OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Restoration projects and Austin related chat in here please
Dave Clark
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by Dave Clark »

All it takes is the Triplett charm and magic.
OVY871
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by OVY871 »

Time for another update I think....

So despite just having done my wheels I didn't feel like they were as bright and eye catching as I wanted.... then some glitter paint was discovered and they got a bit sparklier... Image

Had it done in time to go have a meet up with Richard and Alex in Bedford for a weekend there, as you can see the photo is missing something though....
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That's right, my little Ovy finally decided she was going to have her first proper problem. It all pointed towards the ignition system but with a bit of spending from my first payday I got this little lot.
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I'm now running an Accuspark Electronic igntion system and seems to be going well, still got fine tuning to do but it had me running enough to go to what I planned for the following weekend.

Which was go to the Retrorides Gathering at Shelsley Walsh in Worcestershire a little 400 mile journey for a day show!! However the group of us that went decided to go the day before and camp nearby rather than face the whole journey in one day. This was the morning on the way to the show itself though. The weather wasn't too bad at that point.
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The group of us from Scarborough who made it down there.
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Then this weekend was going to be a weekend off from doing anything. But I've been watching eBay recently and then this happened...
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Has a blown turbo but only done 68k miles and is one of the last of the MG's coming from 2005! So for only £300 I've now got a winter car. Was a bit grubby but after a very thorough clean it's come up lovely I think. Got climate control, 6 CD Multichanger (soon to be adapted for 2015 ;) ) Electric windows all round, remote central locking etc. I feel like I have all the toys. But the most important part is I know have a 1.8 Turbo K series which will become all the more important to this thread in the future :whistle:
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Neal Welch
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Car still going strong with thousands of miles being added to the clock.
Click the pic or here to read Ovy's story.
btriplett
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by btriplett »

Geez, Neal!

Aren't you worried about being picked up by the coppers for grand theft auto?
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Countryboy
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by Countryboy »

Neal
I like your trick wheel masking idea :thumbs:
That rover is fantastic and needs preserving IMHO :wave:
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Neil Evans
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by Neil Evans »

Countryboy wrote:Neal
I like your trick wheel masking idea :thumbs:
A friend in the trade does similar for various masking situations, only with filler spreaders... :thumbs:
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OVY871
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by OVY871 »

Didn't reply straight away as I knew a few things were coming up. But now they have happened so here's the update.
The MG, continuing to perform brilliantly. Maybe I should be a bit worried Barry haha and I see what you mean Steven the idea of buying cheap was to buy one on it's last legs but with a good engine... Seems I've messed up and got something a bit too good.

Anyway on with the update.

After the electronic ignition upgrade the car hadn't been running quite right and I wasn't sure why. Turns out it was a just a couple of simple things slightly out. Leads slightly loose on the spark plugs, the spark plugs themselves gapped slightly out (I presumed they would be shipped at the right gap... I presumed wrong) and then the timing was ever so slightly out. I am pleased to say running really nicely again now and is continuing to be used.

So on Saturday I met up with Matthew Wood and we both went to watch a hillclimb at Harewood, West Yorkshire. Compulsory photo below :thumbs:
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Good day with lots of very nice and very quick cars there.
On the way home I collected a bonnet off another A35 owner, thankyou to him, and then went straight to a retro car meet at the seafront with a few nice cars there including these very clean Escorts. Image

Then on Sunday I went to and took part in a new event called East Coast Classic at the Oliver's Mount circuit in Scarborough. When it finally got to my turn on circuit I had a great bit of fun, it turns out the pace car with it's big V8 to make sure we did a steady parade lap was a bit quicker than me so I had to play catch up 8)
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Then after this on the Sunday night I drove the MG down to Wolverhampton with my family for my Graduation on the Monday where to my surprise it averaged 37mpg, so all in all a great couple of days.

Now I'm looking forward to this weekend to drive Ovy down to Mallory Park to meet with you all and witness some great racing, See you soon.
Neal Welch
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Car still going strong with thousands of miles being added to the clock.
Click the pic or here to read Ovy's story.
Tight Yorkshireman
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by Tight Yorkshireman »

With the electronic set up and a later coil I have the "flame thrower" the spark plug gap should not be that critical as it was intially. Not the same I know but the spark plug gaps on my sons Corsa has the coil pack set up I know, (60,000 miles done by the spark plugs) were enormous looked like 60 thou-ish and the car ran great.

