Monday 10 June 2019

A New Arrival: Peugeot 401 1930's

Here we have a new arrival for possible restoration / refurbishment, initially upon the engine.

The car has a fascinating history, starting life as a Paris Taxi serving through the wartime occupation,  finally being converted and used up until relatively recently as a farmer's truck.

If only it could speak, what wartime tales could be told!

As you can see some work has been carried out toward the preparation and white metalling of the main bearings, waterways and machine surfaces. We also have new pistons and a re-bore to suit.

We are now evaluating the work ahead in preparation to begin the process.

A number of years ago I restored the engine and gearbox of a Peugeot 601, it is amazing that this engine is near identical.. less two cylinders.







Friday 7 June 2019

Archives 3. Some Older HEC Projects From the Early 2000's


Aston Martin 15/98 on arrival



C.I.M.E More to follow on this shortly.

The following Lagonda / Meadows had a very catastrophic failure resulting in a major rebuild, most of the work was carried out at the owner's premises and he was able to become involved with the build too.








Final Dyno Testing at Stanton Motorsports (highly recommended)



Little Green Mazda Pt 2. This Time For Front Suspension and Underside Work













Saturday 1 June 2019

Wolseley Hornet Spl Progress

A few more jobs from the finishing list. Including two engine photos from a little while ago that had been missed.

The following photos show piston ring and piston fitting, the engine had been deliberately assembled without the rings and circlips to carry out a trial test for different cam timing intervals and piston to valve clearance.
 As the rods have to come up through the bores, which are too small to clear big ends; followed by assembly of the pins and pistons in situ, any repeated removal is a little tricky. The wire circlips are so tight and easy to distort that I couldn't risk removing them should I have to further machine to alter the piston, which of course would require removal of the piston and mounting into the Lathe jig.

NPR (Nippon) piston rings were supplied with these pistons, they seem very nicely engineered.


This photo shows a little "funnel" guide tool that I machined to help the fitting of the wire type circlips without distortion. The tool enters into the circlip location to register and then the clip is pushed down the progressively reducing internal bore of the guide until it exits into the groove...still a fiddly operation.


Fabricating front axle torque reaction bars to stop the axle tucking under when braking.


Exhaust fabrication by Dave Tyler, he is such a craftsman along with his son Liam. Great attention to detail for performance as well as aesthetics. Dave was particularly interested to make a "shotgun" system of dual pipes on a Hornet.


Mazda MX 5 Front Overhaul

A little while ago we gave the rear of the Mazda a freshen up, repairing corrosion and attending to suspension. Now it is time for phase 2 ... the front suspension, chassis and steering.