I towed it home from a village near where I live on the 3rd September 2006, having paid £100 for it. It had been sat for years but the guy had left the handbrake off so it rolled freely, and having got it home we had it started up within about an hour. This is what it looked like that night:
That's our neighbour and friend Bob, who loves a project and had the t-cut out within about 5 mins! The car was originally a Park Lane, but all traces of this had gone and it was badged as "The Black Witch". Having got it running (and unstuck the clutch) I drove it up the drive and into the garage. That engine is now in my shed and it hasn't run since. Shame really.
The project has been a joint effort over the last few years between me and a friend. It was stripped back to a shell, and I cut what seemed to be the majority of the metalwork out as it was well rusty. The subframes were sound so they were stripped and rebuilt. Anyway, here are the pics:
It's now got a 1380 fast road engine, which I bought as a 1275 A+ from a metro. The machining was done by MED in Leicester but assembled ourselves. I have done all the bodywork including the spray job, which has come out ok considering it was done in a single garage with a £20 spray gun in winter.
It's on hi-lo suspension and has metro turbo vented discs and 4-pot callipers, which means it stops as well as it goes!
It's still ongoing, I've just heat wrapped the exhaust manifold and made a shield under the carb, because we had problems with fuel vaporising and it being a pain to start when hot. The gearbox was somewhat overlooked during the build, and second isn't great so the next big thing will be to get the gearbox sorted, and the interior could do with tarting up at some point.
The rev counter bounces around all over the place, and the speedo works for about 5 mins of every journey before giving up. If anyone has any ideas what might be causing these problems - let me know!
I should credit MED for the engine work, Northampton Motorsport for the rolling road tuning session, and a massive thanks to Julian Dove at Total Car Care in Daventry for tuning, general technical advice and hours spent getting the suspension setup right. If you're looking for a good independent mechanic in the Daventry area I highly recommend Total Car Care.
Any comments, questions or criticisms (constructive please!) welcome!
Thanks for reading, Phill
