Singer Owner November - December 2008

Letter from Bob Andrew

Dear Gifford,

I am sure you will get several letters of appreciation for the beautiful day at Waddesdon.

My little Warwick Green 4AB Roadster did not behave as well as usual. I had decided to repaint a door which had some minor dents, though no broken paint, caused from people opening their doors onto it when parked, plus two very small dents in other areas which also appeared from I don't know where! I made the mistake of not sorting out the paint before preparing the panels. I had two areas painted but the match is not good, however I will persevere and I hope to get it better. Meanwhile the metal worker/panel beater who is helping me restore my Singer Hunter lowered the dashboard to re varnish it and did not tighten up some of the electrical connections behind the ignition switch and ammeter properly. This caused the car to die three times on the M25 on the return journey, unpleasant in the middle lane (occasionally!)

Furthermore I decided to get the distributor made electronic in the interests of reliability. Due to the paint sprayer being very unreliable in turning up to do the spraying he finally completed the mis-match on the Friday evening of the SND weekend. This left me with refitting of a headlight and sidelamp on the Saturday morning, having not been able to try out the new ignition or the timing. I had to get to my old garage business twenty miles away in Rye for an MOT by 10.00am.

Another ailment was also causing a problem. Two years ago the manifold gaskets kept blowing so the garage at Rye dealt with this and found the manifold needed refacing. The job was done and last year on returning from the trip to Devon the gasket started blowing again. I removed the manifold and found that the engineering shop that did the refacing had done an appalling job. I returned it to them and this time it appears to be fine. Unfortunately the nut on the centre stand that tightens the manifold had seized on and therefore would not tighten properly. This necessitated splitting the inlet manifold and hotspot. On the second attempt of getting this to seal I realised that these two faces needed machining in order to stop exhaust gases escaping which had caused a loud squeaking noise. I have refitted everything again and am now waiting for the distributor to be returned after being informed by the Midland's firm that they had had quite a lot of trouble with the positive earth conversion! If this does not work I will revert to the conventional distributor. Power is down by at least twenty per cent which gives me about 30bhp pulling a 4.4 final drive ratio. It did however achieve 37mpg on the round trip of 270 miles and I got home, having tightened all loose connections behind the dashboard at my friends house twenty miles from home.

The final snag has been no fuel reaching the carburettor. So on pulling the starter and whilst doing so telling my friend it always starts instantly as long as petrol is getting to the carburettor, it would not go. I disconnected the carburettor union and sure enough no petrol. I've pumped the primer furiously and blew compressed air down the tank and it sprang to life.

I then reached the garage at 10.00am and it passed the MOT. Performance was terrible so I moved the distributor about 20 degrees and it was better. The petrol supply worked OK for SND but then since dried up. No resistance on the primer in any positions of the engine rotation so I assumed the pump was faulty. I removed it and it pumped and sucked perfectly on the bench. I blew compressed air again both from the engine end and back again from the tank as I had had trouble five years ago or so on a previous trip to Devon when there was a blockage which turned out to be a piece of rubber that could only have been put into the tank by someone. I cannot believe such a thing has happened again. So I replaced, yesterday, the flexible pipe that goes on the pump inlet. I now have petrol to the carburettor. So I sincerely, hope within the next feud days that things are working correctly: fuel supply, no squeak and some acceptable performance. While waiting for the distributor to come back I might try the distributor off the Hunter but first will compare the advance and retard figures from the manuals to see if they are the same. (No good wrong rotation).

I decided to make it a winter/spring project for improvements so had a lot of re-chroming done. I think the firms I used in West Hythe, Kent, did a good job but I could not believe the enormous cost. It does look good though. I also got my panel beater friend to make new floor boards at the front, as after fifty eight years they were starting to rot. We also fitted new front engine mountings which proved very difficult. I always change the engine oil (Castrol XL 20/50) annually and of course grease all those nipples (16). The mileometer reads 36,000 miles which I have always assumed is correct due to the taut feel to the whole car. It had just 22,000 on the clock in 1983 when I bought it, but it did have low oil pressure. On an engine strip at that time no bore wear could be measured and it was of course standard but there was wear on the crankshaft which I had ground to ten thou undersize on the mains. The valves all looked original and are numbered and the engine has not been touched since. It uses perhaps half a pint of oil between changes (usually about 1,000 miles). When I bought the car and before I left Upton-on-Severn I changed the oil and plugs and drove the 200 miles home. The oil came out like lumpy water. I also brought a new battery and drained the fuel as the car had not been run for seven years. The tyres were all flat. It started first pull of the starter. It has been very reliable and a joy to drive. The only modifications have been changing the differential to a 4ADT 4.4 from 5.43 which necessitated an adjustment to the speedometer unit. This was a painful exercise and was returned twice and still under-reads three per cent. I sent another speedometer (Rover P3 75) to a Mr Ostick in Keighthly, Yorkshire, who did a ratio adjustment and overhaul for literally half the price, sent it back 72 hours later and it is completely accurate. The performance of the Singer is now much flatter but it is good for the engine to be revving less and the fuel consumption has gone down from 33-36mpg in average conditions. The pleasant feature of excellent top gear acceleration is of course missing.

At the beginning of August I intend to take the car to Devon and Cornwall so it needs to be properly sorted before then.

Thank you for such a brilliant magazine which contributes massively to a brilliant Club. I belong to another make's club but it is just not the same by a long way. I suppose having joined the SOC in early 1958 it helps by knowing a lot of people.