From Conception to Completion

Photo: John Bissett, Timaru Herald

FROM CONCEPTION TO COMPLETION 1922 ESSEX FOUR ROADSTER

WORDS AND PHOTOS PHIL KIDD

Those who know me will be aware that I have an attachment to Essex motor vehicles. In 1958, on my way down to the sea scout boatshed in Petone I spotted a man with his head under the bonnet of an old car. I cheekily parked my pushbike against his fence, walked in (dressed in my scout uniform) and asked if I could watch. This gentleman (who I later learned was Jack Hargreaves) was tuning his recently restored car, and was doing stuff under the bonnet that was incomprehensible to me then. He explained what he was doing to this nosey young stranger, and it made a lasting impression on me.

Not long after that, in November 1958, I heard about a whole lot of these old cars that had arrived and were parked on High Street, Lower Hutt, following what I later learned was the inaugural run from Upper Hutt of the recently formed Wellington Branch of the New Zealand Vintage Car Club – of which co-incidentally I am currently Chairman. Jack’s son Ron married one of my wife’s friends and he later delivered to me part of the book of notes Jack had made when he restored the car. I also subsequently learned that the windscreen to complete the restoration was supplied by a fellow VCC member, Gavin Croft.

Cutting a long story short, my friend Bob Douglas and I embarked on many trips around the country looking for Essex Six parts to restore my 1928 Essex Super Six coach and his 1928 Essex Super Six coupe (which I subsequently bought from him many years later). We came across other parts not suitable (Essex fours) and donated these to Peter Tucker. When Peter and his wife Elizabeth (who was a neighbour and classmate from Lower Hutt) planned on moving to Hawke’s Bay he called to say his collection of Essex Four parts including a completely stripped down tourer, and literature, were for sale. Around 1996 we completed the transaction and he delivered said items to be stored on the mezzanine floor in the barn – ready for later?

s Woodbury car – note side lights.

s After much head scratching we concluded that the picture shows the very first of the sixes and from here on it will be about getting the proportions right according to the eye-o-meter.

s First cut. s Second cut. s Panel welded to guard and side frame.

In the meantime the ’28 coach was sold (after 36 years) to make way for the 1919 Essex Four and this was restored and on the road in 1998.

In 2012 Coral and I received an offer we could not refuse on our home, and embarked on planning for a new home on the vacant lot right next door. First priority (naturally) was to construct a proper workshop and shed prior to building the house. Boxes and boxes of parts were moved in and stored while constructing the new house. In 2014 we moved in and started landscaping.

Later the same year I got a call from John Southward suggesting it would be worthwhile to call into the museum to view a possible project which turned out to be the restoration of the 1922 tourer (Jed) now in the proud ownership of my brother-in-law and sister Peter and Barbara Stubbs. The refurbishment of Jed was completed and it debuted in time for the 2015 Hudson Essex Terraplane Club AGM in Dannevirke.

The time had come to properly sort out all the boxes of parts, both Essex Six and Four, and catalogue them. During this process, at the next AGM at New Plymouth, Bruce Leask announced he was selling his very nice black 1919 roadster and spares. Suffice to say the sister car to my phaeton became a stablemate.

All the parts collected over the years were now relatively organised and stored on pallet racking ex Coral’s work, including the chassis that came with all the parts from Peter Tucker.

s Whew – got back home. Almost all there.

s Then work started on the rear tub which is constructed from 20mm box section. The seat rear was moved back 100mm to provide a more comfortable riding position.

s Body and tub ready for assembly.

The problem with storing the chassis is that it was hooked up sideways on the pallet racks and was a visible reminder every time you entered the shed that here was a car in the making.

An idea started to take shape. Perusing one of the trusty collection of auto memorabilia, the American Motor Family Album, I kept coming back to a picture on page 136 and so the journey began.

To fund the project I reluctantly decided to sell the roadster I had bought from Bruce. This went to a very good home in Auckland. The advertisement got an interesting response from a person in the South Island who said he wasn’t ringing about the car but had a complete car that could be used for parts if that was of interest. He was clearing out his father-in-law’s property and had removed the shed that had collapsed over it and another vehicle (a Hudson I think). Subsequent emailing of photos resulted in bringing back from Woodbury (just north of Geraldine) the car depicted above. On the trip back Pete Stubbs and I picked up the five newly-made 24 inch wheels and rim keepers from Gary Morton at Christchurch. It was a very long trip after the Kaikoura earthquake, having to make 27 stops for roadworks each way from Christchurch via Springs Junction to Picton. We stopped north of Springs Junction to allow traffic to pass and checked the load to find that quite a bit of the rotten woodwork and some of the body had disappeared.

s Chassis assembled. s The interior complete. s And now the hood.

