....to the lock up then onto the barn

The Daimler arrived in East Kilbride on a Friday afternoon in December 2000. It was the car of my dreams and I wanted to restore it. How I intended to do this in a council lock up with no electricity supply I'm not now sure of but I soon got busy rebuilding the carburretors and replacing corroded or missing parts of the exhaust system as this only involved spanner work and I just wanted to get it running and worry about welding later. I also took to fuel tanks off to seal them internally (they weren't leaking to my knowledge but I had a side line doing this to make extra money for other restoration projects so it was probably linked to that). I immediately found out why the car came off the road all those years before; one of the internal fuel tank pipes was blocked solid with muck for 6" or so of its length. I poked a screwdriver in and the dirt just crumbled out as it must have dried out with age but was probably damp sludge when the car was in use. Whoever tried to fix it must have spent a lot of frustrating time and money trying to get to the bottom of the problem as most of the external pipes have been replaced with brand new ones. How could they have know the problem lay inside the tank?
Anyway the car was there for several years while I worked on rebuilding another car in a much larger, more expensive garage I rented about 12 miles from my flat. I was busy with the other project and sort of forgot about the Daimler but one day won £80 or so at the bookies and decided to get it moved to the new place. I reckon this was May 2005 but unfortunately don't have any pics of that move. The garage here was 30' x 14' and had good solid floor and walls but the front area would fill with water after heavy rain due to a faulty gutter somewhere which couldn't be fixed. After a few years there I found something nearer my home, only about 4 miles away, the new premises were bigger at 50' x 15' but were a bit of a mess and not water tight either as its an old barn. More pics of that later.

open door at rear of transporter is new home for the old VDP. what a fall from grace! area is a bit rough and I had trouble with break ins over the years losing tools and parts of my motorbikes. thankfully nothing happened with Daimler.



there wasn't really room to restore a Mini in this lock up never mind a car this size but it was dry and kept the car safe for a few years. replacing downpipes was interesting. took about 4 weeks to remove the nuts a fraction at a time with very little light or access.

probably to keep my enthusiasm up I spent some money on the wheels. £25 each to powder coat silver, £6 each for whitewall trims, £25 to get hubcaps re-chromed and £15 for chroming the rimbelisher. think they look fantastic. maybe even better than the fully chromed option as the silver wheel contrasts against the chrome.

on the move again to the barn in June 2006. at this stage repairs have been made to drivers side sill and front & rear box sections.

beautiful car shot at about 8 o'clock on a sunny June evening. these images are what keeps me going. the rent for the garage is £50 a week and I don't earn much.