can never be repeated. For car manufacturers an iconic car can end up as a burden as much as it can be an asset. It creates expectations on the part of buyers and an equivalent of the ‘second album syndrome’ that music groups can suffer from; once you’ve had a brilliant new idea and released it to the world it’s no longer a brilliant new idea, so how are you supposed to follow it up with something that lives up to the original? And so we can see that Citroën has never managed to produce a car that has managed to escape the shadow of…

“I fully expected to find a puddle of the bright green Hydro fluid under the Landcrab” Regular readers will recall that I replaced the suspension knuckle joints on the BMC Landcrab a couple of months ago. For my hard work, I was rewarded with a quieter ride and lighter steering, a side effect of removing years of built up gunk and corrosion from behind the suspension housings, which I suspect corrected the geometry. It felt a lot better anyway. To enable the work to be done, the Hydrolastic suspension had to be de-pressurised. An old Liquid Levers pump is a valued tool in our workshop, which houses no less than three cars with Issigonis’ ingenious suspension system. Past experience has taught me that for the most part this system is…

When I found the MR2 had no clutch and was low on fluid, I hoped that it just needed topping up and flushing through as it had been sat for a while. I bought a one-man bleed kit but none of the master cylinder caps would fit, so I attempted to improvise. I can now confirm duct tape does not make a liquid tight seal in a pressurised system, so having mopped up the mess got help and used the old-fashioned pedal pumping method to push new fluid through. The bleed valve is handily located behind the nearside rear wheel, so first I had to jack up and take off the wheel for access, then pretty soon the pedal regained feel and the clutch bit as it should. A quick…

Last month’s marathon stint with the spanners replacing two dodgy oxygen sensors in our X-Type’s exhaust system seems to have been well worth all the bad language and scraped knuckles, as the Jaguar’s permanently illuminated engine management light (EML) has finally been extinguished. Over the last 500 miles the car seems to run better than ever, although this may be simply down to fitting a new set of spark plugs, kindly supplied by our sponsor David Manners Group, while the inlet manifold and air filter were off the car. With the Jaguar’s EML issues finally sorted out, the next job was to take an initial look at the condition of the sills, as the area is a well-know rust trap on these cars. This isn’t an easy area to inspect,…

The fit and forget appeal of polyurethane suspension bushes is often a tempting prospect and more so when you discover the benefits of what they can do to a car’s handling capabilities. Providing you choose a set of bushes that are not too stiff (known as the shore hardness), then the ride quality, steering and handling of a car can become more positive and sure-footed. However, it’s worthwhile building up gradually with uprated suspension bushes, starting off with one or two first to see if the difference is worth pursuing. Plus, if you’re keen to fit them yourself, start with the easy ones, such as those for the anti-roll bar or a tie bar to find out what you are letting yourself in for. Removing old suspension bushes can turn…

Your engine’s oil is the only thing stopping what should be a collection of precision-made, finely-honed parts becoming a single seized mess of scrap metal. Within an engine there are dozens of parts scraping, sliding, turning, pressing and hitting against each other, and regardless of how smooth all these parts seem there is inescapable friction between them. The oil’s primary purpose is to get in between all these parts and minimise this friction and the inevitable wear that would result. But the oil is a hardworking substance; as well as lubrication it also acts as a liquid seal to contain the high pressures of the combustion chamber, carries heat away from the engine’s internal parts and absorbs some of the physical and chemical by-products of the combustion process. Oil is…

When the MGA was launched in September 1955, it was clear for all to see that MG had not only produced a sports car that traded on the marque’s traditional, core values, it was also far more modern than its predecessor. The styling was simply sublime. And, due to its lusty 1489cc, OHV, B-series engine, the MGA could nudge 100mph. It sold like the proverbial hot cakes, with the majority being exported to North America. Even so, John Thornley, MG’s General Manager, wanted to further enhance the MGA’s image by introducing a high-performance version – one that could undercut Porsche’s 356. Cue the 108bhp, 113mph, MGA Twin Cam, which arrived in April 1958. On paper, this new variant had much to offer. However, in reality, the much-vaunted, eagerly-anticipated, but high-maintenance…

“The Frogeye’s not business class but I have sat in less comfort on a long haul 747” Last month I left off having MoT’d the Frog ready for auction. I had a good month between the MoT and the auction (not like some TV shows! ) which allowed me to spend some time with the car and I enjoyed putting a few easy going miles. This also ran her in and mopped up any little snags and generally made sure she was ready to sell on to the next custodian. Despite such a major rebuild, the snag list wasn’t massive and mostly consisted of adjustments as things settled in. I was quite happy not to have a mad dash as this gave me a little time to appreciate the car…

