DDG 220 C aka "Millie" - MK 1 Singer Chamois

[John A. Ross]

I picked this car up as a spares car and the seller mentioned some "paperwork" in the glove box, turned out this spares car was the gem and actually in better condition than the one I was restoring at the time !



The paperwork was the cars complete history including original purchase details, who knew you could get so much for £640 back in the day !

So that is the start of the story !

Here is the middle







This is it now pending re-assembly





Want to read the full story, come back in a few weeks :):):):)

[John A. Ross]

It will take me a while to repost the build / restoration stories for the many cars here so it will have to be piece at a time swapping around.

Like a good TV soap you can tune in every few days for the next episode

As mentioned above Millie was picked up as a spares car for "George" and the names were actually not considered as a compliment to the 70s TV show but at least it keeps the names period correct !

A few images of Millie when she arrived.

When the seller mentioned there was some paperwork in the glove box you can imagine how I felt when the car arrived with the glove box off its hinges lying on the floor !

But looks were deceiving, the car is a prime example of Imp standard "rot" spots but overall this car was in way better shape than the car I was going to strip it for parts for.

The car within its history which was complete all the way back to the dealer sale and original green "v5" which hada been changed to 998 as even back then the cars owner must have just loved to drive it as the hartwell 998 that went in there cost still a pretty penny compared to the new price.

If you go looking to buy an imp pay special attention to these spots, you dont want to be fixing bits like this if you spend a few more bucks and get a better shell.

/ John

[John A. Ross]

So on with the restoration :D

Let us start with the walk round of the rot spots. To be fair a lot of the car was in great condition other than the tatty corners. However like most Imps looks can be deceiving and anything you want to look at is hidden !

The worst was this corner and the reason the car had been passed through so many hands with each picking bits off and selling it on. Why did folks do that ? Well apparantly all the Hartwell mods including the engine were worth more than the shell !



As can be seen the top of the outer rear wing at the engine bay channel is a gonner, the inner channel that attaches to the rear inner wing was a gonner as is the 3 sections of the rear hatch bottom section on that corner. In addition the lower part of the inner wing and the battery tray are complete gonners, especially the battery tray which looks like a string vest !

The repairs will be posted further down, we still have the middle sill, outer sill, floor edge to do first, thats after the tear down and media blast !

/ John

[Colimp66]

Pretty rotten that John. Not to dissimilar to The Pest only in a few different areas.
I think the rule is.... They rot anywau anyywhere and anyhow!!!! Or was it The Who that said that???

[John A. Ross]

Col, yes pretty rotten on that corner, all way round and indide, not shown the pic yet but the inner wing was totalled as well, i borrowed as section from another car. Hoping to highlight whats involved in each corner and stick a budget at the end, think folks will never restore an imp again when they see just what it costs in cutting discs

[John A. Ross]

And yes, same areas to get ripped up


what was left of battery tray when it came out, did not take much persuasion, biggest kick in the wotsits is you just now how thin and fragile the metal that is solid once you peel them apart, so a lot of that had to go as well, i could have just coated it but whats the point.

Remember doing this bit on the pest, oh what fun ! (Not)

[John A. Ross]

A quick strip down and slice and things are looking up, car still needs a lot of work but very optimistic so far



OK so time to get dirty, man does the dust of cutting disc get everywhere, like beach sand, you know what I mean :D:D:D:D

If your considering buying an imp this is one spot to ppay special attention to. It is only sealed with seam sealer so you should see a dividing line.

Any rot in this area can be bad. Its not as simple as thinking a "bit of filler" its like a swamp, you never know what is underneath !

Unfortunately there was pin holes in the wing end of the scuttle, that should ALWAYS fire off alarm bells when looking at an imp

This is what it looked like, a little seam damage perhaps ??



But OH NO not so lucky, slice and dice to remove the antenna hole and corner of the scuttle and this is what was underneath




You need to take a close look as the inner structure here is the top of the A Pillar and that first box part is the hinge box for top of the door.

So a few rust spots to this, never ever underestimate "what lies beneath !!

A quick preview of 2 other rot spots.

The scuttle channel shown above with the rot is NOT designed to allow anything into the cabin, if any moisture runs down it should roll OEVR the step sill section and out the drain hole in the frot wing at the A pillar, so you can guess the effect if the drain path gets blocked

If you dont have a drain hole in the outer wing where it meets the outer sill section, BE AFRAID !

The lower part of that channel shown with sill cut off as it was rotted.




The above usually gets damage in the same way, the seam is so narrow rot just breeds like rabbits and cut away you can see the rote below.

[John A. Ross]

The Scuttle Repair in more detail, lots of rot cut out and replaced, there is NO repair panels available so you will need to fab your own ,but most iportantly get rid of the rust, treat it, seal it before you cover up the area.



Rot cut out, patch cut where antenna was (prob cause of rot) and brush skimed over the rest.




Some rust treatment ( zinc phosphate which is a mild acide rust remover whic leaves layer of zinc )

Cleaned off and some zinc based primer. Dont assume Zinc based primer has any rust resistant properties, once the very thin layer of zin has been sacraficed it stops protecting, only for use in dry areas.



Time to seal up inside scuttle, door pillar while I can get at it and down inside the A Pillar, a good 2 coats of POR15 then a light coat of epoxy top coat.

