Re: 1956 Clipper Deluxe

Posted by Brian Wilson On 2020/8/23 3:29:39
Howard

I went looking for the lamp socket to illuminate the Ultramatic selector quadrant and found it as shown in your pic. Need to get a bulb which works into that. I did not know this fitting existed. The two "spare" instrument assemblies I have do not have it - must have come from manual shift cars.

While I was crawling around under there, I took a closer look at what else was hanging under the right hand side of the dash. (It's a right hand drive car.). No sign of the telltale lamp for the park brake, but there are:

1 A small push-pull switch fitted to the support bracket for the park brake. This operates an auxiliary electric fuel pump which I have never needed.

2 A rotary switch which manually adjusts the ride height for the Torsion Level suspension. Very handy in practice. This is independent of the on-off switch for the TL system.

3 The usual on-off toggle switch for the Torsion Level suspension.

4 A two position push-pull switch which controls the fan in the Smiths heater unit. It is not fitted with a knob, but has a nut attached to the shaft to operate. Works a treat, though.

This last item was new to me, but means I have an operational heater/demisting system which I was unaware of! Only catch is that the valve which directs warm water to the heater core is not attached to anything, so has to be operated by hand in the engine bay. Does not matter much in practice. It can be left on. The heater unit seems to have little effect when the doors are closed and the fan is not operating.

Perhaps some of this was expediency when the car was being assembled as right hand drive. Certain major items - such as the RHD dash, steering gear etc - appear to have come from the factory as part of the CKD kit, and perhaps some of this other stuff did too. Other items, such as the AWA Pushbutton AM radio and Smiths heater were clearly sourced locally. Whatever, it's surprisingly complete and functional.

And now I don't have to carry a rag to demist the screen and windows when traveling in blinding rain!

Cheers

Brian

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