1960 Humber Hawk

Great stuff, love the car.

Oooooh! An update!

I had some time out to insulate the conservatory roof (as you do). It's Mrs Crockpots craft room and was unbearable in the summer. It's a much nicer space now. Then we cleared off to a festival for four days.


Anyhoo, back on it now. Where was I?
I need to connect the column to the Hawk steering box shaft. After a bit of thought I made up a hybrid u/j from the Corsa intermediate shaft. I set one end up in my mill and machined the sides away down to the bearing cups. This allowed me to remove the last bit of staking and remove the bearing cups (which are hard but very thin and easy to damage).



I drilled and tapped holes for retaining screws. I then assembled a u/j which had a 54 spline connection at one end and double D at the other.



So now I have to make the Hawk shaft double D. It's a 19mm shaft so all it needs is flats 14mm across putting on it and it's done. Easy when you say it quickly! It ended up taking all afternoon working in the footwell to carefully grind and file accurate flats for the u/j to fit on. I also filled the centre of the shaft wit solid bar.

Had a good day today!

The original Hawk outer column was cut down to the correct length. It is a close fit inside the Corsa outer column but needs packing about 1mm (I can't remember the exact amount). I found a piece of thick wall tube in the scrap box, cut a chunk off and made two spacer rings. These were fitted on the Hawk column using Loctite 638. No need for weld and I did not want the potential distortion.



The inner shaft of the Corsa was cut to length and bored out to 21.5mm. The Hawk inner was cut off and turned to be an interference fit in this. Both parts were turned in my 4 jaw after clocking true, my 3 jaw is not accurate enough for this. Both parts were pressed together and pinned as well.



The holes in the Corsa part were drilled and tapped M4 and grub screws used to lock it onto the stub shaft that comes out of the main body of the power steering unit.
Final bit was to make a new top bush in ptfe as I am now utilising the bearing land of the Corsa which is bigger than the Hawk part.




The reason for the lack of welding is so that should the unit fail I can strip my parts off and fit to another power steering unit without having to hack stuff up (technical term).

I like the corsa column conversion, is it a rack and pinion or a steering box on the humber?

Also having smoked my original loom it's quite satisfying making a loom, just keep yourself topped up with tea!

I finally got a bit more done on this.
My controller turned up from David at Mantasport so it was time to get wiring. So far I 've wired it in a semi-lashup style to test it all works.
And it does! What a great mod this is, I can move the wheels with one finger when it's stationary. Previously this would induce a hernia and snap your elbows.
No photos, sorry. It looks just the same but with coloured string.

Ooh yours has a diffrent dash to mine is yours a series 2 ?

Very nice, thanks for the diy photo guide - had heard about corsa power steering but not seen it in detail.

I have a Chrysler 318 and Torqueflite (bought from Justanotherhigh) to go into this old bus. But first a rebuild.
The Torqueflite has been stripped and rebuild kit and shift kit purchased.
Due to a touch of ham fistedness I managed to damage the forward clutch piston. Could not find a second hand one and new seem to be unicorn droppings.
Found a billet of ally in the back of my scrap box though.
Sorted!

It's been a while  . 
The Humber has been nowhere but I've been making steady progress on the Chrysler 318. It's now all together with Keith Black high comp pistons, Comp Cams 268 cam, ported heads, double row true roller timing chain and careful assembly.



The eagle eyed will notice it has a trigger wheel and sensor bracket on it. I made these up with future plans in mind.

The gearbox is fitted and has had a full rebuild/upgrade with performance clutches and bands and an upgraded valve body. Torque converter is a high stall (2200 rpm-ish)



The box had the wrong throttle valve lever and no linkage to suit any way, also no dipstick. I sourced a dipstick from John Woolfe and made a cable system for the throttle valve, basically a copy of a Lokar one but for less than a tenner.







I started on the Rover removal a couple of days ago. Its a scruffy old thing but always ran really well. It also leaked oil onto the exhaust, one of the reasons I stopped driving it.