Amazon: 1964 Amazon 122S restoration project

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Juular

That around about what I expected to hear and I'm glad to know it's achievable with that setup.

If I can get 25-30mpg routinely I'll be happy. The rortiness of the twin carb engine with pancake filters is quite addictive!

Can I ask what sort of 0-60 figure you estimate you get with the 4.1 & OD? Is it slouchy or do you feel like it compares reasonably well with modern traffic?

… you asked about 0-60 figures for the Amazon; I’ve never tested it but it would not be fast - I’d take a SWAG at about 15 seconds.

This time of year I use the silver wheels with 175/60 section winter tyres (M&S, not really proper winter tyres), which lower the gearing back to what it would have been with a 4.56:1 rear axle. That makes the motor car noticeably more spritely and it keeps up with traffic really well (I’ve even overtaken a few cars - and no, they were not just milk floats).

In the summer I use the red wheels (same pattern as yours) with 165/80 section tyres, just like your motor car the gearing is about 7% higher than standard. I think the taller gearing is pretty good, acceleration is still at least good enough to keep up with old people driving Fiestas to the golf links. With the 165/80 tyres high speed (70 MPH) cruising is much better than with standard gearing, which is a huge advantage for longer journeys.

In conclusion: I think your Amazon should be able to keep up with modern traffic pretty well.

Alan

[Juular]

Originally Posted by Othen

… you asked about 0-60 figures for the Amazon; I’ve never tested it but it would not be fast - I’d take a SWAG at about 15 seconds.
:

Thanks! I ask mainly just as I don't have a frame of reference for how well the car is running in terms of performance.

I find it quite lively at lower speeds actually, and around town it's far from being the slowest car amongst a sea of modern and electric rubbish.

I do find it a bit breathless doing an uphill slip road onto the motorway but I may be asking a little much of it. I am not sure what BHP the high compression head and D cam combination outputs in the real world.

Interesting to note the ability to change wheels and essentially have the shorter diff. I have a set of spare wheels I could fit some cheap tyres to just to see how it feels.

At the moment I am quite enjoying how relaxed the cruising is at 60-70. In comparison to my partner's Toledo 1300 which must be doing 4-5k at 70 it's night and day.

I imagine it's doing sub 3000rpm at 70 which is brilliant.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Juular

Thanks! I ask mainly just as I don't have a frame of reference for how well the car is running in terms of performance.

I find it quite lively at lower speeds actually, and around town it's far from being the slowest car amongst a sea of modern and electric rubbish.

I do find it a bit breathless doing an uphill slip road onto the motorway but I may be asking a little much of it. I am not sure what BHP the high compression head and D cam combination outputs in the real world.

Interesting to note the ability to change wheels and essentially have the shorter diff. I have a set of spare wheels I could fit some cheap tyres to just to see how it feels.

At the moment I am quite enjoying how relaxed the cruising is at 60-70. In comparison to my partner's Toledo 1300 which must be doing 4-5k at 70 it's night and day.

I imagine it's doing sub 3000rpm at 70 which is brilliant.

Trawling through t'internet to try and find some figures, it seems the B18D with twin carbs and B cam produced ~95bhp and gave similar performance to an MGB of the time which, if memory serves was 0-60 in ~13s and top end ~100mph - these figures are slightly vague as i can't remember the MGB figures but know they were around those numbers.

A bit more usefully, i found an advert from c. 1964/5 that proudly announced the 122S returned 25+mpg. This might not sound like something to celebrate but those were US gallons, ~0.8 of an Imperial gallon so 30mpg should be realistic or at least very close to.

I had hoped to find a copy of something like a "Motor" road test with the figures recorded for performance but this was the best i could manage - hope they give a bit of insight!

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Trawling through t'internet to try and find some figures, it seems the B18D with twin carbs and B cam produced ~95bhp and gave similar performance to an MGB of the time which, if memory serves was 0-60 in ~13s and top end ~100mph - these figures are slightly vague as i can't remember the MGB figures but know they were around those numbers.

A bit more usefully, i found an advert from c. 1964/5 that proudly announced the 122S returned 25+mpg. This might not sound like something to celebrate but those were US gallons, ~0.8 of an Imperial gallon so 30mpg should be realistic or at least very close to.

I had hoped to find a copy of something like a "Motor" road test with the figures recorded for performance but this was the best i could manage - hope they give a bit of insight!

That was a different era Dave, petrol was relatively cheap and expectations were lower. I recall seeing a Ford advertisement back in the 70s that boasted one of its new models (I can’t remember which - but probably an Escort) would achieve 30 MPG. Nowadays manufacturers would be ashamed of 30 MPG, but then it was very good.

Times change.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Juular

Thanks! I ask mainly just as I don't have a frame of reference for how well the car is running in terms of performance.

I find it quite lively at lower speeds actually, and around town it's far from being the slowest car amongst a sea of modern and electric rubbish.

I do find it a bit breathless doing an uphill slip road onto the motorway but I may be asking a little much of it. I am not sure what BHP the high compression head and D cam combination outputs in the real world.

Interesting to note the ability to change wheels and essentially have the shorter diff. I have a set of spare wheels I could fit some cheap tyres to just to see how it feels.

At the moment I am quite enjoying how relaxed the cruising is at 60-70. In comparison to my partner's Toledo 1300 which must be doing 4-5k at 70 it's night and day.

I imagine it's doing sub 3000rpm at 70 which is brilliant.

