1965/67 Hillman Imp pick-up (lots of panels)

I should really be finishing the bonnet but yesterday I dug-out the rear crossmember thing. Most cars don't have these but, as the Imp is rear-engined, it has a detachable panel between the rear 'chassis-rails'.

It's quite a robust, double-skinned affair with various bits spot-welded to it. On part is like a turret which supports the end of the engine via large rubber bush.

Anyway. As well as some corrosion mine has a dent in the middle and years and years ago I thought I would simply separate the two skins, by drilling out all the spot-welds, remove the dent, fix the rusty bits and weld it back together.

For whatever reason this didn't happen. All I did was drill out a lot of the spots but not all of them.

Bringing the part down for the attic in the barn yesterday you can see it has rusted up nicely on the flanges which were, presumably, sanded to help locate the spots.

So last night I set about removing all the non-original paint. This is the last part of the car which still has the black cellulose re-spray on it (from some time in the 80s afaik).

I scraped it all off the rest of the car decades ago so it seemed like a good idea to finish it off.

I may have said before but I am quite seriously considering keeping all the original paint and just try to blow-in the repairs in as close as possible a match to the old.

So I got most of it off and today will tackle the primer. The thin coat of black was relatively easy to remove but whoever sprayed it seems to have went on a lot heavier with the primer. Well in some places anyway...

It's weird after all these years to be able to'see' what they did. This panel was obviously quite low down on the car and has very little paint on the bottom but loads in the curved part on top. The guy obviously cba lying under the car or jacking it up to get to the hidden bits.

Also interesting was to find the HILLMAN script appearing in the primer. I'd forgotten the car would have had a metal badge there and there was no evidence of it in the black paint but it's clearly there in the primer.

So that suggests it was primed with the badge still on then the badge came off before the black went on. We may never know.

I did meet the guy who painted the Imp black, back in 1992, and he told me a story about driving in to the back of it on his motorbike and landing in the pick-up bed and asked if there was still a dent in the bumper (which there is) but the rear-panel is also dented - as you can see in pics.

I was initially thinking the bump must have caused the badge to crack and fall off but then there would have been a 'ghost' HILLMAN on the black.



Imp rear-panel exhumed from attic (front)



back



dent in middle



spotwelds separated on lower edge



and at jacking-point


rusty top edge and undrilled spots



black paint scraped off


HILLMAN in primer



repair needed at this corner


did collision take place before or after the re-spray

So. Back to the starter.

As detailed earlier I found one on Ebay in Italy and it arrived pretty quickly.

Was a bit worried when I saw it had arrived in a plastic bag and the end of it was poking out the bag. Thought 'ffs why would you do that!? it'll have been flung around one depot and the next and is probably all broken inside '

However opening it up showed it had survived fine as there was a lot of bubble-wrap round it . Even the end sticking out the bag is fine.

So I now need to get back to the operation of pressing the new bush into the drive-end bracket. I was thinking of using the old armature to do this as it's go to be a suitable size and also has a shoulder to bear-down on the bush with. Seems a lot simpler than making the self-extracting tool detailed in the WSM




packaging from Italy didn't look very robust



drive-end of armature was sticking out the bag but isn't damaged



love the period packaging



never seen staples like this before



opened at the end the box shows right part number



armature looks good as new and doesn't appear to have been damaged in transit



May 1970?



number stamped on part matches the one on box

The other day I spent basically the whole day removing all the primer from the rear panel then polishing-up the old paint.

Can't seem to capture it properly in pics but it looks amazing. Even where it goes thru to the red-oxide primer and bare metal it looks amazing. I would luv to keep the original paint like this but in this fkn country it would rust-up in a day

I'm not as keen on the parts where the original paint was either worn, nicked or rubbed too thin that the whitish Rootes primer/undercoat shows thru but, hey, it's still original.

To remove the primer I used a combination of scraping with a chisel; sanding with 1500 wet 'n' dry; Farecla G3; T-cut. They all had their good and bad points but bottom-line was the paint under looked like new. IE fk all like the stuff I got from Claytons Auto Stores NI.

That brings me to my next point. I ended up having an argument with those arseholes and still don't have an answer....

Going back a year when I bought the 'Direct Shire' paint and the woman on Ebay (Jolene Clayton) was fobbing me off with any old curse word whenever I asked her for details on what they were selling I thought I would contact the company direct and on their website there is a Chat service. Excellent.

I sent them a clear message with pics, then another and got no reply. I then emailed them at the address on their website. No reply. I then phoned them and just got a lot of 'umbrage'.

