1975 austin allegro 1300 sdl estate, Ex Leyland press car

[JPB]

Reliant kitten rear side windows are the same ones as Allegro estate, so it might be worth asking the kitten register's alternative spares people whether we still have replacements available, though at one time only the o/s was available. Shame they have that mitred corner, were it not for that some universal strips from Baines could be cut to fit.

PM sent regarding cost of those bottles, btw.

[giz]

the car is now 100% stripped except for the underside. Wednesday night 4 of us tipped it on to a pile of old tyres and now it's waiting for me to get some time off work so i can make a start on the rot underneath, it's not as bad as i thought













underneath the petrol tank looks good.

[giz]

i have started on the underside of the floor now, there is a lot of underseal to get rid of which is being attacked with an angle grinder wire brush attachment.
this picture shows the top half almost back to bare metal.



this is the drivers side rear chassis mount, jacking point and lurking beneath is rot



this is the passenger side which is far worse, as you can see the chassis has snappped



so it looks like the whole rear chassis will have to come off for some serious repair work.

i ran out of time last night but i have made a good start on where the rear floor meets the front, the strip that covers the join had rotted away so i've had to make another, both o/s and n/s have gone so i've had to guess how it should look.



i just have to clean up the welds a bit more and drill a couple of holes for drainage (i'm guessing) and i can move on to stripping the rear wheels/ chassis assembly.

[rich.]

i love aggros! my brothers & i had several 6 or 7 comes to mind including 2 estates... they are on my lottery win list

[Mrotwoman]

Great stuff,keep it up!

[Jordan T]

Fantastic!!! Cant wait for more updates on how your getting on!!!!!

Jordan

[giz]

i haven't really done much in the last few weeks for a number of reasons: christmas, putting a new engine in the mini and finding myself a small unit so andy can have his garage back - which i've spent the last 2 weeks clearing all the rubbish out of. it was the old carpenters stores at work and as you can imagine it had years of wood, shavings and general rubbish piled high and hasn't been used in probably 10 years. i've spent 8 hours cleaning it out so far and it's nearly done, just another hour or 2 sweeping and painting and the estate will have a new home.

any way this is where i was just before christmas:-
rear wheel assembly removed - which will now have to go back on for the transportation to the new unit,
hydro elastic fluid removed and all fluid/brake/fuel lines removed,
and a bit more cleaning.



whist i was cleaning the inside of the o/s/r arch i hound yet more rust



and thats it for now, the next update will be once the car has been moved which won't be for 2 weeks or so

[giz]

i found a list on wikipedia of scottish (national) papers and have emailed them all.
so far i have had 2 good responses and the rest are passing the email around to the relevant departments.

good response no.1 comes from the guardian:

Hi,

think this must be it. Appeared on Aug 11 1975

Best wishes
Richard

which goes back to the whole proving it's my car and leyland changing the plates saga.....

good response no.2 comes from Greenock Telegraph

Further to your communication yesterday, I will try to help you.

The principal motoring journalist group in Scotland is the Association of Scottish Motoring Writers, which has just celebrated its 50th anniversary. I became a member around 1978 but had been doing occasional motoring articles for this paper earlier than this.

I knew the writers who would have been likely to have road tested your car if it was sent to Scotland. Unfortunately, all are now dead bar one.

Please send me details and an image of your car. I will then contact the sole former ASMW full member from these days and will also get in touch with the son of one of the late members. The latter followed his father's profession and may recall seeing the vehicle at his family home when he was a youngster.

Kind regards,

James Hunter

the last one is promising

[Peter-109]

Love it, great project and good peice of history to along with it, good luck!

[giz]

i've decided to give someone else the opportunity of finishing this project. it's been a hard decision to make but unfortunately i just don't have the room to keep it any more as i have far too many projects on the go.
i invite sensible offers