Wolseley 4/44

This wolseley came in needing some service jobs having not long been purchased from a classic car dealer. Just a shame these problems weren’t taken care of before the car was sold.

First was a brake shoe ajustment. Older type drum brakes like these occasionally need to be adjusted to maintain contact between the shoe and drum. In this case a slightly noisy bearing was greased and a new seal was fitted.

On the rear brakes it was clear that the drive shaft seals were worn out and letting axle oil into the brake drum.

This was remedied by removing the half shaft and replacing the rubber seal on the front of the shaft as well as the paper gasket on the back side of the shaft. The gasket proved difficult to find and so a suitable replacement was made from gasket paper.

Back on the front brakes, the passenger side front brake cylinders were found to be seized therefore providing no braking to that wheel. Both cylinders where replaced.

Due to all of the oil leaks on and around the brake shoes I recommended the shoes be replaced as they had become contaminated. Not only that but some of the shoes were becoming close to the limit.

Finally the head lights needed attention. This problem turned out to be more than just a blown bulb. Checking the live side of the light switch shows nearly 16 volts coming in to the switch. The out going side was dead regardless of the switch position. Fortunately on this car the light switch has three terminals. One for live and two switch terminals. This ment I was able to swap the out going wire to the other side and still have the lights working as they should. The 16volts that probably caused this problem was sorted by adjusting the voltage regulator back down to just over 13 volts.

Job done!