Spitfire MOT

Yesterday, the Spitfire went for it's MOT, having been off the road since it's return from France last September following it's breakdown near Grenoble on the 10 Countries Run. I now have two Endeavor Awards for this event - must do better next year!

Since then, over the Winter, well Spring really it was too cold during the winter, I have taken the head off, de-coked it, put a new Payen head gasket on, fitted new tubular manifold and new jets to the carbs - got rid of those waxstats at long last. I took the car around to my local classic friendly mechanic, explaining the work I'd done and that she may be running a bit rich as sometimes the jets don't go back fully when the choke is pushed in, followed by those immortal words, 'if anything needs doing to pass the test, please do it!'.

As she was going to be done during the morning, I waited at home for the inevitable phone call, when none arrived by 11.45 I rang Clive the mechanic who gave me the good news, she passed with no formal advisories at all, so I must be doing something right after all!

He did however point out that the sill edges are getting a bit crumbly suggesting the inner sills may need some attention in the future but were not significant enough to warrant a formal advisory. Don't you just love 'old style' classic friendly MOT testers!

So today, I taxed her and gave her a good thrashing as a special treat up the M20 to Halfrauds for a bulb for my modern car - the second headlight bulb to fail in the space of 2 months. I have a theory that these full time driving lamps on modern cars wear out the bulbs quicker. I am tempted to buy a pair of Osram UltraLife H7's for £18.99 a pair as they come with a 3 year guarantee, but Halfrauds don't stock them, so settled for Bosch at £10.99 a bulb!

No real Stag news at the moment other than I had a phone call last week to say the rebuilt engine is ready and that they (Favershams) should be extracting the old one by Friday.

Currently mulling over whether to put the Aley Roll Bar back on the Spitfire for the Round Britain Reliability Run, I took it off for the 10CR to afford us a bit more recline on the seats, but I'm a bit wary of night driving around the Scottish Highlands and Wales in potentially wet weather and feel it may be prudent to have the extra safety, I must be getting old! I'll see what my co-driver thinks.