Peerless GT
The Peerless gets a present ahead of its 59th birthday
Almost 59 years to the day the Peerless was first on the road, I finally got my first drive in daylight… even if it was only around the yard at my workshop. But boy, what a feeling. As reported last month, the new driveshafts and balanced prop meant I could take it off the ramp and assemble a hasty exhaust system of sorts for my first drive. The Land Rover Defender exhaust I bought for £10 just to experiment with provided the rear box, cable tied to the chassis frame, while an old aluminium clothes line centre pole joined the box to the downpipe. Crude sure, but these meant I could drive the car without choking on exhaust fumes. The downpipe joining piece featured in recent issues does sit very low though and will likely cause ground clearance issues.
On the move
Tentatively driving out of the workshop, my first impression was just how good the servo-assisted brakes felt. Crawling slowly over the loose surface so as not to chuck up muck I reached the dry concrete and blipped the throttle like a very excited kid. The fast road camshaft feels quite lumpy until the revs build and it smooths out. The torque is noticeable but all too soon I’d run
out of surface and have to brake and repeat the process back the other way, but the taste of honey was so sweet and I want more!
Cloud nine
After that start to the day I wafted along on cloud nine, dreaming of European tours and the school run with three (or is that four?) excited kids onboard. While on cloud nine, I got to grips with putting Dynamat on the rear seat tub and propshaft tunnel cover. I had enough to fully cover both and, due to the beastly cold weather, a hairdryer was used to warm the Dynamat by heating it from the backing paper first. This made it extremely pliable, very tacky and readily mouldable to the contours of the centre armrest in particular. The anti-drumming difference is dramatic and will help quell road noise.
Another job I’m keen to finalise is securing the dashboard so that the steering wheel and horn centre column can be fitted and left in place. Issues I’ve covered previously such as the broken rev counter cable have stalled doing this, so over the following days, I managed to fit the new cable from DMG, new wiper wheel boxes and new bezel kits. The wiper wheel boxes are tucked high up behind the dashboard and in the glovebox, so access is limited. The suspect old wheel boxes I tried repairing previously were removed and the
new ones fitted. This proved a bit of a faff because I only have two hands, whereas in the Fifties Peerless employed a team of tentacled technicians for such tasks. Clamping the wheel boxes over the inner cables while ensuring the outer cable tubings are located correctly is one of those tasks where you lose half an hour in the blink of an eye. That done, the bezel kits were fitted, or rather they weren’t. I realised the wheel boxes were upside down and that was enough to prevent them fully protruding through the scuttle exposing their threaded sections for the bezel nuts. The consequence of that though was that the wiper motor position on the bulkhead had changed too, so that had to be re-sited. I’m using a two-speed wiper hence it not being obvious where the cable drive tubing and the old single-speed motor joined up. I know now.
All that time that I spent buried in the passenger footwell had me question my decision to relocate the battery from the boot to the area behind the front wheel accessed via the footwell. The repositioning of the wiper motor provided the space for the small Stinger dry cell battery to be mounted on its side in front of the wiper motor, readily accessible under the bonnet. This domino effect caused by the wheel boxes amplifies why box-of-bits and non-standard restorations can easily take longer. The Stinger battery has its own metal mounting box to which I welded four brackets; two mounting it to the bulkhead and two for a strap securing the battery. These included welded captive nuts for quick removal when necessary.
A momentous month for me and for the many who’ve followed the story with encouragement and kind words for so long. It’s a driver!
‘I blipped the car’s throttle like a very excited kid!’