Early Javelin Restoration

[Chris Spencer]

Firstly to clear up the steering box mounting questions: Keith & myself removed the mounting bolt from Jacks car to reveal an original & unbroken mounting - the hole in the mounting is has it left the factory and elongated on the engine / bulkhead side - see image - but not on the inner wing / wheelarch side. At the point of the elongation the metal is not has strong / thick as it should be bearing in mind the cricital support factor. To add to this all Javelins are now exempt from the MOT test - could all Javelin owners take this factor in to consideration and ensure that this point is checked next time you have your car up on ramps or are going through the car to ready it for the rallying season.

IMGP4923.JPG

[Chris Spencer]

With the ongoing upgrade in workshop equipment to complement last years workshop extension Keith made an investment in new blasting kit and the workshop now holds the facility to both grit blast (great on rusted metal) & soda blast (great on finer parts & paintwork) - however, the reliable workshop compressor that has seen great service for several years - at 50 litres just does not have the capacity so I managed to source and do a deal on a used 150 litre compressor - that said the motor failed on the first day but it had been stood outside for a couple of years - Keith serviced the compressor and sourced a new motor for it - so we are now up and running and it's another box ticked off the never ending list of kit that makes our lives easy in the workshop.

IMGP4916.JPG

IMGP4915.JPG

[Chris Spencer]

Ok - Back to the restoration then - a start was made on the front nearside outer sections which on first viewing appears to be quite sound

IMGP4935.JPG

However, four skins of metal join at this point and the old tinworm loves this area on Javelins - so a little surgery to open the area up reveals this

IMGP4936.JPG

IMGP4937.JPG

[Chris Spencer]

The inner wing section was cut back to sound metal and the pattern that I had utilised on the offside reused on this side

IMGP4942.JPG

Using the same pattern I fabricated a replacement section

IMGP4945.JPG

Then after cutting the air tube inlet into the new section I readied the panel for welding to the car

IMGP4948.JPG

[Keith Clements]

We also noted that the elongated hole was replicated on the inner wing on the other side, presumably for left hand drive models. But does a left hand drive have a circular or oval hole on the steering box mounting?

The elongation is in the direction of the steering column. Since the intermediate arm (50547) is fixed at one end this adjustment might allow for some distortion in the chassis to allow for 1940s tolerances. We have to assume that the elongation was there to allow adjustment for the box which, if you think about the geometry, would alter slightly the parallelism of the steering link (52359) to the ground. When we put it back I will tightly assemble the nearside parts and then see how the offside (steering box) parts align. It may be that this adjustment reduces strain and lock up often experienced when adjusting the cones (50557). Since the box is located by a second bolt to the inner wing, such adjustment will be minimal unless those holes are bigger than the bolt size. Paragraphs 129 to 131 of the extensive 1950 Maintenance Manual make no mention of such an adjustment.

I also suspect, looking at the geometry, that any knock on the wheel or tyre would put severe strain on the steering box mounting as it is a lot weaker than the nearside mounting. This may be by design to protect the steering box gears! An early form of collapsible steering column! Only joking.

It would also be sensible to make sure the two bolts securing the steering box are well torqued up and I would use thread lock on them to make sure they do not come loose. Any play would soon cause a stress fracture similar to loose spring arm bolts. On Jack's car the inner wing hole was larger than necessary which might have been wear or was there to allow easy fitting of the steering box.

[Chris Spencer]

New panel tacked up

IMGP4950.JPG

Then welded up and cleaned back

IMGP4951.JPG

Next on the list will be the bumper iron mounting reinforcing plate, fabrication of a new air tube and mounting repairs for the upper suspension to the inner wing - but these will have to wait for my next workshop visit as other things needed to be progressed today.

[Chris Spencer]

We have been looking into the the best way of bringing the car to bare metal and had considered sending the bodyshell & panels to be dipped - a process that removes all paint & rust & brings the steel to a bright metal finish. I looked into the costs and at £1,000 looks expensive but would save a lot of time & effort - plus it cleans all inside the chassis rails & box sections however, Keith did quite a lot of research into this process and there are quite a number of cars out there that having had this process undertaken and the cars fully restored are now finding that after several months real problems with the paintwork on the car - it would appear that chemical residue from the dipping process is finding it's way out of flanges / panel joints etc and effecting the paint - not something that I want to encounter after putting this much effort into a restoration.

You can probably gather from the thread that this is not the first restoration that I have undertaken and have had bodyshells & panels blasted before today - although very good at removing paint & rust the problem with blasting is that is distorts light metal panels especially large flatish areas such as doors / bonnets / boots / roofs - it is just pointless having the paint removed by blasting to have to put several kilos of body filler back onto the car to correct the blasting distoration. Futher to this blasting can not access inside the box sections / chassis rails etc (but more on this later)

This leaves the do it ourselves option - The car has seen several coats of paint and to sand the paint back to bare metal would take months and an endless supply of abrasives, so using one door on the car as an experiment - I first removed any odds of trim that were still on the door

IMGP4934.JPG

IMGP4917.JPG

IMGP4918.JPG

So this is what we tried - NO ! Not the Waitrose four cheese sauce but a good quaility stripper - you can tell the quaility of a paint stripper by price alone - this was £60 for four litres

[Chris Spencer]

