Early Javelin Restoration

[Chris Spencer]

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Effected area sectioned

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fabricated and welded in

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Cleaned back & ready for the outer skin of the inner wing repair

[Chris Spencer]

Attention turned to boot lid panel fit - this was the worst panel fit on the car when it arrived - displaying all the signs of rear impact damage to the cars bodyshell on the offside, the boot lid had also been forced closed on top of something inside the boot which in turn had split and fractured the inner frame of the boot lid - this in turn had splayed out and distorted the outer skin of the boot lid. Net result was car that carried a scrap boot lid - aperture gaps with the roof line which took the paint off the edge of the aperture when opened - aperture gaps to the side that you could drive a bus through and gapping with the rear panel that changed each time depending on how you closed the boot lid. This all comes on car that when new the aperture gapping / panel fit was not brilliant either - not helped by the multi compound curvature of the panel and flexing due to an alloy inner frame and steel outer skin that the boot lid is fabricated from. We started with a good used panel from JCS - although this required welding to the inner frame by one of the hinges

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With a little work with the TIG and cleaned back - it was ready for trial fitting - it will also require modification of the boot lid handle aperture to accept the early style combined handle / lamp arrangement - but more on this a later date - I will be happy if I just obtain a decent fit with the lid for starters

[Chris Spencer]

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Starting with the one aperture gap / panel that would be difficult to make any adjustment to (roofline) I adjusted the hinges on the boot lid to achieve a reasonable gapping - once this was done I could use it as a reference point and work towards the rear of the car altering & adjusting the aperture / gapping as required - some areas requiring attention with the hammer & dolly to dress in / out & up / down - a few areas required a little more of a radical approach namely the bottom offside corner gapping with the rear panel - the boot lid was overlapping at this point and no doubt down to the previous accident damage - I was happy that I had a good panel fit with the rear panel / shroud and rear wing - so just the boot lid to alter then - I cut the overlap back with the angle grinder and allowed a few more mm in order to reweld the flange edge together

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Once welded & cleaned back

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[Chris Spencer]

It now leaves a couple of areas on the bodyshell that are slightly out of profile with the boot lid - namely both rear corners adjoining the shroud & rear panel and the top offside corner with the roofline where the roof skin meets the rear shroud - as these 3 areas are all factory lead loaded to form the correct profile originally - I will be replicating the process to achieve the required profiles and at that point I should have something very close to a good fit with the boot lid

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Just the handle / locking mechanism to sort which requires some alteration to the outer skin of the boot lid but its all very achievable

[robert lintott]

For Chris, The boot lid looks excellent in your final pictures . The usual cause of the commonly found cracking around the hinges is distortion caused by the open lid being supported by the single strut on the offside . Only minor pressure on the open lid causes the metal to flex and the aluminium splits . Being an early car perhaps yours has the original centre fitting spring /lever rather than the strut ? This was ditched early on because often the open lid would come crashing down on the unsuspecting person loading the boot, it just was not strong enough. Cracking can also be caused by trying to squash too much stuff into the boot and closing the lid under pressure. To avoid the twisting why not fit two gas struts , one each side --surely an OK modern item no worse than electric pumps /alternators etc ?

I have seen several Javelins with distorted lid profiles such that the lid is significantly wider than the car body aft of the side windows. there seems to be no easy way of "sqeezing" the lid back to shape ?

You may well have purchased a new rubber seal from JCS, which I found very effective , but the rubber is rather hard and does not compress easily . So a good fitting lid without the seal may not be so good with it . Also it is to be stuck to the lid , and I found I had to take the lid off the car to glue it on , but you would have to paint the lid first at least in that area if not completely .
Best wishes Bob

[Jack]

Some interesting research at this point around boot lids, light location, colour, numberplates, and everything else related to it throws up a few questions, hopefully with a bit of the knowledge on here we can ensure that there is a record of what the boot and numberplate arrangements should be for a car of a certain age. Perhaps.



The image shows the various permutations of numberplate and light arrangement, though these are the instructions issued in May 1951 for towbar attachment on deluxe models it serves to show us what we are looking at and discussing.

