Welcome

Get ready for the re-build project .....

So how does this site work: along the top you will see several categories. These "tabs" lead you to more details about the car and my plans.

As I think of more and progress through the project, I'll update these pages and add pictures. At the moment it is almost a work-sheet of ideas, only the engine is 99% decided upon and almost completed. I'm taking ideas from a variety of sources and trying to work them into my own. Some are too outlandish to consider but others are simply too good to leave out.

History
I bought the car back in 1971 to learn to drive in. The car was purchased from a work colleague of my Dads for the princely sum of £5! He was buying a bigger car. It was a cream colour known as Court Grey or should I say several cream colours as pretty much every panel was different shade. The car was driven home from the Twickenham/Teddington area by a friend (I didn't have a license then!) with the strict instructions of the seller to "anticipate your braking" .. which should have sounded alarm bells. Yes, the brakes were awful and once we had the car in the garage at home we discovered why. The only thing stopping it were the rivets digging into the drums!!

Two more of my Dad's workmates helped on a stock car team so they were drafted in to dismantle parts of the car, take them to work (engineering firm, night shift!) and bring them back restored. I told them I wanted to take the parts off and put them back and this is basically how I learnt to work on cars.

Anyway, passed my test and used the car as my 'daily', and the 'family taxi' for a few years until it was a bit small so I parked it in the garage .. and there it languished for around 45 years. In 2019 I had to get the car out as the house was to be sold, so Shiply were called in to get it home.

New V5C sorted, as I wasn't going to start doing anything until I knew the DVLA would recognised the car and reg. Remember this had been off-the-road since the mid-70s. At one point I couldn't find the chassis plate so would have a problem matching that to the paperwork. Found that under a bit of old carpet! (Still asking myself why I would have removed that?).

I then started to dismantled the car and in 2022 managed to get the shell up and on to a rotisserie. Now the real work began. A lot of scraping of the car's nether-regions to remove the old underseal, and washed down with white-spirit. That meant that I could start welding and not set the car alight .. or should I say start "learning to weld" ... I had never welded anything and at my school it was Woodwork not Metalwork lessons.

Plans ....
This was a idea of how 17-year old me wanted the car to look from back in the early '70s!

Might not be exactly how it turns out, but it's my starter for 10! Although the Revolution alloys are to be Minilites and I'm unlikely to fit a sunroof now!

Back in the 70s people were into "Econo-customs" .. making your car look different for as little as possible with a lot of inspriation from Hot Car, Car and Car Conversions, and Custom Car magazines. So the car was fitted with 5 1/2" wide banded steel wheels, bucket seat covers, and a roller-applied paint job. A new dash was made out of a steel panel from a London Transport bus depot (don't ask!) and a lot of dials and switches installed .. that latter mod will get an upgrade and remain!

Original Specifications		Planned
Production:	527,000	1!
Price at launch:	£507	£5 in 1971, plus £££s
Performance:
0-60 mph:	30.1 secs	Good question! We'll have to see!
Top speed:	72 mph	90-95'ish
Power:	34 bhp	75-85 bhp
Torque:	38 ft/lb	tba
MPG:	42.0 mpg	tba
Dimensions (approx):
Length:	3460mm/136"
Width:	1400mm/55"	plus flared arches
Height:	1480mm/58"	lowered suspension
Wheelbase:	2020mm/79"
Tracking (front):	1149mm/45.2"	will be wider with the wider wheels
Tracking (rear):	1137mm/44.8"	-- ditto --
Weight:	685 kgs/1510lb
Engine:
Configuration:	In-line, four cylinder, OHV
Capacity:	948cc	1330cc
Bore & Stroke:	62.94 mm x 76.2 mm	72.1 mm x 76.2 mm
Comp Ratio:	8.3:1	10.0:1 est
Aspiration:	Normal
Fuel:	Petrol (leaded)	Unleaded 95/99 with lead additive
Fuel delivery:	Zenith 26VME Downdraft Carburettor	HIF 44 1.75cm on heated manifold with large bore LCB manifold to hybrid RC40 system
Chassis:
Suspension Front:	Independent, coil spring, lever arm shocks	Lowered stiffer springs, a/r bar, uprated lever arms but more likely Frontline telescopic conversion
Suspension Rear:	Live axle, semi-elliptic leaf spring, lever arm shocks	Custom telescopic shocks, uprated leaf springs, lowered
Drivetrain:	Front-engine RWD	Can't be anything else!
Steering:	Box
Bodyframe:	Metal Monocoque
Transmission:	Four-speed manual, mechanic clutch	Midget 1275 gearbox, uprated clutch, hydraulic operated
Rear axle:	4.55:1 diff	3.9:1 diff, EN17 hardened drive shafts
Brakes:	Front: 7" Drums, hydraulic Rear: 7" Drums, part-hydraulic, part-rod operated	Front: 7" discs servo-assist diagonally-split system Rear: 7" drums, fully hydraulic, cable handbrake
Wheels:	13" x 3.5" steel with 5.20x13 cross-ply tyres	13" x 6" Minilite alloys with 185/60R13 or optionally 5 1/2" x 13" banded steels or 175/65R13 Radial Tyres Although 14" wheels are being considered too
Electrics:
Basics:	12V, positive earth, dynamo	12V, negative earth, alternator Boot-located battery Fully rebuilt loom with extra fuses and relays Coil-pack ignition

Gazza82's 1959 Austin A35 Project

Welcome