My Daimlers and Lanchesters

For the better part of four happy years I owned, repaired, maintained and more importantly drove a Daimler LQ 2-20. It was one of those cars that was understated, yet excellent, it looked nice, performed well and was very reliable. It had such a pleasant nature that the few ‘failures to proceed’ and breakages all took place on the driveway or very close to home!

In a moment of madness, whilst fancying a change, I made the decision to sell and almost immediately regretted it. Fortunately the car went to Steve Wright, an enthusiast who uses the car regularly and keeps me updated with progress reports. I organised the Daimler & Lanchester O/C stand at the South Cerney Show during the summer of 2017 and Steve brought the LQ 2-20 along. Standing head and shoulders above all of the other Daimlers and Lanchesters, it made a lovely addition to our line up, I have to admit to feeling a rather large pang of regret!

I started to cast around for another large Daimler, big Lanchesters are simply too expensive nowadays. This handsome limousine came to light, it has Arthur Mulliner coachwork, and has that certain something about its appearance that few limousines display, it is very well proportioned and imposing. Photographs do not really do it justice, it is a big car, yet in photographs, at a glance, could pass for the much smaller Daimler Fifteen saloon.

The Daimler has a green continuation log book dating from 1969, recording the registration number as BLK 264 and describing the colour as blue and black. From 1969 until his premature death in a road traffic accident in 1974, the Daimler was registered to A.J. Cutler, better known to Scrumpy and Western fans as Adge Cutler, song writer and lead singer of the west country pop group The Wurzels. A Daimler & Lanchester Owners’ Club members list from 1972 records Adge as a current member with two Daimlers in his possession; a larger DE36 and this 20hp limousine.

A later photograph that came with the limousine, shows a black over blue LQ3-20 bearing the registration ASV 881, this is certainly the same car, it is fitted with the incorrect after market rear lamps, number plate lamp and rectangular reflectors which were still fitted when I bought the limousine.

The Daimler is photographed alongside a 1978 Ford Capri, by this time the DVLA had recorded cars on the central data base, those that were not registered were issued age related numbers, I suspect this is why the Daimler was registered ASV 881. The car was at this time registered to a hotel owner in Nailsea near Bristol, any information relating to the car during this period would be most welcome.

By 1994 the LQ 3-20 had found its way to Swandlincote, photographs of the car taken during this period show the car in its more modern colour scheme of black and pale primrose. The colour does not photograph accurately and in some images appears almost white, it is however similar to the colour used on 1960s Jaguar E Types and MGBs.

I am pretty sure that at this time the Daimler was in use as a wedding car, certainly from 1998 this was its main task. The car came into the fleet of  Elegance Vintage and Classic Wedding Cars in Sutton Coldfield, and earned its keep alongside several handsome Rolls Royces and a lovely 1930s Austin Limousine. If you have photographs of the Daimler taken at your wedding I would be pleased to hear from you!

Mike Penn the proprietor of Elegance Weddings had the bonnet and Ace wheel covers painted in the lower body colour, the car had by now lost its whitewall tyres and was fitted with the more conservative blackwall type.

The Daimler carried out its wedding day duties from 1998 until 2017 when Mike decided to pension it, and the rest of the fleet off. I am not a great fan of white paintwork on large pre war cars, but Mike assured me that despite its appearance in photographs, the Daimler was almost yellow, and nowhere near the white shade it appeared to be. I went to view the Daimler and was instantly taken with the colour scheme, it looks much nicer ‘in the flesh’ and reminds me of the yellow Rolls Royce from the film of the same name with Ingrid Bergman and Rex Harrison. My initial plan to return the car to its original blue and black evaporated, even as I viewed the car.

A test drive revealed poor steering and brakes, but a willing engine and very smooth gearbox with a nice positive action on the gear change quadrant. The positives outweighed the negatives, Mike and I shook hands and I was, once again, the owner of a nice large Daimler.

Discretion being the better part of valour, I decided not to drive the Daimler home, but to recover the car on a trailer. I have a tow bar fitted to my people carrier, but the nearest trailer hire company is across the city. I realised that I could not comfortably collect the Daimler, unload and get back to the hire depot within a single day hire period. I entrusted Sterling Transport to collect the car in a fully insured, covered car pod, on a return load basis. I had to wait for ten days before a delivery was made near the Daimler’s location, but the wait was worthwhile. The cost, although a little more than two days trailer hire was worth every penny. No stress, no fuss, no worry about traffic or weather, and the car was delivered at the appointed time in the same condition it left Sutton Coldfield.

