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1951 Lanchester LD10
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Rick
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Joined: 27 Apr 2005
Posts: 22429
Location: UK

PostPosted: Fri Nov 20, 2020 10:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sorry to hear about the set-back but at least the Lanchester didn't get damaged. A heavy snowfall could have caused real problems.

RJ
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Peter_L



Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 2680
Location: New Brunswick. Canada.

PostPosted: Fri Nov 20, 2020 2:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good to hear from you. That rain storm was perhaps a blessing in disguise. As Rick mentioned, a heavy snowfall would likely have been calamitous and you would have ended up with both a roofer's bill and damage to the much loved Lanchester.. Stay Safe ..
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peter scott



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Posts: 7113
Location: Edinburgh

PostPosted: Fri Nov 20, 2020 10:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Glad you got the roof fixed. Hope you can still make car progress on things with that just require your labour but zero cost.

Peter
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Vulgalour



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 473
Location: Kent

PostPosted: Tue Dec 01, 2020 4:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

We are certainly counting our blessings with that garage roof, it was a lucky escape all things considered.

---

The door cards for the Lanchester are now, finally, finished. These haven't been that difficult a job, just a victim of circumstance with schedule clashes, poor weather, and other things like the garage roof failing. So, some highlights and then a video. I'll make the written update a bit whistle-stop since the video goes into greater detail on just how this job is done.

The main issue with the door cards was water and woodworm damage (limited to just one card and none of the surrounding wood, strangely) which had rendered the old plywood very brittle. All of the old steel brackets and felt discs were salvaged from the original door cards, as were the rexine and and carpet covers. Even the elastic cord could be re-used with care. At the risk of repetition, the goal here is conservation rather than restoration. Using the old boards as a guide, we drew around them onto the new boards - a single sheet of 8'x4' 5mm marine ply was ideal, 4.5mm would have been better as that's what the original was, but that doesn't seem to be available and 4mm was too thin - and then cut out the various holes for the rivets and door furniture with a combination of drill and jigsaw.





After that, some of the edges - top and short side on the rear cards, top and both sides on the front cards - had a bevel sanded on to them, this was a copying of the original boards and we found that it help give a much better fit of the fabric on those areas compared to the boards before the bevel was done. Any tear out and splinters were also sanded off. Old on the left and new on the right in the image below.


Then the brackets were refitted to the new boards using the copper bifurcated rivets we found on eBay that were a very close match to the originals, and finally the black felt discs added to the relevant door furniture holes, one per door card.


The factory number and colour were scribbled back on in pencil by Pat, as well as a new date for when we did the work on them, it's part of the story after all.


After that, the markings for the cotton wadding were transferred from the old boards to the new ones and new wadding was glued in place in the appropriate locations.


A lot of tacks applied for the various layers, the old elastic cord rethreaded through the new board and new knots made to keep it there.






The top edge of the cover was glued down with Bostick contact adhesive and held in place with wooden pegs while the glue cured.


Finally, the door cards were then given a thorough press on the ironing board, using a teatowel to protect the rexine from the heat of the iron and the iron from any risk of ending up covered in melted or scorched rexine. It would definitely have been easier to assemble with new contact adhesive, new vinyl, new elastic, and staples. However, we opted to go for the original methods because it worked and because it was a lot cheaper to buy the materials we needed in NOS form on eBay, especially since the tacks (or staples if we'd gone that route) had to be very short and getting staples that short for a regular home staple gun isn't easy. Here's a little overview of the tools we used.




It took about an hour and a half to two hours to strip each door card down, and about the same to build them back up again, so definitely a labour intensive job. However, the end result is very pleasing for what we're trying to achieve, that being keeping as much of the original look of things as we can rather than restoring to as-new. Because we've used tacks instead of staples, when we come to remove the carpet sections to replace them with new to match the new carpet the car will be getting, the old stuff will be a lot easier to remove. Since we're a long way off getting the carpetting and we don't want to lose parts, it makes sense to do things this way and put it all back together again rather than waiting until we can afford however much proper wool carpet we need to do the car. We're both very happy with the end result of these, the look right and they smell right and we can't wait to get them back in the car.




It was very satisfying to finally have a couple of weekends when we could sit down and get these sorted out and when we get another dry weekend together, we'll get them and hopefully the dashboard back in the car. For a more detailed look at the job, and a little bit of an update on car things in general, please do check out the video over on the Youtube channel:
https://youtu.be/3LQqIA_vdxE
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Rick
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Joined: 27 Apr 2005
Posts: 22429
Location: UK

PostPosted: Tue Dec 01, 2020 8:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good to see you back here, they came out very well and will look way better than completely new panels with new coverings etc. And like you say, you'd never replicate the smell of the original trim.

RJ
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peter scott



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Posts: 7113
Location: Edinburgh

PostPosted: Tue Dec 01, 2020 7:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rick wrote:
Good to see you back here, they came out very well and will look way better than completely new panels with new coverings etc. And like you say, you'd never replicate the smell of the original trim.

RJ


+1

Peter
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Ray White



Joined: 02 Dec 2014
Posts: 6284
Location: Derby

PostPosted: Tue Dec 01, 2020 9:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Loving it.

These original door cards are perfectly serviceable and will go back in the car looking just a bit less stressed than before. Ideal preservation.

Keep up the good work.!
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Peter_L



Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 2680
Location: New Brunswick. Canada.

PostPosted: Tue Dec 01, 2020 9:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good to see the progress. I liked your decision to sign the inside of the panels.

