Singer Owner July/August 2007

Roadster Repairs - Another back garden car started

Ashley Crossland

Well not another back garden car really as this is one being done in a back garden garage, but many of the longer serving Roadster team will remember my past writings on a back garden car, and no doubt will be pleased that another one is on the go and which is providing inspiration for some Roadster articles.

The background of this saga starts with me taking over some Roadster parts from a friend around Christmas 2006 - call it a very nice Christmas present! The circumstances of me acquiring this car will take a bit of recounting which I will leave to another day, suffice to say that I got a 4AB chassis, some body parts and a 1500cc engine. Yes I know there will be some alterations to do to get the 1500cc engine into a 4AB chassis, but that will be part of the story that will unfold as I find out the magnitude of the task that I have undertaken.

The car starts life with me in basically a completely stripped down state, so it's all the usual tasks of cleaning, wire brushing and painting. On doing this with the chassis, I found that I needed to drill out and tap 3 rear bumper bracket captive nuts, one of which was impossible to do, so it was removed and another "nut" welded in. About 10 years ago I invested in a MIG welder, and have found it has been invaluable for car repairs, and remember it's easier to turn over a chassis when there's nothing else attached to it to do these jobs! These might seem the least important jobs, but at least you can manoeuvre the chassis at this stage to get to weld in a decent position. So anyone starting a Roadster restoration can take a bit of a lead from what I'm doing. My motto is to think ahead.

To get the car standing on 4 wheels, one of the first jobs was to sort out the rear road springs. The car had come with rear springs, but the previous owner will not mind me saying that a couple of leaves on each spring were showing some rubbing, and so I mixed and matched them with 3 old springs of my own to try and make a good pair for the new car. Refurbishing the springs also meant that I would need some new rubber bushes, and these I got on order at the local car accessories shop, To replace all the back and front suspension bushes on a 4AB/AD you need 28 of Quinton Hazell's Y145 rubber bushes (typically the same sort that fits Morris Minors - of course there are other makes available. If I've counted right, earlier R, A and 4A Roadsters only take 24 bushes per car, but I think pre-war Roadsters take different bushes having an internal steel sleeve). Naturally, you need some new spring shackle tab washers, and part of any restoration needs virtually all new tab washers making for everywhere that needs them - I would never really want to re-use tab washers, but I suppose there are some which have 2 or 3 alternative tabs and it's alright to use these if the particular tab that you want hasn't been used before. However, remember when reassembling the rear springs onto the car that the "long" half of the spring goes to the front of the car. The rear axle was fitted in a straightforward way. And the car got onto 2 wheels. I always think a car is safer on wheels rather than being jacked up.

The front independent suspension is a completely different kettle of fish. It's obviously more complicated in that sense, although the - concept is relatively simple, and in reality it's no different from today's designs of suspensions. So in its day, it was a state of the art advancement for Singers. However there are a lot of parts to assemble, and a lot of moving surfaces that all need checking for minimal clearances and rectifying if necessary. The bottom wishbones that I had were relatively easy to get into shape with fitting new Glacier bushes and not reaming them out, as the "worn" pins that I was using were tried in them and they fitted OK. This particular series of Glacier bushes are supplied undersize for reaming to size when they have been pressed into place. However, you can use this undersize to advantage for taking up clearance when the mating pin is a bit worn.

My top wishbones needed a bit more sorting. One pair had been bodged and had had plain brass bushes (oversize) pressed in, and I removed these bushes and welded up the wishbones and reamed them back to the correct size so that they could take the correct Glacier bush. One further top wishbone had previously worn through the shell of its Glacier bush and into the wishbone, and so that needed welding up as well, and this probably accounted for the previous renovation work seen on the other pair. However, provided components like this are mild steel and have not been case hardened or surface treated, then welding is a realistic process to reclaim worn parts. (Warning - if you are not a qualified engineer, take advice about welding up safety related parts like the steering and suspension.) The standard size of the swivel pins is _" which then meant that I needed to borrow an adjustable _" reamer for the new Glacier bushes in the hub. The place where I work didn't have an adjustable reamer this size, and so we had to prevail on one of the subcontract machinists to borrow one.

After the work of fitting new bushes and reaming them to size, it was then the job to get all these parts onto the car, again needing to make new shims to take up any sideways slack that was present. I can't stress the importance of doing a good job with the front suspension/steering parts as it's all safety related, as well as an MOT inspection point, and a big nuisance if you have to dismantle something later on to put it right! And like the statement about tab washers, then I recommend fitting new split pins and "stiff-nuts" where they are used. Another "consumable" is the rubber dust shields that keep the grease in and the dirt out from these Glacier bushes that I've mentioned. Fortunately they are plain rubber rings, but when cobbling together some replacements remember to use synthetic rubber, not natural rubber, or they won't last long in contact with grease. Bellows and other things out of brake kits seem to be a good bet.

Then it was time to fit the coil springs. The method given in the owner's manual to do this is a bit hard to follow, and it involves screwing some rods into the nuts welded onto the bottom spring carrier, and then removing the top suspension towers from the chassis, so that the spring tower spring and bottom spring carrier come off in one unit. Then you have to let the spring compression off carefully somewhere else off the car. However, these nuts on the bottom spring carrier are 7/16" BSF and on my examples were only tack welded on, and I didn't like the idea that they should have to carry the full load of a coil spring in compression. Plus the fact that the threads had rusted a bit over the years. Also for the 4AD, I think the instructions in the owners handbook is wrong, in that it should first say something like "take out the engine", because the front engine bearer sits on the two suspension towers, and shares some of its mounting bolts, and thus you would not be able to get the towers off without first removing the engine, or at least this bearer. Now I'm usually very careful to recommend the correct and safe way of doing things, and this normally is to follow the advice and method given by the makers who generally know best. However, on this spring issue I turned to a more conventional set of ordinary spring compressors in order to fit the spring, but you should make your own mind up about which is the safest way to do it. My old homemade spring compressors turned out to be a bit flimsy, and on them letting the spring go twang a few times, I thought it was best to buy some stronger ones. A set of 3 cost me £29.95 and was well worth it. This got the right hand side of the front suspension put together, and hence now I had "three wheels on my wagon". The car was finally on all four wheels on 28 May 2007, the Spring Bank Holiday Monday. Needless to say I think that compressing coil springs is one of the most dangerous jobs you get to do on the car - at the finish I was wearing goggles as a precaution 'cos even strong spring compressors can still let a spring go twang. For information, the spring needs compressing more to get it through the wishbones, than it needs to be able to go between the spring locators. The bottom rubber pads for the springs were what I had salvaged from past cars, whilst some plain sheet rubber was cut for the top ones.

So a bit of a milestone! I had had the car for approx 6 months and only got as far as getting it on 4 wheels. More Roadster Repairs to follow.