Ignoring the last message with the Elvington update we thought it would be a good idea to let you know what we’ve been up to since the car returned from America.
As we’ve previously stated the plan is to make the car road legal over the next winter. This should allow it to begin the next chapter of it’s life.
Experience has shown there is an awful lot of interest in the car in it’s current ‘fresh from the salt’ condition. So continuing our attempt to inspire others both young and old we’ve been to a number of shows and events. Every day, regardless of where we have been, we’ve met so many people intrigued, amazed and impressed with our car. Hopefully the ‘normal people working in a shed’ message is getting through and someone may finish or start a project thanks to us!
First stop after the Pendine Sands visit was the Enfield Pageant of Motoring. A fantastically busy event that manages to retain it’s ‘village fete’ atmosphere. Over the two days we didn’t manage to get away from the car at all as there was so much interest from all corners. Ian even got interviewed by an influencer.
As always we need to thank our team that went above and beyond for this particular event especially Harry Smith and Steve Dunster both of which made the event possible.
The next event on the calendar was the Mach 2 Motorshow at Aerospace Bristol. This is a ‘new’ event and the organisers are working really hard to build the show in an attempt to encourage people to a fantastic museum.
The event itself is at Filton just outside Bristol and is the spiritual home of Concorde as well as the home of both Bristol cars and aircraft. With a fantastically well laid out range of displays from steam engines to the latest in technology in both cars and aircraft.
Once again, the attendees were very knowledgeable in both the terms of engineering and automotive modifications. With the upshot that once again we couldn’t get too far away from the car without someone stopping and asking a question about the machine.
At this event Pete Riley stepped up to help and it would have been very difficult without his assistance.
After this we had our first real challenge since visiting America.
The organisers of Classic Nostalgia had been asking us to bring the car up to Shelsley Walsh for the event pretty much every year.
The main concern centred around two points, cornering and braking. Neither of these things have been our strength and to be fair up until this moment have been mostly ignored. The first question was simply can we get around the corners on this twisty track?
We tried to arrange a slow speed run on the day before the event opened, but alas this was not possible, although we did get a tour of the track with the clerk of the course who was more than happy to pass on her extensive knowledge.
The corners once on the course didn’t look too bad once we had the chance to see them for real so the only other concern with stopping. As this is a hill climb it is actually very steep and that to large extent helps tremendously. The only remaining issue was stopping after the finish line. From the line there is approx 100 yards to the brow of the hill, followed by 200 yards before a sharp right hander to prepare for the return.
We only doing demonstration runs, no timing and no reason to go excessively fast.
The following clip was taken by fellow Jensen owner Tim Giddy of the first run. Ian was understandably tentative as the corners were still unknown, but that aspect went very well.
On the next run, knowing that the corners were not going to be an issue Ian was a little more confident that he could at least make it to the end!
Alas the heat must have got to his head…..
Alas, the upshot of some exceptionally exuberant accelerating to the finish line followed by some brakes that were poorly prepared. Ended up with the car stuck deep in the gravel trap. Then we needed pulling out and recovering by the tow truck.
The damage appeared to be consigned to the Accusump plumbing and we hoped we would be able to fashion a suitable repair.
Unfortunately, whilst we repaired the external oil lines, we simply couldn’t get any oil pressure into the engine. We are currently assuming that the bash to the sump has damaged the floating oil pick up which is not allowing the oil to circulate.
As a result we couldn’t risk running the engine again until we can repair this. The weekend then became a social event. Having said that once again, we met an awful lot of very knowledgeable people that were suitably impressed with our ‘home brew’ engineering.
As always we are forever indebted to our crew chief Andy Best and this weekend we were also joined by Neil Gilfillan from the speed record club. Without these two gentlemen we wouldn’t have made it to the start line for any runs.
We were also joined by Kevin Birch for the Saturday, at times it felt like a JOC meeting!
