1964 Austin Westminster MkI - On the move again 04.06.24

[Em]

That's a very lovely looking motor you have there!

Looks great from the back without the bumper, and the black is too cool!

Very nice welding! That TonyBMW has a lot to answer for.....!

I covert your lift too...

[fogey]

I have come under fire on here before for criticisng the dangerous & dodgy welding we sometimes see on members rides. So, to redress the balance I would like to say your metalworking skills are superb - especially so for someone who has never welded before.

[omnipod]

TonyBMW does indeed have a lot to answer for, I think he has inspired many of us here to try things we never would have otherwise.
BUT
I must say that I am very lucky in having access to fantastic workshop facilities, a comfy 17 degrees all year round even when it is -10 outside which it often is in the winter here makes things a lot more tolerable. You guys who work outside on your cars are the real deal. I can't take all the credit for the welding either, I saved my hard earned cash for 3 years to be able to afford this Kemppi machine and not regretted it for a second.
It really does make welding reasonably straight forward.



Of course this thread is a dictatorship you only get to see what I want you to see ;D

pictures of holes blown in the metal like this don't usually get on



having said that the tonybmw tip of a bit of copper behind the metal (i used an old PC heatsink I got from work for nothing) enabled me to remedy it so it came out OK and I would never have thought of that myself.



I don't really feel in a position to deal out advice but what I would say is that if you take your time with things and work methodically almost anything is possible. Ohh and as soon as you get frustrated walk away and come back another day.

Thanks for your comments btw.

[Deleted]

as someone who welds for a living can I just say. . . .

for a beginner your welding is top standard, even though you have a good machine you still need a skill touse it and you have demonstrated that you do indeed possess the magic of the sparkly wand !!!!

[bryn]

Really good looking motor, and fair play for getting stuck in with the repair work. Enjoyed reading that

[luckygti]

Fantastic fabbing work there. I love the look of the car, it looks properly mean in black as well.

[omnipod]

A long while back when I realised that the Austin needed more than just a swift bodging together again and before I bought a welder (it was winter, I was looking for jobs to do) I decided that it was time to remove the carburettors. I'd never been able to get it running 100% as it should, mainly due to not being able to balance the carburettors correctly, not surprisingly as it turned out.
The spindles were worn, all the gaskets looked like they might actually be originals, the jets were slightly oval and one of the throttle butterflies didn't close properly when the accelorator was released.
I assumed, it seems incorrectly, that I needed the spindle holes re-bushed which requires a bit of machining as it really needs to fit together snugly in order to work as it should and this is something I was unable to do myself. Luckily lots of norwegians have old boats with old carburettors stuck on the engines so there are still a few spesialist carburettor workshops about. I stripped the carbs ages ago, cleaned up the housings and took them down to a spesialist for the necessary work at the beginning of March. He told the job was easy and that I would have them back in a week or two, fast forward 3 months, numerous emails, text messages and phone calls and I finally have them back. and they didn't even need to do the bushings, so all he did was replace the spindles and butterflies. Admittedly this is something that needs doing to a tolerance but 3 months - this is EXACTLY why I try to do everything myself. Grrrrrr.

as they came off the car, they don't actually look this bad from this angle but the carb bodies took a while to clean up



So 3 months plus after I took them to pieces I was faced with the task of putting them together again. This is what they look like inside. :-)



my OCD got the better of me and i polished everything ;D



I bought a comprehensive rebuild kit from Burlen ready for this job ages ago, not cheap but all original parts so you know it will fit together again, and it was actually quite straight forward. I love doing this kind of thing and working with properly engineered stuff, imagine finding something with brass levers on in modern cars.



the first one took me a couple of hours, but i'm very happy with the results.



the second one went a bit faster, but I do tend to take my time with things like this though.



I think these things are just a work of art in their own right. Fantastic engineering which just works.



It's probably going to be a little while until I can get them back on the car and test them out, but it made a nice change from bodywork for a while.

[y282]

"...as soon as you get frustrated walk away and come back another day."

THAT is the soundest bit of restoration advice i've ever heard.

[Sven]

Thought the moderators didn't allow porn on the site? Nice work, mate!

[omnipod]

hahaha looking back this statement:

"...as soon as you get frustrated walk away and come back another day."

makes me look like a real self-righteous twonk, i just know that i hate going back over things i have messed up because i crossed the line of just 10 more minutes more and i'll have it done - only to have things go all pear shaped.

[Baby Cheeses]

that's one cool looking car you have there sir and some top work going on. Not had time to read all the way through as I'm on a night shift but i hope it stays the same color but slammed, look aw some

[naanbread]

I agree, things like that put throttle bodies and injection systems to shame!

[omnipod]

managed to get a few hours at the workshop the last couple of days so got cracking on welding the rear wheel arch back together.

now i like step by step pictures as much as the next man but i got in the 'zone' and just worked.



two magnets from a hard disk work great for holding the repair panel in place while i tacked it in, free too. Everybody has a defect hard disk somewhere, right?




and ta da. probably about 8 hours work all told and that was just the welding. I'm happy. One step closer to getting it back on the road.

[Seth]

That all looks really good!

[welder]

Top work there fella, keep it up.

[Torquesport]

Some amazing welding you've done there. I'm glad you are using the piece of copper trick too. Before I started using it, I was blowing more holes than a lesbian in Amsterdam.

[manbearpig]

Just read this in entirety and it's good stuff. I want to get myself a welder and try it out - that copper trick is going to proove very handy i expect! The adice by the way is great. I've just bungled up a few projects by trying to get them done (girlfriend induced time contraints) which I now have to re do. Slowly slowly fixy machiny

[omnipod]

More welding, this time the front outrigger and front end of the sill.
Now I had to change my original plan to patch up the outrigger and had to go for a more ruthless approach. Why? well because firstly i found out that my welding skills are not yet honed enough to allow me to weld upside down (overhead?), the small bit i managed was solid but not very pretty and more importantly the spatter caused me serious pain, oh and i found more rust inside there than i originally suspected, this is what probably caused the spatter too i guess?

so out with the dremmel and cutting disc and whop off another chunk of the outrigger, in hindsight i really should just have drilled out all the spot welds and made up a new outrigger but i like keeping as much original steel as possible, and the way that the outriggers overlap each other it might have turned out to be even more trouble that way.

so off comes more, my attempt at patching it can be seen on the bit hanging off.



and of course while i was down there i found more rust which got chopped too.



i bent up a new repair panel that made sure i had a normal(ish) welding position plus a few over head plug welds.





and welded




with this done i then spent 10 minutes staring at, tapping, caressing and generally admiring my handy work before i started on making the next stupidly over elaborate repair panels.

Now these bits are going to be hidden under another panel and will never ever ever be seen again (hopefully) but me and my OCD just had to make it right.... and then i ran out of time for the day so didn't get to weld them in.

[anthonyg]

OCD is a very useful characteristic when restoring - means you won't have to do it all again in 2 years time!

Great car, looks to have survived its 46 years very well. Scandinavians seem to look after their cars better than Brits!

[rodney]

I'm also very impressed with your welding skills here fella , drill a few holes in the chassis rails when your done and sray plenty of waxoil in them to keep any bits you cant see rusting,.