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.