Hout Bay weather today?

After two very warm days, with Thursday being 27c and Friday 29c today was a far more bearable day, cooler and at times a little chilly.

A picture by R McBride using a Canon G1X digital camera set to auto , click on the image to enlarge it.

The winds are gone for the moment but we have high spring tides.

Roy

South African petrol standards

We hear about our petrol being thinned out with other so called fuels, is ethanol one of them?

With the starting of the brand new Hillman Imp 998cc engine which also has a  new 24mm Solex carburetor, sold as so called new old stock, we had a petrol leak within the hour.

By the next morning the pipe had split right in two!

This wasted hours of my time, not to mention the petrol on the floor, fire comes to mind as the exhaust box is just below the carburetor.

My repair was to use some 10mm eco fuel line hose made in Italy, lets see if it lasts?

The correct material to use now is named VITON.

Roy

A new 998cc Hillman Imp engine fitted

News!  just before lunch time and when connected to a container of LRP (lead replacement petrol) the pump needed to prime from the front of the car to the back, the engine then started first time!

We have power, this may be the first time in twenty (20) years and more since this dash panel saw power to it?

The new 998cc engine is running, this will be my last such full car restoration as I just do not have the time it takes to do such work any more, engine rebuilds are not a problem and a large stock of spares are in stock.

Here in Hout Bay and close to Cape Town, South Africa is the new Hillman Imp rebuild of the Imps engine bay.

The Shell 20/50 engine oil is already in the engine., with the oil cooler pipes fitted yesterday the engine is nearly ready to run.

While the 998cc engine is a new build, the older type oils will suit the motor better than new oils.

The engine layout is quite standard, even the Solex carburetor type, excepting we have fitted the larger 24mm size and opened the main jet out to a 140 size which is more suitable to the larger 998cc engine capacity.

Rootes supplied this pattern of oil coolers on all sport specification Imp cars, its a nice addition to a car expected to run in a warmer climate.

The addition of the radiator water catchment tank is really the only none standard fitting we have installed.

Will we do another one? this one took a year and I doubt it!

Roy

Hillman Imp alloy head gasket shim

We have two Imp blocks needing head gaskets fitting, one is a standard 1967 875cc block and requires a 1mm alloy spacer fitting, the other is a 1971 998cc block and requires a 1.5mm alloy spacer fitting.

The picture shows the 998cc version, plus the bonding paste and an imported 998cc copper gasket supplied as a template. The alloy shim was made in Cape Town to a special order.

Wet fitted and ready for the engines cylinder head which was fitted and torqued down to be left over night.

Bonding was perfect and the top deck is totally flat.

We now have the required 0.015" clearance between the top of the piston and the top of the engine block.

With the new 998cc gasket fitted the head was ready to bolt back on. The camshaft was re fitted and we have perfect compression, the engine will be refitted into the car it belongs to in the morning.

This engine is now new, its the original engine from the 1971 Hillman Imp Deluxe we are now re building for a client.
Roy

Mooring standards, the good and the bad

Seen on the same marina and within a short walk of each other, two boats with very different ideas on how to tie up your boat, I will let you decide which is the better system?

A new boat and with new lines, they should have a fairlead to pass though, the plastic tube will help but the gel coat will soon suffer.

This is nice work and the boat will be secure with such attention to detail.

Polyprop line should never be used in the first place, even with a fairlead this line is shot.

Your choice?

Roy

A new Hillman Californian Coupe engine fitted

Well its not really a new one as its the same engine block that was fitted at the Rootes Scotland plant when the car came off the line in February 3rd 1967.

My thanks to Eric for helping me lift the motor onto the fitting dolly.

I started the refit just after 9am and was finished by 2.30pm this included a respray job of the 1966 Singer Chamois Sport radiator I had in stock.

More just now.

TNT is this good or bad service?

A parcel with 1967 Hillman Imp Californian windscreen rubbers was shipped from the suppliers some weeks back, the TNT fee was a whopping 90 pounds, it landed in Johannesburg 14 days back?

Its at last out for delivery and we expect it today?

While the TNT tracking tells us they are waiting on customs release we found out from the Randburg TNT office that this was not the case, the issue was that TNT were just too busy to handle the order and that our paperwork had not been allocated to anyone.

We were eventually contacted and asked for the suppliers invoice, I told them its in an envelope on the carton, I was told it was not and we had to then phone the UK and ask for a copy to be scanned so we could forward it.

Check the carton, the yellow lable is the suppliers and with that will have been the invoice.

I will not be using the TNT company again.

