1955 Traction 11B "Barn Find" Project

Ian the ‘Fatmat’ doesn’t stick very well and is not so flexible when cold (just done the DS in a garage at circa 6c here in the UK).

Apply it and warm with a heat gun and use a small roller (type used for wall paper seams) to push it into the groves etc. and it works far better.

Wow! It is quiet on here, is there no one working on their Tractions 😉

I am currently flitting between jobs. I have put the new floor in and will update later once that is totally finished.

In the mean time I have checked and serviced my gearbox and got into a state it will be allowed back in the car. It was in a bit of a state and I was worried it was going to be the same inside but from the previous photos it can be seen to quite nice in there.

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After about 2 days of cleaning – I am whittling these cleaning jobs down now but they still suck big time 😕

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And then finally, the nice job of painting and making everything pretty again. I am also learning a lot about the operation of the gearbox…the hard way… by rebuilding, unbuilding, rebuilding correctly. I like the way the thrust bearing when activated towards the clutch activates the middle lever of the gearbox to allow gear selection. So without pressing the clutch down you can’t select a gear (I know you wouldn’t anyway but this seems to be a fail safe way)

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Then I progressed to the water pump which I through was going to be totally rusted out. But after wire wheeling and scraping the guts out both units looked to be in good shape. The propeller is in perfect condition as are the bearings and seals.

So more cleaning and paint work and greasing and rebuilding.

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Where the rubber hoses attach there is pitted holes but there is a good 3mm of good metal left. Plus I will using a waterless coolant when I rebuild so the corrosion will hopefully not get any worse. It will last another 50 years at least 😉

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All done and rebuilt, just to add the fan later (in its bright new yellow look)

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Ian, the thing that makes the water move in the water pump is the impeller, not the propeller. But yes, the bronze facing can pit and leak around the shaft. That happened to my 11B. Any decent machine shop can take care of it. On the gearbox, how did second gear feel? Did it move fore-and-aft at all? The fore-and-aft movement shouldn’t be more than .005″ and there should be no ‘rocking” on the shaft. I’ve repaired gearboxes with this happening and in all cases they would grind going into second. Set the second gear end float correctly and you can just throw it into second from first without doing the third gear dip. I’ve got to say, you’re cleaning and painting looks amazing!

Onto removing the rusty old coolant tube inside the head. What a ridiculous design this is. A job I was not looking forward to at all.

This is the tube that runs from end to end within the head and distributes coolant through 4 little holes. One end is open to the water pump and the other butts up against a core plug. So first things first was removing the core plug. I watched a dozen tutorials on You Tube showing how easy it was. All of them were on big US engines where the core plugs are the size of dinner plates. Mine ate 25mm and 30mm. It took some hammering, heat and a lot of swearing but I got the end one out.

I then had to take the top core plug out to dismantle bit by bit the rusted tube. I used a metal down rod to tap out the remnants of the tube and pulled the pieces out where I could with pliers. What a crappy job but all done with 4 core plugs to replace.

Here you can see the rusted tube inside the head, it was like this all the way along.

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Here is the tube and the core plugs, the way they ended up 😮

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And finally the light at the end of the tunnel 😀

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Have ordered new core plugs and a new tube. I then went onto clean the outside of the head and paint it the normal green. Day off tomorrow so leave it all to dry before rebuilding the head and then climbing underneath the car to finish off the floor.

I think I have finally finished all the really dirty jobs. I raised the car up on axle stands so I could get underneath and get all the crap off the bottom of the floor pan. Also so I could finish off the welding on the replacement front floor panel.

Lots of dust but now I can clean the garage and hopefully it will stay a little more dust free 😕

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I slapped a load of rust converter paint (Restom) on the panels and left it to dry.

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I joined the V sections under the floor. They were slightly off but managed to create a small filler panel. Welded it all up and covered all the seams with a polyurethane seam sealant.

Inside I rust protected, primered and painted the inner floor that is covered with the seat cross member. I also seam sealed the welds and edges before putting the cross member back on.

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All the plastic was gone and the electrical fitting were awful, but with a little micro sablage and wire wheeling it all comes up pretty well.

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Painted black (for now) on the outer and chrome inside (for refection) the units are looking good. I made up a template for the plastic lenses and made these from an old storage box (I think it was old) and these fit quite well. There is a section that lights up the inside of the boot, I assume when the boot lid is open it lights up the area, I have left the lens off this as I think the heat of the lamps distorted the old lenses, will try anyway and see if it is OK.

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None of the replacement petrol senders that I have seen have the plunger/float at the side. It’s meant to stop the gauge ‘fluctuating’ as the fuel slops around in the tank when cornering/braking etc.

The replacement I bought from Clade Renel isn’t to bad, but is only a guide and I still prefer to use the trip meter as a guide when to fill up 😆

BTW I did the same with my number plate lamp unit, (sprayed the inside chrome) but put 360 LED festoon bulbs in as they are far cooler and won’t melt the plastic lens, plus last far longer than the original incandescents