1972 Hillman Hunter Estate

Gave up on my sat-nav here after around a fortnight.

There's two problems:

1) All the cities that make up Metro Manila use the same ten (or so it seems)street names, endlessly repeated. All dead politicians or clergy (except the woman that invented banana ketchup)
2) They swap names if a new politician dies or an old one falls out of favour so often, Garmin can't keep up.

Map book, and Google Street view for the landmarks, do for me. Luckily I've a good memory for maps once studied.

Gave the Garmin to Madam. She doesn't use it for navigation, but likes to watch her little red car on the screen.

Great car. Make me want an old estate car.

You’ve been spotted too

www.facebook.com/groups/UKBarnFinds/permalink/708012429556221/

As I'm touring in an unfamilar part of the country, I asked if anyone had a workshop and welder I could make use of before my MOT.
Many thanks for the folk who got in touch, all offers were very much appreciated ! 

Special mention goes to scimjim who - out of the blue - let me know I was near him, and he had a spare workshop I could use. I left an IOU for lots of RR brownie points if / when the next batch get handed out  

One of the main jobs I wanted to do was to make sure the sills were 100%, which involved cutting out a small suspect patch. 
A few hours on Day 1 were spent sourcing some suitable steel, and using it to make & fit an inner sill patch. The outer sill was cut back to solid metal and more sheet was shaped to fit the hole, then fitted.
Day 2 was spent seam welding the outer sill, and minor fettling (looking at the borderline overheating, tightening a distibutor clamp bolt that was loose, reseating a plug lead that was loose in the distributor, tightening a sparkplug that was visibly loose, moving ignition timing to it's "happy place" etc).


After the visits to Jims, I made a start fitting the NOS (or just OLD ?) door draught excluders I got from the tat auction at RRG, another small job but well worth doing 


I also poured a bucket of water over the radiator after a run. Checking it a few minutes later showed a few rad colums are flowing well (obvious as the water exaporates from them quickly), shame the other 90% are doing not-a-lot.
It looks like the rad I got a heavy duty core fitted to just a few years ago is now causing my overheating problems. Not impressed 

Glad to hear you got the workshop space you needed in the end. It's quite brave doing all this living with the Hillman stuff trundling around the country.

I have total confidence the Hunter will get me where I want to go, worst case I can fix most faults with a screwdriver and pair of pliers   
By comparison - I bought a nice sensible modern daily last year that has let me down twice so far (1 dead starter that gave no warning, the other fault cleared itself by the time the RAC came out so I don't know what the problem was - it might fail again...)


Time for a few motoring hints / tips / thoughts...

For touring, try to make sure everything you have works from 12 volts (cigarette lighter etc) and fit at least 2 lighter sockets (1 "ignition live", 1 "permenant live"), and connect a couple of car USB hubs so you can charge phones etc even when the car is parked 
Make sure you use plenty of insulation tape on any exposed connections to stop the magic smoke escaping - it would be very silly not to. Oops!    

The overheating is now fixed (at a cost of 2x 2 litre bottles of genuine hi-octane Cola) left to soak in the radiator overnight and shaken regulalry.
Temp is now a lot happier - and so am I   


It's always difficult to decide what spares to carry, when I'm on a touring holiday I try to have 2 spare wheels (lessons learned from RRG'16 ), a spare distributor, and a spare fuel pump.
I fitted the spare pump at Jims workshop last week and it fixed the problem of fuel draining overnight which is good   
I did have a slight problem (possibly on Port Talbot ring road ) when the arm snapped on the "new" pump. I now know I can swap a pump on a busy dual-carrigeway in less than 5 minutes. I also know you get a much nicer class of insults in Wales when your old car breaks down   


Haematite (not Hermatite !) always appeals to me - you can now get magnetic lumps which are very handy for holding pace notes on the dash (may not work with modern plactic cars).
For anyone passing near Haverfordwest (South Wales) I suggest you visit the places on the list given to me by the chap running the last campsite I visitied - all are "a bit special"   


Expect photos of random seaside places in the next update   

greencarfritz - the offer is appreciated but I'm hoping I'm sorted, MOT is booked for later this week so I'll know for sure then.

Car-related news ... I called into a rather large junk shop and found a set of genuine Halfrauds locking wheel nuts still in the packet for £3*
* bargain price as the application list on the back said "Chrysler" (ie Hillman) was different to "Hunter" and both were different to "Hillman", so a 66% chance the nuts wouldn't fit. Worth a gamble, and even better when I found they do fit   


I also noticed Speedy Spares were selling NOS carbs for £40, a quick phone call later and the rebuilt engine got a shiny *NEW* carb



It's too early to tell what difference it will make, but it's already clear that tickover is a lot smoother  

Shame he didn't get two.

It's still a carburetor at the end of the day regardless of make.

And there was me thinking it was just an application specific choke linkage rather than a relocated jet adjuster! I’ve never seen one of those before - nice to have though.