1968 Hillman Minx Estate - 08/10/21 - Road Trip!

[jrevillug]

Excellent - looking good there. I heard about (at least part of) the cause of the frustration from Kev - hope it's fixed soon.

Do you know if speedos should be lubricated a little? Mine is making a whirring noise, which I thinks is coming from the odometer gearing, but I don't want to oil someting that should be dry.

[Seth]

May 23, 2011 13:38:29 GMT jrevillug said:

Excellent - looking good there. I heard about (at least part of) the cause of the frustration from Kev - hope it's fixed soon.

Thanks.

Do you know if speedos should be lubricated a little? Mine is making a whirring noise, which I thinks is coming from the odometer gearing, but I don't want to oil someting that should be dry.

As I see it there are three moving parts, the input shaft/rotor, the needle/disc and the odometer drive.

The input shaft spins at a reasonable rate, driven by the speedo cable so I would think some light oil on that would be a good idea, but it may well get naturally lubricated via the cable as mine had (rather to excess!)

The needle/disc are moved only a small amount and at slow speeds by (I believe) magnetism from the input rotor. I'd put a very small amount of a very light oil on the pivots of this assembly.

The odometer is usually driven (at least in the speedos I've been inside) by a worm/wheel off the input and they tend to have some heavier grease on them. There's a kind of lever and ratchet system off the odometer wheel that clicks the miles over.

This is only what I would do, on the basis of regularly working on smaller mechanisms! Too much oil anywhere can creep to places its not really wanted and could cause things to malfunction, as my speedo had been doing.

[jrevillug]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. I had a feeling that you mentioned working on small mechanisms at some point, which is why I asked.

In the Imp the speedo won't get any oil through the cable sine it runs to the front left hub... I'll have to take the speedo head off and see what's what.

[Seth]

A few weeks ago I came out of the house to discover this.



While muttering obscenities under my breath I was somewhat amazed to find this under a wiper.



As a result, I was today able to employ the services of a consummate professnial.



Umm, sorry, yes a consummate professional.



Its straighter now and the lock is working properly again but there is some finishing required.

[bob3]

Oh sh*t, hate when such things happen but at least it was a honest guy.

I really like your minx seth, got a 70 hunter dl myself though in saloon form.

With some paint on you'll never now it happened

[Deleted]

Well it's bad that they dented the tailgate, but marvellous that they had the honesty to leave you their details. I suppose sometimes accidents do happen, and not everyone is an when it does.

[Seth]

Yeah, cheers. I'm feeling happier about the car already as Lance's magic metalworking means that it already looks straight from a small distance without further remedial work. He could have fully metal-finished it but it would have taken more time and as he said, its not like its a Bugatti Royale.

This is going to be a bit long but I figure might help others diagnose something similar.....

I've been struggling with an ignition problem recently and have finally made some headway. It hasn't been running right and I found the points gap was almost nothing while out and about on Sunday. Opened that out but then when cruising along at low throttle openings it started kangaroo jumping all over the place. Now, I've suspected for a while that something is up with the centrifugal advance weights so it was time to take a proper look.

Here's what the inside of a 25D dizzy looks like with the points plate removed.



The weights are underneath the sprung cam bit, the springs affect how quickly and at what speed the advance occurs (in two stages) and the cam with the number on limits the travel to a certain number of degrees, ten on the one in the dizzy here, and 13 on the "spare". The one in the Hillman is 19^O. With the cam removed there was some wear and dried grease that might have been hampering its action but, cleaned up and back together it seemed to work fine.

With it back together and on the car, revving while stationary showed it to start misfiring badly as it got to about 2000rpm. With the centrifugal advance sorted I spent an age swapping every single ignition component over, one at a time with other parts to try and trace the cause. Every lead, one at a time, points, rotor, coil, checked plugs. Timing was rechecked with a strobe every time. Nothing fixed it. I checked the carb diaphragm in case I was barking up the wrong tree altogether. Finally after a load of faffing and ready to give up I, as an after thought, pulled the vac advance pipe off the carb. Instantly the misfire at 2000+rpm disappeared.

