Happy to have her back really

Saturday exactly as expected from a weather point of view. No brainer.

Now what boring place haven't I photo'd her at yet? Ah yes, the gym:

Changover of runaround

Becky's out :-( No real problem with her, but 112000 miles on the clock and around 12 years old she just wasn't going to cut the mustard with my current driving requirements. And using Amy as a daily driver has been firmly ruled out irrespective of routine. So in comes Roly!! My first boy car. It's a 2010 Mazda C3, only about 24,000 miles. One careful owner (my parents!!)

And back home again!!

Turns out Amy has a very small petrol leak somewhere. Not enough to cause a visible sign, but being in a garage for a week the smell of petrol has built up. No time to investigate properly and fix it, so she is coming home tonight and back outside on the drive. The likelihood is that it is such a small issue that it needs no desperate attention whilst she's outside as it will just dissipate. Looks like it is the flexible braided hose between the tank and the feed pipe. But will try to confirm and fix it in Spring of course, in the meantime she's come home and been covered over with the replacement lightweight cover. Have to install some eyelets and tether it down the sides before high winds return. Which is next weekend by the looks of things. Saturday is looking ripe for a drive in the meantime!! Oh well, it was never going to last, I'd have got itchy feet anyway, so I have an excuse to keep her running about after all.

Finally - to bed

First ACCC meeting of the year last night, weather pretty horrendous. Windy, cold, rainy - not conducive to driving Amy at all. Snow predicted sometime soon, likely icy roads. Storms, weather warnings blah blah blah... But last night it was SUPPOSED to remain relatively dry into the late evening, so decided to drive Amy anyway. Took a picture at last, especially as I got the prime spot right outside this time!

The weather DID hold out as forecast, it was quite a pleasant evening's drive and was able to show the guy I bought the car from the new seats, as he was the one that put me in touch, nice to show the improvements.



Also one of the other chaps had two full boxes of unopened NOS headlight bulbs, Lucas authorised spares, which he was happy to distribute amongst us. Unbelievable, the boxes look brand new!  Period artwork also makes them quite interesting, not just simply as spares.


The drive home wasn't quite as pleasant - freezing! I was shivering most of the way back as the temperatures had dipped down to 3° and I hadn't put a warm enough coat on. But found it kind of amusing, the "heater" at least brought the temperature up a little bit!

Then to close off, I have now put Amy away for a few weeks, I have a garage space available to me, and now back at work with the weather set to be so cold for quite a while, I figured it made sense to now take advantage of that, plus with Amy now being inside, I won't be so worried about the old girl!

Not sure how long the lay up will last, certainly needs to be gotten out for a drive at least once a month, but I may only get her back out again proper in March, Austin Morris day at Brooklands may be a suitable date for that.



2015 continues where 2014 left off

No driving since the really cold day documented on 30th Dec. New Year in between and a lot of frosts and rain, first realistic driving opportunity today, as getting withdrawal symptoms, went out for a lunchtime cruise!

As before, had to wait for oil pressure to come up. A couple of false starts but then pretty easy again running nicely pretty quickly.

Had a nice long drive to get the engine running nice and warm, want to avoid really short trips especially in winter. Drive out to Hurst:

Popped into town, parked in Broad Street:

And then home, under new lightweight, elasticated, fitted and theoretically waterproof (!!!) cover:

Edit: And it promptly ripped off in the high winds!! Back to the tarp. Ordered a new cover with some eyelets to enable the sides to be secured down like the tarp does!