1973 Hillman Imp 1.6 De Luxe...........wait, what??!
Discussion
Finally managed to find a couple of hours to sample some more Imp yesterday. I had to go to a DIY shop to buy a stopcock key, so combined this with a ~30mile trip in the countryside to let the Imp sing me the song of its people (breakdown, for those who don't get that kind of crap humour!)
On the whole it behaved very well. Might need to think about hooking the choke back up as getting it going first thing wasn't as easy as I'd hoped. Also found a small coolant weep from the back of the engine, but nothing major, and because it's running waterless coolant, it doesn't get up to pressure and spray everywhere once it's hot.
Ah yes, heat. That was one of the 'issues' raised by the cheapo Dolphin gauge set:
It would flirt somewhere between there and 250F. I learned this morning that 212F is 100C (it's almost like Celcius makes more sense, or something), so at times I was way above that. Apparently.
However, the cooling fan is controlled by a Looks-like-a-kenlow-but-isn't-a-kenlow-but-is-basically-the-same-thing-controller, and this was still set at 85degC, as I hadn't altered it since I'd been playing around.
I pulled over and had a look:
Because it's got a kind-of-lumpy cam, I have to run the idle a bit quicker than normal, otherwise when the twin cooling fans cut in the idle gets dragged down so far the rear view mirror falls off. However, when I stopped, I noticed the fan wasn't actually running anyway, which meant despite the gauge saying I was close the apocalypse, I was actually closer to gas mark 2. From that point on I decided to ignore the coolant gauge! Plans for the future here include moving the fan controller inside the car, and rigging up an LED on the dash to illuminate when the fans cut in, because unless I'm stationary, I can't really tell if they're on or not, and if they're running while I'm moving along, that's not good for them.
I had another moment when at full-bore in 3rd gear down the A32 (calm down officer, have you looked at Imp gearing?!)
In 2nd, she pulled hard. Continued the trend into 3rd too, until lots of pinking, misfiring, chattering and a general lack of progress became apparent at 5000rpm! I let it roll down the road, collecting my thoughts, and looked for a lay-by. It was at that point I realised it was actually still idling, and seemed to be responding to the throttle inputs. I selected 4th gear, and it carried on its merry way. I stopped at the old station car park in Wickham (loves my old disused railway s
t, I do) and popped the 'frunk'. I spotted the fuel pressure regulator was set wrong, so the carbs probably ran out of fuel. Good ol' TU engines! Any other lump and I'd have melted something! I reset the regulator, and failed to find the balls to try it again. I'll have another go closer to home!
30 miles (give or take) covered, and generally no issues. Brakes need further bleeding as I swear they're supposed to be better than this! Rear view mirror is useless, as (even though it hasn't fallen off) the whole car buzzes around so much that you can only make out objects at certain RPM. Get the frequency wrong, and you can't tell if you're being tailed by the rozzers, or dragging an old lady down the road by her shopping trolley.
I think I might need to do a bit more to bring a sentiment of refinement back into the car. I've (still) not driven a standard Imp, but I suspect this one has MOAR NOISE! It buzzes, it tingles, it smells, it gets hot in the cabin and it doesn't give you a break. My TVR is a Rolls-Royce compared with this!
I'm itching to go and drive it again now though, that's how fun it is!
On the whole it behaved very well. Might need to think about hooking the choke back up as getting it going first thing wasn't as easy as I'd hoped. Also found a small coolant weep from the back of the engine, but nothing major, and because it's running waterless coolant, it doesn't get up to pressure and spray everywhere once it's hot.
Ah yes, heat. That was one of the 'issues' raised by the cheapo Dolphin gauge set:
It would flirt somewhere between there and 250F. I learned this morning that 212F is 100C (it's almost like Celcius makes more sense, or something), so at times I was way above that. Apparently.
However, the cooling fan is controlled by a Looks-like-a-kenlow-but-isn't-a-kenlow-but-is-basically-the-same-thing-controller, and this was still set at 85degC, as I hadn't altered it since I'd been playing around.
I pulled over and had a look:
Because it's got a kind-of-lumpy cam, I have to run the idle a bit quicker than normal, otherwise when the twin cooling fans cut in the idle gets dragged down so far the rear view mirror falls off. However, when I stopped, I noticed the fan wasn't actually running anyway, which meant despite the gauge saying I was close the apocalypse, I was actually closer to gas mark 2. From that point on I decided to ignore the coolant gauge! Plans for the future here include moving the fan controller inside the car, and rigging up an LED on the dash to illuminate when the fans cut in, because unless I'm stationary, I can't really tell if they're on or not, and if they're running while I'm moving along, that's not good for them.
I had another moment when at full-bore in 3rd gear down the A32 (calm down officer, have you looked at Imp gearing?!)
In 2nd, she pulled hard. Continued the trend into 3rd too, until lots of pinking, misfiring, chattering and a general lack of progress became apparent at 5000rpm! I let it roll down the road, collecting my thoughts, and looked for a lay-by. It was at that point I realised it was actually still idling, and seemed to be responding to the throttle inputs. I selected 4th gear, and it carried on its merry way. I stopped at the old station car park in Wickham (loves my old disused railway s
t, I do) and popped the 'frunk'. I spotted the fuel pressure regulator was set wrong, so the carbs probably ran out of fuel. Good ol' TU engines! Any other lump and I'd have melted something! I reset the regulator, and failed to find the balls to try it again. I'll have another go closer to home!30 miles (give or take) covered, and generally no issues. Brakes need further bleeding as I swear they're supposed to be better than this! Rear view mirror is useless, as (even though it hasn't fallen off) the whole car buzzes around so much that you can only make out objects at certain RPM. Get the frequency wrong, and you can't tell if you're being tailed by the rozzers, or dragging an old lady down the road by her shopping trolley.
