First month's report

Well, I've had Dame Zara for just over a month now. In that time, I've racked up 900 miles - so much for 'occasional use only'! The most recent trips were to Lorne on the Great Ocean Road (for a work do) and to Bendigo (to see the Cecil Beaton and Charles Rennie Mackintosh exhibitions).

The only real problems we've identified so far are that she loses quite a bit of coolant on longer runs - which should be fixed with a new radiator cap &/or an overflow bottle - and what we're now calling the 'hesitation waltz'.

The 'hesitation waltz' is an odd one, and something I suspect might take quite a while to sort out. Basically, around town and at speeds up to 50mph/80kmh she runs fine. But on sustained highway runs at 60-70mph (100-110kmh), she will occasionally jerk and surge - the rev counter doesn't budge (it's at 3300-4000 at those sort of speeds) and the road speed hardly drops, but there's definitely something wrong. But whether it's fuel starvation, an electrical quirk or something else, I don't know. What I do know is that she's never come close to conking out during one of these episodes and that if you back off the accelerator for a moment and then floor it, after a bit of a hop and skip she comes good.

Fuel consumption on these longer trips is good, though - I estimate about 23 mpg for sustained 60mph runs (much less around town, of course!)

Speaking of conking out, though, I do need to nudge up the idle speed as she stalled three times over the weekend - once hot and coming to rest at traffic lights, the idle (at about 500rpm cold) drops to under 200 rpm and the oil pressure to pretty much zero. A quick fiddle to get the idle up to 500 rpm in gear when warm should sort her. I also need to replace the little tell-tale 'ignition' light in the corner of the speedo - as she's so quiet, it's hard to tell when she's stalled!

She's also in need of a service to the Borg Warner 35 auto 'box. A trip to Pringle Automotive in North Melbourne should sort out the jerky shift from 1st to 2nd in D1; the 'clunk' from top to 1st in D2; and her reluctance to kick down from the accelerator.

I had my first 'leave well enough alone' episode on Saturday - after cleaning her, I decided to try to tighten up the dash pad, which is a bit loose and rattly. Easy enough to get off, but once I saw how fiddly it would be to get both dash panels off, I decided to leave it for another day. When putting it back together and re-tightening the bolts that hold the pad on, I stupidly gave the left one 'one last hoick' to make sure it was tight - and the stud snapped clean off! At least it's invisible under there, so if my fix is somewhat unsightly, no-one will ever see it.