The dog's first birthday

On Saturday the puppy became one year old - so no longer a puppy.

We took her to the pub for a drink in the local market town, about 10 miles each way.  As it was a lovely day we took the Daimler.  Here are a few pics of the dog, in her Daimler, on the way to the pub.

We also tidied the garage and came across the wheels that we had taken off to put wire wheels on.  Does anyone know if I should sell them as a complete set, wheels, hubs, hub caps etc or sell them item by item ?

 

 

Goodwood Revival - part 3

Here are some more pictures from Goodwood Revival.  It was a great event.  I want to go again next year.  Many of the cars were great.

I had the Daimler out this weekend, it was so much fun to get it out, running about doing errands.

Goodwood Revival - part 2

One of the elements that I really enjoyed was the racing.  And oddly enough the racing I enjoyed the most was probably the slowest - it was watching the A35's racing.  It was brilliant.

One of the other things I realised over the weekend was that I drive my Daimler too kindly.  I need to drive it more and not worry about breaking it.  It was great to see so many old cars that had driven down.

 

 

Goodwood Revival

We went to the Goodwood Revival at the weekend.  If you like old cars you must go.  I have wanted to go for a few years - finally managed it.  The car park alone is worth the trip down.  I was like a kid in a sweet shop, so much to see, even before we went through the gate.

The weekend started well when we arrived at our B&B - the owners had a Series 3 v12 E-type Jag in the gargage that they showed us when they realised why we had gone down.

The countryside is beautiful and the Goodwood estate and track is lovely.

I have attached a few pics, more to come over the next few days

 

 

 

 

 

 

A kind of offer

Last weekend I had parked the Daimler in a local market town.  It was left outside of a pub for about an hour whilst we went to the bank, shopping etc.  When we got back a chap stopped me, admired the car and asked me what I wanted to sell him the car.  I suggested a price which was a few £thousand more than I would expect to get for it.  He continued to call me for a few days and then promised to ring with his best offer.  Of course he did not ring. 

It was a useful experience as it confirmed to me that I wanted to keep the car rather than make a few pounds.

Wheel, petrol guage and lights

The Daimler is running well.  But running an old car means that there is always something to sort, or in this case 3 things to sort.  I finally bought a spare wire wheel - since converting to wires I have not had a spare.  Does anyone know the best source of cheap tyres for these cars?  I do not need a good quality tyre - just a spare that works, and will hold air.

Today I took the car to a local supermarket - glancing at the fuel guage gave me a fright as it was showing empty.  When I popped it in the garage a couple of weeks ago it was showing a quarter.  I hoped it was the guage and not a leak.  I filled it at a local garage - about 7 miles away, still no movement on the guage.  Ideas anyone?

The third thing was the cover from the interior light fell off whilst I was driving.  I will have to have a look at how it is supposed to be held on - it would appear that it has been held on by blu-tack, which I suspect is not how Daimler used to build them

A Daimler, a Ferrari and a Jag

On Saturday we went to a local pub called the Pipe & Glass just north of Beverley in Yorkshire, England.  As it was such a nice day we took the Daimler.  Despite it being very warm the car ran faultlessly.  It did show slightly warm on the temperature guage, steady as just over centre, so not too worried.

When we got there we managed to park in the prime spot just by the front of the pub where many people were sat, enjoying their food and the sunshine.  We had not been sat down long before an Audi Q7 was replaced by a very nice Ferrari and then just behind that a Jaguar F type - lovely car, but the wrong colour.

 

 

Daimler goes to the pub

The dry, warm weather has arrived.  It now makes it much easier to justify taking the Daimler out at every opportunity.  So the car gets to go to Tesco's, pick up the paper on Sunday and more recently whenever we go to the pub.  Now it has been recently very hot, one of the shortcomings of older cars is shown up - no air conditioning.  But overall it is great to get out in the car, lots of waves and smiles from drivers going the other way.

The best little classic do?

I went to a little classic car gathering at Friston in Suffolk.  It is held on a village green by a local pub, admission is by donation to a local charity and it feels great.  It is held on a Thursday evening.  This is the second year I have been, the sun always shines and the whole event feels really relaxed.  The cars are all mixed up.  There is no judging - some are worth hundreds of thousands of pounds and will be parked next to a Truimph Herald worth rather less.  Everyone smiles and all of the owners chatter away.  The range of cars is amazing, all of the standard Jaguars, Truimphs, Austins, Morris's as well as some cars fron the US sitting next to Astons and a number of old Bentleys and some lovely Alivis's.