I think I might need to do a bit more to bring a sentiment of refinement back into the car. I've (still) not driven a standard Imp, but I suspect this one has MOAR NOISE! It buzzes, it tingles, it smells, it gets hot in the cabin and it doesn't give you a break. My TVR is a Rolls-Royce compared with this!
I'm itching to go and drive it again now though, that's how fun it is!
Bobberoo99 said:
Hi Kitchski, 
long time lurker but my first post!! I've been watching this from the start, amazing little car and a great job you've done on it!!! We had an Imp when I was but a young lad (many, many, many years ago!!!) still remember being driven about in it by my mum, even went to Cornwall a couple of times in it!!! This was back in the late 70's very early 80's!!! Would love the opportunity to see the little beast in the flesh, I work in Titchfield with a mate of yours, and live in Southampton!!!
Hi Bobberoo99! Sorry I missed this one, wasn't ignoring you. It's going to be at Goodwood Breakfast Club on Sunday morning (just don't look at the door gaps long time lurker but my first post!! I've been watching this from the start, amazing little car and a great job you've done on it!!! We had an Imp when I was but a young lad (many, many, many years ago!!!) still remember being driven about in it by my mum, even went to Cornwall a couple of times in it!!! This was back in the late 70's very early 80's!!! Would love the opportunity to see the little beast in the flesh, I work in Titchfield with a mate of yours, and live in Southampton!!!
)It'll also be in Southampton in about 3 hours for wheel alignment (assuming it makes it OK...)
Mr Roper said:
Great thread and mucho kudos.
It was great to see an Imp being driven at the Eifel Rallye a couple of weeks back....Plucky little brute held it's own against the mighty Pikes peak Audis and R64's.
Mmmmmm, that one's a little bit more communist than an Imp. Not by much of course!It was great to see an Imp being driven at the Eifel Rallye a couple of weeks back....Plucky little brute held it's own against the mighty Pikes peak Audis and R64's.
'So, how's the Imp going?'....nobody asked. True enough, but I thought I'd share the progress since the last update.
Has there been any? Well, yes, happily! Things have gone well in the world of the little Scottish saloon.
I had plans for the weekend just gone, but the game last week was all about putting miles on the car, to give anything that felt like failing on me, a chance to fail. Thus far, nothing has, and to date (10th August) it's covered around 450miles on the odo, or around 300 real miles since the thing went back together. Initially, I was just mooching around in it, using it when I could. I commuted in it at the beginning of the week, and had to take a detour as my normal route was closed due to a cyclist riding underneath a van (probably not intentionally). I've had worse commutes though, as commutes go:
On one hand, the simpleton part of me thinks 'How cool! I'm commuting in an Imp!' While the more rational, buzzkill part of me thinks 'Yeah....like about 100,000 people were in the 70's...'
A couple of short runs down, I set about getting it ready for a couple of longer test runs. The first to Portsmouth (boooo), and then to Southampton (yaaay). The first stage in planning any journey is, of course, to attend to areas of body damage. Y'all remember the issue around the front wheelarch? Well, the lump of filler that the bodyshop (who did the bodywork, but not the actual painting) left in the arch was hacked out, and the metal treated/made good. Not a permanent repair, but it'll do for now and it'll stop it getting any worse:
Of course, to improve the look further, I needed some paint. Not just any paint either! I needed paint that was the same colour as the bodywork (which is Opel/Vauxhall Karabic Blue 277, seeing as you asked. It's so close to the original Aquarius, it's just easier). A trip to Express Paints in Portsmouth was required, which would not only pave a way to painty-goodness, but also give the Imp a slightly longer run to deal with.
It wasn't just the Imp that would benefit from this trip either (if it didn't break). I also needed some paint for the BX GT bumpers (Oh yes, the BX GT....that's on here somewhere too). This meant I needed to take a bumper down to the paint shop (not a paintshop, it's actually a shop that sells paint). So, the Imp became a BX bumper carrier:
Paint was acquired, and the front end visually improved:
Nothing special, just a rattle can job, but it'll do.
One of the other tasks on the to-do list, was to relocate the battery. Originally, we had a compact gel battery fitted (effectively the same as those Odyssey types, only half the price) but I hated it. The size and weight was brilliant, but it had about 3 cranks in it before it was dead. And then it started dying by itself. It was time to rid myself of it, and a standard Yuasa 063 was bought and fitted down behind the passenger seat. I'd have preferred it over the front axle, but there just isn't the space.
Long term I may make a case for it to mount into.
The next day, a trip to Southampton was on the cards. It had dawned on me that I'd never had the wheel alignment checked on the car, so I booked it in at The Wheel Alignment Centre and headed down on Friday. I'd previously taken the car to 100mph (private roads, obv) and the experience could best be described as 'alarming'.
Post-wheel alignment, the same test was carried out and the result was deemed 'concerning', which is a definite improvement. It's running 3degrees of negative camber on one side, and 2.1deg on the other (ah, good old quality control!) Ideally, I'd rid the car of the negative camber full stop, which will aid the stability more. Normally a car is set at toe-in bias to try and make it more stable (at the expense of some turn-in response), but in the case of the Imp, it was decided to go neutral. It's much improved, in fairness.
I now set about getting it cleaned up (kinda...I used Demon Shine and a rag!) I had a Goodwood breakfast club to go to on Sunday morning, and Friday was my last day of Imp time, so when the working day ended, the Imp evening started. It cleaned up pretty well:
In the course of hoovering the carpets, I found the car wasn't as watertight as I'd hoped. In fact, it's probably more similar to a sponge when the rain sets in.