The woman on the phone kept giving me warnings and put the phone down. She wasn't happy that I wasn't impressed by her total confusion about the Chat function on their website and then proudly explained when the penny dropped that they don't use that to which I replied well what's the point of having it you should remove it which resulted in another warning.

When I called back a guy answered and we couldn't get past 'what colour is it?' (which I'd already explained to the woman only to be met with more bewilderment). He couldn't understand what I was saying and kept saying 'give me a minute' then asking her for advice. i was getting rather curse word off by this time and was told to 'cool my jets' and had phone slammed down again.

Called back, got the woman again. More warnings and I asked her if they'd ever heard of customer service and she kept saying she would help me if whatever and I said 'well can you hurry up then' so phone slammed down again.

Complete curse word arseholes. All I was asking was 'is your direct shine range basecoat or gloss?'

I then tried the Ebay seller again and explained for the umpteenth time what I wanted to know and she replied that they only do my colour in gloss.

Anyway. I've given up on them now as it was boiling my curse word and have found another Ebay seller selling the colour who assures me it's 1K gloss. We shall see.

So, back to the panel.

I set about drilling out the rest of the spotwelds with an expensive 8mm flat cobalt spot-weld bit and stopped after the first one. Totally pointless as the idea is to remove the weld from one panel whilst leaving the one under it completely untouched but this bit has like a 4mm centre section which goes right thru both panels. I just swapped to a normal 6mm bit and found that was big enough the remove the spots and do less damage to the panel below.

Things didn't go very well the first day. I've had this problem before (on my Daimler) where you find the dent and drill into it but the weld is actually over to the side so you need to do it gain and end up with 2 holes in the same place.

I was seriously considering just slicing the the sections apart with a cutting sics then grinding off the flanges and remaking it all but took a chill pill and returned to it yesterday where I made better progress and the whole bottom flange is now separate and the side and some of the top.

Hope to get them apart today.

The corrosion is actually worse than I thought but it will be easy enough to fix once the 2 skins are separated

While writing this I went back into my Ebay messages to get a quote of what I said to Jolene after she said it could only come in gloss and my message has mysteriously vanished. I'm 99.9999% sure I sent it but it appears not so have sent another simpler response "That doesn't make sense. If it can only be supplied as direct gloss why did you sent it to me as matte/basecoat? (as shown in pics).Thanks. Graham"

I don't imagine I'll get any useful reply but you never know.



rust on rear panel



small holes always mean bigger rusted area



removing the primer


back to original paint



old paint really shines



taking measurements where original holes in bottom-flange are before making new holes

So that's the repairs to the rear panel well under way. Should be finished by end of this week but am having a bit of bother with my welder now.

Also having problems with Imgur not uploading all my pics so this post isn't as comprehensive as it might bel

The rear panel is thicker metal and I have a small amount of 1.5mm steel which seemed exact right thickness. I cut out some rot on the lower LHS corner and shape-up a simple repair section and that's now tacked in but due to the problems with the welder am not happy with the penetration even on full power




rot cut out of front skin at LHS and new metal shaped and tacked in




1st repair piece offered up to rear panel



repairs to both skins



rear view of repair patch to font skin



trying to replicate shape of return flange on front skin

So. We're back to the starter again

I said earlier that the WSM advised making up some extremely detailed mandrel to put the bush in the drive-end bracket whilst I had some notion about using the old armature to do it.

Well I was mistaken about the WSM and my idea worked fine but for the sake of completeness and sheer entertainment-value I'll flesh it out.

So, yeah. I soaked the bush in oil for 24 hours. The packet/WSM said it should be SAE 30/40 but I didn't have any of this so used some 10/40 Diesel oil I had. Hopefully there won't be catastrophic failure(s) due to this somewhere down the line

I had no intentions of making the tool - as I don't have a lathe - but had the parts and the WSM on the bench and somehow realised I was looking at the guidance for the dynamo bushes

Somewhat relieved/amused by this I turned to the guidance for the starter and saw a simple mandrel was required so I started to compare the dimensions for the mandrel(s) shown against the part of the armature-shaft that would live in the bush and saw they were wildly out. The mandrel dimensions much smaller than the shaft.

I have two Imp WSMs and this was the late Chrysler one so I was looking at he guidance for the (later) M35J starter

So, finally, looking at the right advice it simply said use a mandrel the same size as whatever is meant to go there, or words to that effect.

