My new favourite fifty, a lucky find!

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Cheers Walter. It was set to 0.

I've changed it to 2.

mmelvis · Expire: 2015-05-09

Do you have more pictures of that wonderful car in the first set of images?

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Well, no, sorry, we had a little problem...

Got the car out to drive it to a local beauty spot to do a photo shoot, was going to use 120 film and a couple of old folders I just bought.

Got halfway there and the front brakes seized up, managed to drive it home again but my dad suspects he might have damaged the clutch now.

It's been up on axle stands for a week now with the front wheels and brake drums removed. The new brake pads arrived today, hopefully my dad will have it fixed again before too long.

Was a bit heartbreaking for him, he's not long got it finished, fully restored, he has rebuilt the engine, the carbs, the electrical sytem, so many things, it's beautiful and the sound from the big straight six engine is wonderful - a deep, low rumble, was so funny once to be sat in it with my dad at some lights and some kids in a souped-up Renault Clio with a tuned exhaust were sat next to us revving their puny motor thinking it sounded so good, the lights change and my dad puts the Rover in gear and revs it up to set off and completely drowns out the little Clio, we get to the next lights and the lads pull up again and ask, politely 'excuse me, but what car is that?' 'It's a Rover, son' 'What engine have you got in it?' '3 litre straight 6 with twin double barrel 2-inch SUs' Cue blank expressions from the kids.. 'Is it chipped?' they say... My dad shakes his head and pulls away again...

The car is a 1958 Rover P4 110, it was free of rust but mechanically a shed when my dad got it, whoever had owned it had looked after it and kept it in a garage but they had also maintained it themselves and didn't know what they were doing so a large part of the restoration was putting right all the bodged repairs.

My dad exhausted his entire vocabulary of cursing during the months it took him to rebuild the SU carbs, I tried to help him and I wouldn't envy anyone that job, the needles were seized solid and it took a lot of hard work to get the carbs working right and the engine running right, the setting up of the the timing and air/fuel mixture on these old cars is more arcane black art than science!

These are the only other pics I have of the car for now...

mmelvis · Expire: 2015-05-09

Thanks for the extra pictures and tell your father he has done a really nice job on that car.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Cheers, I'm looking forward to it being on the road again so I can takle more pics...

martinsmith99 · Expire: 2013-11-18

Again, I'm not saying the pics look soft, but the sharpness isn't amazing. It's great from a cheap lens of course, and would do well in it's league, but I won't challenge the big boys..

Sharpness is relative I think.

iangreenhalgh1 · Expire: 2014-01-07

Er, those second pics weren't taken with the Pentacon lens, they were taken with an old projector lens so no doubt they are not so sharp.