1960 Hillman Minx has a makeover

Many of you will remember the 1960 Hillman Minx, which was recovered from a garage in Coventry in February last year.  This lovely car was displayed in the Museum’s reception area for several months, exactly as we found it - ie very dirty and dusty, having been stood in the owner’s garage for around 18 years before coming to the Museum.

Since the vehicle came off display towards the end of 2012, it has been given a huge amount of attention over a number of weeks by Andrew Thomas, one of the Museum’s Historic Vehicle Technicians, and is now positively gleaming on the outside, as well as being in much better shape mechanically.

Having initially cleaned the Minx, Andrew found that the vehicle’s bodywork was, for the most part, very sound for a car of its age – but that it was affected by a large amount of surface rust on certain areas, particularly underneath.   Dirt and corrosion was also present throughout its systems – typical of a vehicle that has been standing for many years in a damp environment.

The detailed work that Andrew therefore undertook was to strip the rust from all affected areas, using a mixture of wire brushing and chemical rust removal, followed by treating the underside of the car with a mixture of WaxOyl and Dinitrol, to help to protect this area from further rusting.    He then drained the fluids from all of the vehicle’s systems, and repaired or replaced a number of badly corroded parts – such as those shown in the cooling system below. 

Having made all the necessary repairs and ensured the integrity of all of the vehicle’s systems, Andrew then started a process known as ‘inhibiting’ the vehicle, to protect it from any further corrosion occurring whilst it is standing within the Museum and not being driven.  ‘Inhibiting’ involves fogging each of the car’s systems with an appropriate vapour phase inhibitor.  This can be either water-based or oil-based, depending on which system is being worked upon.  The chosen inhibitor is introduced to the system in liquid form, which then turns to vapour over time.  This vapour sticks to the inside of each component and travels around within each system, coating every part with an anti-corrosion substance as it goes.  

Black brake fluid being drained before inhibiting.

This process is a very new one in the world of classic cars, having previously being mainly used on aircraft and military vehicles, to provide long-term preservation whilst they are in store.  We at Coventry Transport Museum have trialled inhibiting a number of parts on other vehicles, but this is the first time that a full vehicle has been treated in this way.   We are extremely pleased with how well this has worked so far, but of course the proof will be in the pudding when the vehicle is regularly inspected over the coming years.  One thing we do know - the vapour technique ‘reaches the parts that other processes can’t’! 

We have been working with other transport museums around the world, to share ideas on how best to inhibit different types of museum-based vehicles, and we know that they will be pleased to see the results of this work on such an interesting vehicle.    We also hope to begin using this technique to protect systems on many other Museum vehicles over the coming years.

One part of the vehicle which we sadly have not yet been able to make-over is the front grill – as you can see from the photograph below this grill is very badly corroded, and would be almost impossible to repair to a good standard.  Instead we are hoping to find a replacement, rather than spending many hours on something that may not do justice to the rest of the vehicle.

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See the difference for yourself, as the Minx will be back on display in the Museum’s reception from Monday 18th March onwards.  We’re sure you will agree, Andrew has done a fantastic job.

Recommissioning the 1909 Rover 15

One of the oldest vehicles in the Museum collection, the 1909 Rover 15, has been in the workshop for some serious attention over the past couple of months.  Whilst this beautiful vehicle is much admired by visitors to the Museum, and even occasionally goes out to shows such as the Festival of Motoring and the NEC Classic Motor Show, it has been hiding some dark secrets.

The Rover was acquired by the Museum in 2004, having undergone an expensive restoration by its previous owner, but hasn’t been run since its arrival.  Earlier this year, the decision was made to recommission the vehicle to running condition, and in July, Museum Technician Chris Strawbridge set to work.

The first job of course was to change all the fluids, and here’s where Chris discovered the first problem – at some point one of the seals had shrunk, meaning that all of the radiator cooling water had ended up in the oil in the bottom of the engine – and since the oil had been emulsified by the water, it looked likely that this had happened when the engine last ran.

As you can imagine, this water had caused severe engine damage, the worst of which was corrosion on the oil pump drive gears, to the point where there were barely any teeth remaining – Chris is currently having new gears made at a local engineering firm to completely replace the ruined parts.

Next up, when Chris took the sump off, he discovered more play in the big end bearings than you would expect of an engine that has been rebuilt, and his initial suspicion was that this was another casualty of the water leak.  On closer inspection however, he found that the engine had not been assembled properly when it was rebuilt before arriving at the Museum – in particular, parts of the big end bearings had been left with metal burrs attached, meaning that Chris had to strip the lot to get the big ends functioning correctly.

Chris is currently awaiting the arrival of the new gears to replace the corroded ones, and is none-committal about how long the rest of the work will take once these parts arrive, since he can’t be sure what other secrets may be lurking as the work continues.  

