1947 Jowett Bradford Utility: 'The Power of Retro Rides'

Two of the roof rails were dead so machined a piece of ash down to two lengths







Fortunately I managed to salvage the radius sections at each end of the rails which are splined / toothed - just need to check for fit tomorrow and then they can be glued up together

This is a blast from the past for me - I owned and drove Jowett Bradford as every day transport in NZ from 1979 - 1987. My father and I did up 2 vans and 1 utility. (I also restored a Jowett Javelin car). Several times between 1982 and 1986 I drove the Bradford from home in Auckland to university in Christchurch a 1200km / 600 mile trip which took 2 days given slow speed of the Bradford when any hill was encountered and the 1/2 day gap in the middle for the Cook Strait ferry crossing

For the vans, instead of replacing the roofing with the original flimsy vinyl type fabric we got a fibreglass fabrication place to make a whole one piece top in-situ, black coloured and about 5mm thick. Looked really good, completely watertight and massively strong and rigid and helped hold the whole body together. We refitted the original guttering back afterwards and unless you were really close up it wasn't that obvious that the roof was fibreglass.

The other thing I recall we did was to extend the chassis outrigger brackets as the originals were shorter than the woodwork they supported which lead to slumping of the bodywork at the outer edges where it was unsupported

Looking forward to seeing future instalments !

All sorts of awesome.

Little bit more done on this yesterday - Made up the repair section from a piece of ash for the rear door pillar using the U/S section as a pattern



Opted to bolt through the spliced section rather than use screws - used the expanding wood glue again





Really strong repair - helped by the original metal brace bracket which fastens the side member, roof rail and the door pillar together

Made up one side of the A post edge repair which was shrunk to match the post radius

So time to make a bit more progress on this now that the Jupiter is out of the way





I had already made the A post edge repair up for one side and now needed to make up the other side





Then get them welded in



With the welds dressed back - I then removed the paint from the rest of the panel



Put the windscreen aperture and roof panels into primer







Then made a start on refastening the roof panels back on to the ash frame - these are nailed on





Both sides and the rear panel on without too much hassle





Then onto the windscreen aperture panel / A posts





The joints on the ash frame at the bulkhead were very weak and loose - it's a budget restoration and new A posts are a a very major undertaking - it is only the joints that were failing but there was sound timber in the joint - just not enough of it



I made up some reinforcing straps from 2mm steel - glued the timber and fitted the straps on either side



Then started to fit the outer panel





Still quite a bit to do to get this fitting correctly but it is on it's way

I don't know if it would be appropriate, but have you thought about soaking all the timber in wood hardener to help prevent any future/further decay and softening?

Progress on the nearside with the windscreen aperture / A Post panel fitted - this is screwed to the ash frame on the inner windscreen aperture & nailed down the outer edge of the A Post - next was sorting the door fit / aperture - the door was dropping at the bottom rear corner and dragging on the top of the B post in the top corner



The top door hinge was loose on both the door and the A post



I had to strip the door of it's internals to access the hinge bolts



It's all very simple - virtually agricultural in construction





The frame / van is 70 years old so with movement / damp / rust / shrinking of the timber etc things have just come loose or seized - Top hinge just tightened up on the door side but I had to put new countersunk machine screws in has the old ones just sheared when I went to tighten them up - I made up a couple of alloy hinge packers for the bottom hinge to give me the 2 mm gapping that I required



I then had to pack the lock / latch keep out on the B post to ensure that worked



But now a decent fit for most of the door aperture



With exception of the A post / door frame aperture - the A post is tight onto the ash frame and the door fits the rest of the aperture so the A post will require some modification to close up this gap - I can achieve this with some 5 mm round bar then lead the area up to achieve the profile - the fits were never perfect but again it's a 80 year old agricultural design, hand built to no exact tolerances on a vehicle that has spent the last 35 years abandoned in a very damp half roofed shed - More soon

I can see accessibility being an issue. It does soak in very deep though. Put enough on and it will penetrate a 1" piece of timber from one side. It basically resinises (making up words now) the wood. Would be good on the more rot prone areas.
On the other hand, the van doesnt have to do another 30 Years hard service in the rain so its probably not going to rot again anyway.

Ta very much. I was sure there'd be an alternative.

The best/worst thing about cascamite is that it takes so long to cure.