Just to complicate things, I sent the GT6 to the garage on my spare steel wheels (with older tyres fitted) so I could clean up the alloys while it was being repaired, this meant I had to re-fit the alloys before I could drive anywhere and would have to fit the four steel wheels into the back of the car, not too had really. However, my plan was to drive from Bristol to Cambridge for a steam weekend at the Cambridge Museum of Technology, so that's an over 400 mile round trip in a car that has only just been repaired and hardly run for the past two months, fingers crossed eh?
With the wheels changed over, the car given a once over and the paperwork signed off, my first stop was to the petrol station as the tank was very low. The mile long trip was a little peculiar feeling, having been in that modern spaceship of a car the previous two months, and the engine was not running right, it felt as if it was not firing on all cylinders at lower revs, but was OK once opened up. Once safely at the petrol station and with a fresh tank of fuel, I had the bonnet up with the engine running and felt along the injector lines to find that No.5 line was not pulsing like the others, ah, that'll be a partially blocked or air ridden injector and easily solved by withdrawing the injector and flicking the end of it until the steady spray pattern comes out. All reassembled, I set back on the road with the engine much happier, heading for the M5, M4 and Chippenham as I had another stop to make before I got to Cambridge.
A week or two before the planned trip to Cambridge, thinking I would still have the hire car, I offered to collect a Triumph 2000 door from Bill in Chippenham and bring it Cambridge for Pete to pick up. So somehow, Bill and I managed to fit the door into the back of the GT6, along with the four steel wheels and all of the odds and sods I needed for the weekend.
The rest of journey to Cambridge then back home to Wales was fairly uneventful, though I did have to stop a few times to re-adjust the bonnet cones, as the bonnet catches would come undone, allowing the bonnet to rise and wag around at speed, also there was the need to re-position the wiper arms as they were hitting the bottom of the screen and not clearing the rest of it properly. Mind you, I was glad for a reason to stop more often as going back into a manual steering car after a long break; I was getting pains in the side of my neck and upper arm.
So what next? The GT6 could do with a service as the engine still occasionally stumbles a bit at low revs, and then there is the rev counter, which looks to have failed in the impact. I was given another one as we noticed it had failed when I went to pick up the car, but I will need to change the internals around again to have a GT6 rev counter with the required indicator lamps built in, along with the electronic rev counter. The bonnet fit could be a little better, as it is bit high at the front, but cannot go any further down until the radiator shroud is repositioned. If we have a warmish day I ought to get some Dynax rust protection into the bonnet and new chassis parts before it has a chance to rust.
And longer term? I feel I have fallen out of love a bit with the GT6 and have a few times considered selling it, though I'm not sure what I would buy next, TR6? 80's Range Rover? The issue is that I use the GT6 as an everyday car and could do with a bit more space inside for moving things around and have a more comfortable driving position with better road presence.
I wonder if a Herald estate would suit the bill as a second car? ample space, simple (and familiar to me) mechanicals, with the possibility of an engine change or electronic injection for better driveability and economy.
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