Keeping it original.

[Ray White]

Can anyone help me keep the original look of my 1930 Swallow?  Under the bonnet may not be immaculate but it is surprisingly original.  To keep it that way I need to find some brown plastic covered HT cable. At the very least I  need enough to replace the king lead but can't seem to find it anywhere.  I have the original brown dist. cap but it looks wrong with a black king lead.  The car is still 6 volts.

On another point of originality, I would like to find an original condenser; the type  that fitted in the recess under the distributor.  Even if it doesn't work, I would like to have one fitted in the original location.  

Any helpful suggestions would be welcome.

Thank you.

[Tony Press]

I thought that a 1930 Swallow might have had a Lucas DJ 4 manual advance with a black cap, mushroom cable ends  and inside condenser (or would it be a DK4 Auto Advance - again with black cap with acorn cable ends and inside condenser).

[Ruairidh Dunford]

I have some of the CAV condensers, Ray.

Ping me a message.

[stuartu]

I don’t know of any Brown HT lead, Ray, but as second best could you use brown heat shrink tubing to cover a lead of a different colour?

Regards,

Stuart

[Howard Wright]

Hi Ray

Rinsey Mills book doesn’t show a picture of the engine bay of a Swallow but does show a remarkably original 1930 AE.  I can’t imagine Swallow changing the engine from a standard Austin one? The HT leads are fabric rather than hard plastic and ‘look’ brownish.  However they were probably black originally and have faded.  The dizzy in the photo is a DS with push fit HT leads. 

The big external condenser can be hollowed out and a more modern one fitted inside.

Cheers

Anorak Howard 

[Ray White]

Thank you everyone. When I say "original" of course, what I really mean is how it has looked to me for the past 40 years. The distributor is a CAV DS4 - 2 . It should have an external condenser, a brown cap and rotor arm and brown push in leads. It only looks right if everything matches. Yes, of course I could change everything but what's the point?

Ray.