“Worse still, the float chamber in the front carburettor was bone dry!” I’m keen to get the Davrian’s bodywork sorted. I’m also keen to get the Davrian mobile again. But, when I tried the other day, it just wouldn’t start. I had an inkling that the fault lay with the petrol. Gone are the ‘good’ old days when petrol would last for years and years and still be capable of starting an engine and running perfectly. Based on my experience, petrol loses its oomph at around six weeks to two months. Indicators (apart from the non-starting) would appear to be a stale smell and a slight colour change. Well, the petrol in the Davrian’s nearside tank had a strange ‘whiff’ and there’d been a change of colour too. Having drained…

It’s that time of year again when the shortcomings of the electrical system on older cars are suddenly thrown into sharp relief. Even if your classic gets tucked up for the biggest part of the winter, the autumn weather can still see the heater fan, lights and wipers all pressed into service simultaneously and all too often your enjoyment of the car can be drastically reduced as you peer through a misted over screen worrying about being rear-ended by that Range Rover following your dimly glowing Lucas rear lights rather too closely. There are several routes you can take to upgrade things though and they’re all easy DIY. The first, rather obviously is to check that the charging system is in proper order. Connect a multimeter to the battery terminals…

We’re all familiar with the usual car buying advice as applied to modern cars and it’s probably true to say that modern legislation means you’re better protected than ever when buying a car from a properly established motor trader. Indeed, it’s said that you’re more likely to be stitched up with a lemon by a private seller than a dealer and in the world of classics most traders tend to guard their reputation jealously so don’t tend to deal in cars which will dent that. Private sellers on the other hand are an unknown quantity and although it’s nice to think that anyone sharing your interest and hobbies is unlikely to stitch you up, human nature is unpredictable. Here then are some tips from CM staffers and contributors. And let’s…

To the average Mercedes buyer, AMG is just a set of initials in the accessories section of the brochure, but the firm has a blue-chip motorsport heritage and has spent the last half-century making Mercedes products go faster, both on and off the track. AMG the company prepares to celebrate its official 50th anniversary next year, but its existence really began 50 years ago in the early 1960s when Mercedes discontinued its in-house motorsport activities. At the time, two engineers named Hans-Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher were working on a motorsport version of the 300SE engine and despite the firm’s withdrawal from racing, the pair continued to finesse the engine back home in Aufrecht’s garage in the town of Grossaspach. By 1965 they had the unit sufficiently competitive to run…

The boxy Lancer arrived here in 1979 as a humdrum 1400 or 1600 saloon and nobody took much notice of it at the time, in an era when Japanese cars were yet to gain the mass acceptance they enjoy today. When Mitsubishi dropped in a blown version of the 2-litre engine from the Galant and Sapporo, the Lancer gained surprising pace. Complete with twin balancing shafts to give it the smoothness of a vee engine, the unit produced 170 bhp and with a five-speed box and coil-sprung four-link rear end, the Lancer 2000 Turbo was a credible performance car, cracking the 60 mph sprint in 7.1 seconds and topping out at 124mph. It was expensive in the UK though, retailing at £9000 when a Golf GTi was £6000 and a…

GEARBOX FRONT COVER OIL SEAL CONVERSION Heathrow Transmissions now offers a new Austin/Morris/MG gearbox front cover oil seal conversion kit for the popular BMC A Series 803cc/948cc 'smooth case’ type gearbox. These gearboxes never had a front oil seal fitted before now and previously used a scroll-type design, which is not oil tight as most owners will know. Heathrow Transmissions, which specialises in BMC/BL transmission units, can also a front cover oil seal conversion for the 1098cc and 1275cc models. Available for £78. Contact 0208 577 1505 or visit www.heathrowtransmissions.co.uk . VERSATILE LCD INSPECTION CAMERA Using an Eaziview hand-held digital inspection camera is a quick and easy way to see deep inside car engines, gearboxes and double-skinned vehicle panels, such as sills and crossmembers. Designed for one-handed…

We’d got to the point where we had to make a decision,” explains Geoff Hastings of the 1993 Mini you see here. “We’d been using the car regularly for a couple of years but it had got to the point where we either had to sell it on or keep it and sort it out.” Luckily for the world of Minis in general and for Classics Monthly readers in particular, Geoff and son Elliott – the car’s owner – decided to take the latter course of action. Elliott was keen to have a go at restoring a car and Geoff was equally keen to pass on the skills he’d picked up himself during his time in the motor trade. The first stage in the process was to despatch Elliott up…

