Blog
On a spending spree!
Sunday 4th December 2016
I shall soon be going on a spending spree. The wedding hire money that I put into the bank account throughout the summer will now be invested back into the cars. I have already refurbished the brakes on one car; new brake shoes all round plus new clevis pins and felts on all of the linkage joints. It has improved the stopping power no end! The carburettor from the same car is now with a specialist for a thorough overhaul and the carburettors from the other cars will also be sent off in due course. After that I shall send the autovacs off for an upgrade. These units suck the petrol from the tank and send it to the carburettor. Modern petrol contains a lot of ethanol which isn't at all friendly to old cars but there is a specialist company which modifies the autovac units and upgrades them to cope better with modern petrol. It is quite expensive but should be a good long-term investment.
Another little project of mine is to change the gearbox in the New Zealand car. Somebody in the past has fitted a gearbox from a much earlier car; it works but it isn't the right one for the vehicle and I find it very 'clunky' on the gear change. I had a spare gearbox in my shed and took it off to a leading Austin expert in Derbyshire, back in the summer, for refurbishment. He broke the bad news that, although the box itself was in good condition, the gears were rusted and in a terrible state. I subsequently found another gearbox in Kent which had many parts missing but it did have a good set of gears. That unit is now in Derbyshire and I am hoping Tom can create one excellent gearbox from two mediocre ones. Another expensive job but it should be a huge improvement.
There are lots more jobs to do on the cars, as well as the usual servicing and maintenance work. I had better get a move on; the first wedding of 2017 is only 16 weeks away!