Cheers vulgalour, I've been enjoying the recent efforts on the Renault in your thread.
Anyhows, the little Austin has made it onto the road at last. Plenty left to do but as I need to spend my pennies on fixing two lead roof valleys while the "summer" season is here along with a few other jobs on the old house I fear little will be done til the end of summer. She is usable though so she will be bobbing around locally once or twice a week until then.
So, I got her together sufficiently to insure and tax her and a couple of shakedown runs revealed a leaky water pump, so thats been changed now, no photos of that as I did it in between a couple of runs to the local machinery auction yesterday, didn't buy anything but ended up helping my dad shift an oxford oil filled stick welder combined battery charger that he got there. I got his old non battery charger one as reward.
Unfortunately by the time I'd lifted them on and off his Defender pickup I walked into the house, got a chest pain which was followed by a bloody slow pulse for the rest of the day / evening and feeling like crap, so I just pottered on to finish the water pump later and never thought to bother with piccies. I'd been getting a lot of chest pains back when I started the Riley but a blood pressure pill seemed to sort them out and my arteries were clear enough at the time.. just lately though my pulse keeps dropping into the low 40's and even the 30's now and then and leaves me woozy, so I might just bite the bullet and go sit with all the sick people at the docs for a check up. The wife won't have my argument that its just a sign of my athletic lifestyle and physique
heaven alone knows why, but she suggests it is probably more to do with being a shortish fat get.
Anyway, less about that and more on the car...
Gearbox is a little noisy, but bearable, it had been filled with EP oil previously and that may not have done it any good, I'm thinking I will aquire a basic bearing and layshaft rebuild kit and see what I can do with it come autumn / winter.
Other than that, well as already mentioned on previous posts there are several things to revisit in time, You will also notice I have no rear bumper and the front one is painted so thats something for later too, I'm also lacking a headlining and its frame, and I only have two hubcaps so she currently isn't wearing any.
Not bad though considering she was pretty poor really when she came, I'll just try and enjoy her for the summer locally, fixing what is absolutely needed as it crops up then tackle things further when winter comes and hopefully I get a few more spare coins.
So, out into the murk this morning for bread and milk, just a ten mile round trip to town but at least she is back earning her keep and doesn't even seem to mind the rain.
Seeing her in the parking space makes me realise just how small a car these actually were compared to modern vehicles.
and a couple of closer piccies when I got back home
I've left the garage door open so she can dry out, try to ignore the dodgy bonnet shut lines, I just left it ajar a little as I pulled the battery lead off, just something I have a tendency to do when parking back up at home with any old car, better safe than sorry.
Oh, and in a rare event for me, I'd actually bought some proper wax and polished her, proof hopefully seen by the water beading
I'd only gone out to try and get some old fashioned simoniz wax, but the local place didn't have any and "persuaded" me to buy some Poorboys Natty's stuff at twice the price, hmm, that could possibly be behind the recent chest pains reappearence
But at least it goes on and comes off a lot easier than the old simoniz stuff.
Right I'm off to enjoy the summer in classic car motoring fashion, infrequent updates at best til either something major goes wrong or the nights start drawing in when I'll hopefully take the project further.