SKCC - Southern Kit Car Club. A Club for kit car owners across Southern England. Kent, Sussex, East Hants, Surrey, Berks, Middlesex, London

I can only Eco what others have said Richard. Well done for your dogged determination and resilience over a very long 4 years I think you said.
Now enjoy the new toy.

I am pleased she now goes as well as she looks, see you on a run soon

Well it been a year that the Locost broke free of the garage so it was about time I bit the bullet and put some stickers back on, thankfully donated by SKCC members and still missing 2011 tour.
Then today was mot time and an opportunity for original build partner and previous owner of the Robin Hood Dave (the man not the hood ) to try and see if he found the seating position comfy for the kent tour and as I think he is the first to drive the car any distance to get his option as he drove us to snodhurst today.
I bombarderd him with changes to be aware off especially the lack of a servo prior to the off.
Dave donned his crash hat for both directions with me in my snood and reports no head buffering that I experience so I really should give that a go.
Car passed all good and managed to get home under a grey sky and zero cleaning required.

Great
She looks fantastic.
I was at Snodhurst this week, Jamie changed the clutch on my Dad's Citroen, great service as always

looks good all stickered up Rich

Was quite pleased to get Eleanor out on a run last weekend, seems bad to have both these kit cars up and running, taxed, mot and insured and not doing any miles.
Was pretty good run to blow away the cobwebs starting at Newlands corner with 4 others, 80 miles to Brighton.
On the way back I decided to try the crash helmet on as windchill was still pretty bad and got to say pretty impressed.
Spot of luck in the fact the car waited till I was home before all the power disappeared due to a dodgy ignition switch so after a bit of knee steering whilst holding the key just so I docked the car in the garage and later set about confirming the back of the ignition lock being the culprit.
Bit if searching the world’s favourite on line shop and a suitable one arrived just before this weekend.
Now I did try one of my fantastic video to enthrall you all but you tube seems to not like it.
So as per the pics may show I managed to take the back of the key switch off via the two grub screws (after removing the cowling ) and unplug the multi plug, as the wires on the back of the new one were too short and the wrong plug I had to cut and shut my original loom on with soldering and heat shrink before a reassuring test fire and final reassemble ready for her next adventure.

Sorry looks like the forum has mixed up the order of the pics again.

Well done, I would like to try and get out this weekend but going to spend all day on kevs mini Saturday so don’t think I’ll get away with it

So not strictly Eleanor now days but I have been meaning to dive into the stash of pinto engines in my small garage to sort them out, build up as many to fully build as I can and hopefully test run, maybe consider selling some to make space and £££s and in particular the last engine that came out of Eleanor that was a capri engine I had bored out to match some nice pistons I had, with a racy cam and a head that I did the full polish and ported trick on.
I tend to not rev my engines too much and use a engine flush and oil additive every year I change the oil so was a bit disappointed when I experienced both rough running and excessive oil use on the 2018 Euro trip ( yea it was that long ago that I last took her).I have some idea this maybe due to the RR session prior to that trip.
Once I got the car home and committed to the work contained within these pages I let a part time club member come and take the cam out of the engine for his own ( free of charge as I had been given it by another club member).
So after starting up the Robin Hood yesterday and once again promising to take her out more I moved it over closer to Eleanor and measured up the space left in the garage and the engine stand and the fact I would still be able to get past it into the workshop alongside the garage I decided to do some musical engine.
This will allow me to nip out to the garage / workshop for a few minutes at a time without having to work in the smaller garage that takes a bit more effort and reason why not progressed till now
So dragged out the engine stand that had a pinto with a damaged piston still on i ( must order a new piston ) the engine crane and the capri pinto and set about swapping them over and then pushed the stand into the space I created.
Grabbed a parts box and started stripping it down eager to get the head off and the pistons out expecting to find scored bores and knackered oil scraper rings.
Sure I did a compression test when I got home in 2018 and all was well.
Did not take long as the familiar size tools fell to hand and the smell of oil filled my nostrils.
Was surprised how much oil carbon was on the combustion chamber, piston heads and valves considering the flush and oil changes I did.
Will do the petrol check on the valves when I get to it to see if there is any loss of compression before a strip and clean and hopefully quick valve grind.
Stripped out all the pistons, no broken rings but oil rings seam not to be sprung out as much as I would expect, mains and big ends, crank journals all seem good at first glance but will get a better look as I start to clean it all.
As a taster I took to work some of the smaller and more filthy bits to clean out, no longer is it a bath on top of a chemical barrel and a brush it now a full blown parts washer (needs a window wiper though) that blasts the chemical at the part as you try to hold and rotate it , seems to do a good job getting most of it off and can always use the rotating washing machine that I have used before.

Work calls so will load some pics later

I wouldn't use the engine flush or oil additive. If the engine is freshly built, all the oil ways should be nice and clean, so a good quality oil with regular oil and filter changes (I do mine annualy so 5-6000 miles maximum) should keep it nice and clean in there. Adding different chemicals may harm the oil properties and it is unlikely all will come out so subsequently the engine will running on 98% oil and 2% flush.

If it was coked up, it was probably running rich, but using more revs (the italian tune up method) might help keep it cleaner. A decent fuel with detergent rather than supermarket petrol should prevent this too.

it had been rebuilt a couple years by then but fair points Duncan, be nice to nail it down to a def reason for the excessive oil consumption.