Delwyn Mallett

Fuel me twice
Car: 1950 Ford Club Coupe
Owner: Delwyn Mallett

/ #1950-Ford-Club-Coupe / #1950 / #Ford-Club-Coupe / #Ford-Club / #Ford

With the Weather improving I rang a local chum, James, to see if he fancied a V8 trip to the Barley Mow – me in my 1950 flathead Ford and him in his hemi-headed Daimler. As the Barley Mow is only two miles from my home, if slightly further for James, this was less a major day out than a chance to park the cars outside and sip a pint in the sunshine while we admired (or not) our respective steeds.

As I may have mentioned in previous Ford updates, among other problems it’s displaying a voracious appetite for fuel. Its consumption seems to be way off the scale and down in single figures. Unfortunately the fuel gauge doesn’t work – it was the only item that refused to respond after I had the car rewired and converted from 6 to 12 volts. I always carry a container or two of fuel as a precaution, and before setting out I glanced in the back to make sure they were aboard. Glancing, however, should have been accompanied by lifting.

Having enjoyed our interlude we set out on the return leg. A mile from home the Ford spluttered and died, retaining just enough momentum to coast onto the grass verge. Incredulous that once again I had contrived to run out of fuel, I reached for my spare cans. Empty, of course. Both of them.

Fortunately James, who had sped off into the distance, noticed my absence from his rear-view mirror and backtracked. After a mercy mission to the nearest petrol station, James returned and I was soon back on the tarmac.
Then, to add insult to injury, by the time I reached home the engine was once again running strangely. With the hood up (it’s an American car), a quick glance revealed that the accelerator linkage had fallen off one of the carbs – it sports twin carburettors on a Fenton manifold – so only one of them was doing the bidding of the accelerator pedal.

In the March issue, I mentioned how lucky I was that, when a tiny nut fell off the carburettor linkage of my ‘Goccia’ Abarth, it had travelled but a few inches and lodged itself in the rim of the rocker cover. No such luck this time. The threaded plug that screws into the end of the linking rod, and locks it to the ball end on the carb lever, was gone. Close inspection revealed a series of holes for a split pin that the previous hot-rodder omitted to fit. A short length of wire has provided a temporary and somewhat wobbly fix – or bodge, as it’s known in the trade.

Meanwhile I’ve also rigged a temporary petrol tank so that I can measure accurately how few miles to the gallon I’m getting. Establishing the reason may take a little longer.

Top and above Linkage’s retaining plug had fallen out, rendering one carburettor inoperative; temporary tank helps mpg measurement.

The Shoebox saga continues

CAR: #1950-Ford-Club-Coupe / #1950 / #Ford-Club-Coupe / #Ford-Club

OWNER: Delwyn Mallett

A refresher since my last 1950 ‘ #Shoebox ’ #Ford-Shoebox update, which I’m startled to realise was some two years ago.

As related in my previous report, the task at hand has never been a restoration as such but merely to get the beast road-legal and reliable. With that as the brief, the ’Box was delivered to Hampshire specialist Roy Pitter, of Rods and Restorations, where the first task – on safety grounds and at Roy’s insistence – was a total rewire using a modern, off-the-shelf ‘street rod’ loom.

The car arrived in this country on a set of totally inappropriate cheapo #BBS replica wheels, which have now been jettisoned in favour of a set of ‘steelies’, wider-rimmed than original and custom-built with sufficient offset (inset?) to allow fatter tyres to fit without fouling the low-cut rear ’arches. Playing with the wheels inevitably led to renewing the brake system, with a new master cylinder and slave cylinders. All available off-the- American-shelf at a refreshingly low price in comparison to buying similar parts for a European classic. The frankly awful accelerator pedal, little more than a piece of stamped tin on a rubber ‘hinge’, has also been replaced with a new and much more substantial device.

