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Thank you for that, Larry! Unfortunately my car is "good from far, but far from good" and "photographs well". But you are correct in that it is very complete and original, so I should not complain. I intend to keep it this way as long as I can; we'll see how long that is. I admire your patience and craftsmanship, and hope that one day my car will be the work of art yours is.

Having been away for a couple of months then doing home renovations not much has been done on the 51 for a long while. But gladly I'm back to it now. My blog is retrospective, some of the stuff done was from earlier, before I went off. I'll try and do some catch-up blogging! Not my strongest point, keeping up with the paperwork. When I read some of the great and very helpful posts others have put up it makes me realize it is worthwhile to keep the stories going.

My list of things to get done has now become just a couple of pages instead of a daunting list of hundreds of tasks, so that is encouraging. I plan to have it on the road in a month or two. Most important things to get done for driving it are

- Complete exhaust fitted
- Seats reupholstered and all trim fitted
- Fit petrol tank
- Rubber seals all round
- Bumper bars and brackets on
- Windscreen in, wipers fitted

But there's also a lot of minor stuff like making kick panels, fitting under-seat heater, fitting stainless trim on, plus much more.

Just before I left on the trip the internal door trim panels arrived with broadcloth and vinyl from SMS upholstery. Luckily I ordered these a year ago so in a way they're just in time! Very nice job and they are exact copies of the originals, which I still have.

Meanwhile, I'm off to the upholsterer with a trailer-full of coupe seats, to get a quote on the job of recovering them.

Lee,

Good to hear things are progressing and that you "plan to have it on the road in a month or two". Be good to see it once it is, I'm looking forward to that!

Such a slow process Mal, even the smallest things take a day to do. But I'm not telling you something you don't already know!

Thought I'd mention that my father had a Graham Page and told me it was huge. Had seating capacity for 9 adults. I have a photo of it, with three people sitting on the running board.

I didn't make it to the upholsterer's today, he was too busy, so it will happen in a day or so. Meanwhile, something that happened a while ago . . . .

My car came in parts as I mentioned before, and I didn't realize that the front door glasses and lifter channels were missing until it came time to start work on them. I got a car in pieces with many boxes of parts everywhere. I had seen some windows in a box but I never knew they were for 4-door cars, not my Club Sedan. There is no-one in Oz with a 51 Club Sedan so no 2465 to get a pattern for the window glasses. So I ordered from Kanter.

Long story, but when my precious glasses arrived they had taken a hit on one edge, and were both broken. Very disappointed at the packaging done by Kanters' suppliers of the glasses (whoever they are), so I wrote Kanter to say that if I was them, I'd wrap the glasses much better, maybe placing some light board or foam around them as well as cardboard. (After all, they're being shipped halfway around the world). They came wrapped in bubblewrap with a couple of layers of ordinary cardboard around them which is very minimal IMO. Kanter kept saying they never had problems with broken glass, and they were satisfied with the wrapping. I said it was difficult for me to agree after I had received both glasses broken! Anyway, I got nowhere fast. Pity that was the case.

At least I now had the broken glasses to be used as a pattern. So I made a plywood template and had two new ones made locally for a lot less money. They're toughened glass, not laminated, which is also pleasing. Over the years the laminated glass can get discoloured around the edges which is evident in some that I have here.

Windows are fitted now but more about windows in another post.

I can sympathize with broken glass but it does amaze me how it can get broken. In your case, I would agree the packing seems minimal.

I ordered a set from ebay seller Bob's Classic Auto glass based in Oregon so with the UPS delivery it probably went 2000 miles. It arrived with each piece individually wrapped in several sheets of newspaper. All those pieces then strapped together and wrapped again with newspaper and bubble wrap. Packed inside a thick flat box with wide styrofoam in the center and on all edges and even blocks of wood to keep the box from getting crushed. Took almost an hour to get things unwrapped. In spite of all that excellent packing, one piece out of the 10 managed to arrive cracked. Fortunately in my case, a phone call delivered a replacement piece in only a couple of days.

There is just no explanation for how a flimsy package can sometimes arrive untouched and a fortified box can arrive in tatters.

Ah, yes . . . in the hands of shippers I think anything can be broken, lost, sent to the moon, etc.

