Early Javelin Restoration

[Grumpy Northener]

Next to sort is the wear in the yoke of the brake pedal lever

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Whilst bodges from pervious owners call for a remake of this gearbox selector rod

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[Grumpy Northener]

Progress has been a little slow with my day job holding things up but Keith has been very busy behind the scenes prepping all the running gear / mechanical / brackets etc - so with everything shot blasted and in transit primer I spent the day keying the parts up with a scotchbrite pad / masking up as required / wipe over with panel wipe and hanging everything up ready for paint

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I wanted to tidy the petrol tank up a bit this had a couple of cosmetic dents on the underside that I skimmed out

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Once rubbed back we were ready for primer - all 150 items that is

[Grumpy Northener]

So with Keith assisting by passing the parts individually - I then sprayed them up and passed them back to him to rehang and leave to dry

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Fortunately we have a large industrial extractor fan fitted in the corner of the workshop so that keeps the spray dust down

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3 litres of zinc phosphate primer later and we have a result - all ready for the satin black top coats which I hope to get done sometime this week - all being well.

[Grumpy Northener]

Spent several hours late afternoon / evening applying 4 litres of satin finish chassis black to this lot

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Keith once again acting as my assistant - passing the prepared parts once they had a light keying with a scotchbrite pad and quick wipe over with panel wipe - and once sprayed carefully rehanging them to dry

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So that's 98% of the running gear / drive train / body & trim brackets in paint - Keith can now start to reassemble the running gear into sub assemblies whilst I crack on with the final odds of welding to the bodyshell along with the second panel fit up .

[Grumpy Northener]

Keith had already packed the painted items / parts up and placed them into storage - he had also put the bodyshell back into the paintshop - most of my day was taken up attending to the odd bits of welding that the dipping process had revealed - some of these were just isolated pinholes around sound metal and just require a plug of weld from the mig - a couple of splits in the metal of a few structural areas were welded and made good and couple of areas required the more drastic action of cutting out and letting fresh metal in - I also cleaned up down the nearside of the shell where the body solder had left residue from the dipping process

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I need to also get the outer panels to second fit stage - so the hinge plates were found and fitted to the nearside B post

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The hinge plates for the doors are on captive nuts so I spent some time running a tap through them to ensure that the treads were clean & sound - then a load of time with the bench grinder wire wheel cleaning the threads / heads up of the countersunk machine screws that fasten the hinge plates to the doors (then I wonder where the day goes and how little I have achieved in a full day) The chrome is done and Keith has been and collected it - all 110 pieces - here is one of the door trims - I am pleased with the quality - much like paint work you can see a decent job from sight alone

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The car will be the centre piece of the Jowett Car Club stand at the Practical Classics Restoration Show in April - (see separate thread in shows / events) so I really need to crack on and get the panels fitted for then

[Luxobarge]

Great work. Loving this thread - we like a good quality restoration, we do!

I know what you mean by wondering where the day went - it's the same with most decent restos, but that's the nature of the beast, it takes time to do a thorough job.

Glad you got the chrome done well - I've a suspicion that this will become more and more difficult to achieve in the coming years, as a report I've recently seen from the FBHVC says that the health and safety Nazis are looking to ban/close down re-chroming places, (specifically chrome plating) due to the noxious substances used in the process. Let's hope they don't succeed, as lots of important restorations like this will suffer.

Well done, keep up the good work and keep the updates coming.

Cheers

[Grumpy Northener]

Keith had kept himself busy in the week with the fit up of the rear axle - after shimming the end float to factory tolerance the brakes / linkages & suspension arms were attached and the unit can be set a side ready for refiting when the shell is painted

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Complete with new wheel studs & nuts

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[Grumpy Northener]

Meanwhile a couple more of the areas that showed up as weak from the dipping process were sorted

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Awkward corner in the boot floor immediately above the rear shock absorber mounting

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Along with the vertical face on the rear inner wing adjacent to it

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After some careful dissection and letting in of fresh metal the areas were sound again

[Grumpy Northener]

Lots happening in the workshop we are trying to get things sorted for the NEC restoration show so Jack was round sorting through what could be done as a working bench display - the front grille is a long winded affair to rebuild so he sorted the 20 odd slats that had been returned from the chromers along with the various bits of metal frame that it all attaches to and this will be assembled at the show along with various other parts that can be bench built - I will be panel fitting / aperture gapping the bodyshell (so if you are visiting the show you should find the stand quite easy - I will be the one with veins in his neck like bicycle inner tubes & cursing under his breath every time I make a slight adjustment to get one gapping correct but by doing so it throws two others back out of tolerance ) Keith is disappearing shortly to spend several weeks over in New Zealand with some of the club members who reside there and to attend their annual rally - so he is trying to get most of the mechanical sub assemblies complete then he does not arrive back to a back log of work (hard work this retirement game, Keith isn't it ? )

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Here is the front suspension / stub axle sub assemblies going together

[Grumpy Northener]

Whilst progressing things in the workshop we are aware that the project will get held up when it comes to the fit up stage if we don't stop on top of the parts / reconditioning of the numerous bits that will be required to complete the car to the planned level of quality - The headlamps on the early cars are very rare - being 5 3/4" and only fitted to 2 or 3 different cars between 1947 - 1949 - and are just about unobtainable - we had the original pair off the car but one of the reflective bowls was rotten - we had a spare but it had a non matching lens fitted to it

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So with some careful work with a set of grips I pealed the retaining edge of the bowl back to release the lens on all 3 lamps

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This gave us 2 solid bowls and 2 matching lenses - one knackered bowl and a odd lens - the 2 good bowls will be sent for re-silvering and I will rebuild the lenses to them once returned