Singer Owner January - February 2009

Roadster Repairs

Ashley Crossland

Cold weather does not make for progress on cars and thus there is a slowdown on things to write about for the mag. When the temperature is below zero, then there's not much incentive to go in the garage for any great length of time, but there are the 5 minute jobs that you can persuade yourself to do, like painting the odd bit that you will need in the not too distant future. However, you will remember that I got slightly ahead of myself when the wooden rear wheel arches got made sooner than expected due to the arrival of some bendy ply. So to get back into sequence, next on the complete rebuild of a Singer 4AD Roadster is to fit the boot floor, which as you know also incorporates the "tray" for the spare wheel.

Do make sure that you paint the bottom of the boot floor early on, because when the petrol tank is in place underneath it, then you can't get to paint that underside part of the boot floor and the opportunity is lost. If you have to make a new floor, then my advice is to make the spare wheel tray a bit deeper. The reason for this is that modern spare wheels tend to be a bit of a tight squeeze in the boot thus making the boot lid difficult to close. The alternative is to hack away at the central wooden ribs that form the frame for the boot lid. Now, even if you have a boot floor in your Roadster, I have seen quite a few rusty bottoms to spare wheel trays which are ready to drop off - they rust along the square edges - and if you have to do some repairs, you can easily use the opportunity to make the spare wheel tray deeper. And why is a new spare wheel bigger? Well, the original tyre size was 5.00x16, but what you tend to get nowadays are tyres that are dual sized 5.00/5.25x16 and whilst this slightly bigger tyre doesn't matter much when driving the car, it does make the boot lid harder to shut! I know I've given this advice before, but making the spare wheel tray a mere 1/2-inch deeper will be well worthwhile and hasn't raised any problems with any of my cars "grounding"

For those intending starting from scratch on the boot floor, then the minimum thickness of sheet metal that I would recommend is 1.25mm, and its main width is 3 -ft with the occasional lug, and so folding it in a vice with lengths of angle iron is difficult, but possible. It would be no shame if you chose to subcontract this item to a sheet metal worker. However, if you are trying this at home, then I would recommend starting the bends in the middle, i.e. at the spare wheel well, and gradually making bends further out, making sure that you can get to do all the bends eventually.

The boot floor again is part of the structure of the car that gives some rigidity to the back end. Thus make sure that the lugs on the boot floor that bolt to the inner wings are in good condition and firmly bolted up to the inner wings. At this juncture I might say that the original bolts were 3/16" BSF or something, and if the holes have worn slack, then a bigger bolt at 1/4" BSF is recommended by me. You might be sacrificing originality but the retention of strength will be worthwhile.

One thing that I will say about fitting the boot floor in the car, and putting the fuel tank in place, is that it does create a lot more space in the garage. You maybe don't realise it at the time, but when you have dismantled a car, the parts mushroom out across the garage and take up an awful lot of space. Then when things start getting put back together, it's amazing how much space is created. Meanwhile, the two rear wheel arches are large awkward shapes I have to contend with until I can get then fastened in place. Incidentally, I've got the Roadster seats stored on the roof of another car in the garage, and it doesn't half make it look untidy. Still it's projected that there's only 2 more years to go on this rebuild, so not long to wait now.

I'll liberate even more space when I get all the rear bodywork back in place, which means that this year I must make a real effort with the remaining woodwork. Santa was good to me with a new plane and a set of chisels, and I do like woodworking so I've no excuse not to get on with it, but I suppose it's a comparatively slow job compared to metalworking.

Now just a quick word about mounting the fuel tank before I move off the subject. The three lugs that fasten the tank to the frame are each sandwiched either side of a disc of rubber, the reason being that when the car is bobbing along, the fuel tank is flexibly mounted in both the downwards and equally importantly in the upwards direction (i.e. on the rebound). A fuel tank filled with fuel will weigh about half a hundredweight when you can afford to fill it up, and hence needs to be flexibly mounted. The bolts which bolt through the 3 lugs might appear to be loose, in that they mustn't squash the rubber solid or else it defeats the objective, and so they are tightened just past finger-tight, and then held in place with a tab washer. Preferably a new tab washer as you have heard me say so many times before.