Wally Nye's A20 Story
1920 Sporting
Austin 20/4
Engine number P2952, Chassis Number T2858, Wheel base 10’-9”, 4 Cylinder 3.8Lt.
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Owners - Wally and Denise Nye, Victoria, Australia.
AQUIRING THE WRECK
This is the
story of acquiring and restoring a 1920 Austin 20.
My association with Austins started about twenty years ago when on a rally
in the Hunter Valley,New South Wales. I purchased a half restored 1928 Austin
16.
The restoration was completed and the car has been regularly rallied since
1988.( see photo on 12/4 page)
On an outing with the 16, I was told about a local man, Kevin, who has hundreds
of tractors, one which is an Austin and he had half an Austin 20 car, from
which he had obtained internal engine parts for the tractor.
As soon as
possible I visited Kevin and purchased the remains of the Austin 20. This
was in late 1994. It was my lucky day as his truck registration had just arrived
in the post one hour prior to my visit and this set the price for the Austin
20 remains.
He had obtained the Austin 20 remains 15 years before from a farmer in Newstead,
Victoria. Thus a visit to Newstead was arranged to find out if any more parts
still remained on the farm. I was able to find a side light, head light rim
and a few parts of the chassis including the cross member with the chassis
number.
The chassis had been cut up many years before to be use for the side channels
of a cattle ramp, which was still used being.
CHASSIS
A compete chassis
was obtained from Brisbane Queensland, and the cross member inserted with
the correct chassis number, the chassis was duely repaired, straightened,
cleaned and painted. Being a 1921 chassis the rear engine mounts did not match
the 1920 engine, but can you believe it, the 1928 20/6 engine mounts are the
same as the 1920 20/4 ones. All spring pins and bushes have been renewed and
new zinc sheets replaced between the spring leaves. I have fitted a front
axle with brakes, as too much work has gone into the car (which weighs one
and a half tons) to run up the back of a modern car at the lights.
I made up supports for mounting the running boards level with the bottom of
the chassis. Repaired the fuel tank and made a new 12Volt battery box and
fitted these to the chassis. Fuel lines and wiring were then installed along
the chassis.
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WHEELS & BRAKES
The wheels that came with the remains of the car were far from Austin standard wheels and were 21inch diameter steel spoked with locking rings, not very suitable for a sporting Austin. I had acquired four 820 x 120 BE wheels with 72 short Rudge Whitworth hubs for the car, but after a lot of advice from friends I decided to fit later Austin 20 wire wheels with 600 x 21inch tyres. All the brakes were fully overhauled, new soft linings, pins, bushes and cables installed.
ENGINE
The engine had been gutted for the tractor and the only parts I had were the
crankcase sections, starter motor, fan assembly and generator (CAV 12V), missing
was the crank shaft, cam shaft, rods, pistons, valve gear, block and head.
I was very
lucky to find half a motor in Brisbane and a complete motor near Sydney, which
gave me enough parts to rebuild a complete motor. New valves and springs where
ordered from the VAR England, new pistons with higher compression (increased
from 5.5 to 7.1-1) were made in Melbourne, the rebore increased the engine
from 3.6lt to 3.8lt capacity. A Watford magneto that was purchased at the
Berwick swap meeting was fitted after reconditioning by John Blythe. The original
exhaust manifold and carburettor were used.
The engine crank case design changed for the 1921 model and I can understand
why, it took me one and a half days to assemble the block and pistons on to
the rods.
In the 1919/20 engine you can not gain access through the sump to fit the
rods to the crank shaft, and thus you have to fit the pistons to the block
leaving the gudgeon holes just below the bottom of the block. Lower the block
and fit the gudgeon pins and locking bolts without dropping the piston rings
out of the block.
The oil pump was totally rebuilt, fly wheel lightened to from 160lb to 90lb
and a 13inch International truck clutch plate and pressure plate fitted. The
clutch pedal was very heavy due to a very small lever on the rod running through
the bell housing, (about 1.5inches) this rod was changed for a 1924 unit that’s
lever was 2.5inches long.
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GEAR BOX
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The gear box
case was OK, but gears and shafts were very worn, I had a very good 1925 gear
box and true to Austin’s form all the internals transferred, with new bearings,
bushes and the gate change unit rebuilt. The gear box is very quite in all
gears, the 1919/20 gear box has a much shorter bell housing than the later
boxes.
I had to re-machine the three dogs between the input shaft and the third gear
as it was dropping out of top gear.
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TAILSHAFT & REAR AXLE
The tail shaft was rebuilt using a Landrover tail shaft and the rear axle was the next challenge. The first two axles opened had teeth missing from the crown wheels and pinions, and key ways broken out of the axles. These were both 3.9 to 1 ratios, which left one 4.6 to 1 rear axle to open. This was in perfect condition so only needed to fit modern oil seals, my friend from Geelong, Roger Allin came to the rescue with a good 3.9 to 1 crown wheel and pinion to be fitted to this diff.
RADIATOR
I was very lucky to find a good radiator surround in Deniliquin NSW and had it replated, the support frame had to be totally rebuilt. A new honeycomb core was purchased from NZ and the existing top and bottom tanks installed. The core is 4 ½” thick and with the engine holds 21lt of water. I found a nice motor meter and wings at a local swap meeting for the radiator cap.
