1965/67 Hillman Imp pick-up (radiator-straps & engine-stand)

So after a lot of measuring and no clear understanding/analysis of the data I have now done what I planned to do originally and fitted the piston assy's and also the crank.

All I can really say is that everything was dismantled (rings, gudgeon-pins etc), cleaned and re-fitted and nothing broke.

I put the pistons back in using a ring-compressor thing but even then it was fiddly as the rings would still catch a fraction on the block and the tool couldn't be tightened any further. Got there in the end tho.

I also blew through thru the oilways in the crank and block with an airline. Was susrprised to see the drillings in the crank were sort of diagonal. I guess I thought they be a maze like in the block but then again that wouldn't be possible.

Anyway am confident everything is clear.

Once the pistons were in I dropped the crank in. Again everything was thoroughly cleaned (even under the bearing-shells) and nothing replaced. If STD main and big-end shells were available on Ebay I'd have bought some as I can see some scratches in mine but I'm thinking with clean oil this won't matter. It's not like the scrathes will get bigger.

I don't know what oil I've been using to lubricate the bores but all the journals have this Graphite assembly-paste on them.

Now that the crank is in and seems fine I don't think I'll take it back out.

Will need to correctly torque the fasteners and find new 'hockey-stick' seals for the main bearing-cap (flywheel end) but other than that I think I can continue with the rebuild


blowing thru oilways in crankshaft



rings removed from piston to clean grooves



all rings back on unbroken



some big-end shells are scratched



centre main shells show some damage



STD shells don't appear to be readily-available



ring-compressor used when installing pistons



pistons in. note marks on centre main shell




pistons seem to be tight fit in bores



Graphite assembly-paste used on journals


manually turning crank (crank view)



manually turning crank (piston view)

I can't really comment on all this stuff individually right now but basically I just spent £100 on bits n pieces.

I saw a guy (about 20 miles from me) advertising a hoard of Imp stuff, which I don't really need.

However I noticed he had some tins of shims, which I'm sure I'll need soon, and hose n stuff.

So. As I was working in that direction I arranged to go and look.

Was quite sad to hear the guy who actually owns it all has dementia and i didn't get to meet him, despite him being in the house.

I dealt with his brother who waited patiently while I went thru all the tubs etc.

Anyway I made £110 that day and gave him £100 for the stuff. Probably too much but i didn't want to be a chancer and it would cost more to collect it all individually and some stuff (like shims) you could wait forever on turning up.


37 badly stored shims



21 well stored shims



QH water pump body




Chrysler-era water pump



airbox



hoses



cowl and gaiter




air filters




oil filter



grouped



odd gaskets



head gaskets



sump gasket




dynamo & alternator rear brackets

So I'm still a bit side-tracked with the Imp haul but have actually broke even with the stuff sold and have obv' got some stuff I will actually use for free effectively.

I did something with one if those items this week. It had never really dawned on me that my car didn't have an air-cleaner or flame-trap when I got it. In the haul was a rusty, standard, air-cleaner so into the electrolysis tank it went and after the usual drying and wire-brushing I hit it with some Halfords zinc primer then some Ford Moondust Silver I just happened to have. I wanted to paint it gold as apparently they sometimes came in that colour (or blue, or silver) but figured it was better just to use what I had.

The lid is quite perforated so it may be replaced by another cheapo or i could fill the holes. I don't like wasting stuff so prob go for the later. Bottom-line is that it's clean and useable.

As for the flame-trap bits... I thought it would be impossible to find these. I had been told by 'experts' that the bracket hanging onto the lid of my cleaner was home-made but it turns out it is actually used to support a special clip which in turn holds a little pipe and then there's some rubber hose and another two of the clips to take the hose round to the filler-neck on the head. Anyway I got them from a helpful Imp spare
s-guy for just £20 (plus £3 P&P) and was well chuffed when they arrived as they looked almost new and were definitely pukka. I was interested to see that numbers stamped on the flame-trap are same format as those on the air-cleaner tub, The air-cleaner assy was made by AC so the flame-trap must have been too.

