The not so bad news.

With three days to go before we set off for Angoulême I've called a halt on any more fettling on the Alvis apart from washing it. Mind you when I washed it last week I was in for a surprise; I took the rear offside wheel and the hub off only to be greeted by a pair of brake shoes which should last forever as they were being preserved in 90/140 rear axle oil.

I'd had this problem before (A tale of two halves) but this time I decided to try to find the breather holes in the back axle which I'd never been able to before. After much excavation I found two 1/8 inch holes either side of the diff, well they should have been holes but as they face in the direction of travel it's easy to see why they were blocked up - I wonder why Alvis didn't drill the holes in the back of the axle rather than the front?

Still all that took my mind off the Solex problem of having the correct 115 jet; my trusty Alvis Register supplier had sent me a rather rich boy-racer 120 jet but after a week of it not arriving I tried Plan B. BTW, it's still stuck in the sorting office somewhere.

Plan B was the Carburettor Hospital Ltd. The Chief Surgeon there supplies bits for Solex, Zenith, Stromberg, S.U. and loads of others. When I asked Eric how many Solex jets they had in stock he said they'd had 5,000 made!

After asking what size jet I needed, which model and the length of the jet these were then made for me - he reams them out. Fortunately this package managed to avoid the overtime ban they've got at Brighton sorting office and the car is back on the road. It spits a bit but charges up hill (well, everything is relative)

So after a 10 mile trip this morning along the seafront and watching the beginning of the Ace Cafe Reunion it was time for home and some Marmite sausages - now I'm in the holiday mood!

And lastly a photo from the Rodmell Summer Festival where it apparently never rains and the Alvis always wins the “You don’t see many of these now” category...to which my Humber owning friend will say "...and there's a very good reason for that"

Woe 3

With an hour to go before we were due to leave to meet you all at the forge for the Riley BBQ I climbed into the car, admired the new hood bag and the new woodwork and the newly repaired window and I went through the start up procedure...and I went through the start up procedure...and...but as you know we never got there.

I did all the obvious things like taking the carburettor apart, checking the float level, taking the jets out...

Then I turned my attention to the valve timing...

And then I retimed the magneto... 

And then I went through the start up procedure again...

Anyway after three days of repeating all of the above my friend John Copper (who owns the club which the Multimarquers went to in Peacehaven one Tuesday evening) came over to help. To cut a long story short he said "Have you tried the starting handle?"; well I hadn't, but he did.

WEIRD, there was absolutely no compression AT ALL. So there was no suction for the petrol vapour and so nothing for the spark to ignite.

We poured some petrol into each cylinder went through the start up procedure and it worked...but you wouldn't have still been at the BBQ...

John's theory is that the tappet clearance was too small and that coupled with the Alvis's Mount Ararat moment and possibly the dehumidifier had resulted in carbon forming between the valve seat and the valves thus jamming the valves open

I was mightily relieved as in a few nano seconds my brain had computed the cost of a complete engine rebuild before Angouleme in ten days time.

But I am still stuck with getting a jet for the Solex so if you think you may be able to help, please read on.

Having reset the magneto, the Alvis goes extremely well but it fires back through the carburettor on occasion which I am told is a sign of a weak mixture. Well, the jet is a Solex 110 which is designed for skinflints and people with 9 points on their licence; what I should have is a 115 which is richer.

Somewhere in the Royal Mail infrastructure is a 120, but it's been stuck there for a week. Peter Broom has kindly offered me a 125 which could be far too rich and would obviously make the Alvis significantly faster than any Humber.

Please save Loft from this dreadful experience and see if you have a Solex 115 jet which I could beg, borrow, lease or whatever to get me to and from Angouleme.