Roy

A restored Sunbeam Imp (hillman) in South Africa

This 1971 Hillman Imp Deluxe was pre sold to the client who then specified what he expected to have the car end up like, the car has been known to me some sixteen years, in storage the entire time and still a one owner car. The car was a personal Import by its lady owner, she licenced  the car into her name when she brought it to Cape Town and since then it has still been in her name!

The car will sport a new 998cc engine, also it has a full interior re trim with some parts being finished in real black leather, this includes the steering wheel.

The bright bits went on yesterday, the addition of stainless trims really shows off the cars lines and at last ( a years process to date) we can see the car starting to look like its finished.

Prices? well to give you an idea the re chrome work on the bumpers cost over R6000 alone.

The strip of rubber that seals between the car body and the bonnet was GBP12.00 and we still had to get it here and pay shipping, duty and vat on that.

The Lucas lights front and rear are all new, cost? I hate to ask? yes that dust needs cleaning of the front suspension arms, so my first task today, yes it was just dust!

Roy

A new Hillman Imp in South Africa

This has been posted before, we are now at a more advanced stage and the car has been fully trimmed out and to a standard that Rootes and Chrysler never even dreamed of?

Today the re chromed front and rear bumpers arrived, they are the best I have ever seen!

With the re painted Sunbeam badge fitted we are starting to see a more complete car now.

This car is all about details, the glass windscreen is dated 1966 but the rubber that surrounds it is brand new, as are the wiper drives, arms and blades.

The chance to build a car as new as was practable was not to be missed.

This 1971 Hillman Imp Deluxe is now more deluxe than it ever was when it came out of the by then Chrysler Rootes factory.

We have just one more Imp based car that can be used as the base car for a similar make over, priced at R70,000 which is around GBP3888.00 it is at least a runner and can be driven daily as it is right now, contact me for more information.

Roy

Trans ocean navigation by satellite navigation in 1985

These  days a voyage with sat nav is forgotton, some ridiculed the idea even back then thirty years ago?

Notty and myself set sail from an island about sixty miles south of Rio in Brasil and bound for Cape Town in South Africa, we were expecting a voyage of about a month and that was what we got.

My old Walker 402 satellite Navigation system, it refuses to power up now, age has got the better of it? We used the later Walker 412 unit while crossing the South Atlantic Ocean.


An update, a few days left with 12v dc power on and the set started to accept programing, basic stuff like your lat and long plus a waypoint as well, the time it accepts needs to be GMT which is the old term now, plus the date, that will be the bother as its now 2014 and thirty two years ago the year 2000 was not allowed for.

The set on inspection has a round fuse holder, which was empty, page 4 of the user manual tells me that a 2 amp x 20mm fuse will be required. I found one in a Shipmate RS5910 GPS chart plotter. Running on 12 volts the set will accept 9v to 36v and draws only 0.7 amp which was very good in those days.
The set now powers up but as the 25 to 30 satellites were all turned off, thats as much as it will ever do?

This set was sold in France, Antibe by Harris Yachting to a boat named Anakena, the date was 18 / 08 / 1982 so here we are some thirty two years later and the unit still works, its a shame they switched off those satellites, mind you its showing one now and at one time showed it had located three but no fix.

Check the date, this was an interesting step back in time and a reminder of what were were able to buy and use some three decades back!

An email from Notty today.

Yep, it was 1985 indeed and I was 45, now 75 so almost 30-years depending on what month we left Rio, not sure of that. We did OK mate to do it back in 32 days............

My reply:

Captain and navigator,

I have just pulled out the log of Tal Gal, a loose page in the front is of your work sheet and dated 24/04/85 , it says DR  34 s 21 w, it was a noon shot as another is below and for 1pm. So we were still a good way off then, another sheet shows us to then be at 35s and 8 w, so about as far down as we went?

Yachts Elangani and Tal Gal ( ocean planet) both due to head back to South Africa later that month of April 1985.

We cleared the Ilha Grande channel at 1600 hrs and that was on April the 10^th, for a while heading the wrong way you will remember!

On the next day and by 22.45pm we were down to three reefs in the main and number two staysail and still doing 6 plus knots, you then noted “bad Night,   we were busy right away it seems? We did 104 miles in the first 24 hrs, wind died and was 0 to 5 knots we then started the motor at 14.46pm this was by then the 11^th of April.

The log ends: 12^th May, North  Head sighted out of the fog, now entering outside channel, the time logged was 0800hrs!

This is actually a good read, we wrote lots down, I will have it copied and give it to Dion for you to re live the event?

