Had a warm feeling this morning – my overhauled distributer arrived back at the office, overhauled and retimed, ready to R&R…

I think tonight is going to be the night for a quiet cruise – let’s see what a difference the extra advance makes, looking forward to it!

There’s now about 7.5 degrees dynamic advance from 2800rpm, total 18.5, but as I’m not sure what the original setting was for the PI engine, I can’t comment – actions speak louder than words..!

Whilst in the boot, I checked the main flexible fuel pipe from the reducing valve to the main fuel pipe running forward. It was pretty hard and, as the only piece not replaced so far, decided to get a new one from Chris Witor. Bending it a little further than initially, showed that the outer sheath was completely degenerated although the inner tube was not compromised as far as I could tell.

Back into the garage, all good – very happy with the results so far. One problem remains however, some vibration through the steering wheel… I took the front wheels to a local tyre shop and they found one front one in tolerance of balance, the other was well off… A rebalance required 150g+ to bring it back under control, which is not good.

Tried again and still, there was a vibration – took the offending wheel to a known garage – the local Merc independant – who has some top-line equipment. He confirmed the problem and even switching the tyre around the rime somewhat, it was still bad result. He suggested that the Avon tyres were not the best, in his experience.

Another test drive revealed there was still some vibration around 70mph but less. I swapped front to back and there was again some vibration through the steering wheel however, at 60mph now and less than previous… I think it’s going to need an eventual new set of tyres to sort that out properly – Continental or Michelin perhaps.

In the meantime, I received some new plugs – Bosch Super 4 (WR78) – and a new set of ignition leads from Magnecor. Another final road test this week will hopefully show some final improvements before the next round of project jobs progress.

Another oil leak became obvious when I returned home after the last trip out – turns out the original torque setting for the studs on the timing cover allowed them to come loose a little… I gave them an extra nip up and all is dry now after the last run out.

I also received the new silicone gasket for the alloy rocker cover – that’s a good job for a wet afternoon, lining it up and bonding it to the cover with RTV red, hopefully more successfully than last time… Currently, the old cover is dry and seems to be good after the adjustments with pliers and feelers – I might leave it on for a while till the tappets need doing again.