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

Thanks - I am slightly OCD / religious with keeping the workshop tidy - I always find 5 - 10 mins every day to gather up the tools and put them away then have a good sweep up - leave stuff out and its just asking to get lost / buried and then you loose a heap of time looking for something that is under your nose - and what's the point of working in piles of dust & rubbish - pretty pointless in my book and when you are utilising the same workshop for painting its critical that you reduce any workshop dust to a absolute minimum - Chris

Thanks Chris, appreciated.

The Jowett Factory closed in 1954 so has you can appreciate parts are a bit of an issue - However the Jowett Car Club runs it's own spares / parts department - all staffed voluntary - what is no longer available is remade / manufactured by a select group of suppliers - focus tends to be on the parts that keep the vehicles on the road so mechanical rather than cosmetic - having manufactured from 1910 - 1954 a vast range of models it's quite an undertaking to keep stock but the guys at Jowett Car Spares do a admirable job. Individual Jowett owners also squirrel parts - sometimes coming with a vehicle that they have purchased and sometimes purchasing a job lot of parts from a previous Jowett owner. Tim whom owns the van has been working his way through his parts stash and occasionally a small parcel will turn up with a few bits for the restoration - latest couple of deliveries have yielded these



All 'New Old Stock' - a pair of door window locking catches along with a radiator cowl badge - all has rare as hens teeth

wow, beautiful work on different materials and variety of fastening methods!

JP

Other things have got in my way and currently only managing 2 -3 days a week in the workshop due to family illness back up in Yorkshire - non the less some progress has been made






Loose panels returned after being blasted



Offside rear frame for the rear wing / wheelarch rearward of the wheel fabricated & fitted













Nearside bulkhead & bulkhead mounting to chassis area patterned, fabricated, welded & dressed back



















Nearside rear wing / door pillar panel repaired with several sections and refitted - simply nailed on to the ash frame













Offside rear upper panel which is alloy had corroded upon the top edge so was removed and utilised as a template to cut a new panel from 1 mm sheet - then fitted to the ash frame with a combination of nails / screws has per the original





Paint removed from all other fixed panels - couple of doses of a good quality paint stripper and then a quick buzz over with a 80's disc on the DA soon had them sorted

Offside rear wing / rear door pillar panel - repaired in various areas, trial fitted then fully fitted



Fitted the rear door (second hand with the original ones being totally shot)





Ill fitting at both the top & bottom on the rear pillar and too tight towards the centre



3 of the hinges on the replacement doors had extensive play on the pins - I recovered the original ones and cleaned them up / ground them back then replaced the worn ones with them





Started by adjusting / packing the hinges out where required



The doors had both been repaired - in this case the door skin was distorted at the point of repair along with being tight against the frame which was throwing the bottom corner out



Lower section of the frame on the door had also been repaired using softwood which was now rotten



Had to strip down suitable timber sections in ash to make the repairs up - after producing a suitable pile of sawdust & wood chippings





Frame repairs completed





With a little reworking on the edge of the door skin a suitable fit to the adjacent door pillar panel was achieved



Top of the offside rear door frame was dead



Sectioned the rot out and pieced fresh timber in



Rehung the door after the repairs but a very poor fit at the top corner



Ended up removing the door skin to make the adjustments



Rehung the door frame without the door skin and made the adjustments insitu



Refitted the door skin along with further adjustments made on the door hinges



Final fettling required to the top of the nearside door - this will require reducing / rewelding and dressing back





Both doors have poor aperture fits - the nearside with the centre aperture and requires closing up by 5mm - this I will achieve with a sold bar packing



The offside requires 5mm adding to the outer edge in order to provide an overlap to the pillar



I cut some 2mm flat bar down to form the overlap and will weld this to the edge of the door skin

This is not unusual that in ash frames that have been poorly protected - they tend to spread and apertures open up - given that the doors were not from this vehicle in the first place and everything was hand built but not to any real tolerance on these vehicles



Completed framework of the offside rear door

Thanks & correct there is a 'J' shaped alloy roof gutter that runs across the rear and down each side of the roof - the door seals are nothing special though just a piece of rubber hose with a vinyl cloth wrapped around it that is tacked on to the inner frame - like most vans / vehicles of this era there is little finesse to draught proofing / sound proofing - there's not even a heater fitted to it !

Sorted the offside rear door edge by welding a 5mm wide x 2mm deep steel edge - cleaned back and dressed and we have the desired overlap to the door pillar panel



Then sorted the alignment of the nearside door top by cutting it back, rewelding / dressing to match the top of the offside door







Closed the centre aperture gap up to an acceptable tolerance by welding a solid bar in to the nearside door reveal and dressing back as required



Fitted a suitable sliding door bolt for the bottom of the nearside door and made a keep plate up which was rebated into the rear cross member



Fitted the offside door with it's locking bars and adjusted them as required to achieve a good fit









Can't do anything more with the rear until the new spare wheel door arrives which I will collect on Saturday - The Jowett Car Club spares dept have had a batch made - the original one is completely rotten

Turned my attention to the front panels







Inner front wing / splash panel - quite thin in places with rust perforation





After a good round of sectioning out the weak areas and letting in fresh steel - the offside panel is ready for dressing / fettling in the morning

Try explaining to a client that it's taken four days to fit a pair of doors to a realistic tolerance / standard !!