First coat of stripper and scraped back

IMGP4920.JPG

A nice fern green metalic colour is exposed under the dark green

IMGP4921.JPG

A couple of stripper coats later brought these results

IMGP4922.JPG

[Chris Spencer]

Not quite bare metal but not far away - so next tool of choice was this - angle grinder with a poly carbon disc fitted

IMGP4927.JPG

and ten mins later we had this result

IMGP4928.JPG

The discs are brilliant - they do wear but dont clog or burn - if you buy in bulk of 10 at a time you can obtain them for less than £5 each - while having the remaining paint away they are fine enough not to effect the metal or leave deep grinding marks - The door had seen an element of bodge with bodyfiller applied to the lower skin of the door to repair a scrape - they had been too lazy to to remove the inner door panel and panel-beat the scrape out to enure a skim of filler was required rather than the half inch deep pug that I removed. The inner frame of the door was also cleaned up and now just requires a little soda blasting in the fine / difficult areas

IMGP4930.JPG

In conclusion not the quickest process - took a couple of hours in all but one in which we can be assured of the quaility and one that we do not have to spend time on in an effort to correct repairs caused by external suppliers that we would have been paid to cause the damage in the first place.

So the external panels will be stripped of paint using the above researched methods, the chassis and underside will be shot blasted in house and the cavity / chassis / box sections shall be treated with a sprayed on rust treatment process prior to being treated with cavity waxes.

[Chris Spencer]

Meanwhile Jack had sorted through the chrome & bright fittings on the car - some were fine for rechoming but others required repair before being sent - mindfull of lead times etc we wanted to ensure that we had the process in hand rather than getting held up once the car starts to be rebuilt - the front bumper required minor repair but the rear was a challenge

IMGP4943.JPG

Keith had the choice of 2 others so we choose the best one of the two but still this one required repair

IMGP4933.JPG

Keith removed the overriders and attempted to free the seized end mounting with heat - but that sheared - so I welded a new one on - the bumper still needs attention to the slight bow it has and a couple of minor dents but these should be sortable

[Chris Spencer]

Keith went on to sort through the overriders on the car - and we have a choice of six

IMGP4953.JPG

but all require some attention - either dented / seized fittings etc - so that we could gain access to the repair areas the mountings were cut off

IMGP4952.JPG

and these shall be rewelded once the repairs to the visual surfaces have been completed.

[robert lintott]

I put my Javelin 22752 on the lift to look at the infamous bracket . With the gearbox in place and all the cables etc it is very difficult to even see what condition it is in let alone do anything about it. . This is definitely a special Jowett feature for owners to see to , I can't imagine an MOT tester including it in his checks . Has there ever been a report of a bracket failure causing trouble ?

As far as I could see , the bracket is OK, rather like the one on David's NKJ ( which incidentally is shown as NKV in the register ). I am not sure the bracket is there to make adjustments . The steering box is firmly bolted to the inner wing (in 2 places ?) so any attempt to lever the box into a different position would cause distortion of the inner wing with such force that even a tight bolt in a slotted hole is unlikely to stay put . More likely the slot is as Keith says to allow for inaccuracies in the structure , bolt holes etc . The bracket may have been welded on by Briggs or possibly by Jowett so it would have been sensible to allow for positional tolerances . The bracket looks rather flimsy for any support in a major impact affecting the steering mechanism ,which may explain the breakage. Is it imagination or are the later brackets more substantial than those on earlier cars such as 9622?

The Maintenace Manual ( pages 94, 95 )makes no mention of the bracket nor of any adjustment .

Fascinating pics by Chris, I am amazed at the speed of work he achieves! Bob

[Chris Spencer]

Fascinating pics by Chris, I am amazed at the speed of work he achieves! Bob

It's not just me - I have a good support team behind me and while I am busy at the day job Keith is undertaking much research and ordering parts / talking to suppliers along with working his way through the mechanical bits, Jack also is helping where he can and researching suppliers such as rechoming and alternative processing for the paint removal on the car - needless to say Jack & myself have partners at home that take a interest and equally support us in what is being acheived.

[Keith Clements]

Does anyone know if the cars were ordered from Briggs as left or right hand drive or did Jowett modify a generic body? There are a few differences between them but these could have been done at either factory. I realise that the bodies were sprayed by Briggs but how much of the interior was fitted out? Were the head lining, door panels and loom already in place before it arrived at Idle? The hole for the steering and gear columns is particularly badly cut and was not part of the body pressing. So was this done by Jowett?

[robert lintott]

For Keith, there must be some ex employees who could answer your question in detail, but at a guess I would think Jowett only went to Briggs because they could not produce pressed steel bodies in house so would contract out the minimum to keep the price down . Presumably Jowett decided if a body was LHD or RHD, standard or deluxe so they would fit all the mechanicals and interior and detachable fittings like bumpers, chrome etc . If glass was not fitted how did they keep the rain out ? How about the plywood floors?

If so this would mean that any RHD/LHD part was fitted by Jowett---steering box ( I remember wondering years ago why the hole was such a rough job ), as would interiors and head lining ( deluxe with radio had a hole in the roof for an aerial ), brackets for the steering box and idler arm, pedals etc , facia of course .....

Maybe one of the books explains the system ?

Javelins are quite easy to work on in part because Jowett had to have a simple system for building a car around the body. In trying to get other cars apart you sometimes wonder how they were ever assembled by normal size people !

Good luck Bob