When a company does wrap some fragile item really well (like you mentioned was done) and it still arrives broken, you think: 'Oh well . . . at least the company did their best', and you get over it, and you order again. But what really disappointed me with my broken glasses was that they were wrapped inadequately.

And if I ran a company and did that, I'd be ready to agree with the customer that it was not good enough. Why damage the relationship?

When I fitted the front door windows initially, the RHS window didn't close fully, leaving a 3/8" gap. However the LHS glass closed properly.

Eventually after checking all possible reasons I found it was because the RHS regulator doesn't have the same amount of lift as the LHS one. They look identical (but have no part numbers visible) so it seems the RHS one is from a different vehicle, probably a 'pre-loved' replacement unit fitted long ago. Seems likely it is a regulator from a Convertible, as I believe the chrome strip along the top of a convertible window glass would mean the Convertible regulator doesn't need to have as much travel. This is just a theory. Would be interested to hear if anyone can think of a different reason, but different part numbers tend to suggest this is the case.

Enquiries I made found a pair of these 2465 Club Sedan channels available in the US, but at a huge cost. So because they're just steel channel and brackets I had a pair bent up.

I needed to manufacture a modified lifter channel to provide extra lift for the RHS glass. That wasn't too difficult because I was missing both the lifter channels, and would have to make them anyway. (These never came with the car).

To get the extra lift, one of the channels had taller brackets fitted to it, by a factor of 3/8ths inch. Channels and brackets were treated to a couple of coats of primer and 2-pak paint to prevent rust, as it gets darned damp down in the doors.

It took several adjustments to get the channel gap just right, so the glass plus rubber bonding strip were able to be coaxed in with a rubber mallet.

When I eventually got my window glasses fitted and installed, the result was good. Both windows lift fully and smoothly. Now all side windows are fitted. Very pleased about that.

RHS bracket has 3/8" more lift added



Stainless 3mm bolts tapped into bracket and Nyloc nuts added

Started to put some stainless steel door trims on after polishing and doing some minor dent and scratch removal. Such a lengthy job, just to get a few dents and scratches out. A full day goes by very quickly.

Noticed something which was quite interesting while I was doing these trim repairs.

It's been a mystery as to what Dealership my car was sold out of, and whether it was a 'local' car or maybe from interstate. Being RHD makes it very likely to be originally an Oz car.

While I was polishing a piece of stainless door trim I saw 'Ira' etched on the inside of it, out of sight unless you had the trim piece off the car. Plus it was covered in 60 years worth of dirt so not easy to see.

That gives me a big clue about where the car was sold from. I bought the car in pieces from a fellow who got it from another fellow in New South Wales (- home state) way back in the mid-1970's. So it seemed likely it was a NSW car originally. The dealership in NSW was "Ira L. & A. C. Berk", situated in Sydney and established very early. Read more if you want, at Ira & A C Berk Dealership

So it's a piece of stainless door trim which appears to have been repaired by that dealership. There are repair marks on the piece, done with an engraving machine same as the word Ira was engraved with. There was not much doubt that if the car had been damaged and repaired by Ira Berk & Company that it was a NSW-based car sometime between 1951 and the closure of the Dealership.

I have never found any records that give a hint of the selling history of my car so any clues are really good to have.

There is another clue also, making me think my car needed to be repaired in early days. The RHS window regulator is slightly different to the LHS one (- see my previous Post this page), and is a replacement. I think it is from a Convertible because it fails to lift the glass fully by about 3/8ths inch. The Club Sedan and Convertible regulators are different part numbers and IF one from a Convertible was used to replace one in my Coupe then I could guess there was a hit in the RHS door which busted the regulator and also the stainless trim. If so that would explain what I've found. There is no evidence of any accident damage now but this seems a reasonable explanation for the 'Ira' and also the incorrect regulator.

I reckon that now I'm a little bit closer to discovering the history of my car.

Door and front guard trims for the Club Sedan



Trim repaired and polished



The clue to the Dealership - "Ira" engraved on inside of the trim

Wow! Incredible bit of luck that they would mark the dealership's name on a repair. Never heard of that before. How great to know more about your car's history!