The first change seems to happen in the Bulletin from Nov 1950: "The original number plate light and tail light glass has been modified to serve as a number plate light on the Standard model or as a reversing light on the Deluxe model, Part Number 51619. It should be noted that the new light glass is interchangeable on both models as it is possible to alter direction of the beam by turning the bulb holder 180°." - So Peter's Early Standard (pre Nov 1950) I think should have a white/red cone over the light, with the white pointing up to the numberplate and the red serving as a red tail light.

What I don't understand from the above, is that if the Standard from Nov 50 onwards had a plain white shroud (it says they are interchangeable) it would have a white light pointing backwards, even with the shroud around the bulb it doesn't seem right. Obviously not an issue on the deluxe, as it is only used as a reversing light, with the numberplate and light on the rear bumper. If someone could confirm, that would help me enormously in my pursuit of becoming Javelin Rear Numberplate Expert 2013. This is not a club award unfortunately, but always nice for me to learn something on a Tuesday morning

I the same bulletin, it says of Deluxe models "A rear number plate box with an illuminating light has been fitted to the rear bumper blade." - I also don't know what happened before this point on Deluxe cars. Does anyone know? Did they have a numberplate and light that was somehow not boxed in?

Obviously at this point a reversing light switch was added to the gearbox on Deluxe cars, so that the white light could be illuminated when required.

The May 1951 Bulletin details towbar fitting on a deluxe, as in the image above, and the numberplate light above the numberplate light is fitted because the conical light on the handle is now a reversing light on deluxe cars, and the numberplate and light has been removed from the bumper. On a standard the numberplate is already out of the way and the conical light is now white and serves as numberplate light only so this isn't required.

This is the only change I can find in the Technical Bulletins. Does anyone know definitively when the "handle only" boot lids were used, where there is no conical light above the handle? I assume the light and numberplate were on the bumper, but that would mean no reversing or tail light other than the sidelights. Is this for later Standard models? As in Chris' pictures, the boot lid on Peter's car now has the handle only fitting, which is easily modified by cutting the correct hole in the centre of the boot for the larger handle and conical light fitting.

There are four rubber washers, Part Number 51050 for attaching the numberplate to the boot lid. I suspect we will need to get these or similar for Peter's car to avoid damaging the new paintwork.

Jack.

[Robin Fairservice]

My Javelin is a 1950 De Luxe model shipped from the UK on August 21, 1950. It has the white half of the lamp beneath the number plate facing up to illuminate the plate, and no reversing light. Do you need a picture?

[Forumadmin]

More pictures in the Gallery here.
They show how Chris marks panels when fitting.

But here is a taster.

[Jack]

My Javelin is a 1950 De Luxe model shipped from the UK on August 21, 1950. It has the white half of the lamp beneath the number plate facing up to illuminate the plate, and no reversing light. Do you need a picture?

Hi Robin,

I know the ones you mean. No, this description is ideal though - if anyone has examples of different permutations (particularly with a boot lid that just has a handle, no conical light on the handle) that would really help to pin down exactly what is right. I wonder if concours judges have a good idea of this - who normally judges concours for Standard and Deluxe Javelins? Do they keep a "what changes happened when" for the big stuff on a Javelin?

If we get a few responses we might split this out into a separate thread for information purposes.

Jack.

[Chris Spencer]

who normally judges concours for Standard and Deluxe Javelins? Do they keep a "what changes happened when" for the big stuff on a Javelin?

Ha - For the last two years ME

[Jack]

who normally judges concours for Standard and Deluxe Javelins? Do they keep a "what changes happened when" for the big stuff on a Javelin?

Ha - For the last two years ME

I see. So such a list doesn't really exist? It might make concours judging easier, to have a simple "check for the following..." list for originality - example for the toolkit, the experienced owner would know what should be there, but to enable someone like me to judge having a simple list of the big stuff makes sense doesn't it? This is getting off the subject, but might be a sensible thing to do once we've got this rally done and the cars back on the road.

