We had a visit from some friends from Oman last week. They were saying how the country is reeling from the decision of the government to withdraw its subsidy on oil. This has pushed the price of a litre of petrol as high as 20p! Perhaps there will be a mass emigration to Iran where it remains at a far more affordable 7p!

Well the Bond is now mothballed and the 12000 mile service on the SE6a proceeds slowly. It's my fault. After a couple of years of neglect, I am getting back into the mindset of doing improvements as I see the need. This has been silly things like putting heat shrink on metal P clips which hold the wiring loom, replacing the cover over the rear axle breather hole, painting the inside of the air filter cannister. Also decided that continuing to patch up the paint on the rocker covers was not acceptable so I stripped them to bare metal and bought a pot of Ford dark blue engine enamel from Frosts. Do you apply direct without primer? Frosts said yes but I also checked with the manufacturers HMG paints. They said I had two choices: paint straight on to bare metal and utilise the high temperature properties but with limited corrosion protection, or use a primer and get the opposite. I have decided to apply direct to metal as it shouldn't be a corrosive environment on the rocker covers. Etch primer will be required on non-ferrous surfaces. Called John Wade to see if he had a new breather to rocker cover grommet (not surprisingly the old one fell apart). He described how these items had rocketed in price and kindly gave me the Ford part number. It was good to talk to him again. He did a good job of the unleaded conversion on the Essex.

The service was interupted by an alternator failure on the SS1. Fortunately I was able to modify the pulley to fit onto a Lucas 17ACR I had in stock. I will try and get the original Motorola overhauled and replace it. The battery failed about a week later. Coincidence? Anyway, it was pretty old so Daniel has just bought a new 4 year guarantee "cadmium" battery from Halfords.

I dont normally like getting "universal fit" parts from Halfords but I must say they came good with a pair of wiper refills. A Scimitar trader had sent me a pair of complete blades in black despite me asking for refills. I did not want to go away from the original silver so I tried the trim-to-size refills from Halfords and they seem to fit well and are half the price.

Continuing to do the gelcoat repairs to the Bond: It was nice and sunny last Weds but this had the unfortunate side effect that the resin was going off fast. It was therefore necessary to work fast. I was stippling away at a place on the front bumper moulding when I was aware of a damp feeling on my leg. I had been so engrossed in getting the patch done in time I had neglected to keep the resin jar upright and managed to pour it down my leg. However, no time to stop. By the time I had finished, I had created a hair/cordroy/resin composite that prooved rather painful to destroy!

Hoping to get most of the repairs done this weekend as it goes into storage next week and the SE6a GTE comes in for servicing and minor repairs (I hope).

The SS1 decided to play up Sunday night. It had all the signs of fuel problems. It would start, run, then stall or loose most of its power. Eventually, it completely refused to fire at all. Despite the fading light and the need for Daniel to be elsewhere for dinner, we decided to apply logic to the diqagnosis. We checked carb (drained float chamber and refilled with fresh fuel) but it did no good. Having tried fresh fuel, it could be a blocked jet but total failure to start is unusual for this and the float chamber looked clean. Next check was, of course, ignition. I pulled off number 1 lead and plugged it on to a spare plug which I held to the block. The spark was good and strong (electronic ignition being the only advanced electronics on this engine) but something seemed amiss. I hooked up the Gunsons timing light, painted the timing mark and checked it out. The cylinder seemed to be firing at regular intervals but only a few of them when the timing mark was in the correct place. Next check was therefore the distributor cap. This turned out to be dripping wet on the inside (and rotor arm, etc). When dried off and sprayed with damp start, the car fired first time. The cause was an oval hole in the body of the distributor (presumably where there should be a rubber cover or something). Daniel had just cleaned the car and this hole is ideally placed to catch the water that runs down the front of the windscreen. The plastic drain channel stuck to the bulkhead is not substantial enough to handle the flow and it ran straight into the distributor. A piece of insulation tape should prevent a recurrence. I suspect dinner was cold though!

Poped into the Post Office yesterday to get the tax disc for the Bond. The lady said there was no charge as it was classed as a historic vehicle. I said pardon. She repeated it. I actually heard her the first time but it sounded so good I wanted to hear her say it twice!