With much time spent viewing the car from ground level and lower, it was decided that the sills ought to be replaced and a set of panels were ordered from the States and grafted in. A small area of rust in the passenger’s footwell was also cut out and replaced, and I raised quite a few blisters on my hand after deciding to scrape off the concrete-like sound-deadening on the cabin floor. The car might now be noisier inside – I’ve yet to find out – but it will certainly be many pounds lighter, and, after all, it’s a ’Rod so noisy is good.

I tempted fate in my last report by saying that the engine was running sweetly. With the 2015 Pendine Sands Hot Rod Races targeted as a deadline and rapidly approaching, a leaky carb (one of the two fitted on the Fenton manifold) was dispatched to a specialist and rebuilt virtually overnight as a rush job. Phew, almost there! But then I fell at the last fence…

A misfire and a lack of compression on one cylinder, which consultation with the Flathead boys predicted was almost certainly caused by failed piston rings, caused me also to suffer a compression failure and I abandoned the mission. It’s now Pendine 2016 or bust. More very soon.

Right New metal where it was needed, then off to Pendine with the engine ‘running sweetly’. Only it was not to be…

Livin’ La Vita Rossa / #1992 / #Alfa-Romeo-SZ / DELWYN MALLETT / #Alfa-Romeo

I’ve attended the Prescott VSCC meeting for as long as I can remember but never the Frenchthemed ‘La Vie en Bleu’. Noticing that this year the organizers had added a touch of red to the programme with a ‘La Vita Rossa’ Saturday, I was prompted to spring my Franco-Italian Abarth Simca from its temporary rest, only to be thwarted again by sticking brakes.

I discovered that the rear discs were clamped solid by seized calipers after just a few months of inactivity, and this after a comprehensive rebuild. With rear jacked up and calipers off I then discovered that I needed special tools to wind the self-adjusting piston back into its pot. Once again Martin, the ever-patient proprietor of Rowledge Garage, came to my assistance with the appropriate tools and advice.

After many hours of to-ing and fro-ing and up-ing and down-ing between carport floor and garage bench, I had one caliper unstuck and functioning properly. With knowledge gained I assumed that caliper two would be a breeze. So it would have been if, in my exuberance, I had not snapped off the lug that retains the handbrake cable. Despair. MoT out of the question. The caliper is working and the handbrake cable is located but even I, well known to travel on a wing and prayer, realise that it is not safe.

Fallback position. Take the Alfa SZ – it’s Italian, it’s rosso, it’s faster and more comfortable. But it too needs an MoT, which it fails. Slight blow in exhaust and inoperative handbrake on one of the inboard discs. Brakes, again! Well, there’s a surprise. What have I done to deserve this? I’m beginning to feel a bit like Lewis Hamilton must have felt after his spate of early season mechanical gremlins.

New exhaust downpipes are rushed from EB Spares in Wiltshire and, after consultation with the internet to establish exactly how to adjust the handbrake (obviously it had been done incorrectly previously), I’m MoT’d and ready to roll with just one day to spare.

Prescott. Weather beautiful, cars gorgeous. Alfa ran well. Chatted for hours with a very charming multi-car owner named Gareth, with taste as eclectic as mine and who, quite remarkably, had just sold his own Alfa SZ to my near neighbour! Yes, there are two SZs residing within a few hundred yards of each other.

Polished up but rather tyred

CAR 1946 TATRA T87
OWNER: Delwyn Mallett

/ #Dunlop-Road-Speed-RS5 / #1946-Tatra-T87 / #1946 / #Tatra-T87 / #Tatra

There’s nothing quite like the thought that a bunch of strangers will be casting a critical eye over your cherished machine to focus attention on it yourself. Having agreed to show my Tatra T87 at the Chubb Salon Prive, I dived into the cosmetics box and started to anoint it with Autoglym Spending an hour or two staring at small sections of bodywork revealed more blemishes than I wanted to see but short-term there’s not much I can do with them. However, when cleaning the wheels, the state of the tyres became an area of increasing concern. Plenty of tread was an indication of the relatively few miles covered since they were fitted - Lord knows when - but it was the sidewalls that were showing the ravages of time, displaying more small cracks than my own weather-beaten epidermis.

