Welcome to the third Speedster Build Update, this one is
mostly about finishing the seat up to upholstery stage, which it is now. I
picked it up yesterday from the upholsterers with the foam in place as I had to
sit it in the Humber to see if the foam was the right thickness and angle. I’m
very glad I did, because the position I had calculated was about 150 mm (6”) too
far forward.
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| Seat in position with mocked up sides. |
In that position, I had full travel of the clutch and brake pedals,
but was pinned in by the steering wheel. I had a sneaking suspicion I would
have to lengthen the pedals while I was initially setting out the floor, not a
big job really, just another one on the list.
I am very pleased about how the seat has come up, having absolutely no experience
in building one. It is a little snug, but I was limited in size by the width of
the chassis. I asked the upholsterer if he can shave a little off the side foam
pieces, (well at least we won’t slide around in it ;-)
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| Seat ribs in & reinforced with fibreglass, ready for ply back rests. |
Although all the recent build time has been taken up by the seat,
and running board mounted battery box, (photos in the next update), I have been
farming other parts out for repair or replacement. I want to do as much of this project myself,
but there are some jobs I’m just not tooled up to do. The hubcaps were one of
these items. Two came with the car, one in sound condition with bad chrome, and
one completely bent out of shape and beyond repair. Luckily there is a metal
spinning company not far from home so I had them make up a mandrel, (form), based
on the good hubcap and made me up five new ones. Not a cheap exercise, but the
only way around it – it would appear that 1932 Humber hubcaps are made of ‘Unobtainium’ and cannot
be found.
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| Ply back rests and base in. |
The other item I outsourced was the assembly of the radiator,
definitely a specialist’s job. I had the top and bottom tanks and another lucky
find in the parts boxes, a brand new radiator core! The assembly of these wasn’t as straight
forward as I had thought - isn’t it always the way! The bottom tank was full of
cracks which had to be repaired, and the new core had to be modified as it didn’t
fit either tank correctly. Phil from ‘Cor Cooling’ did a great job, and I’m
sure it will work a treat and outlast me.
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| Final sheet steel sides will follow seat contour and will have entry cut away. |
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| Forward view to under dash. Note technical supports for c/board template ;-) |
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| New brass hubcaps. |
Another issue was the missing radiator
cap and mascot. I figured these would be made out of the same material as the hubcaps, so after a week of scouring the internet in several countries I went
looking for alternatives from other makes of cars around the same era. I should
have realised Humber did not play well with others, therefore the size and
thread on the cap only exists in the Humber world, in particular the late ‘20’s
to the early ’30’s. So after having a new cap, (a plug really), machined up
- what to do for a mascot? I then remembered a mascot from a car my father owned
before I was born - a 1936 Chrysler Airstream. I had safely tucked it away years
ago, but where? After much searching I
found it and fitted it to the new cap, a mix of class and sentimentality,
perfect! Dad would have been pleased, he loved that old Chrysler.
As I now had five brass hubcaps and a brass radiator cap I
started thinking about their final finish and decided against having them
chromed and getting the radiator cowl and headlights re-chromed. My thinking
was; as I was trying to make the car look like it was built between 1910 and
1915, brass would have used more than chrome, and would therefore help with the
illusion of it being an older vehicle. Just yesterday I took the cowl and
headlight buckets & rims to an electroplater who specialises in brass. They
will strip off the old patchy chrome plating and I can repair any
imperfections, then they’ll polish them.
