Colin's Beauford Project
About me
Name:
Colin
My Birthday: 11.5.1958
Hometown: Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, UK
About me:
This site is intended to be about my building a Beauford kit car.
Hopefully you will be able to follow my journey from the beginning.
This will be my third project over the years. My first was a Dutton Phaeton around 1978. I can remember getting it registered and insured, on the Monday, finishing it on the Monday evening and taking it out for a test drive about 9.30pm, then driving down to Tenby, South Wales next day for a holiday with a friend. We did about a thousand miles in that week no troubles, other than the lack of space for luggage!
My second a Westfield SEi around 1991. It was all very different then, just had to finish the kit and get it registered! Now I'll have to contend with IVA!
I learned about car repairs from my father, who wouldn't take it to a garage unless there was absolutely no alternative. He was basically self taught, first motor bikes and then converting his knowledge to four wheels. If a special tool was needed he would go to the shed, rummage through his box of junk and adapt something that would work. I can remember needing to replace the bearing on the axle of my Ford Cortina, the Haynes manual said we need a hub puller a press and allsorts. Dad thought about it for a bit then bolted an old wheel to the axle and using lump hammers on both sides we managed to drive the half shaft out of the axle (its amazing what you can do with a 'Brummagem screwdriver'). The bearing we used the same principle, using a chisel and extension for a socket set tapping at the same time from both sides we removed the bearing. Putting the new one on was a reversal of the process except using the old bearing on top of the new ones so as not to damage it we we hit it.
He died in 2008 and I will miss his input into the build - telling me not to do it that way.
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