Downton Tour: Welding Shop
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In the welding shop all fabrication of inlet & exhaust manifolds was carried out. From the very early days Downton manufactured their own Tubular manifolds. Richard Miles remembers how in the early days of the 1950's when he was working for the Richmonds in Downton, long before he opened Richard Miles (Downton London) Ltd. How the only two sizes of clamps they had for the pipe bender were 1 1/2" & 1 3/8" so all Downton manifolds of this period only featured tube of these sizes. He adds that this early pipe bender was also cemented into the workshop wall so during times of high production the whole unit would come adrift forcing production to stop until the bender was remounted and the cement had gone off. By the mid 1960's this was far from the state of affairs. The welding shop was producing huge quantities of tubular manifolds. All were made to forms or tools that would be painstakingly hand produced to ensure each manifold fitted properly. |
Jim Penton the Welding shop foreman welding up a Cooper S LCB on one of the specialy prepared jigs.
A rare picture of the manifold store. All silencers were bought infrom Burgess of Hinckley in Leicestershire, but everything else was made in house.