Happily, I found I'd gained more horses! No, really. I always thought the best the engine ever kicked out was 111bhp on the dyno, but when researching the exact RPM figures for making a little info card for the car (so I could put it in the window and avoid any social awkwardness I exhibit when people ask me questions about my car) I logged onto the rolling road computer, and found this:
After the last session with the car, I had about 3 runs all around 116.8bhp. Of course, that rounds up to 117bhp! Made me giggle when I remembered the car originally was rated at 37bhp! This car has taken one Hillman Imp, and then added two more into the engine bay
The Breakfast Club day came, and on the way there I swung by to collect a special guest for the morning (or the first bit of it anyway!).....Tim, the original owner of the car! He came out for the car's first official 'appearance' at any type of show or event.
So, in true Breakfast Club style, I pushed the car out of the garage at silly o'clock, and then proceeded to get it started and hold a fast idle to warm it up, because the choke isn't connected. Wakey wakey everybody!:
We arrived at Goodwood at around half 8 in the morning. The run there was good, and the car behaved perfectly, except a minor moment where it developed a misfire just before I drove into the tunnel. Not sure what that was about!
We were directed onto the track, and realised it was quite busy. I'm not great with getting attention, and the Imp was instantly attracting a lot of attention!
We parked up, and got out. It wasn't even a minute before a small crowd had gathered around it. Someone asked me to open the engine lid, which I did (kinda reluctantly, as I was hoping to go and look around first!) and as I went to walk backwards ended up walking into what seemed like a wall of people peering in! The crowd slowly dispersed, and I spent a bit longer chatting to quite a few people in more detail. I was aware there were people actually seeming to queue up to ask me something, but I just didn't seem to get a minute spare. Tim was fielding questions left right and centre too! Good to see him enjoying the involvement
It wasn't busy there purely because of the Imp; It was a very busy event in general, but I have to say I wasn't prepared for the amount of attention the little thing received. A mix of people coming to see an Imp generally (as I was the only one there, as the Imp National meet was on the same day in Kent) and others attracted more by the 'custom' look of the thing, and the rumours that it had an engine conversion.....possibly.
A hour passed in the blink of an eye, and for a while I found enough space to get a picture:
Tim left and my wife and kids arrived. I think even they were surprised by how many people I was talking to (I'm normally not good at talking to strangers!), but eventually I had to apologise to some people looking at the engine, shut it all up, lock the doors and ps off to look around the event with the kids. Saw some interesting stuff there, including a gorgeous Lancia Fulvia Rallye, and my dream car, a Citroen SM on the grid.
Nearer the end of the morning it had quietened down:
I took the Imp home the scenic way, and I have to say the drive back was simply brilliant fun! I was driving with my wife and kids following in the family wagon, but even at lower speeds it's just so much fun. It's SO involving to drive! Everything is you and the mechanical component you're operating....nothing else. And yet, it's not recalcitrant in the slightest. The gearchange is decent enough (3rd to 4th using your fingertip in a 'flick' motion once the box has warmed up is particularly trouser arousing), the pedals are well weighted, the ride is firm but composed and the visibility is immense. The best thing is the steering though! You feel EVERYTHING. I've never driven another car, where it's like a push bike, in that you see the road surface in front of you, and when you drive over it, it feels exactly as it looks. In most cars, the road noise changes note slightly, even in my TVR. But in this, you feel the information from everything, all the time. Any yaw; Any lateral movement; Any surface change....everything. And yet, it's not overwhelming. It's just right, and it creates a situation where because you have a car that is so involving, and noisy, and buzzy, you should be fed up of it after a while, and just want to get out. But in this car, every single time I've driven it, I always feel a tinge of sadness as I arrive home that my drive is over, even if I've just spent the whole morning in it and have a fume-induced headache to prove it.
It's cliché, but it's the closest thing to a go-kart for the road. The weight distribution, the noise....even the steering wheel is mounted at a stupid angle, off-centre!
I arrived back on Sunday at around 1pm, and spent the next couple of hours giving my kids their first rides in it.
Two 8 year old boys, and a 5 year old boy. Suffice to say, they loved it too, though one did say it was embarrassing being in it when everyone looks! The other 8 yr old said he wished some of his mates from school saw him in it.
Who'd have thought that an 8yr old thought a Hillman Imp was so cool, he wanted his mates to see him in it! Words you never thought you'd hear....
Has there been any? Well, yes, happily! Things have gone well in the world of the little Scottish saloon.
I had plans for the weekend just gone, but the game last week was all about putting miles on the car, to give anything that felt like failing on me, a chance to fail. Thus far, nothing has, and to date (10th August) it's covered around 450miles on the odo, or around 300 real miles since the thing went back together. Initially, I was just mooching around in it, using it when I could. I commuted in it at the beginning of the week, and had to take a detour as my normal route was closed due to a cyclist riding underneath a van (probably not intentionally). I've had worse commutes though, as commutes go:
On one hand, the simpleton part of me thinks 'How cool! I'm commuting in an Imp!' While the more rational, buzzkill part of me thinks 'Yeah....like about 100,000 people were in the 70's...'
A couple of short runs down, I set about getting it ready for a couple of longer test runs. The first to Portsmouth (boooo), and then to Southampton (yaaay). The first stage in planning any journey is, of course, to attend to areas of body damage. Y'all remember the issue around the front wheelarch? Well, the lump of filler that the bodyshop (who did the bodywork, but not the actual painting) left in the arch was hacked out, and the metal treated/made good. Not a permanent repair, but it'll do for now and it'll stop it getting any worse:
Of course, to improve the look further, I needed some paint. Not just any paint either! I needed paint that was the same colour as the bodywork (which is Opel/Vauxhall Karabic Blue 277, seeing as you asked. It's so close to the original Aquarius, it's just easier). A trip to Express Paints in Portsmouth was required, which would not only pave a way to painty-goodness, but also give the Imp a slightly longer run to deal with.