Here are a few pics.  However there was no Daimler to have a look at.

Enjoying the Daimler and insurance

Now the wire wheels are on the car there remain many little jobs to do plus I want to sort electronic ignition.  There are 2 reasons, it needs a new distributer cap and leads - it tracks and as a result when it is a bit damp it misfires a bit and secondly I want to do away with points. 

That said every opportunity I get I use it to go somewhere. 

Just had some interesting dealings with Adrian Flux insurance. They do a lot of classic car insurance as well as home insurance etc.  Tried to reinsure one of the houses we rent out, they were terrible, expensive and very unhelpful, so I will not be bothering them with car insurance business either.

Very happy now

At last the wire wheels are on.  And I cannot help smile everytime I see the car in the garage. This bank holiday weekend I have used the car at every opportunity, so it went to Tesco's, the local tip, we went for dinner in it one evening and to pick up the Sunday papers.  All a little childish for someone my age - but I am enjoying it.

Next job - electronic ignition, distributer cap and leads as it is tracking and hence not always as smooth as it should be.

So I now have a set of wheels, tyres, hub caps and hubs - would anyone be interested in buying them?

See below for the before and after pictures

Half way there

The front wheels have been changed to wires.  The rear ones require a hydraulic press so hopefully will be done next week.

Looks better with the wires.  Will anyone be interested in the wheels, or hub caps?

Classic car insurance

It is that time of the year when I have to insure the Daimler.  It is currently insured with Lancaster Insurance.  They seem ok, but the cost has gone up significantly, although nothing has changed.  The car is a Daimler 250 v8, I am in my mid 50's, without any points, accidents or claims.  The renewal is £120, which is still cheap compared to what I pay for my normal car.  Any thoughts on the cost or on any alternative insurers who you can recommend?

Drive it day

On Sunday it was national drive it day in the UK.  The idea is that if you have a classic car of any sort that you take it out on that day.

We went to pick up the dog from the kennel on Sunday morning - which was sunny and dry.  So off we went.  We must have passed about 30 classic cars going the other way on some kind of organised run.

The cheek of some people

One of the pleasures of running an older car is often folks want to talk to you about your car.  The usual comments are; nice car, or I used to have one of these and so on.  So when we went to drop a few bits off at the local tip and a chap in his 50's came over and said nice car - they do not make them like that any more I was not suprised.  After answering his questions about what sort of car it was and when it was built I started walking to the skip.  I was slighlty suprised to hear the accelerator being blipped.  The cheeky so and so had jumped into the car and was sat in the drivers seat.  Thankfully when I held the door open he jumped out, repeated nice car and wandered back to his tatty modern box.

Another run in the sunshine

Given how grey it has been over the winter I take every chance when we have some weekend sun to go out in the car.

A couple of weeks ago I needed to go out so we took the Daimler.  The car sounded great and burbled along nicely.  The automatic gearbox still clunks when I pop it in gear - I will have to get it sorted soon.  I have asked a chap at work who knows lots about cars - he has suggested it could be a rubber bush in the transmission somewhere that has gone.  I hope so, that will cost a lot less than having the gearbox taken apart.

A picture of the car brightening up a car park

Leaking and jerking

I took the chance for a quick run out in the car at the weekend - it was dry, sunny and very cold.  The car ran well, I can never get enough of that V8 sound.  But I have 2 questions that I need to answer;

• what is the clear fluid that is leaking from the bottom of the engine bay?
• and why does the automatic gearbox jerk when I initially put it into drive or reverese?

Could it be that they are connected or 2 distinct problems.  It will have to wait for the next dry sunny weekend for me to explore some more.

Wire wheels - next steps

I finally got round to ordering the bits to enable the wire wheels to be fitted.  I phoned a very helpful chap at Motor Wheel Service who talked me through all of the additional bits that I needed.  And the list become longer and more expensive than I had first thought; 4 inner tubes, 4 hubs, 4 rim band, 4 spinners and one hammer.  £616 in total.  Now all I need to do is get the wheels sorted and on the car.

I confess to being a bit excited - a bit strange for a chap in his 50's

Wire wheels - hubs

I have been spending some time trying to sort out which hubs I need to fit wire wheels to a 1969 Daimler with the the flat, as opposed to the curly rim.

The best bet looks to be MWS, the only other supplier via ebay is Jagman.  The issue appears to be that they use different part numbers.  Does anyone know anything about this?  Or are there any other suppliers of hubs out there?