This must be one of the lowest mileage Acclaims about. The condition of the interior backs up the low mileage.

Another interior shot. That lovely velour upholstery is unmarked. I doubt that back seats have ever been sat in!

Just thought I'd post some pics. This car has been unmolested and here is the original radio/cassette and it is in working order.

Acclaimed!

I've been working on both of my Acclaims. First up I managed to improve Becky's handbrake. I took the drums off and adjusted the self-adjusters until I was just able to fit the drums and it has made a difference. I did the same with Project Blue and I've got a working handbrake there. With the addition of £5 worth of petrol I got Project Blue running and drove her round the block. There seems to be a flat spot above 2000 rpm. I should follow the advice I was given and put some additive in the tank. With only a small amount of petrol the concentrated dose should do the trick!

More work on Becky

I made a start on treating the rust that has started to appear. I applied Jenolite on the wheel arches and one of the sills has also started to dissolve so I'll be looking at a replacement sill. I'm surprsied that it got through last year's MoT.

I removed Project Blue's mixture screws and squirted some carb cleaner into the holes. I need to put some more petrol in that car but lack of funds has put a hold on that.

Got it sorted!

I managed to source a replacement inlet manifold from the Guru. I bought some more Hylomar, an thermostat and some Radweld (the radiator I'd fitted was leaking slightly) and set to work. Things went quite well until I came to fit the thermostat. There was a rubber seaing ring on the thermostatat and when I bolted the housing down it cracked! Fortunately, I had a spare so that was put into service. This time I removed the sealing ring and used Hylomar instead. To avoid the problem which I'd encountered in the first place I used copper grease on the thermostat housing bolts when I tightened them. The troubles didn't finish there. The top hose was leaking so I ended up replacing that with a spare one I had. After that I refilled the cooling system and the car has been fine since. Better still, it is running cooler than before. The needle sits above the notch on the gauge only rising to just above halfway when idling in traffic. I believe that replacing the thermostat has made a difference.

From bad to worse

I tried drilling and tapping the studs that had sheared off and one side was fine but the other side didn't work so that means I'll have to replace the inlet manifold. Hopefully, the local Acclaim guru will have one spare otherwise I'm stuffed! Before anyone suggest it, no I'm not robbing any more bits off Project Blue!

Disaster!

I don't have anything to report for ages (I was rained off recently with last week's 48 hour rainathon!) and then something goes wrong.

Becky's been losing coolant like nobody's business just lately so I decided to swap the Triomatic radiator that I put in with the correct radiator that I have in my collection of Acclaim spares. One of the thermostat housing bolts sheared off. I was hoping that it wouldn't leak but it is. This means I'm gonna have to drill out the remains of the bolt and retap the thread or get one of those stud extractors. Another alternative would be to get another inlet manifold but this involves removing the carburettors. For now I've had to put Snowdrop back into service until I can sort this little problem out. I hope the weather stays dry.

One more thing eliminated

I finally got round to doing a compression test on Project Blue and all 4 cylinders were giving a reading of 12 bar each so the engine is fine. One thing less to worry about. The filter had caught some more crap so I cleaned it out using some carb cleaner. I think I need more petrol as well.