It wasn't just the Imp that would benefit from this trip either (if it didn't break). I also needed some paint for the BX GT bumpers (Oh yes, the BX GT....that's on here somewhere too). This meant I needed to take a bumper down to the paint shop (not a paintshop, it's actually a shop that sells paint). So, the Imp became a BX bumper carrier:
Paint was acquired, and the front end visually improved:
Nothing special, just a rattle can job, but it'll do.
One of the other tasks on the to-do list, was to relocate the battery. Originally, we had a compact gel battery fitted (effectively the same as those Odyssey types, only half the price) but I hated it. The size and weight was brilliant, but it had about 3 cranks in it before it was dead. And then it started dying by itself. It was time to rid myself of it, and a standard Yuasa 063 was bought and fitted down behind the passenger seat. I'd have preferred it over the front axle, but there just isn't the space.
Long term I may make a case for it to mount into.
The next day, a trip to Southampton was on the cards. It had dawned on me that I'd never had the wheel alignment checked on the car, so I booked it in at The Wheel Alignment Centre and headed down on Friday. I'd previously taken the car to 100mph (private roads, obv) and the experience could best be described as 'alarming'.
Post-wheel alignment, the same test was carried out and the result was deemed 'concerning', which is a definite improvement. It's running 3degrees of negative camber on one side, and 2.1deg on the other (ah, good old quality control!) Ideally, I'd rid the car of the negative camber full stop, which will aid the stability more. Normally a car is set at toe-in bias to try and make it more stable (at the expense of some turn-in response), but in the case of the Imp, it was decided to go neutral. It's much improved, in fairness.
I now set about getting it cleaned up (kinda...I used Demon Shine and a rag!) I had a Goodwood breakfast club to go to on Sunday morning, and Friday was my last day of Imp time, so when the working day ended, the Imp evening started. It cleaned up pretty well:
In the course of hoovering the carpets, I found the car wasn't as watertight as I'd hoped. In fact, it's probably more similar to a sponge when the rain sets in.
Happily, I found I'd gained more horses! No, really. I always thought the best the engine ever kicked out was 111bhp on the dyno, but when researching the exact RPM figures for making a little info card for the car (so I could put it in the window and avoid any social awkwardness I exhibit when people ask me questions about my car) I logged onto the rolling road computer, and found this:
After the last session with the car, I had about 3 runs all around 116.8bhp. Of course, that rounds up to 117bhp! Made me giggle when I remembered the car originally was rated at 37bhp! This car has taken one Hillman Imp, and then added two more into the engine bay
The Breakfast Club day came, and on the way there I swung by to collect a special guest for the morning (or the first bit of it anyway!).....Tim, the original owner of the car! He came out for the car's first official 'appearance' at any type of show or event.
So, in true Breakfast Club style, I pushed the car out of the garage at silly o'clock, and then proceeded to get it started and hold a fast idle to warm it up, because the choke isn't connected. Wakey wakey everybody!:
We arrived at Goodwood at around half 8 in the morning. The run there was good, and the car behaved perfectly, except a minor moment where it developed a misfire just before I drove into the tunnel. Not sure what that was about!
We were directed onto the track, and realised it was quite busy. I'm not great with getting attention, and the Imp was instantly attracting a lot of attention!
We parked up, and got out. It wasn't even a minute before a small crowd had gathered around it. Someone asked me to open the engine lid, which I did (kinda reluctantly, as I was hoping to go and look around first!) and as I went to walk backwards ended up walking into what seemed like a wall of people peering in! The crowd slowly dispersed, and I spent a bit longer chatting to quite a few people in more detail. I was aware there were people actually seeming to queue up to ask me something, but I just didn't seem to get a minute spare. Tim was fielding questions left right and centre too! Good to see him enjoying the involvement
It wasn't busy there purely because of the Imp; It was a very busy event in general, but I have to say I wasn't prepared for the amount of attention the little thing received. A mix of people coming to see an Imp generally (as I was the only one there, as the Imp National meet was on the same day in Kent) and others attracted more by the 'custom' look of the thing, and the rumours that it had an engine conversion.....possibly.
A hour passed in the blink of an eye, and for a while I found enough space to get a picture:
Tim left and my wife and kids arrived. I think even they were surprised by how many people I was talking to (I'm normally not good at talking to strangers!), but eventually I had to apologise to some people looking at the engine, shut it all up, lock the doors and p
s off to look around the event with the kids. Saw some interesting stuff there, including a gorgeous Lancia Fulvia Rallye, and my dream car, a Citroen SM on the grid.Nearer the end of the morning it had quietened down:
I took the Imp home the scenic way, and I have to say the drive back was simply brilliant fun! I was driving with my wife and kids following in the family wagon, but even at lower speeds it's just so much fun. It's SO involving to drive! Everything is you and the mechanical component you're operating....nothing else. And yet, it's not recalcitrant in the slightest. The gearchange is decent enough (3rd to 4th using your fingertip in a 'flick' motion once the box has warmed up is particularly trouser arousing), the pedals are well weighted, the ride is firm but composed and the visibility is immense. The best thing is the steering though! You feel EVERYTHING. I've never driven another car, where it's like a push bike, in that you see the road surface in front of you, and when you drive over it, it feels exactly as it looks. In most cars, the road noise changes note slightly, even in my TVR. But in this, you feel the information from everything, all the time. Any yaw; Any lateral movement; Any surface change....everything. And yet, it's not overwhelming. It's just right, and it creates a situation where because you have a car that is so involving, and noisy, and buzzy, you should be fed up of it after a while, and just want to get out. But in this car, every single time I've driven it, I always feel a tinge of sadness as I arrive home that my drive is over, even if I've just spent the whole morning in it and have a fume-induced headache to prove it.
It's cliché, but it's the closest thing to a go-kart for the road. The weight distribution, the noise....even the steering wheel is mounted at a stupid angle, off-centre!
I arrived back on Sunday at around 1pm, and spent the next couple of hours giving my kids their first rides in it.
