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ROLAND'S ADVENTURES Roland The Ford 100E Popular |
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Simon Lewis Transport Books use ROLAND, the 1960 Ford Popular 100E as an every day runabout. He has an 1172cc side valve engine with a three speed gearbox and comedy wipers that stop when you go uphill or accelerate briskly !
Roland does quite a lot of mileage for an old car , to and from the Post Office and so forth. As a result he does tend to need more attention to keep him in fine fettle than a modern vehicle. But then that's half the fun of running a classic car - although don't quote that to Simon if you see Roland parked at the side of the road, in the pouring rain, with the bonnet up!
December 2005 The fuel pump problem was tackled by putting in a new Facet electric pump (OK Simon holds his hands up here and admit it's not exactly very original but the previous replacement original pumps didn't work either..) That seemed to work until the carburetor , which was a replacement a a little while ago got blocked up...so even with the pump working nicely therwe was no petrol getting through!
Due to the cold and Simon's lack of dexterity with spanners when his hands are cold, Roland was put under cover for the winter. There is also another reason for this, the new carb linkage required the heater pipes to be disconnected so the car has no heater once again.
The plan now is to get the carb back off in warmer weather, strip it and clean it thoroughly, rework the fuel line from the electric pump so it's a bit neater and then, hopefully, we shall have a runner on our hands once again. Meantime the winter weather hasd taken it's toll on the chrome hubcaps which are looking very rusty now. There have been a few set for sale on eBay so it looks like once Roland is back on the road he might get a new set of shiny hubcaps to complete the picture.
June 2005 After the problem with the electrics in April Roland was taken on a very sociable evening run organised by the FOREST OF DEAN HISTORIC VEHICLE CLUB . This included a picturesque drive through the Wye Valley and up over the top to a Pub near Chepstow for a meal. Roland behaved well except on one hill where he started stuttering, but not much.
A little while later a slightly too enthusiastic trip over some high speed bumps in Lydney caused a sudden major lack of power, it was as if the carburetor had a blocked jet. Nothing could be found to cure this , all the jets were clear and so Roland was back off the road for a little while until a replacement carb could be found from Dave Fisher at D&D Classics. Theory was that there was actually a blockage in the tiny fuel galleries in the carb body itself which had mimicked a blocked jet The new carb from a 105E fitted quite well although some modifications are needed to the throttle to get it to fully open. However the apparent fuel starvation remains.
The ONLY thing we can now think of is an under-performing fuel pump as hills really do cause the poor car to stagger along and the engine does seem to be running lean in these circumstances (and hot). A new electric fuel pump is on it's way for D&D ... time will tell if this finally makes Roland a healthy old boy again!
April 2005 A long running saga of fuel and or electrical problems has constantly afflicted Roland since the winter. The initial problem of a stuttering misfire on long uphill journeys was just about bearable - even if regular trips to the Post Office do actually include a 1-in-4 hill...
However the suggested cure from several knowledgeable parties, fitting a brand new coil, caused total lack of any sparks! Not being much or an auto-electrician Simon was left floundering. The coil was new and produced huge sparks from the king-lead, but nothing at the plugs.The condensor had already been changed to a new one weeks before , the leads and plugs were all recent... stumped!
Eventually a neighbor suggested swapping over condensers in case there was a mis-match . Bingo. It worked. New coil + old (assumed dead..) condenser = sparks. Roland was back on the road.
JANUARY 2005 Major electrical failure left Simon with a walk home one night - luckily it was only half a mile, could have been worse! Roland was towed back home and simply would not fire. To start with it seemed like a fuel blockage so the carb' was taken off, cleaned and put back. Nothing. Then one attempt at starting the engine shot a nice dose of electricity up Simon's arm. It transpired to be from a broken HT lead - and it was over an inch away from Simon's hand at the time of the shock! Doesn't the damn stuff jump gaps well?
New plug leads, new distributor cap, new condenser and a new rotor arm later and Roland is back in action. A temporary reassembly flaw (ooops!) mean there were initially still no sparks but the current was in fact earthing through a wrongly insulated distributor lead. Once fixed the engine went better than ever.
One other flaw now apparent. The choke isn't working, applying the choke merely stops the engine dead! No doubt this will be fixed in time...
DECEMBER 2004 New plugs have arrived from smallfordspares.com and made a world of difference. The engine is smoother, sharper and doesn't need half the previous amount of choke to run when cold. I never would have believed simply changing spark plugs would make such a difference! There is still a bit of a miss when cold so current theory has it that the distributor cap may be cracked and making the spark a bit weak....
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A trip to Tescos to do the lottery ended up with a walk home for Simon when the engine simply would not refire. Luckily this particular branch of Tescos was only just down the road from his girlfriend Philippa's home. A quick call to Ashley for techincal advice , a lift back with Philippa and a rapid bit of short circuiting with a piece of wire and two crocodile clips got the engine back into life. It seems a wire has broken in the loom somewhere and stopped feeding power to the coil. The temporary fix works fine but the engine won't stop on the key and the wire has to be unclipped each time under the bonnet!
NOVEMBER 2004 Roland's head gasket has been replaced after a bit of a gap while chief mechanic Ashley was on holiday in Cyprus (lucky him...) The engine also had a de-coke and the valves ground back in properly as there was very little contact round the valve seats. The misifre has almost gone except when cold and under heavy load at low revs. Current theory has it that a plug may be cracked so a set of new plugs is on order.
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After a bit of fiddling the heater now works - it never has before. The rheostat switch was beyond repair so the fan now works of a brass toggle switch and keeps the screen more-or-less steam free on cold mornings and Simon's feet warm!
LATE SEPTEMBER 2004 - Currently Roland is having his engine partly rebuilt having suffered a chronic misfire in recent weeks. Much attention was paid to cleaning plugs, points and checking the carburetor had no blocked jets, before finally it was decided the head gasket was leaking ever so slightly.
Simon's brother, Ashley, who is the mechanic of the family, took the head off and decided the valves could also do with checking in case they needed a little work . He also started carving off the large amount of carbon that had built up in the combustion chamber. But then he went off on holiday ! So at present the car is sat without it's head, awaiting Ashley's imminent return to finish the job !
Two interesting items recently caught Simon's eye on eBay, an Aquaplane alloy head and an Aquaplane twin SU carb' set up... but he got out-bid on both. It looks like Roland will be put back together as standard for the time being. However Ashley harbors a desire to shoehorn a flat-head ford V8 of suitable vintage into the engine bay before too long - if he can find one!
In the meantime he might get the head skimmed to raise the compression a little - does anyone know how much it's wise to skim away on an 1172cc Ford motor?
MORE TALES OF ROLAND'S PROGRESS SOON....
Why "ROLAND"? - Because years ago the children's TV character ROLAND RAT used to drive a 100E, known as "THE RATMOBILE".
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