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EXHAUST SYSTEM
A 316 grade two inch stainless steel exhaust system was installed with a long muffler as per the original.
BODY WORK
Now the question of what type of body to make for the car was discussed and after seeing Tony Smallbone’s sports twenty in England on a holiday, it was decided to build a similar body but with doors and running boards below the chassis rather than at the top. The only original body parts that remained wreck, were the front doors, wooden dash board, windscreen posts and a much rusted fire wall. The body remains did not match an English bodied car, and this was confirmed by the windscreen posts being identical to those on a Sydney built body on a Austin 20.
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A full size
side elevation of the proposed body was drawn on the inside of my garage door
and plywood cross sections cut out to check the body shape prior to cutting
the frame timbers. The frame timber used was Tasmanian mountain ash, which
is a hard wood and has a very straight grain and is very strong. My friend
from school days who works at a local timber yard selected the lighter lengths
of mountain ash, as they
can vary
by about 30% in weight.
Other than
the two main chassis runners all the rest of the frame was cut from 2inch
by 4inch timber with a hand jig saw.
I had planned to buy a band saw, but decided against purchasing one when the
man who was selling a couple of saws cheap had lost two fingers using the
band saws.
The woodwork was finished in about four months; a couple of photographs are
attached showing the work involved. The wooden dash board is made from Western
Australian jarrah and is an exact copy of the original, as is the shape of
the doors.
The body is
skinned in 1.6mm thick aluminium, of which I was given five 6 x 4 foot sheets
by a vintage car friend. I made up all the panels myself, but paid to have
them welded and finally fitted as the more I practiced my aluminium welding
with the torch the larger the holes became and ten years practice would delay
the car a bit to long.
PAINTING
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I made up two
mobile trolleys to take the two sections of the body so they could be moved
easily, see the attached photograph. I prepared the body work for painting
with weeks of work, and Ian Wells from Ballarat who had just built a new clean
garage, expertly applied the final acrylic top coats.
UPHOLSTERY
I made up all
the lining boards for the upholstery to be attached and worked out the area
of material required including the seats. Trevor Dun put me on to a leather
merchants north of Melbourne that had good leather at a reasonable price,
and after much consideration a fawn colour was selected to contrast with the
dark green paintwork.
I covered all the lining boards and had the seats covered by a professional.
Inside the rear section the leather was covered by wooden slats to protect
it from damage from luggage being stowed, see attached photograph. A brass
strip was installed beside the accelerator peddle to stop it rubbing on the
leather work.
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RUNNING BOARDS
These were
made from good quality timber with aluminium sheet on top and aluminium angle
on all sides. I have added an extra folded steel strengthening piece underneath
as there are only two chassis supports on each running board.
I still need to add a flat steel bar step under the running boards on the
left hand side to allow Denise to step up into the car.
GUARDS-WINGS
For the guards I made up the shape in 5mm diameter wire covered with cardboard to check that the lines were OK and then made a buck of seven ply wood to insure each guard was the same. (What is a buck? It’s a form or pattern) A retired body builder Reg Arnett made the front and rear guards at his home and then fitted the skirts between the guards and the chassis in my garage. Reg did an excellent job with the guards, they would have taken me months to do half the job and quality.
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BONNET
The bonnet length was 2 inches longer than standard Austin 20 bonnet and thus I had another longer one made and fitted with a brass hinge and stainless steel rod. The four bonnet catches were rebuilt and re-nickelled.
WINDSCREEN
The windscreen posts were from the original body; these were repaired and replated in nickel. I made the windscreen shape from three ply and then had a new frame and glass screen made by Ellis Baron at Frankston. To stop the bottom screen rubber rubbing on the cowl paint, I have made and fitted a one inch by quarter brass strip to the top of the cowl, this brass strip also has the bottom windscreen clamping brackets built in.
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ELECTRICS
My cousin,
Kenny Doyle is an auto electrician and he rebuilt the CAV starter motor and
generator. The car was completely rewired in armoured wire as per the original,
I fitted two CAV tail-lights which include stop lights. For turning indicators
at the front I used period side lights mounted on top of the mudguards and
painted the lens inside yellow with lead-lighting paint. At the rear I used
two round Lucas type tail lights with yellow faceted lens.
The electrical system is 12V positive earth, and for safety under the dash
I have installed a set of six fuses and a new voltage regulator, plus a battery
isolator.
INSTRUMENTS
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These have all been completely rebuilt and re-nickelled by our local DVHCC club member Daryle Rue.
HOOD
I have not
made a hood yet, but this should look like an old style pram hood which can
be folded and stored in the back hatch.
We had a tonneau cover made two days before leaving for the Easter 2005 Austin
Over Australia rally to Warwick, Queensland.
The car had only done 6km road testing prior to leaving for Warwick and to
my surprise we only had one problem that stopped us for a short time. Which
was the copper pipe to the vacuum tank soldering failed at the inlet manifold,
this was soon fixed with the help of Darrel Brooks, plus some silicon, string
and wire.
Happy vintage motoring
Regards
Wally Nye