Two 8 year old boys, and a 5 year old boy. Suffice to say, they loved it too, though one did say it was embarrassing being in it when everyone looks! The other 8 yr old said he wished some of his mates from school saw him in it.
Who'd have thought that an 8yr old thought a Hillman Imp was so cool, he wanted his mates to see him in it! Words you never thought you'd hear....
Didn't realise I'd let this one slip so much!
Well, I have done more with it, and done more in it, but I can't remember any of what it was
So here's a video I made a couple of nights ago. Yes, yes, it's a bit crap, but it was thrown together in less than an hour!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paGV7jXCfPE
1970's car and soundtrack. Perfeck...
Well, I have done more with it, and done more in it, but I can't remember any of what it was
So here's a video I made a couple of nights ago. Yes, yes, it's a bit crap, but it was thrown together in less than an hour!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paGV7jXCfPE
1970's car and soundtrack. Perfeck...
So, update time for the Imp! And we start before the last one; At the end of August, last year. Location: Gosport:
That picture was taken last year, at the annual 'Gosporteers' classic car show. Aside from Goodwood, it's the only show the car went to. I don't seem to get as much enjoyment out of car shows as I used to. Sometimes it's good, but 9/10 times it's just a load of cars that never see the road in anything other than exceptional weather conditions (by the UK's standards, anyway) with a load of 'one-upmanship' thrown in, as everyone tries to out-polish everyone else. Gosport's not like that, thankfully. It's too quiet, to be honest! I did finish the show 'season' last year at Tangmere Air Museum though (not in the Imp - in one of the BXs), and that was a cracking event. Brilliant mix of cars on display. I think I'll try to hunt some more of those down this year in the Imp. I just don't use it enough!
But enough pictures of it sitting around doing nothing - you want to see something underneath, right?
OK. Last year, about the same sort of time I got it up and running again with the new clutch arrangement, I set about trying to improve the speedometer accuracy. Normally, an Imp has a mechanical setup, with a cable-driven speedo rotated by one of the front wheels (don't ask me which - this car never had one!) This Imp has an electronic speedo, which is driven by a sender unit which I (when I say 'I', I of course mean a man called Simon) fitted to the transaxle, so it reads the offside rear wheel (or more specifically, the offside rear output flange's rotational speed).
Originally, Simon (not I; I'm happy to accredit him with this particular detail, as it failed) set the unit up to read the three mounting bolts from the rubber driveshaft 'doughnut' to the flange, believing that - due to the style of sender unit - three pickups would be sufficient. Three pickups were not sufficient, and the speedo floated and bounced and generally did everything except the job is was designed to do; to accurately relay the current road speed to anyone who cast a glance at it.
So, a new system was devised (by me, I'm happy to report!) It had been suggested to me, that an old-style Transit fitted with a 2.3 petrol engine (well, that's what the part number I was given translated to), used a detachable type of toothed trigger wheel. This had 36 teeth (probably....I'm not totally sure, but it was more than three), which installed much more confidence!
The trigger wheel duly arrived:
Happily, it already had three mounting holes (the same number as the thing I intended to mount it to). Unhappily, it might has well have had twelve, as they weren't in the right place:
Even more unhappily, the holes I needed to make fell right on the inner edge of the wheel, which meant it wasn't going to be as simple as just drilling three holes (when I say 'simple', I of course mean drilling three holes on EXACTLY the right circumference, or have a trigger wheel that hopped up and down, and smashed up the sender unit). I had to 'relieve' some metal as per the pic above, and then sacrifice some washers to complete the holes all the way around.
I then welded the washers (or the remains of them, anyway) in, and ground it all down to try and make it look like it was meant to look like that from day one. Kinda:
Being that this was a trigger wheel for a crank pulley, it had one flaw in the design that would prove to be a big flaw. The crank sender on said Transit 2.3 petrol records all the teeth passing it, bar one. This is intentionally left out, so that each time it passes, the ECU knows the crank has made one complete rotation.
My sender don't work like that. Oh no. My sender wants to know how many teeth there are (more than three), and then just count how quickly they pass. It was no good. I had to conduct teeth......work.
Tooth fitted:
Tooth shaped:
New wheel offered up in place (before then being removed for painting):
The operation proved a success. The speedo now read smoothly, and resembled something like a speedo from a normal car. Only it still wasn't accurate! Not a problem, though, as with this speedo (as with all aftermarket electronic versions) it's possible to calibrate it. You simply press and hold the mode switch (I like the fact a Hillman Imp has a 'mode switch') until the speedo enters calibration mode:
Then, because you really can't be arst to read the instruction manual, you prick around pushing buttons and entering different number combinations until the speedo reads close to what it's supposed to. Besides being a tool for bringing emotional turmoil to numerous project car owner's lives, our rolling road has a speedometer test function, which is actually quite a handy thing. It allows you to bring the wheels up to a series of pre-determined speeds, whereby you pause at each one while as suggested by the car's speedo, before moving on to the next. Then, at the end of the test, the machine tells you just how inaccurate your speedo is:
As we can see, it's underreading a fair bit. It's normal for cars to underread, but that's a bit more than ideal. That graph was also taken after a fair bit of trail and error playing. I managed to get the higher speeds reading quite well, but around the 20-40mph mark, it's proving quite tricky. I did find out what the top speed of the Imp is though: 107.4mph. When you hit the limiter in top gear, that's how fast you're going. Out and about on the (private) road, it's very easy to hit the limiter in 4th, but there's normally a bit too much going on to cast a glance downwards at the speedo. Anyway, more work needed on the speedo front.