“A tyre that slowly lets itself down over the course of a couple of weeks is a particular pet hate” Deciding it was high time I turned my attention to the set of Weller wheels I bought earlier this year , I took myself off on to the garage one day with the intention of devoting the whole day to their refurbishment, albeit at a very basic level. Given the A40 looks a bit unloved anyway the thought of shelling out about £30-40 per wheel for a professional refurbishment seemed a bit unnecessary, so my aim was to clean then down, remove any surface rust and prime and paint them. Granted it would not be to concours standard, but on a car with four shades of maroon paint on it,…

“I left it too long before getting around to dealing with it and it went from bad to worse” As the winter approaches, I’m still out regularly in the Gentry. Any threat of a winter deluge though and I’m straight back into a Jaguar. After parking the 1988 XJ40 Sovereign recently I looked back at it for no particular reason and noticed something hanging down in the area close to the nearside rear wheel. On closer inspection I saw that the wire attached to the disc pad wear sensor had separated. In fact the wire had pulled out of the male side of the connector. This had happened as a result of the clip that holds the wire in place failing and thereby allowing the cable to drop down and…

Last issue we introduced this Toledo and initial inspection showed that it needed some body repairs and paint, the exhaust was blowing, the engine was down on power and the clutch was failing. That doesn’t sound too bad a list, but it has contained a world of grief and I now firmly believe that this is the devil’s car. Let’s start with the manifold leak. This had felt like it was blowing at the front, perhaps just the result of loosened manifold nuts or a blown gasket. But after draining the coolant (the inlet manifold is water-heated) and removing both inlet and exhaust manifolds, I found that the front branch of the cast iron exhaust manifold had broken off entirely. It is not surprising that this had been hard to…

The SU carburettor is found under the bonnet of many classics – mainly those hailing from the British Motor Corporation/British Leyland stable as SU had been owned by William Morris since 1918. While a single carburettor is good enough for an ordinary saloon car one of the easiest ways to boost the performance of an engine is to fit multiple carburettors. Why not simply fit a larger single one? Well a big carb (even a variable venturi type like the SU) will only be at its most efficient when operating at full throttle and high engine speeds – great for racing, but not good for road use. Having a pair of smaller carburettors means that each can still provide good throttle response and efficiency at low- and mid-range speeds while…

What is now often referred to as the ‘big’ Healey had its first public unveiling at the 1952 Earl’s Court Motor Show and following a deal between Donald Healey, the car’s creator, and Austin’s managing director Leonard Lord, the mass produced Austin-Healey 100 went on sale in March the following year. The stylish new Austin-Healey was positioned between the MGA 1600 and the more expensive XK-badged Jaguars and the new sports car went on to become an almost overnight marketing success on both sides of the Atlantic. Throughout the 1950s, the lines of the Gerry Coker-designed 100 stood the test of time incredibly well and the sweeping curves of the original four-cylinder powered BN1 and BN2 Healeys were easily identifiable when the covers came off the much improved, and for…

Air doesn’t freeze. Air doesn’t boil over.” This was the strapline to one of the famous series of self-deprecating press adverts for the Volkswagen (it was never officially called the Beetle you know) in the US. It’s true of course and the same qualities which made the car’s air-cooled powerplant ideal for first-time car owners in 1930s Germany also made it ideal for maintenance-shy American owners from west coast deserts to snow-bound east coast. The choice of air as a cooling medium was dictated by the need to keep things as cheap – and therefore as simple – as possible. The original People’s Car brief dictated that Porsche deliver a design which could be sold for 900 Reichsmarks and by using the air-cooled engine he was able to get the…

Moving up We all remember our first car, but by the age of 19 I’d already had countless Minis, Escorts, an Imp or two... but not a Cortina. I’d tried to have a Mk3 as my first car in 1984 but the insurance was just too steep – even for a 1300 and who wanted one of those..? So in 1987 I was driving a 1979 Escort 1300L Estate, a Mk2 in Riviera Blue. This fine beast belonged to Everett Snr since due to too many brushes with traffic police and various fines I’d had to sell my Mini to pay for it all (and let that be a lesson to you!). In 1987 Everett Snr had relocated his one year old drive in tune up business called The Car…