I have used Sterling Transport on several occasions to collect both runners and non runners and have always been pleased with the service. If you have recently purchased a ‘new’ old car and are worried about recovering it, I would strongly recommend making contact with Peter:  http://www.sterlingmotortransport.co.uk/links.html

Although the Daimler looks almost perfect in the photographs, it has not been used for some time (probably due to the deteriorating braking systems), it was also displaying a ‘lumpy’ idle – although whilst running the engine performed well. Before venturing out onto the roads around Frenchay I gave the Daimler a good service to include lubricating the suspension and steering, and adjusting the brakes. A test run showed a marked improvement, but clearly the brakes require more attention. Although slightly improved, the idle is still uneven and also requires more investigation.

One feature that I am thrilled with is the amount of room in the driver’s compartment, the LQ 2-20 had adequate legroom, this car is absolutely perfect for my physical size and driving style, the seat is also comfortable and supportive. The division is the winding type and disappears completely into the division behind and below the drivers seat, this is a great benefit if you wish to have family days out in the car, it makes it almost as intimate as a saloon. Limousines with sliding divisions fail to provide this excellent feature.

The weather has not been conducive to lying on a concrete floor beneath a Daimler, so for the last few days I have been cleaning the interior and touching in numerous chips and marks on the paintwork, it cannot be seen on the photographs, but the difference is remarkable. These time consuming, tedious jobs are always best tackled as soon as the car arrives, when the enthusiasm is high!

I have owned this lovely old car for a year now and have been gently improving the Daimler, initially paying attention to the obvious faults – brakes and steering in particular. The shoes were removed and all but one lining had worn down to the rivets. The shoes were relined with an appropriate modern material which was bonded on. Whilst the shoes were being repaired I removed the four wheel cylinders, incredibly, only two of the eight pistons were correctly operating. Hours were spent cleaning the pistons and cylinders before fitting new rubbers and refitting to the car. I then checked the master cylinder, luckily this had apparently received some recent attention and required no more than flushing with clean brake fluid. By the time I had put everything together, the brake shoes were ready for collection. The difference is remarkable, the car now stops in a straight line and the brakes have a nice ‘feel’ to them. Every steering joint was greased, several were blocked with hard compacted grease, which in places had turned into a solid mass. Finally the steering box was refilled with a heavy gear oil. With steering and brakes attended to I took the car for its first proper run and was delighted with the improvement.

The engine still had a reluctance to idle perfectly, although it very felt good on a run, and even on the hottest days of summer 2018, it ran at the correct temperature. I spent days checking and double checking every ignition component and refurbishing the SU carburetor with new cork seals. The hesitation – it is too minor to be considered a miss-fire unfortunately persisted. Reluctantly I removed the cylinder head and discovered immediately the cause. The exhaust valve seats on number 5 & 6 cylinders are very badly pitted.

Further investigation revealed that the flexible pipe leading to the brake servo which comes from the inlet manifold had been wrapped with many layers of cloth tape. The hose had clearly suffered an air leak and the addition of tape was perceived to be sufficient to make the pipe air tight. It was not. Over a period of time it has caused the rear two cylinders to run weak and very hot. I attempted to polish out the pitting on the valve seats, but unfortunately discovered that the seat on number five cylinder had a hairline crack. The head has now been taken to an engineer for pressure testing and repair. Whilst it is off the car I will clean down the areas of the engine bay that were previously inaccessible.

 

The cylinder head was pressure tested and the only crack was the one already identified. New valve seat inserts were fitted to all of the exhaust valves and inserts pressed into the guides to take up the wear evident on some of the valve stems. The inlet valve seats were all serviceable and along with their respective valves were gently lapped in. The cylinder head then received a light skim and was again pressure tested and found to be all good. Although recorded in just a couple of lines, the time taken to remove the head and have it repaired has stretched to over five weeks. The flexible air pipe which was responsible for causing the damage cost just £10, I suspect the cloth tape that had been wrapped around the damaged pipe may have cost £5, a bodge that ended up costing me nearly 200 times more than this to fix!

Since the head has been reconditioned I have carried out many trips – mostly from Frenchay to Chipping Sodbury and back, and a couple of longer journeys to the Bristol docks where I like to walk the dog – then stop for coffee and watch the world go by, it is amazing how many people stop and admire the car, many taking photographs. Once again a misfire became evident and I thought that I would have to remove the head once again. However the source of the problem turned out to be a faulty condensor and spark plug, both new parts, a line to type – but days of trial and error to sort it out! The car is now running perfectly and is an absolute pleasure to drive.

Many photographs of this car must survive in family photo’ albums, if you have a picture of the car whether at a wedding or otherwise, I would be delighted to hear from you.