Hi,
I am new to classic cars, I have a Herald with an interesting past that I am going to be 'restoring', I will most likely be requiring some of your knowledge so I thought I would introduce myself, and the car and thank you all in advance.
I am in my early thirties and have worked with many modern cars, I thought I knew a lot having done a head rebuild, replaced rear beams, gearbox's, brake pipes and all sorts of repairs on my cars over the years but only ever FWD cars. I got a manual for the herald and having a read through I am clearly lacking! Trunnions, rolling chassis, leaf spring suspension etc are all new to me. I am handy with the spanners and also paint so I'm confident with some reading and hands on experience I can get this done.
So the herald is a white 56 1200 with bright red interior, It's been in my family since 1999 and I have many memories of being driven around in it as a child, in fact the bright orange harness that was put in the back for me is still there. It had a sad story, it was bought new by a young lady who sadly died in the first year of ownership, and her parents put it in the garage, and that's where it stayed until 1998 when it was rescued. It was in good condition apart from the paint which had been destroyed but it was just cosmetic, no rot. It has the type 12 front disk option and also front seatbelts which I am not sure if they were an option or if they were standard in that year.
I'm not sure how it worked but it had to be re-registered with the DVLA, and in turn it lost the original plate, but got given a date relevant plate instead, I don't know why this was. The alternator conversion was done and It was driven around for a number of years until there was an issue with the clutch, believed to be the clutch slave master cylinder, and then got put back into a garage in 2005 until this very day.
My dad covered it, literally the whole thing inside and out in waxoyl out to store it until he could sort it, he also has a 1500 dolomite engine and gearbox with overdrive from our previous dolomite that rusted away that he was going to put in it, but it never happened and now he has heart failure and it will never happen so I want to take on the project, I think it will be nice to get it done for him but it's definitely not as solid now as when it went in. There seems to be a lot of surface rust but its been covered in crap so it's hard to tell.
I am just about finishing getting my garage sorted so I can take it on, I am going to spend the next few weeks trying to learn as much as I can about it. I know it will probably need some welding but I'm hoping it's not too rotten, my welds aren't pretty but nothing a grinder and some paint doesn't fix. Once I get it structurally and mechanically sorted I will want to make a few changes to make it safer for him to drive.
From what I can tell there are quite a few differences between the years of the herald and the manual I have only covers up to 1965 so I'm guessing there was some substantial changes made in the 96 models, from what I can tell it has a different type of clutch.
Sorry for the essay, I will start a thread on the restoration with some pictures when I get it all situated, any help/information on the changes between the years, or any information you think I will need will be much appreciated.
Kind Regards