Leamington Spa this morning for work on a BRM. What a brilliant piece of history associated with this car. Sam had recently bought it at auction quite by chance as had been after something completely different. The car hadn’t run since 2012 as had been a museum exhibit, and prior to that was in a private car collection of over 500 vehicles. So, we were asked to go and do a cambelt service and pre-emptive head gasket replacement, as Sam is planning a tour of Europe. Sam now works with the lady who actually did the original upholstery as one of her first employments. The interior of these cars is amazing, and so comfortable, akin to a Chesterfield sofa! Absolutely immaculate throughout, with the original jack kit still in it’s cellophane, a rare parcel shelf as an added extra plus a teddy bear!
Prior to starting additional oil was put directly into the head, over the cams and lifters, and then the engine was turned over by hand a few times, then cranked, with no ignition and then fired up, to make sure, with it being stood for so long there was plenty of oil around the vital parts. After starting, it was found that a new alloy throttle body, that had been fitted prior, had not been set up correctly. While it would run with a slight bit of accelerator, it wouldn’t tic over on its own. We then manually set up the throttle body and reset the idle air control valve, it then sat ticking over nicely at 900 rpm.
Great to meet you Sam, look forward to seeing you and the car at ‘Pride of Longbridge’ in April.
We then continued a bit further south, to Broadway, to see Liz and Marc for the annual service and some other things on ‘Little Red’. Liz had reported a couple of issues, one of which on code reading proved to be the Lambda sensor, so we replaced this. When the car was taken for the MOT the tester noticed a slight coolant leak, so on pressure testing the system it was found to be from the thermostat. So we replaced the thermostat housing with a new one. The minor misfire was traced to a dodgy HT lead so this was replaced too.
Thank you so much for your lovely hospitality, plus you made Jon a happy man with bacon butty and chocolate cake! We look forward to seeing you and Little Red again in a few weeks time at ‘Friends Round London’.
Should be home for about midnight. Bit foggy now on the M1.
