Jack's Stupid Bradford Questions - Part 1

[Jack]

Also (I suppose question 4.1) there is plenty of room to use thicker material to replace the wooden arch, and would provide more strength to do so. Any compelling reason not to beef this up a bit? I am considering a campervan type folding bed in the back, which would rest on the wheelarches (that we are replacing) so the additional strength seems like a good idea.

Jack.

Answering my own question - no real reason that I can see not to beef up the wood inside the arch (other than leaving good clearance for the tyre) but using slightly thicker metal for the wheelarch has made it stronger. It has however made it much harder to swage, went into our local classic workshop and their vintage swaging machine did the job but because the material is thicker getting the original appearance on the insides of the arch will need a bit more bodywork to look right. Other than that and a tiny amount of weight gain thickening the arch seems like a good idea so far.

In other news the chassis is now painted from the bulkhead backwards, and the underfloor bits of wood (under the floorboard) have come off and been treated, looks like they were replaced at some point but they are ready to go back in and get on with the rest of the woodwork.

Jack.

[AlanBartlett]

Well done jack glad to see your making progress with the bradford! Is there enough room for a hammock in the back instead?

[Jack]

Pic of the rear of the Bradford. It probably looks more dramatic than it is, one wheelarch removed, the other has come out now.

Mechanical bits underneath are done, rear leaf springs cleaned up, painted and greased, new prop shaft joints fitted, and everything else cleaned up and painted.



The wood frame has now been sanded and resealed, looking much better without all the dirt on there but the oil stains are staying for now, makes it look like it has been used a bit

Tonight was a bit different to recent weeks, with the woodwork getting started. One side rear corner is now replaced with some very rudimentary brackets to hold everything together - it has become suddenly much more solid with the wood clamped in, it needs sealing before fitting but not long before we are onto wheelarch fabrication hopefully.

Jack.

[Jack]

Well done jack glad to see your making progress with the bradford! Is there enough room for a hammock in the back instead?

Working out how to do this, since I don't have the original seats we don't have much to lose. Thinking about the rock and roll beds perhaps - if we had that as a front seat it would give me a 6 foot bed with some room for feet to dangle over the end! THe VW guys seem to have got these available for not a lot of cash and easily swapped if I wanted in future.

I have got some fun ideas on interior decor, though that will have to be a surprise once I find the various bits I need.

Jack.

[Jack]

Update for anyone still sticking with the thread, and because I've managed to carry on working without too many stupid questions this week!

The Bradford now has tyres. I did my research, poked around a lot, and in the end went with Avon Turbosteels. Not the cheapest tyre on earth, but made a bit more reasonable with a sensible discount and frankly we're not going to be replacing tyres for a good while yet. They went onto the gold rims of bling yesterday, and with a bit of fettling this morning they are looking brilliant. Nothing like a freshly painted wheel and brand new tyre to make you feel good, and they are currently making a nice ornament in the dining room so that they don't get damaged while we carry on hitting things with big hammers in the garage.

The priorities this week were to get the corner pieces in and clamped vaguely in place, so that we had an idea what all the various measurements should be for the wheelarches and other woodwork. Luckily this went remarkably smoothly, and they are almost ready to pin into position. All kinds of joints and materials were options, but in the end the lower sections were so rotten they needed replacement, and the upper sections very solid - a couple of brackets that are fairly well hidden when looking at the van from all the usual angles will do the job and they are now very solid - this is looking from the wheelarch towards the back:



I have kept the wood with just a bit of clear varnish on it, in some ways quite keen to show what is original timber and what has been replaced, but also so that people can see that it actually is a wooden frame - many of the younger people I have spoken to seem entirely confused by the idea of an ash frame in a vehicle.

The job for today was to finish what Mr Beaumont had started at the technical weekend. He had fitted the shoes to the front brakes, something which went quite spectacularly badly on my first attempt, and replaced the oil seal on one side at the rear, fitted the shoes and reassembled. That meant I had the job of remembering everything he had done during this job while I did the other side. I probably should have taken more notes and more pictures, but it didn't take me too long to get things sorted so I must have been paying some attention while Paul was working on this.



Almost ready to refit, interested in how those without a hydraulic press manage to get their bearings out to change the seal? It took nearly 2 tonnes of pressure to press it out, and we had a similar challenge on the other side a few weeks ago.

One note on this from memory of discussion at the technical weekend, hopefully someone can confirm, on earlier cars the four bolts in the picture had more studs through the backplate. This presumably means that these components are not interchangeable between early and late axles, worth noting for anyone seriously into their concours or buying parts for these bits.

Jack.