Sat nav was fine by me, you were told when the next fix was due and normally it was on time, time may be some hours though, this was not an instant event, so your DR was an important part of working with a Sat Nav. To prove this we had started to pick up VHF traffic on what we knew was the South African West Coast, the only issue was fog and while we could see five fishing boats we could not see land.

I hailed Saldanha Port Control and asked that they find us on their radar, the reply was we can not see you and possibly you are not where you think you are?

A sobering thought?

Still having sailed for the entire distance from Brasil to South Africa we thought we were where we said we were, I asked could the radar see the four wooden fishing trawlers and large steel built factory ship?

The reply was a negative, so in we went in the fog and working only on our DR ploting.

When the fog did lift we were bang on and in the very center of the main shipping channel into the port of Saldanha!

A recent picture of Notty taken two years back and then in Hout Bay, South Africa.

Sat Nav worked for me just fine, it was a Walker 412, I still have one now, shame it can never work again.

Roy

Fitting a shaft alternator on a sailing yacht

I have had this on my last two yachts, both being the Endurance 37 design by Peter Ibold.
does  it work? well on a two handed return from Rio Do Janerio, Brasil, Notty and I were leaving the lights on 24/7 as the Lucas 30 amp marine alternator did not have a regulator on it, at times we  saw 16 amps indicated on the amp meter.

So yes it works!

We had intended to make for Hout Bay which was our home port, even Cape Town was ok but the South Easter got the better of us and the sea was huge, when it all calmed down we were close to Saldanha YC and were still happy to arrive there.

I was asked this week about a similar yacht, what miles per day will it do? around 135 is easy enough and we nearly topped 180 in that current off the Amazon river in Brasil.

Ocean Planet (Tal Gal) about 1985 and on the slip at the Royal Cape Yacht Club near Cape Town, note the three bladed propellor. This will have been after or thirty two day trip back from Rio in Brasil.

Lucas Marine? thats a white epoxy paint on the alloy outer casing and possibly a lacquer over the internal wires?

Numbers wise I used (i think) a 12" alloy pulley mounted on the propellor shaft aft of the gear box, this idea will not work on a hydraulic box by the way.

Then a normal V belt was fitted and remained so all the time.

The propellor was a 16" x 13 three blade and while this causes drag, the gain in free 12volt DC power was fine by me. The Endurance 37 has the propellor shaft level with the waterline, this gives a maximum drive output from the engine and also suits the shaft alternator idea. If your shaft is set on an angle expect less output?

To kill a myth, locking the shaft slowed the boat down and when we had really rough and hard weather I would use this to apply drag to the boats speed.

We now have a boat with a Max Prop Classic folding twin bladed propellor, so the idea will not  work, sad, of well it was great while we had it.

I have found one here, which does have a regulator, contact them direct to purchase.

My thanks for use of their picture.

1. Alternator - Lucas style 12v 70a IR/EF (#10397) 100% New ...
   

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   Alternator - Lucas style 12v 70a IR/EF (#10397) 100% New.Roy
2. 
   

HBYC parking for members only

This is of course not quite correct, its more like a first come first served but given the area in front of the Hout Bay Yacht Club is part of the club its more than possible that the members will claim the space first.

Check the yellow paint on what is paving laid and paid for by the HBYC.

The large letter P with an angled line across it is a symbol saying No Parking the club members have decided its not meant for them. Is the large red and white STOP sign not a contradiction I wonder.

Who did this? I was told the Harbour Master was responsable but why and do we have a harbour master in the Hout Bay Harbour I wonder?

Its a crazy world but this is South Africa!

Roy

New Hillman Imp interior door cards

These are based on original but Singer Chamois style trims, the later Imp deluxe had nothing at the top edge of the door card, not even the door pocket, yet another degrade made from the time that Chrysler USA took over the Rootes Car Company, as sad day for Britain I think.

The black is real leather and the silver is a metal application process done on what was the Singer Chamois bur walnut over mahogany wood trim.

Now with the full re trim in place we have a door interior to be proud of, yes those bits of wire will be replaced!

Roy

New Hillman Imp seat covers

The 1971 Hillman Imp is now back in the work shop, the full retrim having been done to the very highest of standards, the seating panels mimic the original pattern but have black leather added, suits the car and is very nice.

The carpets and head liners, plus window rubbers are now all new as well.

This really is nice, its so well done!

Roy

Hillman Imp new oil cooler pipes

The old ones were about eighteen years old and while they still worked they were not suitable to put back in the 1967 Hillman Californian coupe, the old ends were removed and fitted into new hose, now very nice!

There is still one heck of a long way to go on this refurbishment job but each day we seem to make some progress.

Roy