Mike Macartney

Hello Al, As yet I have never driven a car with this type of transmission, only vintage motorcycles, with which I have no problems with gear changing, as long as you take your time. Horse Power is rated at 8hp, the cc, I think is 998cc. Your welcome to a drive when it's finished, but it's a long way to come! I managed to temporally fit the top hoops with string, thick rubber bands and clamps, then drape some material over to see what the shape looked like. I got jane to sit inside, on a couple of cushion's, to check that there was enough head room, and it seemed OK. I made a mistake with measuring the maximum length of the legs of the hoops. I thought the longest leg would be on the centre hoop. It appears now that the longest leg is on the rear hoop. This one could have been a couple of inches longer, I think. The problem is that if I decide to try and make a hoop with longer legs we will have to saw up another plank to make another spline and modify the jig by fitting it with longer bending arms each side. Jane and I agreed that it seems to look OK as it is.

And I thought garages were for storing your 'bog boy's toys' in and for working on projects! I had forgotten that you can actually put your 'daily driver' in one!

I am still finding your work amazing, even if the photos were taken over 50-years ago.

They look in 'good nick'. Jeff, I have been missing your posts recently. I hope you will be posting some more reports soon. Mike

Hello Al, Yes I am very lucky to have 3 phase power. The building is a brick and flint barn dating from around 1750's. We bought it as project to turn into a house and workshop. 3-phase was on the site when we bought the barn about 30-years ago. One third is our house and the other two thirds was storage and my 7-car garage. When I retired in 2004 my daughter took over the storage and garage for the classic BMW parts business, www.jaymic.com. I had to build sheds to keep all my toys in. Below is a photo of the gearchange that I took when I first got the Humberette, I would call it sequential??? Reverse is forward, then back for 1st, back for 2nd, and back again for top.

By way of a change I thought I had better try and move my 'donkey saw' that arrived on a broken pallet. It started to look a bit lighter when I removed the belt guard! I decided to mount it on lockable casters, so I could move it out of the way, when not in use. I needed to make some spacers for the holes in the casting as I did not have any suitable studding or bolts of the correct diameter. . . . and plates to mount the casters onto. . . . . drilled and tapped the holes for the fixings. Checked the casters fitted the plates and marked which caster fitted which plate and it's orientation. Welded the fixing stud to the plate. . . . . . . . ground the excess stud off where it stuck up through the plate. (after I took this photo!) I had to cut away this corner of the pallet to fit the first caster. Success - it will now move away from the back of the MGB so I can use the car when the weather improves! I think I had better try and give the donkey saw a bit of a clean - I believe it may be blue under all that 'crud'! I also need a 3 phase socket up this end of the garage before I can try it out.

Here are some more photos and information on the repairs to the missing sections of exhaust I had to remake. The left hand new down pipe of the exhaust needed to be bent to line up with the pipe from the silencer (muffler). The heat from the oxy acetylene torch with a big nozzle in it did the trick. I wrapped some masking tape around the original exhaust pipe from the silencer to mark where to cut the pipe with the 1mm thick cutting disc. The sharp edges were then deburred with a file. I wanted to get the silencer in a level plain with the chassis so that I could make the mountings for it. The photo above is the spirit level on the silencer. Now for the level on the chassis tube. That will do - not far off the same angle. As I did not have access to a big pipe bender I had bought sections of exhaust bends to use and some extra larger diameter pipe that I cut up as joiners. Here I have tacked two ends to my bend for the right hand exhaust down pipe. The downpipe on this side is quite a tight fit between the steering column and the coolant pipe to the bottom of the radiator. In this photo you can see the rubbing down dust on the chassis. Even though the chassis was covered with a cotton sheet the fine particles have managed to get through. The pipe is a bit close to the tie rod arm between the gearbox and the front axle. Luckily, I took this photo from a distance. Hence it is difficult to see my bad welding. I should have got somebody to turn the pipe for me whilst I was welding. I wish now I had bought a TIG welder when I retired. It doesn't look quite so bad when I ground off some of the weld bead.

Thank you Roger. trimacar did give me something to think about. I now need to wait until I have some help on hand and find some more clamps!

For some of us that have never been into scale models it is difficult to comprehend working on very small bits of engineering. Your excellent photos tend to not show that the bits you are working with are so small. I have just looked at the measurements, on my ruler, of the pully for the operating string and I see that the inner diameter is about 1.5mm - tiny in my world of full size cars! Carry on the good work - for one, I find your work amazing.

Well, many thanks guys. The information you have given me is just what I was after. I will go and have a play with the hoops up and see what it looks like with them 'up'. I was interested to see the 'T-bolts'. I have seen them mentioned before but cannot remember actually ever seeing them ever before. Christech - A very nice bow. I doubt if mine will ever look that good. Thanks again for all your response's

We are about to fix the wood top hoops to the metal brackets. Does anybody know whether or not these should be fitted in line as the photos below or staggered? I have searched photos on the internet and not had much luck at finding photos of this period of car with the top down that shows anything useful. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks Joe for the information regarding Locomobiles. We are never too old to learn more 'stuff''.

Thank you for posting the details and photos of the casting details of the intake manifold. I find this all very interesting and fascinating.

I do like your humour - another one that made me giggle!

Thanks' for the extra information. Can you suggest any 'links' for others that might want learn more to try doing similar projects in the future?