JDL 889 F aka George - 1967 MK2 Singer Chamois The Full Story !

[John A. Ross]

JDL 889 F was the first car I pulled out a few years back now and restored.

Came in running and driving looking like this.






Upon picking at it I ended up with this.




The phrase "what lies beneath" comes to mind !


This car had every possible bad repair done to it.



The journey with this one was an effective map of every possible rot point in an Imp., if you want a guide to point to the rot spots and how much worse the "bit of rust" you found and brushed over can actually be, read the story

Anything CAN be fixed !

Car mid way we actually used it on the road, here is it parked up collecting the Friday lunch from the local Chinese take away



Yes we REALLY did MOT it like this and used it as a runaround, fantastic fun, closest we had to a soft top Imp

In the end it was like this, now sold to a very nice fella who is fitting it with a BMW engine. I drove the car and did the hand of in Carlisle. Once home the new owner commented it was the bet drive he had had in "another persons imp" which I was well chuffed with. he has plenty spares being a clan owner for many years.





Its journey was long an tested my patience to the limit but the result was great.

Updates coming soon to fill in the blanks of Georges journey

[John A. Ross]

Well here we go, a summary of the restoration of JDL 889F, before I picked up the car it ws owned by another couple of locals at one point in its life who all had a hand in how it evolved (Hugh Liddle had it as his student transportation and Bill Penman also had it at one time, Bill kindly supplied a picture of it under his ownership).

To be honest it was the colour that attracted me Forrest Green is just a stunning colour if its done properly, which as we get to the end of the journey you will see.

The car was picked up and driven in, it looked pretty well actually other than the fuel lines being shot and the strommies mis-behaving.

Many of the repair aspects of a restoration are what is more or less a summary of the "rot" spots on an imp, if you go to buy a project car make sure you know what these areas are like as they can be very costly to repair even if you do the work yourself.

Let us see what shakes :) later in the story

[John A. Ross]

So it arrived, all downhill after that, needless to say after not touching one of the cars for nearly 25 years its been a steep learning curve on the cars anatomy.

I reckoned in the beginniging there was about 120 hours in George for fabrication and structural, boy was I wrong !!!

Biggest let down has been the fit of the after market panels. We will get back to that now and again as we go through the build.

After market panels notes

Back in the day panels were in abundance, not so these days and good ones are very expensive.

One caveat before buying panels cheap or expensive is the buy / fit balance.

By that I mean the time it takes to buy and fit. If you are paying someone to do the work for you that is even more of a consideration than you think.

A cheap panel may be that, but may require fettling or a good tin bashing to get in place. (say 10 hours fit plus £100)

An expensive panel may be that, but require LESS fettling and tin bashing to get in place. (say 5 hours fit plus £150)

Basically it comes down to the value you put on your time. Contact your local owners groups (The Imp Club has many area centres) and actually get advice from locals who have done their own work and can fill you in on details. I had a lot of help.

The red oxide ones I picked up seem to be from Radford and have been the most disappointing to date, I remember hand crafted panels being of much better quality as to hand make them is old school and anyone I have worked with before that could do that level of work always took the time to get it right.

[John A. Ross]

And here the challenges started, most of the car was swept up from the floor, a prime example of why cover sills (and yes we all used them at some point) are bad bad bad.... did I say bad ?

[John A. Ross]

And some more bad news, starting to lose car piece at a time !

[John A. Ross]

And so the tear down continued, more bad news, more rot and more cutting



Inner wheel tubs at front and suspension mounts had to be ripped out,

Typical Imp Wiring at its best ! evolving over the years !

And like most imps most gets swept up off the floor haha

[Colimp66]

Rotten in all the usual places right enough there John and like mine most of the original panel work landed on the floor in a brown heap only to be swept up and binned.

You had a good space to work on it which helps enormously.

Col.

[John A. Ross]

No space any more Col, elbow to elbow now in shed !

[John A. Ross]

And so the work continued on george, the car has been done and sold now but still great to plod through the story again.

Sillas and floors, sills and floors, for an Imp this can be endless






Looks bad but coming together nicely !

[John A. Ross]

And when it comes to imp under bellies there is ALWAYS more, should have called this car Ollie

[John A. Ross]

And onwards again with old Gerorge boy, this was a very log resto, about 18 months.

Time to attend to some other parts, arch repairs, lower rear wing sill covers, door corners, ends of sills at A pillar.



Door corner above and then cut out old arch and inlay new arch section, I would hve replaced more of the arch but the arch repair panel was very poor fit, so only the arch part was used.

See below tacked in and a start made on the rear wing cover, again this section was a very poor fit and then we are on to the A pillar step sill closing sections



And more on the rear windg sill cover, red devils i call these, they are of a shape but poor and as they are hand made no two are everr the same, lots of trimming and fettling, way more than is needed, better alternatives exist now but not back then



Anothr two pains in the rear (literally)

A damaged back corner that was about 1" deep in filler at corner and a rotted light section




More end of sill at A pillar and lower wing section views





Rear spring supports, again the red devils needed slit, eshaped and then welded in. These were the last I ever bought, easier to make new ones from scratch and made to fit !

[John A. Ross]

And so that bad back corner

beat it, shape it, fill it, oh no.

Slice dice off another back wing and add it in




And cut out



New piece held in place and lined up



And then fully welded in and flatted off






The final outcome in primer

[John A. Ross]

And of course nothing like dragging in some slave labour during the school holidays

[John A. Ross]

And in betwen all the fabrication work let us not forget all the other bits still needed in the end

Heater box refurbishment !


All media blasted up, painted satin black and trested to a nice new set of decals from Robin Human (find him on Facebook - The Hillman Imp group

[John A. Ross]

And of course BRAKE drum assemblies, all blasted, coated, pre-assembled complete with a set of similarly treated but internally skimmed to a fine finish ready to refit when done.