Failed MOT and a new car

The Rebel failed its MOT, so to cheer myself up, I bought another one! It's a 67 model - been standing 20 years. It is very mouldy and rusty. Someone had removed the brake drums, wheel cylinders, calipers and master cylinder - not sure why. I have all the bits and I put the wheel cylinders and drums back so I could get the parking brake working.

Mileage of the '68 at MOT fail was 93615 as I had been out a couple of times not recorded in here.

Trip Out

Took the car out for a run. Now at 93582. I'd noticed a small garage locally and decided to take a drive to see if they could take care of the MOT.

Spoke the charming Lady proprietor who said they'd been looking after a Pontiac for some time and she was sure they could help. Great news, I thought. Enter the grumpy mechanic "we don't do them, we can't get the parts",he whined - I countered that I can obtain any parts with no problem, but the sour look on his face told me all I needed to know, and he confirmed it. Such a shame as the proprietor had been so polite and helpful.

Not to worry, I'll find someone else to look after my car, and hopefully with that attitude, the garage in question will be out of business soon.

Fuel Leak cure

Fuel was leaking from somewhere between the mechanical fuel pump on the side of the block and the carb. It looks as though this was a steel pipe originally, but at some point it's had a section removed and replaced by two lengths of rubber hose and an in line fuel filter. As soon as I took off the assembly it became clear that the plastic casing of the in line filter was cracked. This explains why the leak was sometimes worse than other times and sometimes didn't seem to be occurring at all.

I replaced the whole pipe with a copper one, using the original Unions and flaring the ends like a brake pipe - job done!

Mended itself

A week's trickle charge and milder weather seemed to have put the Rebel in a good mood. The starter turned the engine over at the first try without any of last week's drama. It took a while to fire up but it ran as well as ever once going.

There's a bit of a fuel leak however - that's going to need urgent attention - having fuel dripping isn't the safest thing I've ever seen.

It seems to be coming from the pump outlet, either at that elbow or the short piece of pipe before the inline filter.

It won't Start

I haven't taken the car out in a while as the weather hasn't been up to it. This weekend I was called upon to use it as a prop in a photo shoot for the school teddy bear.

Went to garage to find I'd forgotten to leave the battery trickle charging - I think the electronic flasher is draining current somewhere (to earth of course!) so the battery was flat.

Unfortunately, jump starting wouldn't work either as the starter seems to be jammed. One for next weekend.

A few more odd jobs

Finally checked the tyre pressures - they weren't too bad.

The boot lid has never stayed up in spite of having counterbalance springs on each side. The guy I bought the car from said it was due to the body filler in it. On investigation it seems there's a way to adjust the spring tension. It's not easy but after a bit of messing about - the boot stays open.

The bolts are now at the other end of those slides.

Also fitted the electronic flasher unit that I've had for about 25 years (!) It is better - and an interesting side effect is that if the ignition is turned to "off" with the flasher stalk still down (or up), the courtesy light behind the driver's seat flashes! There's a path to earth there somewhere - one for another day.

I went around the hinges and locks with spray grease as it was all looking very dry.

Cleaned the roof with "Armor All".

It's been a great fine weekend, so took the car for a spin yesterday. Miles now up to 93555 and my nieces have even taken a shine to it.

Put another 10 litres of fuel in - noticed a small drip of cooling water after paying for the petrol - I checked it later and there's no noticeable drop.