Monday 26 August 2013

Bank Holiday Weekend 24-25-26th August.

Driving the red car home on Thursday evening I became aware of her running sick and a distinct smell of petrol whenever I stopped. With petrol being the ridiculous price that it is immediate investigation was required.
It turned out that the rear carb was leaking. I removed the carb and then the float chamber. For some reason the floats had become detached on one side and was leaving the needle valve open. What I discovered was that if the pin for the floats is put into the holder the wrong way round, there is room for it to slide out and release the floats into the chamber. By turning it round this prevented this happening.
So this should have been an easy fix. However, during the reassembly I must have managed to break one of the lugs that the pin slots into somehow. Bugger!
 
A quick phone call to Colin Wake had him searching in his spares and as a result a trip to North Essex/Suffolk land on Friday night saw me collecting a spare carb body and a decent, although somewhat multi-coloured bonnet for my estate.
Saturday morning saw me strip my existing carb of spindles, springs and all other tiny pieces and refit them onto the new carb body. After reassembly I was surprised to see that the Red beast started up with no issues. I hadn't lost any parts or fitted anything wrongly! Blimey!
The rest of Saturday afternoon was spent trying to stop my garden and garage from flooding from the torrential rain we were getting after getting saturated I called it a day and went indoors without even taking the red car for a test drive.
 
Sunday 25th
 
A bit of a quiet day on the car work front today as I had been offered a place on the Club stand at the classic car show at Knebworth. I had planned to run down with Darren Sharp in his MK2, but me being very late and not leaving Wickford until ten past nine I ended up going there alone. 
A good run down the M25 (all at legal speeds officer!) with no traffic and I was on the show field by 10am.
The day started off very grey but by afternoon  the sun had made an appearance and it turned into quite a lovely day. It was a nice day out but I made tracks about 4pm as I still had to get home and prepare Gertie for some welding work the next day.

Monday 26th.
 
James Cooper came up today to do the welding on Gertie for me. Things were going well until my welder packed up, but luckily Davemate very kindly brought his one up for us to borrow.
Once this arrived the job didn't take long, but we discovered a real horror while underneath.
One of the differential pins has worn away to half its original width. These pins are buried inside the rear crossmember, so the only way to do them properly is to cut a large hole in the subframe to gain access, cut the old one out, and weld a new one in. It also means draining and removing the fuel tank. (Which I did this afternoon) More work that I really don't have time, or money at present to do. Looks like Gertie will have to sit on the back burner for a while until funds allow.



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