So I used the old armature. Initially I tried tapping the alloy bracket down towards the armature but this was a bit tricky to hold so went and found a bit 'scaffold tube' (thin stuff), put the tail of the armature in to that, rested the bracket on the end of the tube (with a large nut in between - as the tube diameter was quite a bit more than the diameter of the bush-housing) and tapped downwards (not too hard) and it went home well.

The next thing to do, obviously, was try the new armature for size....

I could see straight away that there were some dimensional differences between the new and original armatures which is strange as both have the same part number stamped on the stack (as shown in older posts).

Kinda hard to describe that in words but hopefully the pics show what I saw.

It looked to me that the commutator part was longer on the new ones which seemed good as that would perhaps explain the for & aft slop/end-float I've been talking about but there were no signs of any wear on the old commutator part and putting them together (top & tail style) shows the new one is shorter there. Bizarre


bush soaking in any old oil




sorry, what? (dynamo bush replacement)




instructions for (later Imp) M35J starter. mandrel B too small to touch ID of my bush



instructions (2.) much simpler for M35G starter bushes




pipe and nut under drive-end bracket to push shaft of (slave) armature down into


bush fully-home


old and new armatures compared shows difference at commutator area


old one measures 14cm over parts that live inside the 'pot'


new one measures 14.1cm over same parts


commutator stack on new one (purple) is shorter than old one (orange)



shafts (pinion side) look identical



orange line is where inside of drive-end bracket would be. clear difference in dimensions of windings etc is visible




new armature pushed fully in then pulled fully out shows slop is much less than before

So, realistically, I'm never going to be able to post, chronologically, what was done in the period where I was offline but currently I'm working on the driver's-side inner-sill.

This is a box-section and is largely sound.

It attaches the the car at various points and has way too many spot-welds holding it on. A few at the rear aren't accessible without cutting away more of the body so I resorted to butchery to release those bits and am not sure how I will put them back together properly.

I could have probably repaired the sill in-situ but taking it out makes the job easier and, crucially, allows proper access to fix all the bits it attaches to.

Here's some pics (which I will flesh-out properly later on)



sill structure before removing wiring-loom, heater-hose, remains of outer and membrane sills



getting wiring and hose out is tricky on normal Imp but impossible of the pick-up due to additional panelling



view towards rear where there had been a previous repair or two



loom runs up over wheeltub behind wing



outer and centre/membrane sills unpicked from inner



horizontal part of outer sill was still present



removing the centre sill



inner-sill is seam-welded to B-post and spot welded to upright panel at rear of floorpan



remains of centre-sill



a little work needed here



cutting of part of the wing to get to spot-welds holding inner-sill on



some real bodges present where sill parts meet rear wheelarch panels



bottom of front wing also cut off for better access



inner-sill also attaches to crossmember for front seat

Lol. Funny you should mention that as the plan was always to do the Imp with oxy-acetylene as I read somewhere that it's kinder to the metal. Also you can apparently shape the welds as it's softer.

Anyway. There's no time for that now as I have months rather than decades to get this done.

The price of MIG gas & wire isn't too bad imo but the costs for oxy-acetylene are getting outrageous. It costs me about £300 a year just to rent the cylinders and last time I wen for a refill it was about £18 for the product but the bill went up to £60 something after all the add-ons like £24 for entering the shop and £7 for not paying online.

Every year I get an email from BOC for one free re-fill for low-volume used but have never actually had the voucher which is supposed to be attached to the email.

Last year I spent about 2 hours on the phone fighting with them to get the voucher and they eventually emailed me it and I plan to go for my free refill this week.

I have a horrible feeling it won't be honoured and/or they'll be adding all sorts of hidden charges.

I need the oxy-acetylene to try to straighten some shallow bends on an old motorcycle frame and I think after that will just close my account. It's a very hard type of welding to master compared to MIG

So. After what feels like a month, but is probably nearer a fortnight, I'm back on the Imp.

I was working 8 days in a row then lost 3 days socialising (mate visiting from Australia and Sex Pistols gig) then most of following week some sort of virus stuck in house or working - with the virus!

Anyway. I'm back on it and still at the stage of wanting to get the sill-components back in to get some strength in the shell.

Before I can do that have to repair everything the sill(s) connect to which leads to more and more parts being cut out

So in last installment I had removed the little squarish thing that goes between the floor-support panel (no idea what else to call it) and the top of the inner (sill.

Easy enough to make a new one but then the panel above it needs a couple of repairs.

This panel forms the rear extension of the bottom of the shell and meets the rear bulkhead and wheel-tubs.

