I will definitely need to invest in some new tools to allow me to handle carb balancing. Have never had a car with more than one carb before, so this is somewhat new territory for me - on my own car anyway, I have helped work on others before. A fair old while back though.
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Sadly they couldn't fit me in today, but it's booked in now for Thursday morning. I have checked and the toe angle adjuster cracked free no bother at all so at least that's one fight they won't have to deal with.
They were helpfully able to fit in sorting the slow puncture on the offside rear wheel on the Peugeot though - a nail was found well hidden in the tread so that was sorted. Having that wheel balanced has got rid of the slight vibration at speed too which is a nice bonus, that must have been the wheel that was out.
That's two punctures in three weeks. Our neighbours across the road are having a bunch of building work done. Coincidence? Last puncture I had was I think in 2004.
The dash on the P6 has gone back together now the paint has cured.
Much better than patchy rust I think.
It was originally a satin finish (I'm assuming some sort of powder coating rather than painted based on how it flaked off) but I don't think the hammered glossy finish looks at all out of place. I may at some point need to see if I can do anything to convince the top of the dash to return to something closer to its original shape - the whole dash top has lifted when the board backing has got damp - thinking doing that deliberately and putting something heavy on top of it might be worth a try...but equally I don't want to make it worse...I think just taking some black paint to the underside of it so you can't so clearly see that you're looking at the underside of fibreboard is probably the more sensible option.
This afternoon saw some further testing, trying to dial in the kickdown cable adjustment - which I think I've pretty much got there now. It's fair to say that with the carbs being synced and the timing adjusted we do have rather more low end torque now. To the point that when I pulled away after backing out of the drive for the first time the few things which had been sitting on top of the dash and in the open glove box were launched into the passenger seat/my lap with quite some force. Previously you needed to noticeably press the accelerator to get power, now bumbling around on residential side streets just requires the tiniest of inputs as you'd kind of expect for an engine and gearbox combination like this. The typical V8 burble is now very much present on light throttle.
There is definitely something not quite right with the rear suspension. Turning right at a roundabout with any speed will make the nearside rear tyre rub on the arch as that corner is sitting far too low. Hoping we can get it up on the ramp when I have the tracking done to get a proper look at what's going on. I can't see evidence of a broken spring poking my head under the car, but you can't really get a clear look at it. There could be a break towards either extreme end of the spring that I just can't see.
While we were out doing the testing I was getting a little warm so opened the fresh air vent below the instrument panel.
This it turned out was a poorly considered decision and was definitely a mistake. The millisecond the vent started to open, approximately 30 years worth of dessicated spiders, a not inconsiderable number of pine needles, atomised leaves and a large amount of dust was launched straight into my face. All I can say is I was very glad to be wearing sunglasses at the time as it kept at least most of it out of my eyes.
Later in the afternoon I made a bit of a save of some completely non car related hardware. As this whole estate was originally built as part of a homes expo quite a few of the houses had some quite distinctive fixtures and fittings. The vast majority of them in the intervening 42 years have of course been refitted in rather less exotic decor, though there was one house just round the corner from us which had survived with a huge amount of the original kit still in situ.
Sadly following the sale of the place last year it's now being gutted and renovated, into I'm sure a far less interesting form. I did rescue one little fragment of the original expo which can now live on.
A good chunk of that is going to be made into a very festive rug for my room.
I'm a great believer that the world's seeming to have become afraid of bold colours is a very sad thing. Aside from just liking bold patterns and such (blame being the son of a commercial artist from the 60s!), while it's a small thing it's a bit of MK's history I've been able to preserve.
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