Curborough… finally!

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After 18 years I finally made it to Curborough Sprint course. It was a roasting day today as my daughter & I sweltered down the M6 through the omnipresent 50 mph restricted speed. Got to the track eventually (3rd time lucky… and that was just because I followed Graham Bennion going in the opposite direction! 🤣) in time to watch a few cars go round before everyone broke for lunch. Eventually after I had signed away my life (& so had Tilly!) we joined the queue of cars waiting to go on the track. The format was a familiarisation lap then a couple when you go for it. I had Tilly with me & no budget for repairs (!) so no risk of breaking any lap records today but good fun all the same. I also got to see a bunch of great friends from the Marcos community (including Topper Preece who made the Mantis models), & much to Tilly’s disgust, have a chat.

The journey back was uneventful (but sadly no Marcos convoy travelling north). The car is developing a whining noise which tracks speed, so I will need to get that looked at. First I have topped up the power steering fluid, as recommended by Debbie Morrison. We’ll see this week going to Liverpool & back if that fixes it. In the meantime the big question is… Did I beat Richard Partridge at Curborough? (For the slowest time that is 😛)

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Rebadged

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No… Not to TVR ! 🤣 I fitted a new Marcos bonnet badge & hoping it does not get pinched from work again. I had acquired a couple of badges over the last few years, both metal (there were some plastic ones around at one point but they were visibily a poor replica). One from MHS and one from the MOC. Unfortunately the nicer of the two has been scratched, so fitted the MOC version which bizarrely does not have the vertical ‘spikes’ on the logo perpendicular to the horizontal. Can you see this in the picture below? 😉

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Thieving b******s

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I got home from work yesterday only to discover that the bonnet badge had been stolen from my Mantis. 

At least the bonnet was not damaged, but a worry that this has happened at work in the ‘secure’ car park under the office. Inevitably none of the multitude of CCTV cameras covered the spot. Fortunately I have a spare but will need to replace it.

 

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Past the MOT hurdle

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… or should that be Passed the MOT hurdle?! See what I did there? See what I did?…

Yes indeed, like the ‘difficult’ second album, this was the second MOT following the fitting of the new engine. I was slightly apprehensive as Jay did the first one when he put the LS3 (so obviously it passed – Duh!). Having invested in some CATs, how would it do on Emissions? I was also stuck as to where to take it to for the test itself, Cross Street Garage being persona non grata after the 2016 MOT test resulted in no engine(!). As luck would have it, a couple of chums at work recommended Altrincham Tyre & Exhaust, which I drive past on my way to & from work but had never realised did MOTs. Next day the appointment was made & as of this evening I have a shiny new MOT Certificate! Huzzah! (A couple of advisories on offside steering gaiter & handbrake but both very fixable). Very friendly staff – have I found a new local garage to fix things I wonder.

What, AGAIN?

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I’ve been down in Warwick for the last three days with the Met office having forecast  -7°C plus snow – Yikes! Not having used the car for a week or so I decided to check all was well on Sunday and rather glad that I did. Flat battery which was a bit of a bugger as it’s the new (& expensive) Optima Red Top. On top of that the DP Power Li-ion jump starter wouldn’t work, which is still a bit of a mystery. Fortunately an overnight on my trusty CTek XS3600 trickle charger brought the battery back to life & fingers crossed no permanent damage done. The car behaved impeccably to & from Warwick (including the inevitable crap standing traffic around Warwick itself) & the snow did not materialise. Actually if there really had been any I would have been goosed as the car simply sits on top of anything more than 2″ of snow…

 

I’m also about to hit the first 5K miles on the new engine. Not as intensive use as in some previous years, and would love to improve the heat dispersion & stop the air filter hose rubbing on the bonnet. However… it’s got me to Le Mans & back & done plenty of domestic donkey work so very happy. It’s… also… rather… quick! Yeah baby!

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Drama! Lots of steam, lots of coolant on the road . Engine temp about 150. Water boiling out around the welded seams of the expansion bottle.

Could not see any obvious causes, no spilt hoses or loose joins. Eight litres of water later, back on the road & made it home.

A mystery.

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Thirtsy

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Having unplugged the ODBII Bluetooth sender when I was trying to figure out why the battery kept flattening, I forgot to plug it back in again so no ECU data recently. Therefore I am back to measuring fuel consumption the old fashioned way… tripometer & how much new fuel I’ve added. Today was a bit disappointing. 37 litres to do 72 miles… which works out at just over 8mpg. Admittedly that has been 100% commuting in stop start traffic 4.5 miles each way but… Ouch!!!

Where’s Noah?

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One of my greatest pleasures from having the Marcos is driving with the hood down. I normally consider myself (& the long-suffering car) fairly tolerant on the weather front… but I got rather moist today! 😳 Having slightly misjudged the intensity of rain when glancing out of the office window before blindly setting off home, heavy traffic (& male pride) meant that I didn’t have the opportunity to put the hood up for about 15 minutes of… this!

A combination of no fuel (again) & standing water in the passenger seat (again) forced me to concede defeat & pull into a petrol station. Curse you, weather Gods!

Now one of the reasons I don’t get hung up on putting the hood up when it’s raining is that it doesn’t actually stop you from getting wet – it just concentrates the water in a few key places. At least, that’s the score in my car. I already knew the new hood had gaps around the leading window edge which let water in when driving, but I wasn’t expecting it to be coming in through the front seal above the windscreen & dripping steadily off the sun visor (yeah… guess how much that gets used in Manchester…) and onto my lap. It’s never happened before so a bit perplexing & subsequent inspection hasn’t revealed anything obviously wrong with the rubber. What it did mean however was a s**tload of water in the car, now being superheated by the 6.2 litre footwarmer with the result that EVERYTHING misted up & I couldn’t see out of the car. The front screen demister didn’t stand a chance! As the traffic inched forward I became terrified of driving into the (unseen) car in front, in the end putting the hazard lights on & pulling off onto a sidestreet until the rain abated somewhat. Not my finest arrival home!

On a cheerier note, since replacing the battery the car has started without any issues so it looks like the Optima was a worthwhile investment.

Battery trouble

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Jolly handy this new multimeter! The battery is reading 10.8V or 14.4V when the engine is running, which seems to indicate a battery issue not the alternator. The battery was only put in when the LS3 was added so less than 12 months old – diagnosis is a faulty battery. I can’t rule out something draining it but neither can I afford to not know whether the car will start each time I go to it, so I have purchased an Optima Red Top battery (730CCA) and also a DBPower DJS50 Portable Car Jump Starter. Both arrived this morning & having failed to start the car on the battery I’ve tried the DBPower portable starter & it worked first time – in fact I have to say I am very impressed with it! Small, light, with it’s own hard case & plenty of connectors to power phones, laptops & anything else requiring USB power… A seriously cool piece of kit..

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