In the past it looks like someone has cut into it with a blunt chisel to slide in bits of metal which were then tacked to the original steel and then bits of metal were roughly-shaped to follow the curves of the wheel-tub and pop-rivetted in then tacked to the bit slip in earlier.

I wasn't planning to disturb and of that until it came to doing the wheel-tub(s) but these bits were getting in the way of cutting out the bit I want to repair.

So I had to remove the rear wheel to get access to grind the tack-welds off the patches and that meant jacking the body on the rear subframe.

I was convinced I saw some movement/flex in the body when I was doing this but had to continue.

Once the patches were out and the car back on 4 wheels (two O/S ones on ramps) I had a closer look at the 'flex area'. It's hard to know what to call all the bits but I'm talking about the bit that the rear seat would sit cover and more specifically where that area meets the inner wheel-tub.

There are curved box-sections here and I'll be calling them kidney-bowls now.

This is where the body was sliced to get the aforementioned patches in.

There is a spot-welded flange at the bottom of the kidney-bowls which would, I assume connect directly to the rear bulkhead bot on mine there is a considerable gap.

This is bigger on the side I'm working on just now. I took several measurements to compare the N/S & O/S and am satisfied that the originals were same on both sides

After this I continued to remove a corroded bit of the horizontal bit I was talking about earlier (floor-support?). It's like a small shelf above the floorpan which extends out to become the rear bulkhead/seat-tub.

To get that out properly would have involved removing the other vertical panel of the door-bin (interior one has already been removed) but luckily there was only one spot weld connecting the horizontal bit the the door-bin panel so when I drilled this it was free.

As soon as that weld was disconnected there was a distinct drop in the bodywork making the aforementioned gap a bit bigger.

I'm not too worried about it all as I'm sure the problem was there before I started and the pressure of the rear strut on the shell is what's causing the problem.

If I move my support to the crossmember the weight of the rear corner should close the gap back up again and i can take my repairs from there. If that one spotweld (and the patches) were enough to hold things for the last 40 years or so I'm sure when I put all the new metal in it will all stay where it's supposed to be.

I've also got the rear end of an Imp in much better condition than the pick-up which I can use for reference. Only problem is it's 4 miles from the barn and I've no easy way of getting it down there right now.

Cutting out the bit I was looking to do has actually enables me to separate and clean-up some vertical sections that the inner-sill attaches to so it's ultimately a good step in the rebuild.

Here are some pics



previous repairs



copy made of small section that goes between floor-support and top of inner-sill



removing horizontal part of old repairs



I want to remove this end of floor-support



O/S kidney-bowl before remove old reapirs jammed between it and seat-pan


similar situation with N/S



corroded end of seat-support is tacked to door-bin panel


tack released


remains of flange at bottom of kidney-bowl shows parts of flange attached to other panel are much lower

This is getting to be a bit of a habit.... I mean starting posts and not really finishing them but I'm spending whole day on Imp and getting home late and cba spending too long posting and if I do it the next day it's holding me back from getting back down the barn


So what happened?

Well i spent the first part of the day trying to strap-up the sagging seat-pan area. I welded some strips to the kidney-bowl and pan then joined them together with another piece of metal. I felt this would be a bit weak and then decided to beef it up with a strip of old angle iron (very corroded) welded to the inner wheeltub and the pan itself. This was after a couple of hours of cleaning/checking/jacking/measuring/guessing as to exactly where the pan should be jacked to.

I then spent the rest of the day finalising the new patch for the corroded end of the floor-support.

Once that was done I spent more time quadruple-checking how the small box made previously fitted to the new patch and the sill etc.

At one point I was thinking of cutting a large part of the wing off as I can see that if I do that I will be able to get great access to the door-bin area and the top of the sill structure at the rear.

However. The last thing I want is more and more metal coming off the shell and nothing going back on.

So I will wait to cut the wing until the sill structure is in place.

I also went and examined the half-Imp at the start of the day to get a better idea of how the new panel turns back up at the end before it meets the inner arch.

I'd really like to get the half-Imp down to the barn as it's going to be vital for donating the wheel-tubs and for reference. It was bought for the wheel-tubs about 30 years ago.

So at the end of the night when I was satisfied everything was as it should be I welded the box and the floor-support patch together (per factory) then tacked them into car.

It was around that time I noticed the pan had sagged again. The weld from the angle-iron to the pan hadn't taken so I did it again. Will see if it's still in place today.

There is ow more support on the whole area tho as the floor-support is reinstated and that all attaches to the B-pillar



half-imp shows how all the panels at rear of sill meet up





trying to strap-up sagging area


new patch and small box welded together



new bits in place



view from inside