That is exactly what I did with the wheels and tyres. I acquired a set of later Amazon wheels (£30 for all 5 if I recall), gave them a scrub up and fitted the cheapest 175/60 tyres I could find (£130 for 5 if I remember correctly- including a 165 for the spare to fit the well). They are perfect for the winter: more expendable with some hub caps from a 140 that fit (about a tenner for a big box containing perhaps a dozen caps) so I can keep the smart red wheels and shiny new hub caps for the summer. They also have the advantage of lowering the gearing to what it would have been with a 4.56:1 rear axle with the 175/60 tyres, so the speedometer reads correctly and the acceleration is quite zippy at this time of year.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

That was a different era Dave, petrol was relatively cheap and expectations were lower. I recall seeing a Ford advertisement back in the 70s that boasted one of its new models (I can’t remember which - but probably an Escort) would achieve 30 MPG. Nowadays manufacturers would be ashamed of 30 MPG, but then it was very good.

Times change.

I was making the point an Amazon should achieve 30mpg on UK gallons Alan, not the expectation of great figures from it. With a US gallon being ~0.8 UK gallons, their mpg figures were inherently lower.
I get what you say about times changing but even in the 70s, 25mpg wasn't something to shout too loudly about from a mid-sized car. By the early 80s, many manufacturers were boasting of 50+mpg from a mid-size 1600cc car (Mk2 Cavalier with 5 speed box, 51.4mpg) so times definitely do change and with it, technology.

[Juular]

I just realised I haven't updated this thread in 2024 at all.

A lot has happened. Some of it, not so good.



In January we were out for a Sunday drive when going round a roundabout the front right suspension separated. Thankfully we were uninjured and the car was mostly unscathed. What caused this was a faulty locknut on the brand new lower ball joint. Either it was extremely poor quality or the nylon insert just gave way, either way the nut was nowhere to be found.

The scary thing is that I'd checked over the car less than 12 hours before this happened including checking the tightness of some critical things like this. There was absolutely no warning that anything was wrong.

It goes without saying that this had absolutely been torqued properly with a calibrated wrench - not my first rodeo.

Fixing this was simple enough. I replaced the nyloc with a proper castle nut and drilled a hole for a split pin. I also damaged the threads for peace of mind. That's not coming off without a grinder now.



Frighteningly, I checked the other side too and found that the nyloc nut was finger tight and had already started to wind itself off. Needless to say this was taken off and thrown away, and replaced with a castle nut and split pin.

I think I will be sceptical about any nyloc fastners that come supplied with parts from now on.

One minor casualty resulted from this which was the offside tie rod. Here you can see it isn't exactly straight any more.



Versus the one which replaced it.



When something like this happens it's always a bit frightening getting back in the car again, but I forced myself to put miles on it which I ended up really enjoying.







It is also developing some very nice ecosystems in the paintwork.



Some general tinkering was done as can be expected.

Boot handle broke.



Thankfully I still have all the parts from the spares car to dip into.



Was getting sick of the gearbox leaking.



Front and rear seals were replaced as well as the speedo seal and reverse switch gasket.



Unfortunately this didn't really help. It's still dripping from the bellhousing and the rear seal. Very annoying!

Lots more updates waiting to post, just trying to keep the posts short.

[Juular]

The next drama was that I would occasionally hear a rattle from the engine at higher RPM that sounded like top end noise. At first it sounded like chatter from the timing gear or a loose bracket, but started to become a bit louder. There was nothing obvious under the valve cover so I took the head off.



Pushrods were OK but the followers looked like they had suffered a little bit of wear which I didn't expect to see. I was a bit concerned that something had contaminated the oil.

Hammering on each piston at TDC to check the bearings, it sounded like #1 had a bit of play. Damn. Engine out.



Seeing this in the oil pan is never a good sign.



Nor is this.



#1 big end had actually spun. Oddly the engine was running fine apart from a very light tap at high RPM. Hard to believe.

The crank was actually gouged.



I can only guess as to the cause of this. It's possible some debris remained in the engine after I rebuilt it, although I was very careful to flush it out. I did have a problem with an oil pressure switch which had very poor threads and may have dropped some swarf in the oil when I replaced it. I also noticed that the (new) neoprene rear main seal had started to disintegrate around the metal spring part. It's possible bits of this got into the oil.

Regardless I still had a spare good crank from the donor car which I fitted with new main and big end bearings.



Everything was flushed out exceptionally carefully, plus I dismantled and rebuilt the oil pump to make sure absolutely nothing was left.

I took the opportunity to fit a K camshaft and new followers, as I noticed some scoring and pitting had occurred on the B cam, presumably from the debris.



Back in.



Smooth as butter. This time I also added some ZDDP for good measure.





I neglected to mention that all of this happened a few days before I was due to take the car down to Gaydon for the Rustival show, so a roughly 850 mile round trip.

What better way to test the engine?



I spent the night before very carefully detailing the car for the finest appearance.







The car made the journey without too much drama. Headlights failed on the motorway, which turned out to be a dodgy floor dip switch. That was easy enough to fix on the hard shoulder by cutting and twisting the wires together permanently and living without full beam.



Next to a friend's Dyane.





And homeward bound again.



Surprised me how comfortable and effortless the drive was. The car would cruise at 70-75 without the slightest effort and with the longer diff and overdrive, not even noisy.

The trip did highlight however that the electrics could do with a major overhaul.

[Juular]

Forgot to mention, the MPG average for those 800 odd miles was a very respectable 35, travelling at a GPS 70-75 for the majority of the journey.

For a 60 year old car travelling at that speed, I'm really impressed.

[Derek UK]

Another pic for you. I was there in my 2000 V70. Nice work on the Engine. Good luck with the electrics.