John G
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OVY871
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by OVY871 »

So another few thousand miles have been done since the last update and some things have changed too so I thought it's about time for another update.

Sadly she's currently garaged for the winter, wish it was driving season again although I think I'll be taking her out for a drive soon as she'll be 58 on Monday, it's Christmas soon and New year. Each calls for a drive I reckon!

So carrying on from where we left off, I went to Mallory Park to meet up with a few of you. A quick weekend but a great one too, nice short journey of only 300ish miles in total, well short in comparison to the following weekend.
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The following weekend was the owners club committee meeting, thought I'd go see my friend on the way despite it being the wrong way, but did make the journey on the Sunday a bit shorter. But this meant I did 450ish miles that weekend. This was just the warm-up again for the next outing.

Ovy then had a 'week off' where she just did the 40 mile commute I had at the time a few times.

The week following that was the Northern meet so off to there I went, via seeing the clubs spare guys Tim and Matthew then following them to the meeting (145 mile trip to my local meet that day after work).
Then at the end of the week was quite a journey, Saturday morning I hopped into the car and drove down to see David (A35Lad) and his blue van. Nice to finally see it in person!
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From there I went to Kidderminster to see another friend for a few hours then went on to see someone else in Bedford area. Stayed the night at his and then in the morning we both went to London!!
After doing what we wanted to do, we thought to ourselves we're here anyway, it's only right we both go to the Ace Cafe again, so thats what we did.
Unfortunately road works and the sat nav had other ideas and took us straight through the city centre on a sight seeing tour, an hour and half later we arrived at our destination which should have only been a few miles away.
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From there I headed back off, dropped my friend off and head on home.
Total for the weekend. 590 miles.
Total for that week. 880 miles.... Who says an old car can't be a reliable companion. :D

I have been for a few drives since then but it has been mostly parked up since the start of November whilst I do a few jobs on her.

Uprated front springs have been fitted, these are a bit shorter than the Midget ones it had on before.
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Along with the springs, new rubber bump stops, headlights and tyres have been fitted. These new tyres were fitted to match the wheels. Now I have both Dunlop tyres and Dunlop wheels. These were test fitted and look like this.
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Still to fit: New rear springs to match the front end along with shackles and bushes, brake master and rear frame cylinders, new front flexi-hoses, the wheels properly and a new set of bumpers front and rear. Yes, Ovy is finally going to have a rear bumper after 30+ years!
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Apologies for the long post, will post the next update once all these winter toys are fitted, I'll try to keep it a bit shorter. Hopefully I'll get some good photos out and about somewhere with this mild winter weather, just needs to dry up.
Neal Welch
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Car still going strong with thousands of miles being added to the clock.
Click the pic or here to read Ovy's story.
gutty57
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by gutty57 »

looks great on the dunlops mate !
:bow:
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Countryboy
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by Countryboy »

Agree , what width are they 5J ?

Great long update btw :thumbs:
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by OVY871 »

Thanks guys, 5.5Jx13 these ones.
Got the rear bumper fitted since the last update along with some new discs and pads, brake master and slave cylinders and front flexi hoses, braking performance is very good now! I then gave it a service and a new exhaust tip and covered a 'few' more test miles ;)

Another 1400 miles during February!!

This was a couple of local journeys, a trip to the Northern meet which is around a 130 mile trip door to door. Then that weekend I went to the Ace Cafe again. Then this weekend following went for another adventure covering 675 miles including going to a friends house.Then us then deciding to visit Chris for our Saturday and see his Austin's then onwards to the committee meeting and home.

These pictures were taken in the Cotwolds on the way to see Chris.

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I think it looks so much tidier now it has a bumper at last!

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Pleased to report all is going well and seem to be getting rather good fuel economy too, so quite pleased about that :thumbs:
Tucked her up again now though after playing around so I can swap the rear springs over and then to wait until the better weather.
Neal Welch
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Car still going strong with thousands of miles being added to the clock.
Click the pic or here to read Ovy's story.
gutty57
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by gutty57 »

Well It was nice to see ya mate :) :thumbs:

Your old springs now in Gutty
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Young_Austineer
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by Young_Austineer »

Looking good Neal :thumbs:
Zak Linham
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1957 Austin A35 Four Door Deluxe Saloon 'Buddy'
Recently put back on the road after an 8 year restoration - will never be finished!
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by Hurtzberg »

Those wheels look good ovy!
Andrew

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OVY871
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Re: OVY871 - The Story Continues...

