This list grows shorter already!

On an event like La Carerra Caledonia it's inevitable that a few problems will come to the fore. I'd made a mental list of the silly faults that had occurred with the car.
One of the main annoying problems was the temperamental starting - occasionally you'd turn the key and nothing, just the whir of the fuel pump. No click just nowt!
The fix was to get out, open the bonnet and wiggle the red and white wire to the starter, it's a TR6 pre-engaged starter with the solenoid on top.
Towards the end of the run the fault was getting more regular to the point where it happened every time!
The connection to the starter was suspect but this turned out to be fine, on closer inspection there was a split in the insulation and the wire felt weird, well crispy.
As I stripped back the loom and cut back the insulation is was clear that moisture had got inside and corroded the copper strands. I stripped it back a few inches into good clean copper and renewed the Lucas connectors.
I tidied it up a bit with a cable tie to made sure the cables couldn't touch the steering column or the hot exhaust manifold.
With starting sorted I've just got the other jobs to do now, in no particular order
  • Dry it out! The rear foot wells got very wet overnight when the car was parked at an angle to the driving rain!
  • Have another go at that grating noise - means more prop alignment!
  • Service it - top up the oil, change the filters - fuel and oil. Take a look at the breaks and adjust the rears, grease anything that moves.
  • Try and improve the door seals, it's very draughty - OK this is a bit of a tall order on a Vitesse convertible!
  • Fix the overdrive inhibitor so overdrive won't cut in on all gears! Overdrive in reverse is terminal to the uni-directional clutch in the overdrive!
  • Change the front wheel bearings - they were OK but one felt seal was on backwards and on the other side the seal had disintegrated.
  • Fit 3 K&N filters in place of the standard "log".
  • Improve fuel economy - I'll do some proper economy runs first and see if I can get a decent return with careful driving.
  • Sort out the electrics, the 3 socket cigarette lighter type socket I installed seems to have some sort of restriction in it - if you put the lights and wipers on, it won't work - turn them off and it does. It has some sort of circuitry that turns it off when the voltage drops - is my alternator working properly?
  • Replace the bonnet catches with a couple of new ones I have "in stock" - the current pair are rather owrn, one works OK but the driver's side is stiff and worn out.
  • grease the door hinges, driver's door groans a bit
  • Wash and polish it :-)
  • Fix the bonnet front panel, this isn't a LCC issue, it's been like that for ages, need a bit of repair and some paint - which means I need to find somewhere to match it.
  • Replace the sills - once I match the paint I can paint some new Stanpart sills I have and fit them to improve the looks.
  • Touch up some of the battle scars
  • Design and have made a fuel tank - I've made a mock up and will continue trying to fine tune it.

Wow! Quite a list, I might print that out and put it up inthe garage!

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