Whilst Chris has many years’ experience of working on all kinds of different vehicles, it is the first time he has worked on a vehicle of this age and he is learning a huge amount about it as he progresses with the work.  Chris feels that it’s vitally important to carry out this kind of work and try to keep older vehicles running – otherwise how else will skills and understanding about how they were built and how to look after them be passed on for the future?

If Chris succeeds in getting the Rover running there will be another interesting challenge to overcome in order to put it on the road – the car carries acetylene lamps, and if it is to pass an MOT the lamps must be in working order.   

Calcium carbide powder will have to be placed inside the lamps, onto which water is dripped, producing acetylene gas though a jet, which is then lit to form a sort of candlelight to light up the headlamps.

If and when the lamp-lighting day arrives it will be wonderful to see, and will be a testament to a lot of hard work and patience by a skilled technician – we will keep you informed of Chris’s progress with the Rover over the coming weeks and months.

1960 Hillman Minx Rescue

On a sunny Sunday at the end of February 2012, Coventry Transport Museum staff Andrew Thomas and Christiaan van Schaardenburgh went to collect this 1960 Hillman Minx from a house in Coventry.

The owner, Irene Taylor, had used the car as her daily car until an engine problem stopped her in 1994, and the car has been stored in a garage in her garden ever since. Now she is moving house and the car had to be removed from the garage, otherwise it would have been scrapped. We are delighted to have been able to save the car from the scrapyard, because the Minx is a very significant car for Coventry, it was really the Ford Focus or VW Golf of its day, and many people would have owned one. This particular Minx is rather rare because it has the ‘Easidrive’ automatic gearbox system. We have five other Minx cars in our collection: the number one Minx from 1931, a 1934 Minx (which is now part of the running collection), a 1935 Aero Minx with special streamlined body, a 1952 Minx mark V and a 1967 Super Minx Estate.


Initially we hope to display the car ‘as found’ and then subsequently we will give it the necessary conservation treatment. Irene’s Minx will be joining her late husband’s 1967 Hillman Super Minx Estate which was donated to the museum by the Taylor family in 1991.

Introduction to the 1916 Maudslay Subsidy Chassis Restoration Project

One of the major projects currently being undertaken by the Friends of Coventry Transport Museum alongside Museum staff, is the restoration of a 1916 Maudslay Subsidy Chassis.

The Friends of the Museum are recording their work on this project on a separate Maudslay Project Blog, but we asked Curator of Vehicles Christiaan van Schaardenburgh to give an overview of the project so far, for readers of this main Museum blog:

In the period before the First World War, the government set out specifications for lorries for military use. Several commercial vehicle manufacturers actually built these vehicles, including: Daimler, Thorneycroft, AEC and Maudslay. Although they were all different, they were built to the same requirements such as weight, horsepower, dimensions, etc. Different body styles were fitted to these vehicles, depending on their use. Large numbers of these military lorries were sold as surplus at auctions after the Great War.

This particular chassis would have been built by Maudslay at Parkside for the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. The vehicle is believed to have been used by the War Department on an airfield in the Angus region of Scotland. Four identical Maudslay chassis were purchased by Coventry Corporation Tramways after the war in 1921 for conversion to buses.

The Museum’s 1916 Maudslay Subsidy chassis was acquired by the Museum in August 2000 from a farm in Dundee, for £10,000. The vehicle was mostly complete, but in a totally unrestored condition. The Great War, Model B three-tonner, was last used in the mid 1970s as a holiday home at Crathy on Deeside, and before that it had been a showman’s living van until 1932. It was stored for many years until being sold to the museum.

Ever since the purchase of the Maudslay chassis, the Friends of Coventry Transport Museum have been raising funds for the restoration of the Maudslay. Restoration of the chassis started in July 2007, every Friday a dedicated team of Friends work with the museum’s collections care team on restoring the lorry to its former glory.

Although the chassis is largely complete, because of its long life as a showman’s vehicle and subsequently as a holiday home, almost every component has a significant amount of wear and tear. It is our goal to rescue as much of the original items as possible - rather than just replacing components with newly made examples, we try to repair the original items, this always adds to the authenticity and gives it ‘the right look’ when inspected closely.

The restoration started with making a detailed photographic record, which has already proven invaluable when the re-assembly started. Once a complete condition survey had been written, the Maudslay was completely disassembled into its main components.

Due to the impending centenary remembering the start of the First World War in 2014, we are aiming to complete the Maudslay during that year. Should we fail to do so, and it is always a difficulty to put a completion date on a restoration project, then we aim to finish the project during 2016 - the 100^th anniversary of the chassis.

Follow our progress on the Maudslay Project blog.

The following companies have provided us with their services so far, often with a favourable rate:

Lenoch Engineering, Ramsay Precision Engineers, Matrix Lasers, CMR Engineering, Clifton Rubber.

CTM Workshop Restoration Updates

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