Jason's Blog

Thanks to Andy Martin's camera in the hands of I think Dave Pearson here are a few action shots of me making a mess of the test circuit. All I can say in my defence is that I was laughing too much to notice where the cones were and was completely unable to control the old girl around them anyway. Turns out I missed only one which I count as a superb victory! First is the calm before the storm, you get a 5,4,3,2,1 count down and then you're off! This was me trying to give it some welly to drift round a cone The result of the welly giving was to produce an impressive cloud of dust and missing the cone by a mile. OK so I was on the wrong side of the cone! So I finished with an impressive fishtail - OK perhaps I was the only one impressed All told it was over in the blink of an eye, but it was fun!

...because you alternate between thinking you've fixed and not! This is getting very silly indeed, I though maybe I had a dodgy alternator so I started checking that out today, Oh hang on, let's get back to the beginning The symptoms are that there is a persistent misfire, it's not on a specific cylinder but it's more like she's not fully firing all the time. It's through out the rev range and doesn't seem to respond to any fuel or ignition settings (choke in/out, advanced/retarded) you can't "drive through" it. Engine is fresh and has excellent (190psi) and equal compression. Cam timing and valve gaps are all spot on. Metering unit is timed correctly, all injectors are spraying a good cone pattern with no dribbles or bleed back. I have replace or rebuilt all of the ignition system at least twice. New coil, leads, cap, rotor arm, plugs, points, (tried electronic ignition too). The fuel system is OK, pressure seems pretty constant over 100 psi o...

What a weekend! I was well prepared (as I always feel I am, I'm usually wrong) and drove up to Canley Classics on Thursday afternoon to meet up with Dave. The intention being to have a final fettle and see if we could cure an annoying brake judder on Thursday then have a leisurely start to the journey midday Friday. Joe and Frank Welling were also starting from Canleys and Tims Bancroft and Hunt were going to meet us there to travel up to the Old Stone Trough on Friday. We were due to set off at about 1pm. That all left plenty of time for the inevitable "issues" that crop up. This event would the car's longest journey in my ownership, in fact it was 1500 miles door to door. I'd had an annoying misfire for weeks before and felt I;d cured it, the car went well on the 100 mile trip up to Dave's place, I didn't push it. Of course things started to go a little pear shaped when the misfire returned and the brake judder got annoyingly worse! We resolved to sort t...

Went out to the local group meeting - it's a TSSC meet (I was the area Organiser when I was a TSSC member) but we welcome everyone from any club, no questions asked. It's a half an hour drive for me as it's in Hook, the other side of Reading and down towards Basingstoke. Nice blat along some country roads and the PI ran very well indeed, no sign of the misfire and actually feels pleasant again. Two issues cropped up, the brake judder is not improved, if anything it's worse, despite correct hold down hardware now (thanks Ted) and despite everything working seemingly as it should. I can't figure it out, the brakes judder and it doesn't come through on the steering wheel so I'm guessing rear wheels. Yet when I apply the handbrake (whilst moving) there isn't a trace of judder. More head scratching I think. The second thing? I flashed my headlights and the fuse blew - it didn't mean the loss of headlights, just the loss of horn, interior light, cigarette ...