Wolseley Dash.

As it was when the car was purchased.

Stripped down.

Rubbed down and refurbished. Then a trial fit of the lamps and chrome.

Trial fit in the car. A couple of the dash panel switches need repair so it will have to be removed again. Also a new set of switch knobs have been purchased and will be the finishing touch to this part of the restoration.

More snow.

More snow on Thursday saw me taking my Morris to work, only a trip of 4 miles but it took over half an hour. Only used 3rd gear once, the rest of the crawl to work was in 1st or 2nd.

At work I had managed to keep most of the snow on the roof and wings, still worst to come they say. Saturday was bright and sunny but we hit a low of minus 13 over night by mid morning it had warmed to minus 2 so this weekend I will be doing indoor jobs.

The next item to tackle is the Wolseley dash panel, a nice looking bit of Ash or maybe Beech with bad varnish. Not so, its an early car so this is pressed steel and painted to look like wood.

How the heck to restore this?

We have a few ideas having looked at various "paint effects" sites on the internet.

Watch this space,  this is a job for the kitchen table in front of our log burner. I hope the weather is not too bad where you are.

Also if you have any spare items big or small to help a fellow J owner convert his J to a JB do let me know and I can put you in contact.

What a difference a day makes.

The Wolseley's charging system failed, the ignition lamp started glowing even when the engine was being revved up. Could it be dynamo or control box?

I, in my technical kind of a way, switched on the headlamps, removed the regulator cover and placed a screwdriver tip into the regulator contact, upon revving the engine the headlamp brightness increased.

So the dynamo is working. As I say I had removed the cover and then I noticed that some of the screws were a bit chewed up on the the regulator contact strip, the two screws at the top of the above picture.

I undid these screws which are normally sealed with paint to find that somebody in the past has cleaned the points surface at some time with a file.

 There was nothing for it but to replace the regulator box with a new one. This I did very quickly because it was rather cold on Saturday about minus 10 over night and had warmed up to about minus 2.
Everything was now working correctly. This is yet another little teething job on a vehicle that has not been used previously for many months.

Yes over night we had some snow, a light dusting, maybe 3 to 4 inches. So Sunday was a day to wake up, feel it was much warmer as already the thaw had set in, only slight, and over night tonight the frost will make it a nightmare to get to work on Monday. Seemed like a good idea to take the dogs for a walk and kick snow all over them.
Other jobs to do on the Wolseley is to find all the grease nipples, to remove the metal dash panel and repair the wiper switch, also at the same time replace a couple of blown dash panel bulbs. The fog light switch is also an item that needs looking at.
Still life would be boring if it all went smooth.

Radiator caps and starter motors.

The new Wolseley has a couple of faults, one the starter motor fails to engage sometimes and water is leaking out of the radiator overflow pipe.
So first job remove the starter motor.

Having stripped it down to check the carbon brushes and commutator which are all in very good condition the obvious problem was the bendix gear sticking on its shaft.

A full clean and all was working correctly.

So I just have to brave the cold wind and rain tonight to refit it.

The second problem is that there is water weeping from the radiator overflow. Now they have designed it so that the distributor is placed underneath the filler cap so any splashes or leakage will drip on the Distributor cap.

On checking the overflow pipe it is loose and needs re-soldering or sealing. Now thinking about this, water should only be expelled if the engine is boiling over which our engine has certainly not been doing.

So I checked the radiator cap, yes correct 4lb type but wrong length.

Did you know you can get two different "lengths"?

Yes we had the wrong one fitted, so even with it on correctly the radiator sealing rubber was not sealing the neck of the radiator.

An easy fix, fit the correct cap and now the distributor will keep dry and as we have a temperature gauge fitted I doubt we will ever let the engine get too hot to boil over.
Chris clorby has been reading this.

The new car is here.

The new car has been delivered, my better half who has bought this car had been worried that her "new" car had got lost but it arrived slightly late Saturday afternoon. Why a Wolseley? My idea her money. Well a bit of 1950's quality motoring for a very reasonable price. These are now rare vehicles, there are less road worthy Wolseley 6/80's in Britain than J type vans. Now thats rare.

 Now the delivery driver has a J type and he purchased and collected my spare JB chassis. Here are a few views of it and some other old J van panels.

 If any one want's any of these old panels they can be had for a for a small donation.

 Early lower engine cover, various side/floor sections.

 Drivers inner wing and radiator support panel.

 Second type, late side valve early JB engine cover.