Post by OVY871 »

So it’s been quite a while since I have given an update on here, almost 5 months and over 5,000 miles ago infact! So I’m going to split up the update into four posts. But first, thank you Zak and Andrew for the kind comments. :)

Update 1 out of 4.
After the owners club committee meeting I gave the car a break or at least that was the plan. The following weekend I gave her a wash and took her out for another drive out, back to the North York Moors. This time I decided to go exploring a little bit to discover some new roads but this plan backfired on me explored for a little bit then decided I’d go down one road which would lead me to somewhere else I knew. So I began to drive down this road which was slowly become less of a road followed by pretty much no road, the car was no longer clean after around just 2 hours thanks to this off-road track. As I was driving along I was noticing that I was getting closer and closer to a river but I knew the river was at a much lower altitude this was getting me quite confused as there wasn’t much road left. I was almost as confused as the guy in his Audi Allroad watching this lowered Austin coming the other way off-roading!

Then I turned the corner, tiptoed my way around some rather large craters and then another corner. So this is how I was getting down to the river! So down the hill I went over a bridge and back onto a road I knew.

Adventurousness over I thought as I continued on my merry way towards the centre of the moors. As I got caught up in traffic waiting for roadworks on the main road I decided I’d turn around and go back to country lanes home, so off I turned, over a cattle grid. BANG BANG BANG…

I pulled over at the layby just afterwards to find out the rubber bobbins had split holding the exhaust at the rear bumper. Scary moment over, took a picture whilst I was thinking what to do. This picture actually ended up as a double page in the Spring Sidelights magazine (page 44/45)!

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So I had decided what I was going to do, after a rummage around my boot I found the bungee cords I have for when I have things on the roof, looped it over the bumper bracket twice and hooked each side of the exhaust hanger. It wasn’t perfect as it hung a bit low but it took it off the axle, enough to get me home.

After this it was just local driving around such as to the shops, friends or work in March.


The next adventure was in the middle of April, the start of good weather and a trip to take Ovy back to where she was born, Longbridge!

Went down to my friend’s house on the Friday night and as we were eating our tea we saw the weather forecast suggesting snow the next morning. Snow we thought? Not a chance, these weather forecasts are always wrong. Well apparently not, we woke the next morning to discover just that.

Amongst all the confusion of what was happening we decided to head on over anyway as if there was nothing happening we had friends from uni in the area to visit. After a chilly heaterless, uneventful journey we arrived to find lots had a similar idea despite the Pride of Longbridge show actually being cancelled. This is what we found.

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Although not everyone’s cup of tea it was nice to see the enthusiasm of these newer cars there along with the wide range of colours that appeared to be available on them.
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But it wasn’t just these newer cars there ranges everything from what I believe to be a Pre-war Austin 12 up to the MGs that’s were being sold until their closure in 2005 which the event marked the anniversary of. There were also a couple of brand new MG3 and MG6s.
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These cars show that there was a car for everyone, whether it was modified, original or even pedal powered!
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With people travelling far and wide. In this photo alone there is a Dutch, German, Belgian, and Swiss car. Over the road there were some from Ireland too.
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I managed to get a couple of photos with this older Austin showing the variety of cars at the unofficial meeting.
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Along with this one outside the sign and entrance.
The following day went back for a trip out where one of the guys from uni who does videography decided to try out his new toy. A camera drone to provide aerial footage of events, the plan was to try this at the Pride of Longbridge but unfortunately that could not happen.
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Here is a still from the drone along with a link below to watch the short video of me driving through the countryside from a view you don’t often see.
https://www.facebook.com/David.Grant.Vi ... 717384162/


Finally, I’ll tag this onto the end of this post as it was also in April. Met up with the Wood family for the FBHVC Drive it Day 2016 in York, from here we drove back out towards the moors with the target destinations of Goathland, better known to some of you as Aidensfield from Heartbeat. This was followed by Whitby and finally Scarborough.
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Between Pickering and Goathland(Aidensfield).
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Outside Scripp’s Garage at ‘Aidensfield’.

Update Summary:
March Mileage – 688 miles
April Mileage – 995 miles.
2016 Total So Far - 3099


I think that’s long enough for one post. If any of you are still reading this, I’m sorry for writing so much! Will try to write and post tomorrow the next update detailing May’s travels.
Neal Welch
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Car still going strong with thousands of miles being added to the clock.
Click the pic or here to read Ovy's story.
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