Car of the Month

CAR OF THE MONTH
JULY 2004

1934 SINGER LM
9 HP Engine
Hydraulic Brakes all 'round
Overhead Cam with Twin Carburetors
4 Speed Transmission
Counterbalanced Crankshaft
Speed: On a good day, going downhill,
with the wind at your back - 65 MPH

OWNER: Mr. Peter Hill_
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This remarkable little car was purchased in a little village in Northern Quebec in 1998. The Singer was sadly in need of restoration and Peter was fortunate to be able to obtain lots of new parts from the Singer Owners Club in England. He dreamed of one day driving it down the highway, and with lots of hard work and determination, his dream has now come true.

Peter Lee, mechanic and automobile restorer, completed the restoration of the vehicle for Mr. Hill in June of 2004, and the following is his account ......

A JOURNEY FROM 1958 TO VANDUSEN
By Peter A. Lee

Let me set the scene, the Saturday dawn was just breaking, but far from bright and clear as it had done for the past weeks, it was pouring with rain. There was no alternative, I had an hours drive to the ferry. To wait for the next one in hope it would stop raining would leave it too late to get in to the event. The car, a 1934 Singer Le Mans, had been insured for the first time since 1961 mere days before. On Friday, a warm sunny day, it had been cleaned, polished and dusted to within an inch of pristine. In true cavalier fashion I had dismissed the suggestion of Rich, my co-pilot for the day, when he asked ‘’Shall we try the top? I know it’s not going to fit all that well, and it won’t look great, but if it does rain-----.’’
The choice was mine. I had to balance the idea of a well used and ill fitting top against marring the beauty of the restored lines. Almost to add insult to injury one phrase kept running through my mind. ‘’This car’s never going to go out in the rain anyway.’’ How many times had it been said during the restoration? Countless, it was unthinkable that it should ever see water that wasn’t deliberately applied. Apart from that I could imagine the bows and clips chaffing and gouging at the new paint.
‘’No, let’s just take some waterproof gear.’’ I confidently replied.
As the car nosed out of the garage and into the deluge, I had a few moments to reflect on those words before the windshield wipers stopped.
This was when the adventure began, well for that day at least. In reality it had started sometime in nineteen fifty-eight when my uncle had bought a Singer Le Mans. I learned to drive in his car, I mastered the technique of ‘double-de-clutching’, not to mention coping with steering that had an alarming amount of free play. But now it was the twenty-second of May 2004. I had stepped into a time warp, the old skills came back in seconds, along with working the wipers by hand, followed by cleaning off the inside almost as often.

Driving in the rain ... happy again .... .

Peter Hill the owner of this Singer, some eighteen months ago he had asked me to finish off the restoration. Unhesitatingly I said ‘Yes’. Shortly after I was presented with a well turned out rolling chassis. Sitting on it was a body tub that could barely support itself without distorting---- the rest of the vehicle followed in boxes.
The ash frame had deteriorated over the years; rot had taken care of the sections extending below chassis height, whilst accident damage and an expected amount of body flexing was telling in the rear section. There was no alternative but to peel off some of the aluminium skin and replace the ash frame as required. A complete new rear section was jointed in, then re-clad with new aluminium. The sections below the doors that extended forward to the bonnets, and back to the rear wings were also replaced. Only this time cutting back the skin just below the louvers in the front panel, and about ten inches up in the rear. The new ash sections were then made up and fitted, only at this time were the doors swung to find out how the catches and hinges aligned. With the doors now fitting the apertures, the new skin was welded onto the existing front and rear panels. A new piece was also set in under the door using overlapping seams in the original style.
Most pre-war open cars suffered from ‘scuttle shake’, and the Singer was no exception. The stiff semi-elliptic springs insisted the chassis flexed, it was a part of the suspension medium. Consequently the body suffered over time with the joints working and eventually loosening. The top of the scuttle survived well, maintaining it’s rigidity through the inherent triangulation of a supine ‘D’. To rebuild this area would have been deemed overkill, so brackets were made up and hidden in the top of the foot-well, extending down both sides and screwed and bolted to the frame. Now came the assembly of the bonnets, first mounting the radiator shell on the chassis, and then fitting the bonnet tops. Things were looking good until the sides went on, I couldn’t get enough forward lean at the bottom of the radiator shell, the sides were overlapping, to my eye someone had taken an inch out of the chassis! Once I had welded up and drilled new holes in the front cross member things fell into their appropriate places. The front wings were remarkably good, except there were no rear supports. New ones were made up and fitted. The rears however had suffered a few ‘shunts’ over the years, but repairing and reshaping made them new again. Peter had purchased new front apron and rear chassis cover panels, making my job much easier, they still needed work but to try to repair the original panels would have taken days. Now I had all the body fitting, so after sanding, filling and all the prep work, it was stripped and delivered to the paint shop.
In the meantime the engine was being examined by Graham Prior who runs Crystal Auto Machine Shop in Victoria. New timing gears, chains and distributor drives were required, as well as the rockers re-profiling. A new set of head studs were fitted along with a new camshaft oil feed pipe. The bottom of the engine was in excellent condition, as is proved by a hot running oil pressure of forty P.S.I.
So it all came back to me for re-assembly. The wings were fitted with new piping, as were the front apron, the fuel tank and the rear chassis cover. One concession to this being a right hand drive car in Canada was fitting turn signals, the front bulbs were dual filament mounted in the sidelights, while the new ‘D’ lights at the rear were fitted with another bulb holder, hand signals at the right side of the car must have been a risky business! Then it was a matter of wiring everything up, the car had been fitted with a ‘new’ loom some time ago, and as it didn’t look too bad we decided to go with it. Only then did I find that the electrician had used only four different colours in the whole vehicle--- and they bore no resemblance to the original colour code! However persistence won the day, it also helped with making all the incidentals work and fit, those ‘five minute’ jobs that run away with another day, and removing the dash one more time to fit the whatever it was you thought was accessible and wasn’t

Finally it was time for the upholstery. I earlier mentioned my ‘co-pilot’ for the day was Rich, he is also a retired upholsterer---to clinch the deal I offered him a trip over to Vancouver in the Singer, fortunately I didn’t promise a fine day. He did a great job in making up the seat bases, carpets and interior panels. The fitting of these items was a joint effort.
Rich also made up the new tonneau cover, which we fitted the Thursday before the show; so that brings us full circle. We were both sitting in the car cruising towards Vancouver at 45 MPH in the pouring rain. Rich was working the wipers and acting as the turn signals, their common fuse had blown and I had neglected to pack a spare. After all, just like the top, it was never going to be out in the rain.
The venue was Vandusen Gardens in Vancouver, the event was the All British Field Meet, it stopped raining when we arrived, the car was dried off and looked great. We got to look at many beautiful cars and talk to their owners, then won second place in the pre-war sports class.
Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

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