The Pater Familias comes to visit

If I am Chip, then the gent known as Old Block came down from Canberry for a visit, just in time for his 65th birthday. Having recently sold the Bugeye he rebuilt from a box of bits, he has just bought a 1966 Jag s-type - 3.8, manual overdrive, white with a freshly (and expensively!) restored red interior: looks very tasty in the photos he bought with him.

We went out to JagDaim and he bought a few face-palingly expensive bits and bobs (a new grille badge, the brake reservoir top, etc.) and to Scott's Old Auto Rubbers, where he failed to find what he was after, but I spent an indulgent $10 on some grommets for the fuel filler flap and a few more 'cones' for the door and boot edges.

Friday night I took him to meet The Chaps at the Daimler Club, where Jack Edmonds gave us some more very useful advice on the points setup.

Saturday saw us ensconced in the garage (after a quick trip to the scenic Repco in Moonee Ponds to buy an impressively huge shifter to turn the engine), attempting to fit the new set of points and condenser I'd bought on my previous journey to JagDaim - fitting the condenser was easy, but it turns out I'm missing the mounting screw for the rear points, so I'm still running on one set until I find the right screw ('3/16" Whitworth,' quoth dad confidently, an assessment based solely on looking at the empty hole!).

I successfully fixed the front passenger door lock, which had stuck on me the other weekend, almost stranding my only ignition key in the process! The key was wrenched free with pliers, but I had to take the door lining off to get a look at the innards - was very simple to fix, and a good opportunity to scrape off a bit of surface rust around the drain holes and make sure the drains were clear. A quick spray of rust converter and a good go with the aromatic fish oil, and I put the buckled old door lining back on - one day I'll get new backing boards!

Fuel pump and regulator were tested and found to be AOK, pointing more and more toward points/ignition problems being behind the misfire problem.

Dad had found me an almost-authentic jack - he thinks it was originally from a Rover - and we put it to use jacking up the front so I could change the oil and filter. Once we had her nose in the air, we tested the front wheels and suspension for play and found that the left-hand front wheel bearing was rather loose and tightened that, and that the ball joints and rubbers generally seemed sound.

Oil and filter replaced - I even got the canister filter to seal first time (tip: if you get the Ryco filter, it has three different rubber seals included in the box: the thinnest one is the one to use).

We did discover that the brake fluid warning light doesn't work, but it just looks like poor connections - the switch itself works, and the feed is getting 12v ... similarly the heated rear window shows a sound circuit through the glass and voltage through the switch, so if it doesn't work next time we fog up, I'll declare that it was always crap and wouldn't have worked even when new!