One of the other issues I had to sort after Goodwood, was the lack of rear brake lights. The Imp uses a pressure-operated brake light switch, rather than a pedal-mounted effort. This is mounted in the engine bay (which is at the back remember, sports fans). I've wondered in the past about the legitimacy of having it driven by the rear brakes, but then wondered if the balance is closer to 50/50 on the Imp, due to the backwards engine layout. Makes no odds - the switch is at the back, so I started there.
Took no pictures of the event, but one night I went to test the switch and found it unplugged. "A simple fix" thought I! Not so - there was nothing to plug the switch into. No wiring....nothing.
In the days to come, I found the wiring:
I do remember hearing a BANG once, while out in the car, but to be honest it's such an assault on the senses that the odd noises just pass me by these days! But it seems what happened was that my brake light switch wiring somehow picked a fight with the output flange on the transaxle (the opposite side to my new speedo sender, thankfully), and lost. Que an hour of phaffing around trying to extricate shards of copper wire from the output seal. Still, it answered my next question....what was causing the gearbox oil leak!
Since then I've just been driving the Imp around. Here it is, out and about in the salty roads last year:
There are still jobs to do, however. For this year, I want to get some of the tasks sorted before I go ragging around in it. So first up, I sourced some new doors:
The keener-eyed of you will notice that they are a slightly different shade of blue (and when I say 'slightly', I course mean, they're not blue at all). I've sent these away to be soda-blasted, and the only thing that's prevented me for picking them up again is that the van I was going to use ran out of MoT! But I'm hoping they haven't gone too rusty, as it was about 2-3weeks ago that they were done. My plan with these is to offer them up to the car, and see if the shutlines improve at all. You might remember I've had problems with the shutlines on the old ones, thanks to the complete cock-up the first bodyshop guy we enlisted to help made on the doors (one of which how has a big crack across it where the filler is breaking out) I'm hoping he didn't do too much work on the quarter panels either, otherwise I'll have problems there too. Plan is to offer the new doors up (which I know are pretty good) and then dress them to improve the panel gaps on the shell, before having them painted. I'll report back on this when I actually start it!
Lastly for today, I finally made a start on the new dashboard. I've never personally liked the layout it's currently got, so some time ago I sourced a (Chrysler-era) mk3 dashboard, which would look something like this (sans wood):
In place of the wood panelling, I plan to have real carbon fibre. And in place of the glovebox, I plan to have a steering wheel (because Britain).
My dashboard is looking a bit sad in places, and it's taken from a car that had no glovebox. That's proving a bit of a pain, because I want a glovebox (not just for practicality, but also because the dash looks like it's got a gaping hole in it with no glovebox!) The problem is that the end panel is different for a glovebox dash.
Here's my current dash:
And here's the offside end panel (made of tin, incidentally) on my current dash (looking a bit sad):
Now for the nearside end panel, I should have a mirror image of that (I'm assuming), but I don't. I have this:
Ordinarily, you would approach the owner's club and ask for assistance in finding a spare. Sadly, it's quite an odd request for most, as it's not the sort of part you keep laying around (and if you have one, you probably need it). Also, I keep falling out with members of the Imp club (the younger ones mostly, but sometimes the older ones can be so far up their own arses they refer to their garage as a 'studio') on account of my ridicule of their 'sick stance' and various other assorted ways they've ruined their cars. I'm not very popular in Imp circles these days, but happily it doesn't really bother me too much. By the way, here's my prediction for the future: The Imp, as a classic, will get rarer and rarer. You'd assume they've already made the transition into bone-fide classic status, but the original cars are owned by all the older people. When they pass away, the cars get will bought by the 'yoof' (I'm 34, FFS) and then get slammed until the tyres make contact with the road via about 20mm of rubber collectively, and have stickers all over the windscreen, and skulls for gearknobs, and generally have so many pictures taken in that bloody awful vignette effect for their Insta-friends that the paint actually starts to go blue. As a result, the Imp in its pure form will continue to get rarer and rarer, rather than being firmly in the safe-zone like you'd expect. You want to make money on a classic? Buy an Imp, thats my opinion! I'm aware of the irony that I'm saying all this with that whacking great iron lump in the back of mine....
Anywhoo, my backup plan is to remove this similar looking panel from inside the glovebox aperture, and cut bits of tin out of it until it sort-of fits the existing nearside mount, before welding it all together and painting it. It won't be identical to the driver's side, but it will kind of resemble what it should be. Kinda.
I continued to dismantle the dash ready for refurb. It's a metal frame design, and comes apart quite easily. This unless some Scotsman made a hash of pulling through a pop-rivet in 1973...
From there I kept going until all the bits were split down. Next step is to make that nearside end panel, before shot blasting everything and painting it all up, either gloss black or, if I'm feeling lucky, crinkle-coat black.
That's as far as I've got currently. Plan is to finish the dashboard (along with some new gauges), install some kind of heater-demister system, beef up the front suspension mountings and renew the fuel lines. I might also fit an oil cooler, but haven't done enough testing yet to determine whether I need one or not. Oh and of course, the doors.
Plan for next year? In reality, to sell it. As things stand, 2019 will be the year I part ways with it. I want to 'finish' it first, which includes finally getting it into the mag feature it had to pull out of last minute a while ago. Not so much for the attention, or 'credit' of the thing, but because in a weird way, the feature would feel like the seal of approval. The stamp of completion. That's one of the reasons I took the car on - because I wanted to see it finished. I don't use it enough otherwise, and have many other cars that need my attention. That's why this year, I need to get out and about in it as much as I can
That picture was taken last year, at the annual 'Gosporteers' classic car show. Aside from Goodwood, it's the only show the car went to. I don't seem to get as much enjoyment out of car shows as I used to. Sometimes it's good, but 9/10 times it's just a load of cars that never see the road in anything other than exceptional weather conditions (by the UK's standards, anyway) with a load of 'one-upmanship' thrown in, as everyone tries to out-polish everyone else. Gosport's not like that, thankfully. It's too quiet, to be honest! I did finish the show 'season' last year at Tangmere Air Museum though (not in the Imp - in one of the BXs), and that was a cracking event. Brilliant mix of cars on display. I think I'll try to hunt some more of those down this year in the Imp. I just don't use it enough!
