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Dutch? 

 

dunk

 

Even nearer home. Both the mystery car and all of its 3 power trains used at various times were British. I thought the 8cwt commercial power unit/transmission donor would have been a give away clue. The van was originally made by a bicycle maker but then passed over to a new venture. They selected a name beginning with the same initial, as all the castings were stamped with this letter. 

 

Wilson

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Correct for the power train maker.

 

I don't think anyone is going to get all this so I will put you out of your misery. It is a D. Wickham & Co. Ltd., track inspector's Rail Car, probably a type 3 or 4. During their life, from the early 1930's to the late 1980's they had four power trains: A vertical crankshaft JAP (J.A.Prestwich) Vee Twin, with a huge horizontal flywheel, which you started by pulling the flywheel round smartly. The whole power unit was in a swinging cradle which could be moved to drive the front wheels by friction (steel to steel). You can imaging how well this worked on a cold wet day. This was replaced by using the complete engine and transmission from a Reliant three wheeler 8cwt van, originally built by Raleigh, as the LDV (Light Delivery Van). This was a 600 cc air cooled JAP single cylinder. Later they changed to a water cooled JAP 747cc vee twin from the Reliant 10cwt, both engines with a conventional three speed gearbox. The rail car used a modified Reliant bevel back axle. Wickhams declined to use the Austin based 4 cylinder 750cc engine that Reliant changed to in 1939, for unknown reasons but maybe due to its undeserved reputation for fragility, with its two bearing crank and at a later point in the 1950's, when the JAP vee twin became unavailable, changed to a Ford 100E 1172cc side valve engine, three speed Ford box and Ford Prefect back axle. I think this is a late JAP engined version from the look of the starting handle bush. They were made both in the UK and the USA (with unknown power train). There is very little information on the internet on these but the staff in the library at the Great Western Rail museum were very helpful, when I phoned them. 

 

Anyone got anything to post?

 

Wilson

 

 

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This car is a Rover V8 engine project but was not clear from the classic car show description whether or not the engine is actually fitted ... or if it's due to be fitted.

 

A fairly common conversion for this model. 

 

 

 

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Marque and model please 

 

Good luck 

 

 

dunk 

Edited by dkCambridgeshire
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That looks like a Jensen-Healey, the car that nearly bankrupted poor Kjell Qvale. It originally had the horrible boat anchor of an engine, converted from a Vauxhall Victor FD engine. This engine has barely adequate bore cooling for the 90 odd BHP that it produced in the Victor and was hopeless when asked to produce 150 HP in the LV engine. Colin Chapman found this out when he was tasked to produce the F2 engine by GM, resulting in the type 901/LV220 engine, which I should have had in a Lotus 62 GT race car. It was very long stroke,  had a high centre of gravity and was terminally unreliable, with the bore overheating constantly causing piston ring breakages. 220 BHP was total fiction. Instead I opted for an Alpine 2 litre F2 all alloy engine, which was an enormous improvement, with a reliable 240 BHP in long distance tune. Knowing its problems, CABC still managed to sell the LV engine to Qvale as the engine for the Jensen Healey. The cylinder bore and oil control piston ring wear was terrible and they usually looked like a 2 stroke Wartburg when running. At some later point, the block was changed for that from the 2.2L FE Victor engine with better cooling to the bottom of the bores, but too late to save Jensen. A Rover V8 conversion sounds like an excellent idea. 

 

Wilson

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Well spotted Sir … Once the car was sorted it proved to be a lot more reliable. 

 

 

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Your turn again Wilson.

 

 

Cheers

 

dunk  

 

 

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Thanks for the railcar information Wilson and the Jensen Healey bit too. I recognised the rear wing, but didn't know about the powerplants.

 

Graham,

 

In around 1972, I wrote a long report on the shortcomings of the 2 litre GM "Slant Four" block for Jensen. It was originally designed by John Alden and if it had been made as he intended, there would have been far less of a problem. The water passages round the bores were changed during the process of productionisation. The one side of the bore is fine with a parallel sided water passage but the other side has a passage tapering to a point at the lower end. Vauxhall, like most UK car manufacturers in the late 60's and 70's, was being run in a fairly slap-dash way. The cores for the block castings were not being properly baked before use, as a result the tapered end of the core to form the water passage tended to crumble, when the molten cast iron was poured in, so little to no water could circulate round one side of the bore. This then lead to asymmetric overheating of the bore with consequent distortion. At best this caused excessive bore and piston ring wear and at worst, ring breakage and/or bore scoring. I spoke at the time to the Vauxhall design department about this and they admitted they may not have allowed sufficiently leeway for poor workmanship. The water passage shapes were changed on the 2.2L versions of this block and also the bonding material for the casting cores, to make them less crumbly. John Alden had also developed 4 and 4,4 litre V8 versions of this engine, intended for an upmarket version of the forthcoming Vauxhall Viscount and use by Holden. The 4L version was producing over 200 BHP with Tecalamit-Jackson fuel injection. Vauxhall/GM cancelled development of this potentially excellent engine, as it would have cost more than a small block Chevvy. 

 

Here is your next one. Make and model please. 

 

Wilson

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Very well spotted. It is a Porsche Panamera Mk.2 4 E-Hybrid (PHEV) with a 2.9L Turbo V6 (345 HP) plus an electric motor (134 HP). Your turn. 

 

Wilson

 

 

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Hello Wilson,

 

- lucky You if this is Your vehicle - would be my dream as well (the 4L V8 e-hybrid version...) 

 

The next covered with autumn leaves:

 

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Regards,

 

Arto

 

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Arto, 

 

I am finding it very big after having various 911's for the last 15 years. However, the increasing size of grandchildren and my back protesting about lifting child seats in and out of the back of a 911, made a change of vehicles obligatory. I could not afford the V8 hybrid, which was over £30,000 more than the V6 and the delivery delay on the new Sport Wagon was six months. I bought a cancelled order for the V6 Hybrid, with a somewhat odd specification. It has a DVD TV player and totally unnecessary sport exhaust but not the desirable 4 wheel steering and very oddly no rear screen wiper (which should be standard). It shows how difficult things are for UK car sales that I negotiated a substantial discount on list price. It is extraordinarily economical for a car weighing 2300kg. On mostly fairly short journeys, I am getting over 50 miles to the UK gallon (5.5L/100km). 

 

Wilson

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Alright - it is the latest version of a current model.

 

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