[Jack]

Also reminder note for me, to take some pictures of the rear shock absorbers and mounts - we now have these installed and think they are a winner. They need road testing, but being piston type adjustable we should be able to find the right setting to improve handling from the lever arm type that were on there originally.

Timing being what it is, we had assumed this was our only hope after quotes of huge amounts of money to fix the lever arm originals, it sounds like JCS have found a supplier reconditioning these for a much more reasonable cost so the front ones (where they will be most visible anyway) we can stick with originals.

Pictures and write-up to follow.

Jack.

[StevenGray]

(One note on this from memory of discussion at the technical weekend, hopefully someone can confirm, on earlier cars the four bolts in the picture had more studs through the backplate. This presumably means that these components are not interchangeable between early and late axles, worth noting for anyone seriously into their concours or buying parts for these bits.)

CA and early CB models (up to serial no D9-CB17008 according to the Tech info doc referred to else where in this section) fitted with 8" drums have back plates with a 6 bolt fixing so are not interchangeable with the later 10" braked versions.

re the concours issue, is the change over number cast in stone? my Bradford is DB CB-13644 and has 10" brakes, it was this way when it came my way in 1971, Although it could have been converted, it would have probably required a doner vehicle which had been scrapped some number of years before. It had been laid up for a number of years , and essentially had only two owners up to that time

Steve

[ian Howell]

On August 9th, Jack posted: -

Many of the younger people I have spoken to seem entirely confused by the idea of an ash frame in a vehicle.

On about the second run with my then newly running Long Four, the condenser packed up just after a roundabout on a duel carriageway, well it was 80 years old). Whilst diagnosing the problem at the roadside (I carry a spare dizzy complete now) James and I were interrupted by 'Allo, Allo, Allo, what seems to be the problem?'

Two of East Sussex's finest helpfully pulled up their Range Rover behind us and warded off traffic until James fetched a replacement from home.

Getting to the point (at last!) neither of them had ever seen a car made of wood! (The internal framing is all exposed at present until the fabric cover is fitted).

I often get the same reaction at the various rallies I have attended, so I suppose 'those that remember' are gettinmg fewer and further between.

O Temps, O Mores.

[Jack]

A quick photo (to save another thousand words, though I suspect I will manage both) to show the condition of the A post. Strangely, the passenger side is solid, but missing the channel at the top of the window, the drivers side is completely gone. Also strangely the horizontal piece under the windscreen is solid too, even the joint where it connects to the A post is solid, but the A post is completely disintegrated.



Picture is 90 degrees out, but you get the idea.

Still, in other news I have decided that this is probably going to be the most difficult bit of the rebuild, and it doesn't look groundbreakingly difficult. It is going to require some patience, it is going to require some more timber, but if I can do this I suspect the rest of the build is going to be downhill from here. Positive mental attitude. Nothing is impossible etc.

The bit which I am currently most pleased with (after a bit of help) I have failed dismally to take a picture of, which is the dashboard and instrument panel. The centre panel has been painted, as it was in a fairly sorry state, and I decided to update it a bit with some of the paint we used on the wheels. Picture to follow, for any purists reading I'd just move on to the next page and pick it up again without looking. Or hopefully accept that nothing I have done is permanent

Also failed dismally to take the pictures of the shock absorbers at the back, I am going to have to start carrying a notebook around with reminders to myself at this rate...

Jack.

[Jack]

After a few weeks off to go on holiday and the long weekend at Goodwood, on top of a new bathroom going in at home, work on the Bradford is getting back on track again after a lot of thinking time to work out what needed doing and finding a few bits I need.

We seem to have found a solution to the A post problem via the New Zealand club, who have A posts on the shelf (at an astoundingly cheap $100 NZ, equivalent to £52!) and hopefully that will get me back on track with the woodwork. I was secretly dreading the A post woodwork, it seems to bend in three dimensions and is yet another job that you really only get one go at with any given piece of timber. I know JCS in the UK are working on making these available to members, but we saw the ad in the NZ newsletter and snapped up the chance. Hopefully the replacement post will be almost ready to go in, and we can refit the drivers door and make some more progress towards P-Day, the day of painting. Or lacquering to be more precise, we are going to keep the original look of it but need to seal the bodywork to prevent any deterioration short term and get the Bradford back on the road.

While we wait for things to arrive from the other side of the planet, it was time to face another demon - wiring.



Luckily managed to grab a wiring loom off the shelf at JCS, which seems to have everything we need to get the electrics back to life. We had a debate about making our own loom, but it would have broken one of my golden rules: Never spend more than a day doing anything which can be outsourced for less than £100 - it means I don't need to do any blasting, as we have a tame company that gets through things so much quicker than I could for a bargain price. Same on the wiring, it would take a lot of time and even at £200 was well worth it.

