The Crittenden Automotive Library

The Artful Bodger 6 - On The Road To Crickhowell

Topics: Ford Anglia

The Artful Bodger 6 - On The Road To Crickhowell

Stan Potter
DriveWrite
December 22, 2013

Stan Potter writes: I was reading about a Russian car called a Zaporozhet (pictured below). This was built in the Ukraine in the mid 1960’s. It had a 764cc air cooled engine, rear mounted. The engine was a V4 based on the VW boxer unit but built as a vee to make servicing easier. The whole car was made for ease of maintenance and repair with the minimum of basic tools. As the materials used were not up to western standards, this was often required.

This reminded me of a time when I had a 1953 e93a Ford Anglia, commonly called ‘The Sit Up and Beg‘. This was my first car purchased before my seventeenth birthday. I drove it for several years and learned a lot about how a car worked from working on this most basic automobile.

One night a group of us were sitting in our local pub discussing what to do that evening, this normally resulted in the talking continuing until closing, when we would return to our respective abodes. On one Friday night someone (I do not recall who) said, “I know a pub we can get a drink any time night or day”

“Oh yes where is that?” “Crickhowell”.” Where the ****** is Crickhowell?” “Eight miles over the Welsh Border.” “OK let’s go”.

So we piled into the Anglia and off we set towards London. This was before the M25 was even a thought in some planner’s mind. The North Circular was a disjointed collection of ordinary roads but we followed it round to the A40 en route towards Oxford. We kept going, navigating by a system called a Road Map. We arrived on the outskirts of a village called Northleach. The car stopped dead. The engine would run but no drive existed to the wheels and the back axle was seized solid.

The e93a had an arrangement whereby the back axle was attached to the gear box by a torque tube and an “A Frame.” A transverse leaf spring mounted the axle to the body. There we were, four lads in the middle of nowhere with a broken-down car, and no idea how to get home. The only way to achieve anything was to repair the car; so two of us hitchhiked into the village and asked at the village shop the location of the nearest breakers yard. Fortunately it was within walking distance.

We went in and asked if he had a back axle for the car. This was produced at a very reasonable price and then we had the problem of getting the assembly back to our car. After some explanation of our predicament the breaker agreed to take us and our axle back to the car. This accomplished we set to changing the damaged parts. I jacked the car upon one side and then piled rocks underneath so I could raise the other side (Health & Safety at work had not been invented yet).

The axle we purchased had one end of the spring detached. In order to reattach normally a spring spreader was used. Obviously this was not part of the tool kit I carried. This is where I think I got my nickname. I removed the broken axle and mounted the replacement. To spread the spring I borrowed more rocks from the dry stone wall next to where we had broken down to form a platform and loaded more into the boot of the car, then lowered the car on the jack until the spring slid along into its shackle and its securing bolt could be knocked into place.

The only problem then was that the oil filler plug could not be moved. I squirted an excess of oil into the drain plug which could be moved easily and hoped that enough stayed in the differential housing to prevent the axle seizing like the one we had replaced. We rebuilt the wall but I think it was obvious that something strange had occurred. Then we made our way home without getting the promised Pint.