About the car

When I decided to buy David Wogan's white Hillman Imp my intention was that doing so would allow me to take my blue Imp on the long journey.  My blue car is not ideal as a family runabout as it is noisy and (apparently) smelly.  I had removed all of the sound insulation when I restored the body in 1993 and although I've steadily added sealing and insulation its still quite noisy inside.

The problem is that I love my blue Imp too much to part with it and so over the next year or so the question became "can the white car be made reliable enough to attempt the long journey"?

When I purchased the white car Dad and I trailered itr to my parents property in Bindoon to finish it off and decide what to do with it.  David Worgan had started the restoration quire some years earlier and due to Ill health and other reasons had not quite finished the car.  Much had already been done so it shouldn't have taken much to get it up and running.

I should have known better.  She resisted every effort. The new brake cylinders needed removing and cleaning, new flexible brake hoses were required, it wouldn't run until a brand new carby was fitted and then we realised that the gear box was not working properly.  Dad rebuilt the gearbox but it still wasn't quite right so he fitted the one from his own car.  New kingpins, seatbelts and an electronic thermometer were fitted. The car was tested and deemed roadworthy at the end of August 2012.  A few weeks later I tried to drive it the 220km home to Eaton.  It made about 10km before overheating!  As this wasn't altogether a surprise,  my sister who was following, towed me to her house.

Cooling is often an Imp's biggest problem.  As standard, Imps have a rear radiator with a belt driven fan that blows air from the back of the car though the radiator and out underneath the car.  David had an electric fan blowing from the front backwards. I decided to persist with this flow direction but made a cowling to scoop as much air as possible from under the car and use the ram effect to push this though the rad. This is supplemented by a 10" electric fan behind the rad and switched on either manually or by the electronic thermometer.

On my first run to test this adaption, I set off after putting my boys to bed around a 10km loop near home.  All was going well and the temp stayed low. I gained confidence and started enjoying myself. So, entering a  90° left hand bend a bit faster, I braked hard when there was a loud bang followed by a grinding scraping noise.  My first thought was that I'd broken one of the new rotor flex joints. However, as far as I could see they were fine.  If not that I must have broken a crown wheel and pinion I was thinking.  Not long after a chap came along the road (its the sort of road you expect about 5 cars on a night) and offered me a ride home.  the next morning I drove back to investigate. The left side seemed okay but when I raised the right rear it was clear that Something was wrong. It turned out that a brake lining had come unstuck and was bringing itself to bits in the drum.  After driving home to rob the lings from my Ginetta, I was back driving the Imp in no time.

Cooling is still an issue. The car hasn.'t overheated since the duct was put on but it does get hotter that I'm happy with (90°C) up hills on a warm day (above 30°C).