Member Articles

I’m using my initial time with our XKE as an intro to explaining how to change out brake fluids – it is a brief story about my introduction to the brakes on the lady - a yellow XKE, and why I think Dot 5 is a good idea. When I refer to our ‘69 XKE coupe I always use the feminine. People have asked why a car is, of necessity, a she, and I always explain: When I have an affair, it is important, at least to me, that I be having said affair with a lady. YMMV The story starts, as do many love stories, with a tragedy. My previous XKE was stolen and burnt. While I had not had that car long, I had figured out that I had to have one. Fortunately, a gentleman in Tulsa was selling a car. He had shown the car in the past, but he had moved onto...

I sort of figured this article would be relevant for this group, even thought he specific car I am working on is an Alfa Romeo. I hope this helps explain how we can do something about those scratches and sand pits that mar our windows. Polishing out window scratches. Our Alfa Romeo Montreal came to us with quite evidence of having been driven to the beach. Often. Lots of sand in various places. One of the impacts was lots of scratches on the side windows, partly from sand getting down into the seals, and part because it looked like someone used a card or something to remove ice and got sand under the card near the seals (that had sand in them). Then, if that wasn’t enough – the rear glass had lots of scratches – like the owners had...

Lucas DR3A Two-Speed Wiper-motors Submitted by: ( @allanjohnturner ) The Lucas two-speed variant of the DR3A wiper-motor, as found on Triumph TR4A and other vehicles from the same era, seem to create problems when people try to wire them up. Often this happens when someone tries to use one to upgrade from a single-speed variant. There are a number of things about these motors that are “counter-intuitive” and this leads people to guess wrongly in the absence of proper wiring instructions. There will be useful information in here about using the single-speed types too and for the earlier DR2 type, found in TR2/3s and elsewhere, because these use more or less the same electrical parts even though the gear-wheels are different. Rather...

Our '60 Bugeye is now amongst the living - and driving!!! As part of the fixing up of the mistakes made in the previous restoration, we installed a T9 5-speed in our bug. Combine that with a Triumph 2/3/4 rear end and, surprise, the speedometer is anything but accurate. OK, I need to pull it and see if I can "adjust" it to read closer to reality, but for now it seems to be off a consistent 10 mph from 20 to 70 mph. And yes, our bug is very happy at 70 mph - seems to just get in a groove and is much more stable than I expected. OK the long intro is my attempt to make the 500 words minimum. But you probably needed to know all this anyway. So, speedo off. Lots of alternatives. Send it off to a specialist and have it redone to get the...

I suppose the only thing more certain in this world than Brits loving warm beer (because they have Lucas refrigerators) is that British cars leak oil. As proven by our Bugeye. We bought it with a freshly restored engine. The restorer didn’t think it needed one of those fancy-dancy new rear main oil seals. It didn’t leak: It poured. The restorer even talked up the idea of mounting a catch basin under the back of the engine. Uh huh – NO. The restorer had included one of BMC’s PCV Valves (a $64 item from Moss, or is it a $64 dollar question) in the rebuild, and it was plumbed correctly. Given I was already generating a small lake of oil on the garage floor I didn’t try running without to see if it made things worse. Instead, I pulled...

Our bugeye came to us with a Weber 40 DCOE. Never owned a car with Weber’s before, but hey? It started with no choke and ran. What more could one ask? OK – it ran. But it hesitated a bit when I floored it, and what’s up with the starting without needing the choke. And if you do use the choke – wow. Instaflood – and let it sit for a while and try again. And let it sit for a while…. Our bug came to us with a 1275 engine, 8.5 to 1 compression, freshly rebuilt. For a variety of reasons, I chose to have the engine built again, this time as a 1380 with 10 to 1 compression, an aluminum head and a mild cam upgrade. Idles reasonably nicely, though not as smooth as the original build with its milder cam. NTL, when cold, the car just didn’t...

See the attached file for a more comprehensive procedure for rebuilding the Lucas horn as used on the Austin Healey and Jaguar XK120

Over the years I have restored a number of cars, many of them with Lucas wiper systems. Funny, really, even our Pantera uses a Lucas system. In the past I had not noticed that there should be a seal around the wiper arm shaft - just below the knurled knob where the wiper arm clamps (wedges) on. This morning I was cleaning the accumulated grease and gunk from yet another wiper arm mechanim and noted that there seemed to be a seal on one of them. Granted, after being soaked in gasoline overnight, it was sort of soft. But, it got me wondering. Needless to say, a web search did not come up with replacement seals. Go figure. I looked carefully at the outer end of the shaft housing and noted that there is actually a lip that is meant...

Dear Classic Car Friends, My name is Lukas, I am 24 years old and I come from Munich. Classic cars have been inspiring me ever since I put my feet on the pedals. I have decided to turn my hobby into a job. I am currently on this path: I have been doing a research master’s degree at Stellenbosch University SA for a year. My topic is the use of 3D printing to produce spare parts for classic cars. The aim of my research is to develop a method to identify spare parts best suitable for 3D printing. In addition to the usual factors such as size, material, and function, up to 10 other spare part attributes are analysed in this method. To identify the spare part attributes and to estimate the potential improvement of utilising 3D printing an...

This article is written to help identify the connections originating at the two-speed windscreen wiper switch where the colour-coded fabric of the wiring loom has faded beyond all possible identification. The motor is a DR-3, two-speed unit. The switch is a seven terminal,three position (off, low speed, high speed) piece: At the side of the switch are numbers stamped into the metal case,identifying each terminal, not in sequential order. Using a VOM ( Volt Ohm Meter), isolate each wire one-at-a-time and find the corresponding wire at the engine compartment, marking it for later identification with the appropriate switch terminal. Once all are ID’d and reconnected, reinstall the switch and associated facia and knobs. Assuming the...