Sadly I had assumed the Bradford wiring would be more simple than the Jupiter which I ended up doing on Amy's car (a horrendous piece of planning, as I don't know anything about electrics and I'm certainly not very good at it) in reality the Bradford has got a very similar number of wires and seems to be almost exactly as complicated, and the text on the wiring diagram in the instruction book is absolutely tiny! On that basis I am expecting to be wiring for at least two weekends. Urgh. It was bad enough doing the lights for the bathroom!

Once we had run out of gas for the soldering iron, and I was a bit bored of wiring, we turned to the voltage regulator to get it set up properly. Keith will probably have to explain the details and provide the links to how to set this up, but it was a fairly straightforward clean up and then adjust clearances on the top of the coils and between the contacts. Everything seemed to be in good condition, and with a little bit of tweaking all the gaps were right.



Jack.

[Forumadmin]

TOPIC Start here to learn how the control box works.
Then go here to set it up.

[Jack]

Another opportunity to drop into the garage last night meant time to start proper wiring. All the ends had been stripped on the bench, definitely the easiest place to do it, so it was just a case of reading the absolutely tiny writing in the Instruction Book to work out what went where. So far I have got the voltage regulator box wired up, which feels like big progress, and over the weekend the dashboard should be done.

If I can get those two done, I am then down to bunches of less than 4 or 5 wires to sort out, which feels like the home straight for the wiring. It will also allow us to test things like the fuel tank sender and gauge, trafficators, and other stuff around the car. Fingers crossed everything is nice and straightforward and works how it should - of course it won't, but I guess we can only hope for simple problems that need fixing!

Question- on the dashboard there is no temperature gauge. That is a bit weird to me, who is used to knowing how hot things are to avert disaster of overheating. Am I worrying about nothing? I was thinking about replacing one of the gauges with a combined temp and fuel gauge or something to keep an eye on things, or maybe just having a simple sender and warning light set at 90-odd degrees, maybe linked to electric fan? Is this necessary or sensible?

Roll on the weekend, hopefully a finished bathroom and completed wiring is on the cards!

Jack.

[george garside]

Bradfords never had a temp guage and fan (cowled) only on export models to hot parts of the world. However can be prone to overheating if standing /crawling in heavy traffic and will overheat if rad and waterways not spot on

Personally I would go for a cowled elec fan with thermostatic control and not bother with temp guage as you will hear the fan which could be made quickly detachable if originality a consideration

When running Bradfords as every day cars I found that even in 20 mile Exeter bypass crawl no overheating occurred if half the bonnet was kept open so heat trapped under the bonnet when stationery seemed to be the problem. Perhaps little 'doors' in the sides of the bonnet like some pre war austins would have helped

george

[Jack]

Hi George,

Thanks for the info. I think I will fit the elec fan as suggested - originality really not a concern, my only policy is not to do anything that would prevent it fairly easily being put back to concours original in future (either by me or another owner) clearly a fan being wired in and a couple of fixings to hold it in place will not be a problem. It sounds like I should get the radiator dealt with while we are going through this process, the engine has been rebuilt so waterways there should be good, new hoses all round too, just rad left to create problems.

Perhaps a fan with thermostat and a discreet LED on the dashboard to let me know it has come on will be a sensible idea, and would be easily done. And it would fill one of the holes that I have on the dashboard from things being screwed on in the past! I have to plan for crawling to work around the M25 on the days where helpful commuters decide to crash into each other and bring everything to a halt within minutes, and being on the hard shoulder is not a good place to be with distracted lorry drivers going past.

Is there any benefit to fitting a water pump to the system, or is the standard system with an elec fan usually up to the job?

Jack.

[Jack]

One other thing to mention, if anyone is doing oily rag restoration and wants to seal the original paintwork on the body (and rust, bare aluminium, steel and everything else it seems!) the product of choice seems to be Halfords Univeral Lacquer. Comes in a convenient aerosol and works nicely on the old paintwork, with no reaction to the original paint, bits which have been tidied up with other paints, and even rusty bits are sealed and now waterproof without losing the surface rust appearance other than making it a bit darker.

I know that long term the rust will eventually bubble underneath, and this is not a permanent solution, but it is working to prevent any further deterioration while we enjoy it and one day we will end up stripping the old paint and surface rust back and repainting. The chassis has been cleaned up, rust cure stuff painted on, and coated with Frost Chassis Black, which also seems to be the weapon of choice for that particular job and looks pretty good.

Jack.