Rubbery bits and happy birthday

Current milage: (1)53,970 (2270 miles since purchase in February 2006)
Latest costs: $240 (radiator hose kit, thermostat, fan & alternator belts, petrol filter, etc, etc.); $550 (registration renewal and third-party insurance)

Dear Diary,

The next time I take it upon myself to drain the radiator and begin undoing cooling hoses at a late hour on a wet, wintery Sunday afternoon, please stop me.

Firstly, it's a happy 37th birthday to both me (on 1 July) and Dame Zara (on 3 July). Sort of.

A number of witnesses (not the least of whom are my parents) and the NSW Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages will attest to the fact that I definitely entered this world on 1 July 1969. As Dame Zara's registration falls due on 3 July, the rego label says '1969', and I am assuming she still carries her original number plates, it's a not unreasonable stretch to say that her 'birthday' was 3 July 1969.

I daresay she was conceived quite a few months earlier at Brown's Lane, and spent some time at sea before landing on this strange shore - but short of shelling out an unreasonable amount of Sterling on a Heritage Certificate from the Jaguar/Daimler Heritage Trust, the gory details of her construction remain a mystery and we hereby declare 3 July her birthday. OK?

In early celebration, on the afternoon of *my* birthday Kathy & I undertook an entertainingly mis-navigated (by me) journey to Middle Urbia (Clayton, to be precise) to make the acquaintance of Mr Gary Ayre at JagAyre. Amid the carcasses of any number of Jaguars, Daimlers, and the odd 70s Roller &/or Bentley, the charming Mr Ayre disappeared into his dim and cavernous warehouse and returned (eventually) bearing a Trevor trove of rubbery bits from my 'to do' list, including: top and bottom radiator hoses, T-sections, a fan belt, an alternator belt and (in the not-rubbery department) a thermostat in its original green Jaguar box and a fuel filter element.

After not buying the slightly raffish Mk2 parked on his forecourt, we navigated our way back though the 'urbs and - once suitably dolled up - headed back much the same way for a slap-up dinner at Mizz Charlotte's in Brighton.

Not at all bright and not particularly early on a very rainy and miserable Sunday I ventured out to the garage and started on the 'easy' jobs: the fuel filter went in without much complaint; next was replacing the fan and alternator belts and fitting the replacement tensioner pulley that dad found for me...

Some hours later ...

The pulley was on (hurrah!), the fan belt was on (double hurrah!) and, after much swearing, the new alternator belt can wait and the old one will do for now. Short of taking off the whole fan and viscous coupling, and the fan cowl, and most likely not only the radiator but the grille as well, it wasn' t going in there. I known when I'm beaten.

Somewhere in the midst of all this belt action, I'd wandered (by virtue of the 59 tram) off to my favourite branch of Repco in beautiful Moonee Ponds and picked up some lengths of 3/4" and 5/8" heater hose (to make up the various lengths that join up the manifold rails and heater cables), and some noxious chemicals to flush out the radiator.

Despite the lowering sky and late hour once I returned, for some stupid reason I decided that this was the perfect time to not only pop off the hideously bulbous lower end of the exant bottom radiator hose and let all the coolant exaunt stage left into a cunningly placed bucket, but to undo not only the upper end of the lower rad hose but also the top hose and the thermostat housing. Oh the horror. Brown gunge everywhere - at least the thermostat housing came off with minimal levering and cleaned up (after a fashion) with some sandpaper.

But as darkness fell, I was faced with the unenviable task of putting it all back together - did I mention that another birthday jaunt was to take Beryl the Galant down the road to Suspension City to have her undercarriage dealt with, so if I wanted to motor anywhere on Monday, then it had to be in Dame Zara?

At this juncture, let it be said that I have never before tried to fit brand new radiator hoses to a car.

I have certainly never before tried to fit brand new radiator hoses to a car with a notoriously cramped engine bay as darkness falls, in the rain, in the dark, when it's about 10 degrees, largely lying - admittedly just within the comparative safety of the garage - in a pool of spilled, ancient green sticky coolant. And I got my hair cut yesterday.

Not to blow mine own trumpet, but - by dint of a bucket of boiling water and a tub of Vaseline I found in the hall cupboard, somewhat less skin on the back of my right hand than I am used to, and quite a number of rude words, I finally managed to return the old dear to continence, to refill her with water and the Bars Leaks radiator cleaner (which I found was rather caustic by the clever application of my rather chafed finger as a stirrer - ouch, that smarts!) and to sucessfully start her, get the noxious concoction flowing, and and get her to operating temperature without undue incident.

The astute reader (if any such has stayed the admittedly rather long course) will note that there are a few crucial steps yet to go before the job is really done - I still need to dismantle much of the manifold and carbs if I'm going to replace the T-sections (and I'd be silly not to); I haven't yet flushed the heater matrix (and seen if I have to return to Mr Ayre clutching $110 to purchase a new heater tap if mine is beyond the pale); and I will need to empty out the cleaning solution in a week ot two and replace it with a proper mix of coolant, anti-corrosion solution and Bars Leaks (to see if I can cure my weepy engine plug - I really don't fancy trying to get to that or to pay anyone else to ...)

All of this needs to be done before the weekend of the 22nd/23rd July, as we will be heading off to Beechworth and therabouts for the Daimler Club's traditional 'V8 Brass Monkey weekend' ... oh, and Gary Ayre found me The Screw to finally fit my second set of points! Perhaps the Hesitation Waltz will be cured!