But enough pictures of it sitting around doing nothing - you want to see something underneath, right?
OK. Last year, about the same sort of time I got it up and running again with the new clutch arrangement, I set about trying to improve the speedometer accuracy. Normally, an Imp has a mechanical setup, with a cable-driven speedo rotated by one of the front wheels (don't ask me which - this car never had one!) This Imp has an electronic speedo, which is driven by a sender unit which I (when I say 'I', I of course mean a man called Simon) fitted to the transaxle, so it reads the offside rear wheel (or more specifically, the offside rear output flange's rotational speed).
Originally, Simon (not I; I'm happy to accredit him with this particular detail, as it failed) set the unit up to read the three mounting bolts from the rubber driveshaft 'doughnut' to the flange, believing that - due to the style of sender unit - three pickups would be sufficient. Three pickups were not sufficient, and the speedo floated and bounced and generally did everything except the job is was designed to do; to accurately relay the current road speed to anyone who cast a glance at it.
So, a new system was devised (by me, I'm happy to report!) It had been suggested to me, that an old-style Transit fitted with a 2.3 petrol engine (well, that's what the part number I was given translated to), used a detachable type of toothed trigger wheel. This had 36 teeth (probably....I'm not totally sure, but it was more than three), which installed much more confidence!
The trigger wheel duly arrived:
Happily, it already had three mounting holes (the same number as the thing I intended to mount it to). Unhappily, it might has well have had twelve, as they weren't in the right place:
Even more unhappily, the holes I needed to make fell right on the inner edge of the wheel, which meant it wasn't going to be as simple as just drilling three holes (when I say 'simple', I of course mean drilling three holes on EXACTLY the right circumference, or have a trigger wheel that hopped up and down, and smashed up the sender unit). I had to 'relieve' some metal as per the pic above, and then sacrifice some washers to complete the holes all the way around.
I then welded the washers (or the remains of them, anyway) in, and ground it all down to try and make it look like it was meant to look like that from day one. Kinda:
Being that this was a trigger wheel for a crank pulley, it had one flaw in the design that would prove to be a big flaw. The crank sender on said Transit 2.3 petrol records all the teeth passing it, bar one. This is intentionally left out, so that each time it passes, the ECU knows the crank has made one complete rotation.
My sender don't work like that. Oh no. My sender wants to know how many teeth there are (more than three), and then just count how quickly they pass. It was no good. I had to conduct teeth......work.
Tooth fitted:
Tooth shaped:
New wheel offered up in place (before then being removed for painting):
The operation proved a success. The speedo now read smoothly, and resembled something like a speedo from a normal car. Only it still wasn't accurate! Not a problem, though, as with this speedo (as with all aftermarket electronic versions) it's possible to calibrate it. You simply press and hold the mode switch (I like the fact a Hillman Imp has a 'mode switch') until the speedo enters calibration mode:
Then, because you really can't be arst to read the instruction manual, you prick around pushing buttons and entering different number combinations until the speedo reads close to what it's supposed to. Besides being a tool for bringing emotional turmoil to numerous project car owner's lives, our rolling road has a speedometer test function, which is actually quite a handy thing. It allows you to bring the wheels up to a series of pre-determined speeds, whereby you pause at each one while as suggested by the car's speedo, before moving on to the next. Then, at the end of the test, the machine tells you just how inaccurate your speedo is:
As we can see, it's underreading a fair bit. It's normal for cars to underread, but that's a bit more than ideal. That graph was also taken after a fair bit of trail and error playing. I managed to get the higher speeds reading quite well, but around the 20-40mph mark, it's proving quite tricky. I did find out what the top speed of the Imp is though: 107.4mph. When you hit the limiter in top gear, that's how fast you're going. Out and about on the (private) road, it's very easy to hit the limiter in 4th, but there's normally a bit too much going on to cast a glance downwards at the speedo. Anyway, more work needed on the speedo front.
One of the other issues I had to sort after Goodwood, was the lack of rear brake lights. The Imp uses a pressure-operated brake light switch, rather than a pedal-mounted effort. This is mounted in the engine bay (which is at the back remember, sports fans). I've wondered in the past about the legitimacy of having it driven by the rear brakes, but then wondered if the balance is closer to 50/50 on the Imp, due to the backwards engine layout. Makes no odds - the switch is at the back, so I started there.
Took no pictures of the event, but one night I went to test the switch and found it unplugged. "A simple fix" thought I! Not so - there was nothing to plug the switch into. No wiring....nothing.
In the days to come, I found the wiring:
I do remember hearing a BANG once, while out in the car, but to be honest it's such an assault on the senses that the odd noises just pass me by these days! But it seems what happened was that my brake light switch wiring somehow picked a fight with the output flange on the transaxle (the opposite side to my new speedo sender, thankfully), and lost. Que an hour of phaffing around trying to extricate shards of copper wire from the output seal. Still, it answered my next question....what was causing the gearbox oil leak!
Since then I've just been driving the Imp around. Here it is, out and about in the salty roads last year:
There are still jobs to do, however. For this year, I want to get some of the tasks sorted before I go ragging around in it. So first up, I sourced some new doors:
The keener-eyed of you will notice that they are a slightly different shade of blue (and when I say 'slightly', I course mean, they're not blue at all). I've sent these away to be soda-blasted, and the only thing that's prevented me for picking them up again is that the van I was going to use ran out of MoT! But I'm hoping they haven't gone too rusty, as it was about 2-3weeks ago that they were done. My plan with these is to offer them up to the car, and see if the shutlines improve at all. You might remember I've had problems with the shutlines on the old ones, thanks to the complete cock-up the first bodyshop guy we enlisted to help made on the doors (one of which how has a big crack across it where the filler is breaking out) I'm hoping he didn't do too much work on the quarter panels either, otherwise I'll have problems there too. Plan is to offer the new doors up (which I know are pretty good) and then dress them to improve the panel gaps on the shell, before having them painted. I'll report back on this when I actually start it!
