Pre-Christmas update

I was able to procure some of the parts I needed to start tacking the niggles on Margaret. There was an Acclaim in Derbyshire that I was able to liberate the bits I needed and better still it was free (apart from the cost of the petrol but was worth it) I got the front door glasses with the all-important holders, the front grille, the lower trim strips off the front doors, the front grille, the headlight surrounds, two steel wheels, and the door panel for the passenger side rear door. I was able to fit the door panel without any problems but in the process I found out that MK1 & MK2 interior rear door handles are different. Well, they're not actually different. They were swapped over. The driver's door glass went in without any trouble so I can now wind the window up and down. The front passenger side wasn't as easy because half of the holder had rusted away so I tried to bolt the remaining half to the winder mechanism but it wouldn't work and I ended up bending the winding mechanism. Fortunately, I've been offered bits of another Acclaim that's in Leeds (from one of my Triumph friends) but he's woring in Egypt until mid-January. I'm not desparate so I can wait. I tested the heating elelments in my spare rear glass with my multimeter and I'm getting a resistance reading so I'm confident the heated rear window will work. If it hadn't been for this snow I'd have had the glass fitted. Ideally, I'd have liked to do the job in the garage but Brown is in there with Blue parked outside the garage and both of those cars are refusing to start. Brown is turning over but there's no spark so I'll have to set the points and that means a "distributor out" job. If I mark the position of the dizzy & and the rotor arm everything should be tickety boo. With Blue I replaced the fuel filter but fuel doesn't seem to be getting to the carbs. To get to the fuel filter the left rear wheel has to come off so while that was off I gave the wheel a coat of silver Hammerite smooth and it looks a LOT better. One down, three to go.

Margaret has been giving good service but I suspect that the battery could be on the way out as it is difficult to turn the starter over of a morning. I've topped up the cells and I'm getting 14volts across the terminals when she's running. I need to get the battery tested before I splash out on a replacement. I have considered fitting Blue's as that is a known good battery and has plenty of life left in it.