Outlaw Anglia - took it racing & lifted the wheels!

Well it made it to Billing

Very nervous setting out - would it get there? would everything work ok? would it break down?

Quite tense driving it up there but it all worked great only issue was it lost the header flange plate half way there on the motorway so it was a bit loud for the second half of the journey! Luckily a fellow rodder helped out with a vice & tools and I managed to make a new one.

Good time at Billing - only spoilt by the rubbish weather on the Sunday but the drive home was much more fun, more confident with the car now and it was great weather in the late afternoon so quite pleasant - but still quite loud! Fuel consumption is around 18mpg, so not bad as I know it's running too rich at present.

It's also going to be featured in an online magazine 'JustHotRods' in a couple of months which is nice

Cheers Seth, yep, it was quite stressful on the way up there.
Better on way back, now to get it on stands & make sure everything still done up tight & nothing looking off anywhere.

Not all good as gearbox whines in 1st gear and does not sound right changing back down to first when slowing in traffic. Didn't really plan on taking the box out again when I was planning the fettling list. not to mention the rebuild costs! Gearbox guy is a bit stumped as to the cause but agrees it's not right.

On the plus side it took nearly 2 hours to get home and my Jaz racing seats are actually pretty comfy! not what I expected at all. They could do with a bit more padding but no 'numb bum' which was a surprise. I now know where my footrest for my left foot belongs too as well as some elbow padding on the roll cage.

Engine & gearbox temps were really good - water temp never rose above 197 even in the M40 traffic and gearbox temps stay around 150 - only going to around 160-165 in heavy traffic.
Oil pressure is a steady 57psi and oil temps around 220 at 60-70 mph. Revs are only 2500 at 60mph so not awful considering the 3000 stall converter and no overdrive.

The expensive silica heat resistant coating I put on the floors/tunnel/bulkhead seems to work well, I could feel a bit of heat coming through but only as much as a car heater set on low with no fan running, so not unpleasant at all.

Also very happy that all my efforts to seal the cabin from the engine/outside have worked well, no smell at all inside from the engine

It's nice and steady on the road too - which will only get better once spring rates & ARB are sorted so pretty pleased in general.

Surprised to hear how refined a thing it is for a long journey, I would have expected it not to be even with the effort you've put in. Elderly cars with ridiculous engines are not known for being civilised places to be. It's brilliant that this car can be used in everyday traffic and still return an acceptable fuel economy (for what it is) and provide some degree of comfort, a true credit to your efforts to make it the best it can be.

Tach now fitted and I've started on the LED conversion for the gauges.
Managed to get the led fitted in the wheat bulb sockets on the speedo & tacho but for some reason the tacho one wont work when fitted? Works off the car and it works with the wheat bulb in the tacho but not the led....hmmmm.......
I cheated & wired the led's into the bulb heads so I can swap back to normal bulbs if necessary.
Guess which ones I haven't done yet

No its either a broken circuit or a short circuit as it worked earlier?
I'll do another one when I've bought new wheat bulbs to bastardise.

Ah, different problem to what I thought there then. I now know what wheat bulbs are called at least, I didn't even think they had a specific name.

I know it's probably teaching you to suck eggs, but diode's are uni-directional. You can't put them in back to front or they won't work. When I did the LED's in my GT-R, I had to reverse a couple I'd got wrong.

I immediately thought this, but assumed the same thing egg sucking statement!

LED = Light Emitting Diode, direction is important.