 What's this? Why its a 1960's tool cart, for it to be road legal it has to have the trailer board fitted, the original single rear side and stop lamp is not good enough. The trailer board is held on with two wing nuts so on the rally field it can be easily removed. QB9901 is a fleet number.

 Its nearly finished, just some more painting to do. It was my winter project, I must finish it soon so it can be used. Thanks for donating it to me G.S.

 Something interesting, above is the Wolseley 6/80 rear axle. Compare it with my JB rear axle below.

I might just have to find out what ratio gears are fitted to this 6/80.

The New Year has a slow start.

The New Year has a slow start or so it seems. Having paid for a new project vehicle one month ago you might be surprised to know it still is in the same place, about 215 miles north of me.
To say I'm rather fed up with the situation is an understatement. My ears are being bent by she who must be obeyed. The sooner it arrives here the sooner a rather large amount of TLC (tender loving care) can be give to it.
On to J types, mine is all wrapped up, these recent frosts have slowed me down on vehicle maintenance and I seem to be getting more lazy in my old age.
One job I had tackled was the propeller shaft on my Morris Minor which I'm using to and from work as the MOT on the motor bike has expired and I have had little time to take it for the MOT test.
The propeller shaft seemed fine on the car but now and then when moving off I could hear a slight "ting" from either the propeller shaft or rear axle. I was worried that one of my half shafts was cracking up so I swapped the cars propeller shaft with the one from OLJ470 the project Morris Minor pick-up.
This seemed to prove the point that the noise was indeed from the propeller shaft as the noise has not happened again. What has happened is that this propeller shaft is out of balance and give a good resonance buzz at certain road speeds. So I have rebuilt my old one.
Funny old world, as I had just gained an e-mail from a fellow J owner telling me he had just managed to buy two universal joint on e-bay for £20 each, you know the original type with a grease nipple. These "RARE" items were in a 7 day auction.
I just had to upset him by saying he had been "done", I feel there are few bargains on e-bay now, every vehicle spare part has the word "rare" in its title.
I explained I had just bought two universal joints for my Morris Minor, these are the same as a J type, in fact used on most 1950's 1960's British vehicles it would seem. I paid £5.95 each plus VAT and p+p.

Yes my new universal joints had grease nipples as well. Got them next day as well.

 Here are pictures of me reassembling my Morris Minor propeller shaft.

 Each lob of the joint has been marked so it all goes together as it came apart to try to keep it balanced.

 About to fit the last end cap.

The last end cap nearly pushed in fully just a little further and then the spring retaining clip can be fitted into its groove.

 Some months ago, pictures of 629 BXE were posted on the photo sharing site Flickr. Almost at the same time a fellow J owner sent me further pictures, the one above being a close up of a rather sad 1960 GPO van with windows cut into one side. Its a shame that this vehicle was attending rallies in the mid 1990's and has now got into this state.

Further recent pictures show the area where the van is located is now being cleared, the old fences which gave the van some protection are falling down.

 I doubt if this van will be there for very much longer, a scrap man or the local council will soon have no option but to remove it.
Who owns it? The last known owner was the well known Mr Chris Graham, who also owns a further 15/18 J types, many in similar condition to the above one. He lives in Leicester, but works in London. I'm told. I have no contact details for him and I have no idea exactly where this van is, I wish I did.
Could somebody please save this van. If I was nearer I know I would.

A cautionary tale about drink driving this time of the year.

A cautionary tale from down under.
"As the New Years Crackdown approaches I would like to share an experience with you about drinking and driving, something never to be taken lightly.


As some of you will know, some of us have been known to have had a few brushes with the authorities on our way home from the odd social session over the years.
Well, I decided to do something about it.


A couple of nights ago I was out for some drinks with my mates and had a few too many whiskeys as well as beers and some rather nice red - but knowing full well I may have been slightly over the limit, I did something I have never done before - I took a bus home.
I arrived back safely and without incident, which was a real surprise, since I had never driven a bus before and have no idea where I got it from."

Mike from the MCJTV group, thank you for this chilling tale, let this be a lesson to all J type owners about the dangers and expense of drink. Much better to spend the time and money on your J type in the comfort of your garage.

A Merry Christmas to all J type owners, everywhere.

Maybe see you in the New Year?

Christmas down under, roll on Summer.

Another J type found in Australia.

This van has been standing in this spot in Maddington for the last 40 years. Prior to that, it was parked on this same property at another spot for 10 years. It just drove on to the property and parked up and its been there ever since. It is now parked on a high bank, under a large gum tree near a creek. It is slowly rusting away but is still quite sound after sitting for 50 years in the open.

Anybody in Oz care to track it down?