However, on returning to the car for the trip home, it started for about a minute, then stopped. It does have a habit of flooding easily from cold if you use maximum choke, as the Holley shuts off all the air, then proceeds to dump was seems like litres of fuel into the manifold.
So, we left it for a bit, then re-tried, nothing. The Suffolk posse then pushed me from the grass to the road in the car park for a bump start. Several attempts in 1st/2nd/3rd gear - nothing. Removing a plug showed it to be a good colour and dry. Hmmm, not flooded then.
It was then we noticed the fuel filter was almost empty. So I investigated blockages, blew through fuel lines ... before we noticed the pump wasn't pumping. Once up to pressure, these QH replacement pumps don't make much noise, so the 5 tired Suffolk travellers failed to realise.
My battery is in the boot, so after fidding with fuses and realising it wasn't those, it didn't take long to find a spare piece of wire and make a permanent connection.
This quick bodge saw us out for the return journey, where I dumped the car on the drive, disconnected the wire, emptied it of purchases and left it well alone.
The lesson learnt? Well the next day at work, I had a sudden thought "INERTIA SWITCH!!". Got home and sure enough it had popped, only about 1mm, but enough to break the connection.
Grrrrr, not sure what caused it as it survived the Stoneleigh speed humps with no problem.
Grrrrr, not sure what caused it as it survived the Stoneleigh speed humps with no problem.
Thanks to Chris, Lindsey, Simon and Brian for the fault finding help and words of encouragement.
Back to the show and I had a good time. Met up with a few old friends and bought a few things I needed.
- TR6 rear brake shoes and drums from TR Shop
- Headrest Foams from TR Shop
- 13" Moto-lita steering wheel and Boss from Rimmer Brothers
The headrest foams were for the seats I now have in the GT6. These were in my Spitfire, and I had them refurbed 22 years ago, but I didn't bother with the headrests as they were fine. Not anymore. After 40 years, they had turned to bags of sand. Monday night, I opened them up to find this crumbling mess inside.
New foam in place and old cover stapled back on gave me this.
One final bit of good news, the 300 mile round trip showed the Stag returning around 27MPG and I seem to have cured it's excessive oil thirst (max to min in 200miles). This was down to the rear block breather being fed into a vacuum port under the carb, which seemed to suck oil in through the engine.
The picture below shows my new set-up.
Block Breather - Pipe - Fuel Filter - Pipe Into Wing.
In the 300 miles, the level on the dipstick hardly moved. Success!