Naturally I'll want the equivalent bits for my Sport air-cleaner and I've not quite figured that arrangement out but I think it's simpler as the box is longer and therefore needs less bits attached to it to connect it to the filler-neck.

In other news I have ordered a bunch of Imp valves and springs which may or may not be Sport ones. It looks like I'll have my work cut out getting all the bits for my bare Sport head as there seems to be nothing available NOS and there are several differences with the bits for Sport and STD heads.

The valves have the part-numbers on them so I'll be examining them soon as they arrive



complete STD flame-trap assy (apart from rubber hoses) for £20



helpful note from seller




turns out (damaged) bracket on my air-cleaner is OEM part



numbers stamped on flame-trap



STD air-cleaner as found



air-cleaner tub in zinc primer



air-cleaner lid in zinc primer



electrolysis showed up these holes in lid


underside of lid is perforated too




tub has these numbers stamped on it 4 times. same format as flame-trap stamps






assy sprayed silver. lid needs some work or replacing

Ahh.... IMPressions :-)

As a club member I got that. Used to be several A4 sheets [landscape] and stapled into a booklet.
I recall a quite 'technical' piece appearing, some guys ran an IMP up & down a road whilst using the 'smoke trail' method to ascertain high/low airflow pressure zones.
It was in response to that edition that I wrote in, describing my fitting the plastic MINI fan on my 998(reversing the radiator airflow).

OVIMOR

Well I think I've thrown the hat in on the special Sport cups. No-one has ever seen them (despite them also being detailed in my newly-acquired Imp-variants parts-list supplement) and a guy showed me pics of his assembled 107 head and it just has 8 of the normal cups under the (double) springs.

So I'll just get another 2 and add them to the ones in the earlier pic.

Anyway, things of much more interest to me, have developed regarding the history of the Imp. It would take too long to relate it all in chronological order so I'll try to summarise it while hopefully capturing some of the highs and lows....

10 years ago (yes 10) a guy contacted me who was a professor at Warwick Uni and tryin to write a book about Automotive Products Ltd (better known as AP). He saw my mention of John T Panks and is local to the Coventry area and said he would go to the village (Swalcliffe) and ask around as to what might have happened to the Panks's belongings (photo albums?) when they died as we were both of the impression that they had no family.

So we exchanged a few emails and as the years passed I heard no more from him.

Well last weekend I somehow found a picture of the Panks's gravestone! and it said Mr Panks was a father and grandfather. I messaged the Uni guy straight away and was amazed/pleased to get a response and within hours he's somehow found links to details of the Panks's two daughter's marriages (in 1972 & 1964). The had both seemingly married wealthy men of some 'background'.

So next thing I was shelling out on subscriptions to 2 ancestry websites and did get a few hits. Long story short is that one daughter is still alive and had a child. The other has passed away and apparently didn't have any children.

There is however a twist...

The link I got re the decd daughter's marriage led to contact with a guy in USA who (like me) has been driving himself nuts trying to trace info on a very rare car. This is a story in itself regarding a 'Jet' bubblecar produced by a Frenchman and made in USA but the twist is that a man from Texas contacted him years ago to say he was married to the grandaughter of the guy who made the Jet car. This was Prudence Panks's husband. So that means they must've had family unless there has been some big mix-up along the way.

Anyway the Uni guy really got me thinking as he lives local to the Rootes archive and he thinks there's no way the pick-up was made as a 'weekend job' and that management must've know about it and there would have been drawings done for the conversion. I must admit I have to agree. Way back when I was 18 and bought the car everyone before had written it off as home-made.

However when you get right down to the logistics of it this is impossible:

• Who, in the public, would have had access to an unregistered (1965) 'chassis' to work on till finishing the job in 1967?
• if it was home-made how was the 1st registered-keeper of it the wife of a Rootes Group managing-director?
• why would Mr Panks and his wife written letters to subsequent owners saying they (he) converted the vehicle?

