The Triumph Mayflower.

[Drum]

A mayflower has come up for sale in my local town.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... 914789430/

[angrydicky]

Ah yes that one sold at Morris Leslie the other week for £2600. It looks ok.

[Eddie Honda]

A mayflower has come up for sale in my local town.

that one sold at Morris Leslie the other week

Drum must be slacking if he didn't know.

[mercrocker]

I have just remembered a Mayflower tale....I was at the Library in Beaulieu one wet dull Sunday afternoon doing a stint as a Volunteer. A well-dressed Jamaican came up to the window with an equally well turned-out lady and dinged the little bell.

Upon asking him what he would like he asked if we "had anyting on a Triumf May-Flowerrr" (apologies for the mock patois but he had an amazing accent). I showed them to the little moquette sofa whilst I fished out some guff - photos, road test, etc.

Turned out he only wanted to see a photograph because there was no Mayflower in the museum. "Dat's it" he exclaimed to his lady companion jabbing at the photo with a big grin.

"Did you have one?" I asked. "Nah, man, one o'dem ran me over in Kings-ton when I was a boi....."

He went off very happy to have completed a life-story to his presumably new companion, laughing down the corridor about "dis funny black car"

[59Impala]

Nice Mayflower AD, now you'll need to seek out a model of one in black. I have one, it was made by Lansdowne some years ago now so should be fairly easy to find online.

[angrydicky]

I managed to buy a replacement (tested) ignition/light switch from my favourite purveyor of used Austin Counties spares, Graham Potts. The same Lucas PRS 2 switch was used on most of the counties Austins so he had a few.
He supplied one with a key. This was important as I wanted to swap the barrels over to keep the original key number. Sad I know, but I didn’t want a fourth! Key on the key ring either. Both the boot and door handles have been replaced at some point so have new keys, the bonnet lock is still operated by the ignition key.
To get the switch out you first need to remove the Bakelite fascia, which is held in place by four brass wingnuts which are notoriously difficult to remove. I actually found them quite straightforward apart from the top right one which is a bit fiddly. I was laying in the footwells (a good advantage of column change!) and there’s fairly decent access on this car as it’s never had a heater so I didn’t have the heater controls which normally block access via this route. I suspect most people have to remove the cardboard at the sides of the parcel shelf to gain access.
So what you have to do to swap the barrel over, is using the key, turn the barrel to approximately 45 degrees until you can see the little plunger through the tiny access hole, depress it using a suitable tool (a small torx screwdriver worked well for me) and after a bit of trial and error, you can pull the barrel out and then replace it.
Bit fiddly to get the original one back in. I used wet and dry to chamfer the brass edges on the back of the barrel to help it on its way, the hole it drops into is very tight.
I also changed the light knob over from the grey Somerset style one to the Mayflower cream one. Originally the same as the Hampshire, this Mayflowers knobs have all fallen apart like they tend to. Someone’s fitted a set of repro ones from the club, which are just bog standard cream rather than the original marbelled effect which obviously is impossible to replicate nowadays.
As it happens I have a very good original spare light knob in the correct colour but I put the repro one back on so it matched the other knobs.
Now we have headlights! Happy days. One main beam didn’t work but a new bulb sorted it.
I also (apologies in advance for numberplate wankery) splashed out on a decent quality set of numberplates from Tippers. The ones on it currently are the cheapest possible rubbish fitted after the original numberplate was robbed. The rear one hasn’t even been stamped straight and both have been fitted on the wonk by someone who just didn’t care. The front is held on with M6 hex headed bolts and the rear with nasty self tappers. I’ve bought some correct 1/4” slotted, dome headed machine screws to fit them. Went for BSF rather than UNF because I have a bagful of nuts left over from doing the Hampshire, and they were cheaper than UNF (the Mayflower uses UNF threads and AF spanner sizes, the Hampshire uses BSF and Whitworth).
Apologies again for the nerdiness of the above paragraph, normal service will be resumed shortly.

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[mercrocker]

Good work, I approve....Getting correctly-pressed plates goes a long way to mollify the twattery of selling off the original number. Unissued-in-period registrations grate on me but that is something I have to deal with! Little jobs like those are best done before useage brings its own tally of running repairs too....

[Hooli]

We expect such nerdiness from the chairman of the TDW old crocks club.

[angrydicky]

Good work, I approve....Getting correctly-pressed plates goes a long way to mollify the twattery of selling off the original number. Unissued-in-period registrations grate on me but that is something I have to deal with! Little jobs like those are best done before useage brings its own tally of running repairs too....

I know what you mean. I absolutely detest number plate robbery and like you, I can spot an age related plate a mile off. I’m looking forward to getting the V5 back for the A30 with the original registration marked as non-transferable! However, as much as I dislike age related plates I always think it’s not the car’s fault it’s been plate raped, and it wouldn’t put me off buying a classic at the right price.
Very pleased with the Tippers. In my humble opinion they are the most convincing replicas on the market nowadays, 3 1/2” font size and the font looks similar to Wrights back in the 1950s. Their Ms are a bit suspect but apart from that they look pretty good. Much better than any raised digit plates I’ve seen currently on the market. I did love the Ace Peak Plates but they seem to have unfortunately gone out of business and anyway I wouldn’t waste them on an age related plate. My friend Al bought a pair for his Austin Atlantic which has somehow managed to keep its original number KOE 3, and they look SUPERB. (It had 1970s 3 1/8” ones on it when he got it).

[mercrocker]

Odds are certainly against any plate retention if there are low digits or interesting initial combinations involved, like you I abhor it in principle but adding original reg. to one's spec when looking for a car definitely restricts the search results and probably compromises the quality of car for the money that you actually end up with....