I remember back in the 1970's whilst renovating an old property, at the back of the window trim was written. "Joseph Blackshaw.. 1887.. a beautiful day"
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Bitumen Boy



Joined: 26 Jan 2012
Posts: 1733
Location: Above the snow line in old Monmouthshire

PostPosted: Wed Dec 02, 2020 2:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I had to replace some floorboards in the back bedroom a few years ago and signed and dated them. It might interest someone someday. Hopefully they should last a while; the originals weren't rotten but were splintered to hell after being prised up and crudely nailed back down in the course of fitting first gaslight pipes then at least two different central heating systems and probably the electricity as well.
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peter scott



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Posts: 7113
Location: Edinburgh

PostPosted: Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mine were all in bits when I got the car so I had to do a bit of stitching before attaching to new plywood and one rear one was missing so I needed to make it from scratch copying in mirror the one on the other side. I went through quite a lot of sewing machine needles. The little inset shows me piecing together the various parts before sewing.

Peter


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Vulgalour



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 473
Location: Kent

PostPosted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 5:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

They look really nice, can't fault that at all.

We hadn't expected the old door card boards from the Lanchester to be any use and they were in the wood pile waiting for us to dispose of them. Turns out, they were ideal for stabilising the broken fence panel, at least until the new fence panel parts arrive in a few days. None of the neighbours recall the fence being replaced so it's probably original to the house, making it about fifty years old, which is pretty good innings for this style. Looking forward to drier weather so we can do the next stage of work on the garden now that all of the rubbish has been cleared.



The Lanchester is tucked up in the garage at the moment, it seems to have just been raining non-stop since getting the garage roof replaced (it hasn't, but it feels like it has) so we've not been able to get any further on it. The new wiring loom has arrived and looks lovely, certainly better than we could have made ourselves, so we're very much looking forward to fitting that.

Because of the ongoing pandemic we haven't sent the radiator away to be repaired, nor have we really done anything else with the car. We're really just waiting for better weather to arrive and then we can pick up the pace properly.
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Vulgalour



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 473
Location: Kent

PostPosted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 5:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It has been a while, hasn't it? The Lanchester has been tucked up safe and sound until the other day when we wheeled it out for the first time this year to try and fit the door cards. That's when we learned some minor alterations are required for them to fit better and we'll be having another go at that soon, schedules and weather permitting.

In other news, someone on another forum was looking for a home for an Ekco CR32 radio which is much more period correct than the Dansette we'd picked up previously. We still plan to do something with the Dansette anyway and it will still live with the Lanchester, so that's not a waste.

All I've done so far with the Ekco is open it up and check everything is present, which it seems to be. There's signs the radio was in use probably into the 80s since there's a newer plastic-wrapped capacitor inside and signs of other work so hopefully we can coax it back into life.

From what I've found out about these radios online, the one we have is probably from 1947, though could be as late as 1949. It's unlikely to be 1946 or earlier since that would predate Ekco's Scottish factory and since our unit says 'made in Scotland' on the back rather than Southend-on-Sea, that would suggest it's a 1947 or later unit.

It is complete, as far as we can tell, and the chrome is in surprisingly good condition. Once the dust and dirt of storage is cleaned off it should be about the same condition as the rest of the Lanchester's interior, which is ideal. We're hoping the radio works or at the very least can be repaired. If it turns out that it's beyond repair the construction of it is such that it would be very easy to modernise without altering the exterior look of the thing.

When I do the next proper update I'll provide some pictures and probably some video too. Thankfully I have a couple of friends who work with old musical and electronic equipment and while they don't focus primarily on valve equipment, they do know enough about them to keep me from doing something daft with this one. As yet, inspection is the only thing that's been done, no power has been applied to it until we're confident it's safe to do so.
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peter scott



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Posts: 7113
Location: Edinburgh

PostPosted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 7:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The CR32 was my father's first car radio. The vibrators usually seize up but they can be magically brought back to life without going inside the can. There are also solid state replacements available.

The wax capacitors usually go leaky and may short out and damage other components.

Peter
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Rick
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Joined: 27 Apr 2005
Posts: 22429
Location: UK

PostPosted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'd be interested to hear how you get on with the Ekco CR32.

RJ
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Vulgalour



Joined: 08 May 2018
Posts: 473
Location: Kent

PostPosted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The first advice I was given was to replace all the wax capacitors if the intention is to use it, so as to prevent them from destroying other things. Someone has used elastic bands over one of the valves, which seems to have resulted in a lot of broken and stuck-on elastic bands which I assume is because of how hot the valves get. The theory I've been given there is that the valve or its socket or both might be loose and the bands are to hold it in place. The vibrator is present, good to know that can be revived or replaced, from what I've seen on other valve radio restorations, the vibrator is a fairly key component for everything to work properly.

We're not sure how best to set up an aerial for it, the Lanchester looks to never have had a radio fitted in its 70 years, at least nothing permanent, which is a good thing in that we don't have to try and tap into any existing element on the car, and a challenge since whatever we do use needs to look as though it's always been there as much as possible. I can't imagine us fitting a shark fin on the roof, or a telescopic electric aerial off the back wing!

There's a nice short video on Youtube of a functioning unit here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw0HT0091Sw

That gives us some indication of what to expect from the unit at least. There's also a useful blog written by the same chap here: http://radionold.blogspot.com/2020/04/ekco-cr32-mwlw-car-radio-1946.html which should help us understand what we've got a bit better.
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