Wolseley

Cars of distinction ~ the ultimate in luxury value

I built a house in 1996 with a large double garage. The company estate car occupied half of the garage. For the other half of the garage, I had the choice of letting it fill up with general scrap consisting of broken washing machines, freezers, cement mixers, furniture and all the stuff that "might come in useful" some day. Another alternative was to buy a sailing dinghy or speedboat and keep it in the garage, as I used to enjoy sailing as a young lad. However, given our unreliable weather and my severe lack of free time, the scrap and junk was beginning to look very attractive!

At this very moment, along came a friend of the family who was going through some "domestic re-structuring" and had to get rid of one of his cars. His 1961 Wolseley 1500 was in daily use and he had just completed a long trip round the North of Scotland. After a short test-drive, I knew I had found the solution to my empty garage.

When I took her to get her MOT (certificate of roadworthiness) renewed, it was discovered that the front suspension was in an advanced state of wear. Here I am removing the nearside torsion bar as the final stage in the strip-down.

The nearside front suspension completely stripped out ready for the new parts. The offside received the same treatment and everything was renewed including the lower wishbones, trunnions and all bushes. The difference in the car's handling was immediately noticeable on the first test run.

The only other problem occurred when she was taken out for the first run of the millenium. After about 15 miles the engine started misfiring on one cylinder, then two cylinders, then . . . . . DEAD! There was a spark coming out of the coil to the distributor, but nothing on any of the plug leads. After an hour's fiddling about with the help of a very kind local resident who let me put the car in his driveway, I had to admit defeat and my wife and I had to get two buses home. I returned later with my son and towed the Wolseley home.

A new distributor cap, rotor arm and set of plug leads were ordered from the excellent Wolseley 1500 Spares in the south of England and the engine burst into life as soon as they were fitted.

The sequel to this was a repeat of the exact same fault the following year, leaving me stranded again. It couldn't be the new parts I fitted - surely not! Other things were tried - coil, condenser etc. I finally bought a new rotor arm from Lucas just for the sheer hell of it and, when it was fitted . . . . . BINGO! It burst into life. The unbelievable thing that had happenned was that the new rotor arm previously fitted had tracked internally, taking all my valuable H.T. straight down the distributor shaft to earth! I will now insist on genuine Lucas parts where possible. They can still supply distributor caps too.

MOT time came round again and a new exhaust system was needed as the old one had a few pin holes in it and was ready to drop off. My local Kwik-Fit branch said they could get one specially made from the original specification for about the same price as a modern car, so it was ordered. (Beats lying on your back wrestling with lengths of pipe!)

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