Secreted in a corner of the garage and taking up more room than was reasonable was a pile of six wheels which came with the car. On close examination it transpired that there were three different sizes amongst the six tyres ranging from 165-14s to 185-60-14s. Clearly not the best mix and so, via the yellow pages, to the local cheap tyre spot. Here, having read the book, I confidently asked for five nice new 165-14s to be attached to the best five wheels. An hour and a half later I set off home with a spanking new set of 185-60-14s which the man said would do just as well. ”Don‘t worry about the gearing or the width" he said, ”the difference is trivial. Just look at the two side by side. Besides, I don‘t have 165-14s. Trust me! I‘m a tyre salesman".
I must admit I was a bit dubious but I assumed he knew what he was doing. (Half the ills of the world are caused by one bloke assuming the other must know what he‘s doing!) Anyway I‘d got fed up waiting after the first half hour and waited the rest of the time in the pub so perhaps my view of mankind was less jaundiced than usual. When I got them home I hastily began to fit them but discovered I only had 11 wheel nuts which means either I‘ve lost 9 somewhere which is unlikely or we towed the car home with an average of 2.75 nuts per wheel. Anyway the local scrapyard gave up large numbers for a quid so I cornered the market. Did you know P6 wheel nuts don‘t fit anything else?
Once fitted I stood back with pride to view the object of so much effort finally poised on four wheels ready to move and steer and that‘s where the emotional bit comes in because the tyres were so fat that they fouled the top links so hard they were in danger of bending. The only thing there was no danger of was movement. And so back to the cheap tyre shop where a full and frank exchange of views resulted in a promise of fresh, correctly sized, rubber in two days. A promise kept for once so now we had tyres and motion. Well not exactly because no sooner were they fitted than one went down but since that turned out to be no more than a bad valve it was soon fixed and I was able to push the car on its own wheels out into the sun for the first time in a year. Outside incidentally slopes a bit which prompted the re-connection of the handbrake cable so not only does it go but it stops.
After the tyre fiasco I decided not to trust the ”experts" with the carbs but to dismantle and clean them at home. Accordingly, armed with a gallon of carb cleaner I began to dismantle them. Then I looked up an expert in the yellow pages and chickened out. I‘ve never seen so much crud as was plastered over every component inside. It was very much like the limescale inside a kettle. One float was punctured too. A very nice man spent five hours cleaning and polishing over about ten days to make them shine again. Good decision I think.
Whilst all this was going on I got on with the little jobs like fitting the starter and alternator, pulleys and fan and such. I rapidly discovered that at least two pairs of hands are needed for some of these jobs so I recruited the assistance of ace mechanic Jamie Jagger (age four and three quarters grandpa!) Come to think of it he may be the most accomplished mechanic to work on the car recently. (I‘m glad you said recently, Ed.)
The crankshaft and water pump pulleys caused rather more hassle than was reasonable. I couldn‘t find either. I scoured the garage more than once and turned the few other likely spots upside down to no avail. I particularly concentrated on the area around the two metal bowls I‘d been using to put loose nuts in but to no avail. I felt sure that was the likely place because all the relevant bolts were in one of these bowls. I found them eventually of course after hours of searching. Have you ever noticed that when you turn these pulleys upside down they make nice metal bowls to put nuts and bolts in?
Fitting the alternator was a bit of a bind because even with Jamie to help the brackets seemed wrong. In fact the very last of the breed had updated brackets not shown in the manual. A trip to look under Barry‘s bonnet combined with a bit of guesswork solved the problem. (Incidentally, looking under Barry‘s bonnet is considerably easier since he improved the available space by driving the car without fastening the bonnet catch. Two very tasteful bends by the hinges resulted. Not recommended!)
I got round to fitting the petrol tank securely while I waited and even managed to install the last of the brake pipes. In fact I also got out the carpets and cleaned them. They were heavily stained of course and very dirty indeed. Cunningly I bought my wife a present of one of those new Dyson vacuum cleaners which did the job very well. I didn‘t think she‘d see through that one too soon. Sadly I forgot to empty it afterwards and the huge mass of telltale brown fluff gave the game away.
The heater you will recall received a bit of a bashing as the engine came out. It still looks an odd shape but surprisingly seemed functionally intact except for a worn bit in the flap moving mechanism. Barry‘s store came up trumps again however and with new hose that‘s ready to go back also.
The carbs came back with lots of gaskets and were easily fitted at the first attempt, so when Phil Driscoll has finished with the engine crane (now would I use these pages to drop a hint?) it will be time for the engine to go back.