Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[danielr]

Hello,
Bit of a beginner question,

I've just taken ownership of my first classic car, a 1956 standard 10.

first thing that I notice is that the battery connector that is strapped to the chassis has a P on it...

so here's what I'm wondering, are standard tens positive earth, or was someone lazy replacing a battery terminal at some point in this cars life and just used the closest one to hand?

[47p2]

Welcome to the forum.

You will probably find the car is possitive earth as a lot of cars from this era were. Battery possitive and negative terminals are different sizes and therefore not interchangeable. To double check you could put a meter onto the battery as DC voltage is polar sensitive
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[Rick]

welcome to the forum Daniel

Rick

(a former Standard owner)
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[Richard H]

Welcome Daniel! Would love to see some pictures of the Standard sometime

Incidentally one of my 1959 Austin A35's is positive earth as well, I think all small British cars from the 1950's were. The other one has been converted to negative earth to fit a modern radio and electric temperature guage.

I've always liked the Standards - I think small 1950's cars are very appealing!
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Richard Hughes

[Phil - Nottingham]

Until mid 1960's British cars came with positive earth system and by early 1970's when alternators became standardised all were on the continental negative earth system again as this was dropped in the UK in the early 1930's by Lucas to assist starting/ignition at the alleged expense of more corrosion which was not a real problem on wood framed bodies then. Never bben proved anyway whether it does make corrsion worse as Rover P5 3 Litres became negative earth in 1965 and rusted just as fast as the positibev earth ones before them

Rover changed over in 1936 to the positive earth system as like virtually every British car maker/assembler including Ford they bought in Lucas electrics.
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[Keith D]

Welcome to the forum, Daniel.

I had a 1957 Standard 10 way back in about 1961. I loved the little car. The fact that I courted the girl who is now my wife in it, probably helps! It was economical, extremely reliable and great fun. I would love to see some photos of yours.

As Phil and 640TMP have already said, most British cars of those years were positive earth, so I would be pretty certain that the Standard is the same.

Keith

[danielr]

there are pictures of the car here:

http://s160.photobucket.com/albums/t166/daniel_rainbow/Standard%2010%20Restoration/

they are some working pictures that I'm taking as I'm keeping a bit of a blog of the restoration.

thanks for the advice in this thread, I hadn't really worried about the engine as the guy who i bought this from, (on ebay) had said that it worked, and I just believed him...
then for some reason or another I started to panic a bit about spending my time and money restoring a car that I just kind of believed worked, but had never actually seen working myself.

[Keith D]

Hey Daniel,

That's a very nice little car. If it were mine I would very definitely spend some time and money on it, and then enjoy it. They really are a lovely little car. They'll never frighten an Aston Martin, but then they won't cost anywhere near as much to restore and run either!

I drove all over Britain in mine in the early sixties and I don't think it ever let me down.

Keith

[Rick]

Interesting to see the photos, I've had three Standards 8/10s in all, although only one on the road (a Standrive-equipped version). All three had really sweet running engines in them.

The engine parts are fairly easy to find (see 948 Herald), the only slightly trickier parts to locate relate to the front suspension if I remember right. The owner's club ran quite a good spares scheme, so it might be worth joining the SMC. They do a good monthly mag too.

Rick
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[danielr]

Even though I started the engine, it's still a long long way off being on the road.

At the moment I'm still in the process of stripping it down.

The floor pan seems to have more holes in it than anything I've seen before, once the carpets were removed and I'd gone along poking the floor to find out where the sections were rotted through.

what I've already found about this car and restoring it is that I'll be spending so much time doing it! and my collection of tools will grow massively.

There was a thread on here that I found about some guys in Thailand restoring a beetle making up new body sections using hammers and cold chisels, so I've started making new sections of floor pan in roughly the same method.

(though when I started I had some sheet metal left from when I'd done something else and I was hammering the metal with a claw hammer and screw driver, since then I have at least gone and bought a few chisels and a couple more hammers to actually have the right tools for the job).

(I know it'd be easier to take it to a body shop or coachworks to have new panels made, but if I can do it myself and figure out/learn a skill along the way then i think that I'd rather do it that way!).