It’s showtime!
Westminster prepares for 2017 PC Resto Show stardom
When we last reported on the Westminster (PC, July 2016), the engine had just landed on its mounts live at last year’s Practical Classics Classic Car and Restoration Show. It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since then, but an awful lot has happened in that time.
The axle, fitted at the event, came back off and was completely rebuilt. The front suspension uprights were re-bushed and reamed to a perfect fit on the new king pins. New wheel cylinders and shoes all round were sourced from AH Spares, before all the suspension, front and back, now refurbished and gleaming in gloss black, could be fitted for (hopefully) the final time.
Attention to detail is key to everything at CBR Motor Bodies, and with the bodywork brought to such a good standard there is no way we were going to fit a grubby, rusty component to it. As such, every last component was cleaned back to shiny metal, etch-primed and painted before being fitted to the shell. That’s where most of the time has gone, but if this car is to sell for top dollar and do as much good for the charity as possible, it needs to be right.
Next, the wiring loom went in. Matt Tomkins and I laid the new loom against the original and orientated it in our minds’ eyes. It was a job of a few hours to lay it through the car and establish roughly where everything was meant to go. One wire at a time, the loom was connected, but occasionally we were presented with wires hanging in space, which would send us rummaging through boxes or pillaging the donor car for missing components.
We sent Matt south with a car full of wheels which looked as if they’d been dragged from the Titanic. These were duly delivered to Tudor Wheels in Hampshire for refurbishment, which was expertly carried out by Richard Skinner. It wasn’t long before the freshly powder-coated Old English White wheels reached their next stop, just along the south coast with Ben Field at Vintage Tyres, where they were introduced to some shiny new rubber.
Trimming and strimming
With time ticking before the restoration show, we set to making her weathertight. Woolies Trim was able to supply us with all the rubbers we needed straight over the counter, which was a relief, along with Furflex for the door surrounds, lifting the level of finish once again.
The only issue we had was that the more modern design of screen rubber was slightly thicker than the original. This meant that the glass was a tad too big for the aperture with the rubber in place. Don’t try this at home, but we took a sanding disc on an angle grinder and very carefully trimmed the edges to suit.
Somehow, we got away with it without breakage and the toughened screens went in without complaint, shortly followed by their chromed plastic filler strips.
Carburettors were next on the list, and were sent off to Burlen for reconditioning. Being an automatic model, this Westminster has twin carbs, meaning a plate needed to be made up to blank the top of the exhaust manifold from the single carburettor-equipped donor car, which had its inlet manifold bolted to the top of it. The radiator was worse for wear and has been sent for a re-core at Ready Rads in Birmingham. If you visited the 2017 PC Resto Show, you’ll know if all the bits got reunited with the car in time. As it is, we are frantically carrying on with all we can to get this car closer to completion. By the time you read this, it should have been running at the NEC, so check out our news report (p6) to find out whether it actually fired up on the Live Stage!
‘We are frantically carrying on with all we can do to get the car completed ’