Showtime and other bits 'n bobs

The last month since my last Blog entry has been interesting - firstly was a holiday to Alaska, not expecting to see any British classics there when I was surprised to see an immaculate Moggy 1000 motoring along in Anchorage! This was followed by spotting the following in Vancouver on the way home, MGB, TR3 and Healy 3000! One of the many highlights of this trip was a memorable ride in a 1960's De Havilland Beaver Floatplane over the Alaskan Fjords, described by the pilot as the Cadillac of Floatplanes.

Anyway, back to the plot - I've been to two shows recently, the Kent Classic Car & Transport Show at Boughton, which was basically a washout, it started off quite well although the high winds destroyed my local TSSC areas Gazebo, Still we did manage 10 cars on our stand with the help of Essex area.

The next show was much better and one I always enjoy going to, the Darling Buds of May show which is held on the farm where they did a lot of outside filming. No club stand here, it's a well organised show covering all makes of cars organised by the P5 Alive club. The weather was excellent and I introduced my daughter and her husband to the delights of classic cars.

At both shows I took the Stag which is now becoming a bit of a celebrity having had my enforced restoration story printed in both the TSSC and SOC club magazines. On my return home from the Buds of May I noticed that the slight coolant link from the heater matrix had got a lot worse and the carpet was very wet on the drivers side, subsequent investigation identified the heater valve as a source of the leak with a continual drip.

After much research on the subject, mainly from the SOC forum I decided to bite the bullet and tackle the problem. Not wanting to drain down the whole system, I joined the heater inlet and outlet hoses together with some copper pipe so that I could also continue to use the car, then followed the workshop manual to remove the heater valve. Despite some worrying experiences relayed by other Stag owners concerning seized valve, mine came out very easily - the source of the leak was a perished O ring. So a new one has been ordered (£1.75!) which hopefully will arrive in the next day or so.

As an aside, another reason for the delay in updating this blog is that I have also been busy creating a website for our local TSSC area on Freewebs, a marvellous free website resource if you don't want anything too fancy. see http://www.freewebs.com/tssc-west-kent/

Radiator Fitted

Just realised I'm not the only one on the CT web site fitting a radiator - Alan Chatterton has done the same to his Stag.

Anyway, the full width rad has now been fitted to the Spitfire, resplendent in its new coating of Matt Black Barbeque paint! I also moved the electric fan to the rear of the rad and as a sucker rather than blower as there is more room to do this on the wider rad. It's a Davies Craig fan, and managed to get some purpose designed plastic fixings that attach through the rad. The fan is insulated from the fins by rubber washers on the fan side and foam pads on the front where the fixings tie down


I had to move the temperature control and air horn compressor as these were mounted on the metal panels either side of the standard radiator.

Using the car today, the temperature stays lower on the Temp Gauge, and the fan does not come on so often now. What is even more impressive is that I now know this rad was recored over 20 years ago, hasn't been used for most of those and has no leaks!

Radiator Testing

Checked the radiator today - hooked up the hose, closed off all the outlets - no leaks, at least at mains water pressure.

Just need to paint it now, after a bit of research on the TSSC forum, off I went looking for heat resistant spray paints and found this: Hammerite barbeque paint in our local DIY store. Just need to arrange some sort of grill on top of the radiator to hold the steaks!!!!

Also ordered some new Pacet fan ties from fleabay to secure the electric fan.

Radiator painting

No, nothing to do with DIY around the house, I happened to casually mention to a neighbour that I was thinking of replacing the standard radiator in my Spitfire 1500 as the existing one has sprung a slight leak on the header tank, when he said 'why not try the full width one I used to use in my Mk 2 Spit'

Not being one to ignore a gifthorse, I bit his hand off and away he went rummaging around under his workbench and lo and behold, an original Stanpart badged (Coventry Radiators) full width radiator emerged, somewhat dusty and grubby following a 15 year or so storage.


Incidentally, his Mk 2 Spitfire, currently in pieces since his son decided to restore it some 15 years ago will shortly be appearing on Ebay, having been replaced recently by a very low mileage Toledo 1300 in excellent condition.

Next steps are to test the radiator for soundness, - it was OK 15 years ago!, paint it as it is very grubby - see photo, and then install it in the Spitfire.

Stag Weekend

Well, not what you're all thinking - this was a weekend of using the Stag. I had an opportunity to join the beginning of the European Stag weekend organised by the SOC on Friday. This was a train ride from Tenterden to Bodiam on a specially chartered Steam train, appropriately titled the Stag Express.

It was a great start to the weekend, a nice leisurely drive down to Tenterden to join approx 50 other Stags in the Station car park, a leisurely ride through the Kent and Sussex countryside on the train followed by local beer (Shepherd Neame Spitfire of course) and beer battered Haddock and Chips at the Castle Inn on the sun terrace, leaving a short time to stroll around Bodiam castle before the ride back to Tenterden.

Returning to the car park to see 50+ Stags parked there was very impressive.

Saturday I was working so used the Spitfire on this occasion, parking it in the registry office car park whilst undertaking my duties there. When I came out to go home, I was confronted with the Bride and Bridesmaids of the wedding adorning themselves over the car!

Sunday was a Stag day again, met up with a couple of local TSSC members in their Vitesse convertible and Bond Equipe and convoyed along the M20/26/25 to Leatherhead for the SEM there making sure we blatted past any MG's we came across!

The SEM was a good turnout, unlike last year although there was little in the way of autojumble. Met up with TSSC Canterbury area and had a good day with them

Whe the time came to go home, Chris (Vitesse) and I decided to go home across country, as I used to work in Dorking some years ago I led the way down some very nice leafy lanes skirting Dorking, Gatwick, Lingfield and Tunbridge Wells arriving home about 1.5 hours later - great run. Only problem on this route is that all the nice leafy lanes I used to use are now 40 limited!

Stag went very well on both days, just getting a bit of misfire on kickdown at approx 4000 revs, but otherwise it is running very well indeed.

Bits 'n Bobs

Sundays run out to Manston was great - 38 Cars in total from TSSC, CT, SOC and the TR Register, covering all models of the marque (except Toledo/Dolomites). Just goes to show that we can all 'club' together when needed!

After the journey home, as the brakes on the Spit were feeling a bit spongy, I decided to jack up the rear and give them a bleed before the MOT Monday only to be confronted by a puddle of oil from the nearside rear shock. Monday morning came, cancelled MOT appointment as I knew I couldn't fix it that day, rushed out in the afternoon and bought a couple of cheap bog standard County items to get it through the test. Fitted them Wednesday, passed the Test first time today - Yay!!
And yes, I did bleed the brakes. I'll replace them with better items when funds allow, or, more likely, when one of them breaks!

I also did a small mod to the Stag this week, I now have illuminated heater controls!. A thread on the SOC forum was discussing how to acheive this, so whilst in Halfords I bought a couple of small LED lights for a Tenner. A simple fit, currently powered by a switchable plug in the cigar lighter, but will be wired into the dash lights soon. I would have preferred a red glow, but the blue light given off does complement my Blaupunkt Stereo!

West Kent TSSC Drive it Day Pictures

The pictures say the words- Great Day - 37 Cars at Manston