Not pretty but effective antenna holes sealed at same time



Then as you can see I cut out the scuttle section which was good to save fabricating a new one



that was media blasted top and bottom and refitted into place



Job Done nearly

[John A. Ross]

One of the continued things I hear on tear down is how bad the cars are for rusted bolts. On early cars ( which I prefer) unless its been abused I find the bolts tend to come free but other than rotted threads the hardware usually is in great condition

As you can see, cobwebs and brown stuff, not bad considerimng how long the car was lying



A nice surprise, a period " de-camber mod " . I did have a really nice pair of stub axles ready but decided to rebuild the originals with the mod so I have less work to do on the shocks to get the camber almost nuetral.



Internals were almost minted



The best surprise of all was all the bolts fell off, why ? if you read the WSM you will see that all the early cars had a anti-sieze / corrosion coating at the factory.

No doubt left out of later production due to cost.



And a reminnder of how bad damage can be if the drive shaft lets loose.

On the fixed tow kindly done for me by Bill penman I failed to tie up the driveshafts (no transmission) properly and it let loose.

So back of seat bulkhead was hit badly, would have been worse if the damper had not taken the worst of the blows and of course that will have strained the JUJ.... et all

[John A. Ross]

Oh, someone asked about the glove box story, so a small break from the rebuild.



AS can be seen above the glove box lid was literally on the floor !

However as can be seen below there was a golden lining, every receipt since new. Full history including the work done by the main dealer and Hartwell.



Including this very low tech "sport lid " modification, basically cut squares, cover with mesh and use the number plate surround as a finishing strip, it works VERY well ! I could not keep the lid
as will be seen later





Now we know what happenned to grandmas fireguard

The auto choke mod

This sucks, fitted between the middle of the ear seats, no wonder it got broken



Then we have this other anomoly, a mod for the throttle pedal, I ended up tossing this which ended up being a mistake as the early throttle cable abutment and newer throttle pedals cannot be changed ! More on that later

[John A. Ross]

So order of today, get off my back side and do something with the car. Enough of this webby code fiddling stuff for now.

Car progress has been pretty much stagnent since I went on a downer but managed enough positive thoughts today to tackle something.

Did I do something easy like wiring, fitting windows, oh no, I went right for my nemesis, fitting doors !

Now the guys did a great job getting the door gaps really good and I warned them that when doors are off they never go back on same way and guess what.

Gaps nearly there, i could not find my 2x2 to compliment the installation tools :o:









Now to go find some 2x2 and a bigger hammer for the last fine adjustments

[John A. Ross]

Some oics of door gaps before paint.

As it was from factory




Not to great but ready for some body prep

[John A. Ross]

And a few more images from the tear down, every time you peel another layer off its 50/50 a nice surprise or a horror story, never a middle of the road discovery on an imp

I did part of the tear down at home as there was not enough room at the workshop.

My advice, do not work on the car across 2 places as you end up losing bits



You can see Rodney ABP hiding in front, that was our MK3 4 headlamp Chamois MK 3, sold on to an owner for their retirment gift.

To the right is George JDL 889 F under way, this was just prep work.



And a side view, warts and all



With the floors cleaned off with the black gooo not too bad a shape. However looks can be deceiving as we will see later .



Back box section under rear seats again it looks mint but one of the things that is never truly visible is weak metal, the box section under the seat takes a fair amount of stress but the true damage is on the other side and one of those "box" sections per side you cannot actually see !




Up on roll over jig for a better look



At home before being brought into the workshop, so much crap covering this car.



Shows how long it was sitting outside, the amount of leaves, green stuff and small bits of foilage jammed in every corner.



Inside drivers foot well, previous owner must have been a carpet fitter or upholsterer as this poor shell must have had about 100 kilos of underlay, dense carpet glued evereywhere

What a mess removing that lot.

[John A. Ross]

OK, so a few more shots as it was.





The headlining was completely original, no tears but very very fragile and of course from the day smoking was the norm, very yellow in areas and it would never survice a wash.


I opted to keep this intact as it is indeed an extremely rare item and proved extremelt fragile on removal. Lesley Philip makes a fantastic replacement headlining so decidion was made then to install a new one instead.



And 2 original front mudflaps, original singer ones, as soon as I see these even with an intact floor they fill me with horror so mental note to check further around the mount areas for seam rot, the silent menace.



Some more of the original floor cleaned out, this crap when removed sure makes a mess ! That was literally a persons weight in crap and crust



The underbelly the after market seat belt anchors just fell off, this car never had seat belts from factory, they were fitted later




And a few around the original sills, again does not look bad, looks deceiving

[John A. Ross]

Was such a great releif to see so much original paint, that £10 for factory under seal in 1965 !

It was all extremely brittle though, like an old cracked tar roof.



You can see above the back seat section is pretty crusty, this ended up being red rotten. It cleaned up nice with a brush but if you took the mig and just tried to lay a raised spot on it it just blew away the material and left a big hole, I literally had to remove almost all of the section under the seat before the metal would take a weld.

No point trying to weld to rot.



Inner arch, the goo is caked on.



This crust is everywhere and actually concrns me far more than rotten holes, at least rotten holes are "honest" these type of patches of the brown enemy are experts of deceit as just because they are not holed, they can be just as rotten and spoil an otherwise good paint job very quickly

Tearing the car down to this level and not attending to all these areas properly is just nuts. Spend 100's of man hours and skip a few of these ares to save 2 or 3 not worth it.





A better look at the rotted areas under the seat, dont let thise sill and floor edges fool you into a false sense of security, the rot has set in the seam, more on that later




Here started on a few repairs and starting to "interogate" the areas to see what its hiding, the more I poked the worse it got !



At least the H mounts were minted !!