The project got under way properly with a major repair to the steering wheel, stripping it back to component parts, filling borer holes, sanding and varnishing. Then came the body mock-up.

It turns out that the car I’m copying doesn’t measure up properly with the body and chassis I’ve got. After much head scratching I concluded that the picture shows the very first of the sixes and from here on it will be about getting the proportions right according to the eye-o-meter. I had a lot of assistance from friends John Appel, Peter Kenward, Roger White and Ray Betteridge determining the right shape by eye-balling from all angles before settling on the final shape

The original concept required two major considerations. 1. The car had to stop – therefore four wheel brakes hydraulically operated 2. The car had to cruise comfortably – therefore needed overdrive.

It was decided to use 1928 Essex brakes and the backing plates were modified to take mini slave cylinders. The nearest replacement front axle (and tie rod) with almost the same track, spring mountings and king pin placement was from a 1946 Chevrolet 1.5 ton pickup truck. The setup of the front springs to get the ride height right was done by Archer Springs in Rotorua. With some modification the 1928 king pins were fitted and original bearings fitted with appropriate packers and spacers to accommodate the wire wheel hubs. An enormous amount of time was spent getting this part right. Rear brakes necessitated the removal of the external braking system backing plates and machining the ’28 rear plates to fit. Modern seals were installed.

The Laycock overdrive (from a Volvo) was modified to accept a short jackshaft from the original gearbox. It took many hours of setting up to position the unit correctly and brackets were fabricated to bolt to the chassis. Two driveshafts were manufactured in Lower Hutt and balanced. Because the ’28 Essex brake setup had the handbrake operated by rods over the footbrake there was no ability for a hand brake to be operated hydraulically. A carden-shaft system using a disk gripped by a brake component from a Yamaha quad bike was modified and installed, with the ability to be operated directly from the original handbrake set-up.

The engine was fitted with higher compression pistons designed by a gifted engineer, John Veneberg, that were made by JP Pistons in Australia and took only three weeks to arrive. The block was bored, new stainless valves machined and hard inserts installed. Main and big end bearings were scraped to fit properly requiring only a light scuff to remove years of oxidation. A camshaft thrust washer was made and the camshaft installed, which previously was seized tight. Both the head and block were very lightly machined flat. It was decided to retain the original carburettor. The sump needed the bottom cutting out to remove some very sizeable dents and then welded back in place. In addition the tappet cover was modified to provide better oiling of the inlet valve stems. All of this took place in early 2018.

Then came the fun part – making the body and replacing all the woodwork.

The scuttle was dismantled, paint and rust removed and treated with deoxidine. Milled macorocapa left over from building the house was used to make the wooden frame using the rather rotten original timber as patterns. The original tourer door skins were good enough to use (after some panel replacement), and a reshaped frame made to accept those doors after cutting them down to shape. Routing the frames correctly to take the door catches turned out to be quite tricky and several jigs were made to achieve this. The seat rear was moved back 100mm to provide a more comfortable seating position.

Then work started on the rear tub which is constructed from 20mm box section. The guards were mocked up over the wheels to ensure correct placement of the upper section to keep the proportions right – a painstaking process which took many sheets of cardboard. The boot lid frames were then made out of the same material.

It was now possible to make the framework to attach the mudguards. Firstly they were cut square to the frame, then the internal sides were cut and shaped over a jig, and wire edged with a tool made to do this. The sides were then bolted to the holes tapped into the frame, the guard was mounted and the new section to widen the guards welded in.

To say there was a bit of panelbeating to do was an understatement. Without the assistance of my good friend John Appel the finished job would never have come out the same. The final work on the guards could not be done until new running boards and valances were made. The running boards and their supports were made by a young lad just out of his apprenticeship and they came out superbly, as did his manufacture of the new, much larger capacity, fuel tank and all its fittings.

Then came the job of fitting the new tub, along with mounting and spot welding the firewall and scuttle back in position, fixing by nail to the frame and hinging the door frames in place. The body was now complete.

Next came making the tin ware for the rear tub which was done by the same firm. As is the modern practice these items were glued in place. In between times the windscreen pillars were shortened by two inches.

It had been decided that a departure from the original concept would be made by installing a folding hood. The hood mechanism

s Almost there. s Yours truly – with passengers.

