In the garage last night to investigate the issues at the back end. First up was the U-bolt noise and sure enough the off side one could be tightened a little, however after tightening it suddenly gave way - not a good sign. Plan now is for a new set of U bolts (hope I don't have to buy a new kit) and to get it as tight as I can. Whilst I was under there I took a look at the exhaust mounting, which isn't quite right. It seems to slope towards the rear of the car from the front silencerso I loosened it all off and tried moving things around to get it better adjusted... took the shocker off to get more room - to no avail. As the car is up against the garage wall on the exhaust side, I think I'll leave it a little while. At that point I decided it was too cold and went in ... I this what its going to be like all winter? Hope not!

comment?

Rallys - like busses - all come at the same time. They also (like busses) seem to go by very quickly. This weekend I took the family off to the Classic Car Show in Selkirk, which is the last in the season for the Morris Minor Owners Club Scottish Branch. I had planned to take molly down, but I was grateful I didn't what with the 120 mile round trip. All in all it was a really good show, a lot of the same exhibitors as last weekend (Scone), but in a much smaller field which seemed to make for a cosier feel. The highlight (for me and Daria - if not Meg) was the steam engines - woah those things are great! Big, stinky and noisy. Meg liked them up to the point when the all sounded their hooters and then she decided that they were horrible.

I've still not made contact with the Scottish Branch guys, their stand looked pretty cool with a Gazebo and 6 or 7 cars - maybe next year eh?

I did manage to get out in Molly this weekend, and she seems to go like stink! A few of the old hiccups have come back, like a minor mis-fire at full blast and when going up hill, also the fuel consumption seems to be way up, there are also a few nasty clunks from the back end, one which feels like a loose U bolt which ain't good. I think I'll probably ditch the HS4 infavour of a HIF some time this winter as the thing has caused me nothing but bother.

Now armed with this long to-do list, I need to spend some time in the garage!

Now we're back I can go through some of the work which has been done to get that MOTed car back on the road.

Once the brakes were sorted, the rear wing came off for a re-spray (during which time I had to redecorated the bathroom and get married). Once it was finally painted and re-fitted and the lights were working again it was time for a test drive ... what a load of rubbish. I shouldn't have expected too much what with having had the head off, the distributor out, and the carb in bits, but I was hoping to have at least a drivable car. Not one which gave up the ghost at every opportunity. The next few days were fun,

I took the (new) fuel pump to bits to find that the points were in a terrible state - they were duly cleaned.

I replaced the fuel filter for a much larger item (this one actually allowed fuel to flow), it helped but not that much.

I then stripped and cleaned the carb (pulling bits of nastiness out as I went), I also used lots of bits from a HS2 rebuild kit I had lying around - however my nasty waxstat jet looks in a bit of a bad way, the only problem is that the dashpot is on the bulkhead side of the carb so the new jet won't fit - anyone know where I can get a new one?

anyway I now have a car which can even go up hills!

thanks to the wonder of technology the Blog is live again - and so is Molly! So much to tell so it'll take a little while to get it all out :o)