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In my last article I finished the piece with a request for better
weather in 2012 so we could enjoy working on the cars. In typical
British fashion we have just had the wettest April for 100 years, while
the country is still officially in a drought. You work that one out... The technical day was once again being hosted by Andy Brooks at Appleyard Engineering, and we had monitoring the long range forecasts as to combine with the record rainfall, it was also being held on a bank holiday, a notorious wash out in British weather time. Luckily, the technical day was a little ray of sunshine sandwiched between two bad days. As I am in the middle of a project my car is not on the road, so I doubled up with Chris Miller and we headed off to Derbyshire. We were amongst the 1st to arrive as our journey was not to far and started to unload Chris's sardine tin tight boot packing.
In the process Chris found a dyno sheet for his engine.
Steve Payne had asked Chris to look at an electrical problem on his Fuel injection setup which meant his laptop computer was showing a different reading to his fuel/air ratio gauge.
This involved unloading this little lot for what turned out to be 1 wire...
Steve had agreed to replace a knackered front ball joint on Chris's car while the 4 post lift was free in the workshop.
Steve's son Oliver is currently doing has A Levels with a view to getting into Loughborough University to do a degree in Formula 1 engineering. He has impressed the University entrance examiners with his experience in auto engineering so far, which he has picked up from working alongside Steve on projects, especially fuel injection systems and mapping. Sadly today he was on more mundane tasks like removing surface rust and undersealing.
As I had no particular jobs to do, and it was early, I took a walk around the car park and had a look in Andy's new premises where he stores cars under going works.
Martin Richie's MK3 on 16 inch Jensen S4 wheels
An SP with a super clean engine bay
And in the new premises.
Andy had altered the layout of his workshop, freeing up a lot more space for the 4 post lift
It also meant there was room to store a real rarity, a convertible CV8
Colin and Diane Mayes, the regalia secretaries arrived, and Colin insisted I took a picture to prove that 1. They actually had a Jensen, and 2. They had actually attended!
It was now breakfast time, courtesy of Steve's girlfriend Marie, and we got stuck into some bacon butties.
Things were getting busier now with a Healey getting some new rear brakes
Martin fitting a new heater valve and later a new alternator
There was still more talking and tea drinking than working, but it was a Sunday and the weather was dry and warm(ish) and lunch had appeared courtesy of Andy's wife Christine.
Kevin Ainsworth and Andy take a break
The 4 post lift was free so Colin used got his car on it to do some undersealing
Things were starting to wind down and we got ready to head off. Chris spent 10 minutes doing some EFI tuning, which was a result as just as we were ready to go a heater hose let go and chucked out loads of coolant.
If we had set straight off we would have been on the motorway when it went, and not on a Jensen suppliers forecourt! Well, we got the weather, go some good jobs done, and had a good time, so another excellent day out. Thanks to Andy and Christine Brooks for the workshop and lunch, and looking forward to next year!
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