1964 Austin Westminster MkI - On the move again 04.06.24

TonyBMW does indeed have a lot to answer for, I think he has inspired many of us here to try things we never would have otherwise.
BUT
I must say that I am very lucky in having access to fantastic workshop facilities, a comfy 17 degrees all year round even when it is -10 outside which it often is in the winter here makes things a lot more tolerable. You guys who work outside on your cars are the real deal. I can't take all the credit for the welding either, I saved my hard earned cash for 3 years to be able to afford this Kemppi machine and not regretted it for a second.
It really does make welding reasonably straight forward.



Of course this thread is a dictatorship you only get to see what I want you to see ;D

pictures of holes blown in the metal like this don't usually get on



having said that the tonybmw tip of a bit of copper behind the metal (i used an old PC heatsink I got from work for nothing) enabled me to remedy it so it came out OK and I would never have thought of that myself.



I don't really feel in a position to deal out advice but what I would say is that if you take your time with things and work methodically almost anything is possible. Ohh and as soon as you get frustrated walk away and come back another day.

Thanks for your comments btw.

Really good looking motor, and fair play for getting stuck in with the repair work. Enjoyed reading that

A long while back when I realised that the Austin needed more than just a swift bodging together again and before I bought a welder (it was winter, I was looking for jobs to do) I decided that it was time to remove the carburettors. I'd never been able to get it running 100% as it should, mainly due to not being able to balance the carburettors correctly, not surprisingly as it turned out.
The spindles were worn, all the gaskets looked like they might actually be originals, the jets were slightly oval and one of the throttle butterflies didn't close properly when the accelorator was released.
I assumed, it seems incorrectly, that I needed the spindle holes re-bushed which requires a bit of machining as it really needs to fit together snugly in order to work as it should and this is something I was unable to do myself. Luckily lots of norwegians have old boats with old carburettors stuck on the engines so there are still a few spesialist carburettor workshops about. I stripped the carbs ages ago, cleaned up the housings and took them down to a spesialist for the necessary work at the beginning of March. He told the job was easy and that I would have them back in a week or two, fast forward 3 months, numerous emails, text messages and phone calls and I finally have them back. and they didn't even need to do the bushings, so all he did was replace the spindles and butterflies. Admittedly this is something that needs doing to a tolerance but 3 months - this is EXACTLY why I try to do everything myself. Grrrrrr.

as they came off the car, they don't actually look this bad from this angle but the carb bodies took a while to clean up



So 3 months plus after I took them to pieces I was faced with the task of putting them together again. This is what they look like inside. :-)



my OCD got the better of me and i polished everything ;D



I bought a comprehensive rebuild kit from Burlen ready for this job ages ago, not cheap but all original parts so you know it will fit together again, and it was actually quite straight forward. I love doing this kind of thing and working with properly engineered stuff, imagine finding something with brass levers on in modern cars.



the first one took me a couple of hours, but i'm very happy with the results.



the second one went a bit faster, but I do tend to take my time with things like this though.



I think these things are just a work of art in their own right. Fantastic engineering which just works.



It's probably going to be a little while until I can get them back on the car and test them out, but it made a nice change from bodywork for a while.

Thought the moderators didn't allow porn on the site? Nice work, mate!

that's one cool looking car you have there sir and some top work going on. Not had time to read all the way through as I'm on a night shift but i hope it stays the same color but slammed, look aw some

managed to get a few hours at the workshop the last couple of days so got cracking on welding the rear wheel arch back together.

now i like step by step pictures as much as the next man but i got in the 'zone' and just worked.



two magnets from a hard disk work great for holding the repair panel in place while i tacked it in, free too. Everybody has a defect hard disk somewhere, right?




and ta da. probably about 8 hours work all told and that was just the welding. I'm happy. One step closer to getting it back on the road.

Top work there fella, keep it up.

Just read this in entirety and it's good stuff. I want to get myself a welder and try it out - that copper trick is going to proove very handy i expect! The adice by the way is great. I've just bungled up a few projects by trying to get them done (girlfriend induced time contraints) which I now have to re do. Slowly slowly fixy machiny

OCD is a very useful characteristic when restoring - means you won't have to do it all again in 2 years time!

Great car, looks to have survived its 46 years very well. Scandinavians seem to look after their cars better than Brits!