I had came from a much larger car, and to make sure it could be made to fit a wooden mock-up of the hood bow mechanism was made in plywood. After ensuring the plywood mechanism would fold both up and down (after much trial and error) some four inches was cut out and the frame welded back together. Meanwhile new replacement hood sockets were made by Ross Wilson in Hunterville. His craftsmanship is absolutely amazing. New hood bows were made by making a template and cutting southland beech strips, gluing these and shaping to fit the sockets, checking many times to ensure the shape from the windscreen to the rear flowed satisfactorily.

In between times the radiator surround was stripped of paint and rust removed using many applications of deoxodine. All removal of rust on all the bodywork was time consuming, but the panels retain their original shape, which cannot be guaranteed with many other alternative processes such as sandblasting. A lot of time was expended in getting all the panels metal finished but the end result was definitely worth it. Special thanks must be made to John Appel for his superb work on the guards. The number of heat shrinks we did between us had to have been in the hundreds. A lot of effort went into making sure the front and rear guards were in line with the running boards.

Previously two headlights had been made out of three and I was extremely fortunate that the sidelights from Woodbury needed only minor work. The headlight rims needed a lot of straightening before they and all the other bright work (instrument bezels, ignition switch levers, bonnet clips, tail light surrounds and hub components) could be sent off to the platers in Geraldine. Their work is to be highly recommended.

The original windscreens I had were in a sorry state so it was decided to make a new one-piece screen instead of the original two-piece where the joins were exactly mid centre of the driver’s line of sight. Again, our friends at R J Mullins (who had done the body fabrication) were able to bend the channel I imported from Australia but only if we could make some packing guides for their former. This done, it was then a relatively simple matter to roll the frame to fit the curve required for the scuttle shape for which I had made a template. Thanks to Basil Gowenlock for eziflowing the joins to make the windscreen. Then it was a matter of holding the frame against the windscreen pillars and setting out the requisite screw positions, drilling and tapping and then turning up in the lathe stepped threaded rods to secure and provide an anchor for the wind wings. I had been looking for wind wings without success for several months. I mentioned this in passing when visiting another member of the Wellington Branch – Martin Ferner, who, in his nineties, is restoring an Alvis when his friend, Jack Watson, said “make sure you come back at the same time tomorrow”. I did, and Jack handed me a box with four wind wing brackets in really great condition and said they were mine. Unfortunately they were all for the same side, and two needed cutting and re-handing by silfossing them back together. They really enhance the look of the car.

The chassis went for a gentle sand blast and was painted on a rotisserie in two pot black. The rest of the running gear had been painted, springs re-bushed and reamed then painted. Now it was assembly time including making and the installation of the master cylinder bracket and running the hydraulic lines. Again this was finicky and time consuming as all the brackets and flaring had to be made as well. All fittings are stainless steel. The fuel tank went in and the vacuum tank got a thorough make over and painted, as did the horn and many other sundry parts.

After all the work done to date it was a pleasure seeing it all come together.

After some five different colour test pots were tried a final colour was chosen. It is called stahl blue and following advice given me by Basil I etch coated, primed and spray painted the body in one K acrylic, the black in two pot. The car was painted outside during the Covid 19 lockdown.

Then followed wiring and installation of LED lights and a system put together by Mike Curry where the sidelights and taillights can be operated by an indicator switch as well as their primary function. A stop light was incorporated. The headlights are brilliant and it is great to be able to see by comparison with the original. Running the wires took three whole days. I was lucky when on the Burma Rally in Wanganui the previous year, I had spotted an old style column-mounted stalk switch for an overdrive and this is now mounted on the steering column on the other side of the indicator switch.

Next step was to go to David Wilkens who did the hood on the 1919 phaeton in 1997. The job he has done is absolutely fabulous and the attention to detail quite amazing and is favourably commented on all the time.

Finally the car is almost complete but the matter of compliancing still needs to be taken care of. Because of the modifications it is deemed to be a low volume vehicle.

I had to apply to the Vintage Car Club for an Authenticity Statement. Luckily I had the original plates and other evidence needed so was able to present this documentation including detail of all the modifications made to the vehicle inspectors and this was accepted, a warrant of fitness issued and a set of plates for the newly registered vehicle – and all by lunchtime.

Just in case you are wondering, I estimate the total time expended somewhere between 5,000 and 5,500 hours over three and a half years and total cost enough to buy a new car – and I have!