Flying Standard V-Eight Saloon Restoration - Part 4

Ian Homer's page
Feb 14, 2023
2 min read

Updated: Mar 28, 2023

Tracking the restoration of the only known Standard Flying 20 V-Eight Saloon in the UK.

You can catch-up with Part 1 here: Part 2 here: Part 3 here:

Flying Standard 20 V-Eight Rebuild – as it happens!

Tonight was a bit special, thanks to Brian Parkes, Chief Engineering Officer of the Standard Motor Club, on many levels, as earlier, 8 x 30tho+ pistons found their forever homes, (hopefully).

In other news, the camshaft was far too pitted to be reused so is currently with Newman Cams for re-profiling.

Due to the damage the corrosion has caused, Newman is going to turn down the core of the cam thus allowing them to then create new lobes. An update on Valves is 4 are currently having their Stems ground to the correct size, and then hopefully, having the heads turned to the correct size and then the stems threaded.

I’m having to have the No 1 and thrust bearings re-white metalled, and as I can only find 20tho bearings for numbers 2 and 3, the crank's main journals will be ground to 20tho and the No 1 bearing line bored. Bearings 2 and 3 are equivalent to those in an Austin Sheerline 28HP.

With the crank and block at an engineering company I found up here, in North Bootle to be precise, and a supplier of some 20tho main bearings, I was just awaiting the call confirming when I’d be able to collect. The first call I took from them was telling me that they found that the main bearings had previously been ground at 50tho. And therefore, the main shells I had found and had been delivered were now redundant. Conversations with the supplier came to nothing as he hadn’t anything over 60tho, so I bought some 60tho from FW Thorntons, unfortunately, more than twice the price. The upshot however is the news that I was able to collect the block, Crank, new bearings and wonderful new white metalled No 1 main and thrust bearings.

Valves are now with my engineer to turn the heads and do the thread having collected them from Dyno Surf, a surface grinding company. I’m now just awaiting the camshaft from Newmans Cams, and I will then have everything to start the rebuild. This means if all goes to plan, the engine should find its way back into the chassis in March.

The latest on the crank - it's a big one!