A test drive with and without the vac advance connected also showed it much better without. But it all should be to factory spec for best economy etc. I don't know what's happened - maybe there's a spring in the vac unit that has weakened and is allowing it to advance too much? Sucking on the end I can quite easily rotate the points plate right round.



Anyhow, looking into things, not all vac units are created equally and they are stamped with a code.



I'll let the book explain. My spare dizzy is from a Herald 1200 engine.



So putting the Herald unit on to the Hillman dizzy would still provide about the same maximum advance but under a greater vacuum, so it would come in much later. A "suck test" and I can hardly get the points to move. A quick try under no load and I've now got some vac advance but not enough to make it misfire like it was. I'll see how it goes with a road test later.

Edit: as a side thought and before all the "fit electronic bits" comments ( ), an kit that eliminated the points would not have solved this problem. All it would have done would make the points gap unimportant but the advance curves are still determined by the weights and vacuum, unless you fit something like a 123 dizzy.

[tickman]

Learned something new again from this site.
Top work as always, nice to see the daily getting some love.

John.

[Deleted]

seth.. what number unit do you need?? think I got some hillman/humber dizzy bits in shed still

[craig1010cc]

My old mk2 fiesta 1100 developed a miss on constant throttle that went away when you floored it. At 1st we thought it was a burnt valve, but after rebuilding the head it still did it. That turned out to be the vac advance. with it blanked off (and the dizzy tweaked I think for a bit more advance) and it ran fine.

Shame about the boot, but at least they owned up and its in good hands. The misses Ka got shunted up the rear a few years back, no note left

[nomad]

Have spent a good part of yesterday and today catching up on this thread - much awesomness since I last checked it

The info about front & rear suspension will be put to good use, I recently got new rubber all round, the new rear shocks should be here next week, now looking hard at options for the fronts

Nothing much to report from this side for the past 12 months, I just keep putting petrol in and foot down. retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=readersrides&thread=88892&page=1

Keep up the good work, all info & advice gratefully received

[lewist123]

Hi Seth, I havn't looked at your build of this car much, but after your Hard Slam award at RRG I thought I really should make the effort to look at this thread in detail.

Really nice work mate. And congrats on the award.

Lewis

[Seth]

Thanks, guys.

Since leaving home on the 18th August, before the Gathering weekend, we've done about 1100 miles in the Hillman, thanks to the week and a half holiday in Somerset (drove there from the Gathering) Then after being home for two days last week we were then up to Manchester over the weekend for a family do, getting back home around 3am this morning. I think I only opened the bonnet a couple of times to check fluids and the carb seemed to need a slight tweak in Somerset but other than that no issues whatsoever.

I had wanted to get the boot properly sorted and painted before the Gathering but I simply ran out of time (plus cancelling a dungeon visit due to the riots) Fortunatly I had an afternoon of good weather so at least managed to improve it.

Very little filler required thanks to Lance's skills.





I imagine most of that paint will come back off again when I do do it "properly". I really want to attend to the last few plebs here and there on the car and get it in fresh paint all over by next spring but we'll see how it goes.

Other job to do it sort the exhaust again. The rear silencer has been blowing for a while (just through age..) so I'm going to replace that whole section (from just in front of the axle) with some stainless sections cut and shut to suit. Its become a bit more rattly since parking *on* the grass at Prescott too....



Hey ho.

[hairnet]

whale? ;D

[Seth]

Just a picture.



;D

[Paul H]

Fantastic!!! ;D ;D

[PaykanHunter]

Seth! You have been featured on www.PaykanHunter.com once again mate! Congratulations on the Hard Slam Award! ;D

Photos by: reverendpixel

[Seth]

Yeah, I'd seen that on the blog and had been meaning to email. I R Rubbish! Thanks Shahin

[v8jim]

always loved this car but today is the first time i've sat and read the whole thread from start to finish and now i love it even more

[grizz]

Every time I look at your car Seth, it makes me feel so bad about not getting on with the Taunus Transit build and bodywork.

Glad you are getting recognition as deserved.