In the light of Robert Coucher, in Drive-My, drawing attention to tyre-related incidents on our motorways (and having experienced a front tyre blow-out in my R-Type Continental, rendering two tons of Bentley totally beyond my control), remedial action seemed prudent.

So I called tyre guru Dougal Cawley of Longstone Tyres. The MoT, Dougal stated, is a little vague when it comes to the condition of sidewalls. A cut deep enough to reach the carcass is obviously a failure but light crazing is not. However, crazing suggests the tyres are getting on a bit. The car was imported in 1996 and I assume that the tyres were fitted around then. The Tatra doesn’t handle well at the best of times and the thought of a tyre failure at speed filled me with dread and visions that the ‘Czech secret weapon’ might bite me in the way that it used to bite careless German officers during World War Two.

Following a further chat with Dougal about switching to radial tyres, and the different rolling diameter of various brands, I eventually decided in favour of Dunlop-Road-Speed-RS5 670Hx16 crossplies. A few days later the 70mph cruise down the M3 towards Syon Park demonstrated the wisdom of discarding age-hardened rubber. The Tatra felt much more responsive and displayed a notably better ride, and my psychological state was also markedly improved.

At the end of a gloriously warm (hot, even) Wednesday, surrounded by some fabulous automobiles, I was gratified that the Tatra was awarded the Special Jury Prize for the ‘ #Most-Creative-Design ’. The perfect end to a perfect day.

Thanks to www.longstonetyres.co.uk

More grovelling in the gravel

CAR: #1946-Tatra-T87 / #1946 / #Tatra-T87 / #Tatra
OWNER: Delwyn Mallett


As you read this we will be two months into 2016 but, as this tale begins, we are only two days in. New Year’s Day dawned bright and sunny in my part of the Isle, which encouraged me to fire up the Tatra and head over the 13 miles (if you are superstitious, that may have been an omen) to the New Year’s Day VSCC meeting at The Phoenix pub, in Hartley Wintney. Less than five miles from base, an ominous rumble from the rear rapidly deteriorated into what sounded like a major mechanical disintegration. After grinding into the entrance to a farmer’s field I resorted to that essential tool for the classic car owner: the mobile. An hour later an AA man arrived and an exploratory attempt to move the car confirmed that motion in any direction was out of the question. After jacking up the car, Mr AA removed the brake drum and diagnosed what I was dreading…

Yes, it was a seized #bearing . This, of course, presented the AA Relay man (who arrived a few hours later) with the problem of hauling a couple of tons of dead metal, positioned at 90º to his vehicle, onto his flatbed. A plastic wedge hammered under the jammed wheel did the trick, allowing it to slide onto the trailer. Needless to say, the fine weather had by then turned to heavy rain, dampening body as well as spirit.

Chez Mallett, getting the beast off the loader presented more of a problem than getting it on, as it would not roll and the ‘wedge’ trick doesn’t work on gravel. A temporary ‘low friction’ area was created with the aid of an old kitchen cupboard door – saved because I knew that one day it would come in handy for something or other. Rain, sleet and bitter cold stopped play for a couple of weeks.

Eventually, between monsoon showers and sub-zero frosts, the application of a 36mm socket and a very long bar loosened the hub and – optimistically – I attached my hub puller. After a considerable amount of ‘pulling’ I had managed to move the hub no more than half-an-inch, bending the puller in the process. A visit to my friendly local village garage produced a hub puller truly worthy of the name. As Crocodile Dundee might have derisively pronounced on surveying my tiddler: ‘No, this is a hub puller.’

Several hours and an immense amount of effort later, still the hub was not pulled, although a large amount of melted shrapnel had shaken itself loose. With me defeated, Martin, proprietor of Rowledge Garage, volunteered for an away match to apply some oxy-acetylene. Much heat, hammering, grinding, chiselling and sheer brute force finally shifted the melted bearing. Next problem? Finding a new one to fit. Meanwhile my always-garaged Tatra sits on the drive, looking as pathetic as a stranded whale.

Below and right Awaiting the AA flatbed; industrial-sized puller was required to free seized bearing.