Lastly for today, I finally made a start on the new dashboard. I've never personally liked the layout it's currently got, so some time ago I sourced a (Chrysler-era) mk3 dashboard, which would look something like this (sans wood):
In place of the wood panelling, I plan to have real carbon fibre. And in place of the glovebox, I plan to have a steering wheel (because Britain).
My dashboard is looking a bit sad in places, and it's taken from a car that had no glovebox. That's proving a bit of a pain, because I want a glovebox (not just for practicality, but also because the dash looks like it's got a gaping hole in it with no glovebox!) The problem is that the end panel is different for a glovebox dash.
Here's my current dash:
And here's the offside end panel (made of tin, incidentally) on my current dash (looking a bit sad):
Now for the nearside end panel, I should have a mirror image of that (I'm assuming), but I don't. I have this:
Ordinarily, you would approach the owner's club and ask for assistance in finding a spare. Sadly, it's quite an odd request for most, as it's not the sort of part you keep laying around (and if you have one, you probably need it). Also, I keep falling out with members of the Imp club (the younger ones mostly, but sometimes the older ones can be so far up their own arses they refer to their garage as a 'studio') on account of my ridicule of their 'sick stance' and various other assorted ways they've ruined their cars. I'm not very popular in Imp circles these days, but happily it doesn't really bother me too much. By the way, here's my prediction for the future: The Imp, as a classic, will get rarer and rarer. You'd assume they've already made the transition into bone-fide classic status, but the original cars are owned by all the older people. When they pass away, the cars get will bought by the 'yoof' (I'm 34, FFS) and then get slammed until the tyres make contact with the road via about 20mm of rubber collectively, and have stickers all over the windscreen, and skulls for gearknobs, and generally have so many pictures taken in that bloody awful vignette effect for their Insta-friends that the paint actually starts to go blue. As a result, the Imp in its pure form will continue to get rarer and rarer, rather than being firmly in the safe-zone like you'd expect. You want to make money on a classic? Buy an Imp, thats my opinion! I'm aware of the irony that I'm saying all this with that whacking great iron lump in the back of mine....
Anywhoo, my backup plan is to remove this similar looking panel from inside the glovebox aperture, and cut bits of tin out of it until it sort-of fits the existing nearside mount, before welding it all together and painting it. It won't be identical to the driver's side, but it will kind of resemble what it should be. Kinda.
I continued to dismantle the dash ready for refurb. It's a metal frame design, and comes apart quite easily. This unless some Scotsman made a hash of pulling through a pop-rivet in 1973...
From there I kept going until all the bits were split down. Next step is to make that nearside end panel, before shot blasting everything and painting it all up, either gloss black or, if I'm feeling lucky, crinkle-coat black.
That's as far as I've got currently. Plan is to finish the dashboard (along with some new gauges), install some kind of heater-demister system, beef up the front suspension mountings and renew the fuel lines. I might also fit an oil cooler, but haven't done enough testing yet to determine whether I need one or not. Oh and of course, the doors.
Plan for next year? In reality, to sell it. As things stand, 2019 will be the year I part ways with it. I want to 'finish' it first, which includes finally getting it into the mag feature it had to pull out of last minute a while ago. Not so much for the attention, or 'credit' of the thing, but because in a weird way, the feature would feel like the seal of approval. The stamp of completion. That's one of the reasons I took the car on - because I wanted to see it finished. I don't use it enough otherwise, and have many other cars that need my attention. That's why this year, I need to get out and about in it as much as I can
yoeddynz said:
Evangelion said:
And if you looked at the driveshafts themselves (which were the thicker ones from the Commer Imp van, 1 inch thick instead of 7/8ths) you could see they were twisting because the seams were no longer straight.
Ha- this ^ I have spotted the same issue on my new Imp project that I have recently taken on. It has a Datsun A12 engine fitted with only about 70bhp. But obviously enough torque to wind up the shafts under hard driving (its a race car that has been rallied so lots of shock loads run through the transmission ).jpg)
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Anyway- your 1.6 Imp is fantastic and I'm glad someone from retro rides had linked me to the thread! I have 2 more Imps on the way and plan to do some sort of interesting engine swap in the future into one of the shells. Always great to see other ideas. Luckily it seems that Imps lend themselves to being modified :-) I'm loving the simple clean engine on yours.
Alex
Interested to learn more about the Datsun setup! Will read your thread later
Thanks for the kind words!
Coakers said:
Well I have very much enjoyed reading this. Quite the journey, both technical and emotional, it would be extremely gratifying if it was to go back to its original owner when you do decide to sell, however unrealistic that may seem.
I actually googled southways automotive as I have a mk2 (headache) Golf that needs putting back together and would quite happily send it to you to be worked on given the skill and passion that has been conveyed in this thread, however when I discovered you were based near Portsmouth (I'm in Wigan) ahhhh welll.
Thanks. Yes, certainly been a journey. There have been many points where morale just dissipates completely, but at the moment it's enjoyable. That's all part of trying to build something rather than buy something though, I guess.I actually googled southways automotive as I have a mk2 (headache) Golf that needs putting back together and would quite happily send it to you to be worked on given the skill and passion that has been conveyed in this thread, however when I discovered you were based near Portsmouth (I'm in Wigan) ahhhh welll.
Ah yes, Wigan's a bit of a trek. OH has family up there. Mind you, we get cars from France, Spain etc. Got one from Luxembourg at the moment!
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