Waking Up

I wasn't expecting to get the car on the road before Christmas, but progress has been good recently, and actually it might just be possible.  Whether I want to drive it on wintery roads is another matter though... here's hoping for a dry mild winter with no gritters out there spraying corrosive salt all over the place.  Or, perhaps, a deeply snow-bound winter so I don't feel so bad about keeping it in warm dry storage while I'm out on the sledge.  

Wakey wakey...

There's something about seeing the headlights shining that makes me think that the car has woken up from a deep sleep.  But even better is hearing the heartbeat as the engine fires for the first time in... how many years?  We're not sure but it could be 46...  After a strip down and inspection, there wasn't much needed, so the rebuild just included new bearing shells and a light hone on the piston bores.  And of course the cylinder head mods for unleaded fuel.  Apart from that it's pretty much standard, and to my ears it sounds great, without too much tappet noise (which I believe can be a "feature" of the B18) and with a nice burble from the straight stainless steel pea-shooter pipes.  

One of the minor details I've been thinking about is how to deal with the two small round holes in the dashboard left by the previous owner fitting a later-spec grab handle which I didn't really want to keep.  The dash trim seems to be made of unobtanium, so replacing it wasn't an option.  Rather than just cap the holes with dome-headed screws, I thought I'd make them useful, with a switch and a map light.  Keith managed to pick this nice NOS lamp up from the auto jumble at last weekend's Lancaster Classic Car Show at the NEC.  Great show by the way, and I finally got to meet Kevin Price (owner of the original Saint car) and have a look at this famous and fantastically restored P1800.  

Meanwhile - back to work to earn some more money to finish the project.  We're hoping to have it driving around by the end of next week, so I'll post more pics and video if I get a break in the work schedule long enough to go over to the workshop.