Anyway that's by the by but it's not impossible that there were drawings made and I know there is a huge amount of material in the Rootes archive so perhaps the Uni guy (Mr Steve G) may uncover something.

He is also going to write the Mr Panks's surviving daughter for me (on headed paper from the Uni). I found an email address for her but I think his approach would be better.

So what have I done?

Well buoyed by the developments I went back on Facebook and posted a few things and got a few comments but the one that blew my mind was a guy who said his father was with Rootes for years and often got seconded to the Competition/Experimental Depts and has spoken about the pick-up before.

He is 94 now and he offered to put me in touch with him. I could hardly sleep last night thinking 'I need to jump on a train or bus to Coventry and meet this old chap before it's too late'

Well today i got a reply from the son saying

Hi Graham, spoke to my dad about you talking to him, he would prefer it if I acted as an intermediary, he is hard of hearing and gets embarrassed. Anyway I spoke to him about the Imp pick-up, it was made in the service department, to be used as a gofer for another dept, basically it was an Imp with the rear roof section cut off and seats removed, the panel shop then fabricated a cab bulkhead and box which was fitted into the available space, it retained the original engine bay and engine cover, he believed it was just before the Husky came out as this would have made a better basis to start from. He also mentioned the Asp sports car, I remember going to look at one of the fibreglass bodies that had been made which was to be bonded to an imp floor pan, last I heard the original steel prototype was in the Bahama’s, it looked like the lotus elan, ithe management said it wouldn’t sell!!, another project was a small off-roader designed in Denmark which was fitter with imp running gear which never went any further, sorry rambling on a bit, he has loads of memories of his time with Rootes, I can always ask.

It's very interesting but my heart sank a bit as this sounds more like a runaround for the staff rather than the bespoke little gift for the Director's wife. Anyway I sent the guy another couple of pics and suggested he ask his dad if he remembers the colour. If it was pale green we may be on to something. From what he says about the construction it does sound correct so am thinking perhaps Mr Panks came across the already-converted vehicle and took it on as his project adding the Sports engine, wooden dash etc. Who knows...

Anyway I shall report back as things develop



supplementary part list



the weird gang



isolated drawing of Sport intake etc



7100452 must have existed



gravestone of my Imp's 1st owners



high-society wedding for one of the Panks girls. Sara still living

Well. Would you believe it....?

I got a reply from Sara Garretson - daughter of the guy who had my car made.

I'll go into it in more detail later but basically she doesn't have any pics of my Imp but has a 10-year younger sister who was still in the family home at the time the Imp was converted, and that sister has a son still in UK who is an avid auto buff and he has many of the family memorabilia.

She has forwarded a copy of my 'package' to both of them.

The most interesting thing about her reply is that she talks about the pick-up being designed and delivered to her parents' home.

I'm very grateful to her for taking the time to reply. You have to remember she was a young woman recently married and living in USA when the Imp was converted so this wouldn't be something she was very aware of.

So after a day in the tub neither the bonnet of the strengthening-panel seemed to be losing as much rust as I expected.

I've not used the tub for ages and the water is pretty dirty so ,b it's lost its 'strength'.

So I bought more Soda crystals yesterday and topped up the water and added some of the bag to the solution.

Popped the panel back in and switched on and straight away could see more action. The solution was fizzing away

I'm going back today and expect to see it clean enough to start repairs and I'll put the bonnet back in to see if that can be cleaned too.

Small steps but if you can do it on one panel you can do it on the whole thing



bonnet corner didn't clean up at all really on 1st immersion



painted side of strengthening-panel looking decent




hidden side of side of strengthening-panel not much better




more fizz required

This one is currently for sale here in New Zealand.
www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/other/other/listing/3959322330

homersimpson

I used Deox-C before (warm) and it was great - but expensive and went black quickly (losing its power)

I had a suspicion it was citric acid so may give it a go using just that