It would just have stuff like the headlamp size change, front grille change, seat frame change, rear light and numberplate options, the big stuff. With the chassis number, it would be easy to check on a computer with a very basic program based on factory records what colour the paint and interior should be, and what spec should be present, shouldn't it? That could be done as soon as the judges have called which cars they are judging, and a form given to them to confirm.

As it stands, an owner could win the concours with a car that isn't even the same colour as when it left the factory. Is that important, as long as the colour and spec is a car that could have left the factory, does it matter that it wasn't that particular vehicle? But now we really are getting off the subject. I'll bring this one up again in the summer I think and we can see if computers can help the club in this area - comments have been made about the quality of concours entries in recent months, this might help with that a little, and also help as a resource for those restoring their cars in pursuit of originality what should be on there.

Jack.

[Robin Fairservice]

If it becomes important, I have an Excel Spreadsheet of the Tool Kit for a Javelin PB De Luxe prepared by Andrew Henshall in Australia.

Judging at a Concours should be on condition and originality. I don't think that colour should be a judging criteria.

[Jack]

If it becomes important, I have an Excel Spreadsheet of the Tool Kit for a Javelin PB De Luxe prepared by Andrew Henshall in Australia.

Judging at a Concours should be on condition and originality. I don't think that colour should be a judging criteria.

Certainly worth sharing, if we don't have that spreadsheet it might be worth having in the gallery. Not sure how spreadsheets are uploaded to gallery, but Keith should be able to help if required.

The colour (and everything else) is perhaps a question of originality - it isn't difficult to take a car and turn it into something quite different, change the colour, and make many other modifications and produce a car which is "concours" in the sense that it is a car could have left the factory looking exactly as it does now, but not with the chassis number that it actually has. It would mean that the concours competition would be judged on what the car should be, as opposed to what the car has been built to be.

Jack.

[Chris Spencer]

Although originality from the factory is an important factor when judging a vehicle it would be foolish to not accept that owners did carry out modifications to the cars in period - and it was not unusual to find cars that were a few years old have oil coolers fitted to them or maybe brake upgrades at later date by the fitting of a remote servo along with tow bars / wheel embellishers etc - two tone paint work was also popular throughout the 50's / 60's / 70's & 80's quite often a owner addition to the vehicle.

So if a owner has sensible modifications that deviate from a factory original car should the modifications be marked down, in my book most certainly not - this is part of the cars history - why mark it down ? If a Jowett van had sign writing down the side of it does it warrant being scored down ? because it did not leave the factory with the sign writing on it ! - but the sign writing is most certainly part of the vehicles history.

Has far as I am concerned providing the vehicle has not been turned into some custom mobile bling trinket wearing box on wheels the personal period modifications to the vehicles should be accepted - owners of the vehicles carried these out and it is an example of the period that the vehicle survived through - you would not see a concours judge scoring a Austin A35 down just because it has a steel sunroof visor fitted to it or a Ford Zephyr fitted with a Raymond Mays cylinder head.

The way forward in assisting the concours judges at our club events is to put together a judges guide for each model as already surgested- this needs to be more photographic than anything - lots of words attempting to describe which lamp the car should have fitted to the boot lid would be quite difficult to follow - a few words and an image of the rear of the car stating the changes through the years would very much do the job - then again it is easy to fall in to the trap - remember at the side of Ford / Vauxhall / Rover - Jowett was a small scale vehicle manufacture - it was not unusual to see overlaps - some vehicles were export KDC (knock down component) in other words they arrived in kits and were assembled upon arrival - interchange of parts did happen / some cars were accident repaired with later styles of panels & trim because the earlier parts were no longer available and it would be foolish to score down such trivial items - and please do not get me started on tool kits !!

Score the vehicle on what it is - allow for scoring on originality but equally so where a car has been restored and the owner has done the majority of the work also score on that fact.

[Chris Spencer]

Well despite any length of absence - progress is still being made

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The outer skin of the rear inner wing has been completed

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Next was the mess hidden behind the usual plated over rust theme that has been found throughout the car

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Which once removed revealed this