63. Road trip...!

A dam long day yesterday, 386 miles road trip in just over 10 hours I have got to get my crew chief to live closer to me LOL. So we started off here in Kent at around 10:30am yesterday and managed to get home at around 9:30pm...Lorni and I drove down to Swindon to pick the truck and car up, the only jobs left to do on the car can be done at the track or are not that big an issue that we can't do without them.

We met up with Steve at his house where he showed me what he had been up to the night before.....

At last he managed to find a union that fits the fuel tank so we now have a permanent fitting rather than a wee bit of hose as the previous attempt at a fitting to the tank leaked and stopped us filling the tank up to the top. The other problem we had was the brakes, the master cylinder was leaking and had taken the paint off all the way down the chassis, which has now been sorted but finding a master cylinder to fit the hole was a different kettle of fish, Steve had to adapt a different cylinder to fit......

We still have a bit of bleeding to do but the brakes now work properly and we have stopped the connecting bar from bending so might even be able to hold the car now on tickover without leaving an imprint of the brake handle on my palm. I then took the truck and car round to where Steve works so his boss could have a look at what Steve had been struggling with for the last six or seven weeks...!

So the car and truck are back in their home from home just outside Bedford waiting for the 17th May..

 when we can take them to the Pod and start the process of sorting out the engine...running it in...fuelling and timing. and you never know might even get a run in.

So we have a few little jobs to do like mount the Fuel/air mixture gauge I have ordered some stuff so that we can record some data..

This should help us tune the engine a bit easier but we can still get the engine running without them so they will be fitted as soon as they turn up. The magnetic breakerless ignition module for our distributor should turn up in the next 7 days which will be great. we still have to adjust the gear linkage up properly, but we are ticking the jobs off one by one, so with a bit of luck we should have everything working right on the 17th which means we should be at Shaky the following weekend at the Yanks Weekend ready to really try the car out.

So after nearly 400 miles in 10 hours of sitting on over crowded motorways and having to sit behind a truck that with a downhill section can just about manage 55mph what state was Lorni in....

Still smiling bless her, Oh and when I parked the truck up I took a photo of the fuel gauge as I am sure that some of our expensive go  go juice went missing the last time we parked up.....

..so just in case LOL at least I will now be able to compare what we left in with what's left when I go to pick her up early on the 17th......nearly there!!!!!!