My friend David was driving his father-in-law’s Aston in a classic car ‘rally’ around Surrey and needed company, of course he really had to twist my arm!

Stephanie came too and rode in the back - most unlike her, but either testament to the comfort of the car, or David’s driving - she was not car sick at all!

David was the rally’s official photographer, so we kept stopping to take pictures of the other cars.

Such as this beautiful Lagonda:

Or my favourite contender for the ‘Slow Car Club’ - this ultra rare 2CV pick-up:

In the end it was David’s wife Amanda in her orange Beetle who ‘won’ the rally…

It was really great to ride around Surrey thinking, ROJ will be like this one day!

Oh yes, and happily chomping their way through Gary’s vegetable patch.

There was I removing the array of Weber carburetters from the engine

when I heard this roar of dismay from the garden - I emerged to find Gary, John and Malcolm herding up a flock of sheep that had escaped from the field at the top of the farm - shame I wasn’t quick enough dashing back in for my camera - but here’s one of Gary taking them home…

Nostalgic central

Over the past few weeks I have been digitising most of my record collection, so have been listening to music I haven’t heard for years - all those Santana albums I never have time to listen to at home I can now listen to on my Zen, The man is a genius - but even he had a few dud tracks which I can now skip without fear of scratching a precious record.

I am also throwing out piles of cassette tapes - but before doing so I am listening to them one last time and it’s just as well. While I was working on the engine I put a tape on and found it was a recorded letter I sent to my parents from Hong Kong at the time of the Falklands war - I was doing some work for the Military in HMS Tamar, and it was interesting to hear what I had to say, in very guarded terms, about the war and the thoughts of some of the people who were due to join the conflict. Clive B - my Best Man - was one of them. It all seems so very long ago now.

Diff and brakes

Back to the car. Getting the brake calipers onto the diff was a fiddly old business, There are shims to ensure proper clearance between disk and caliper and I had to do the job at least six times each side to get this right. But now they’re done, the brake pipes are all fitted and the diff can go onto the car.

Followed by the rear axle and at least two wheels!

The John Gardiner books - awful though they are - I bought as they came out from Harrods, and keep on my shelf for ‘completeness’.

The Raymond Benson books were better - and once again these have a personal significance because each one has been signed and personally dedicated to me by the author.

And this is where my my annoyance with Penguin books lies - Devil May Care is a great book, but Penguin decided that they would fleece customers by selling their special signed edition (limited to 500) at £100 and a further 1500 un-numbered signed copies - which are now littering ebay at up to £100 each.

No more signed copies will be available they say…. Why - if the book was such a big thing for them, could Penguin/Waterstones not have had the author do a signing session, allowing us to have a more personal attachment to the book.

Instead the book is just another ‘investment’ for Angus to inherit.

Bond’s Bentley

In the book - set in 1967 - 007 has his old Bentley back, but right at the begining of the book he is ambushed on the way to Heathrow -and he thinks to himself that he would rather be in Aston Martin with the compartment under the driver’s seat for the big Colt 45….

Indiana Jones (my alter-persona) and the Crystal Skull was great fun - even if Angus thought the ending was outrageous (and the others weren’t…?)

Tomorrow I shall be queuing on Piccadilly at 8 am for my signed copy of ‘Devil may Care’…

Pot - kettle…..

The best ones are usually when it’s been a bugger of a week - or month in this case. The impending launch of The State of the Natural Environment report and the London mayoral elections have kept my nose firmly on the grindstone.

So Zen?? Well that’s my new toy - I lost my MP3 player on the way back from skiing (left on a Lufthansa plane) so bought myself this really jazzy 60gb media player a Creative Zen Vision W - the music quality is superb, and the size of the screen means I can watch movies when travelling.

This weekend I worked solidly on the engine, I’ve got two, but I’m planning on rebuilding the original one from ROJ to keep the chassis and engine number consistent.

The engine was pretty filthy, so I took it out into the sunshine and using my Boy’s Own Tool Kit compressor, sprayed it all over with gunk and then jet washed it.

I like this photo - it reminds me of two Star Wars robots having a chat:

Once I’d chased all the spiders out I rigged up the crane and with Gary’s help removed the gearbox:

After taking off the torque converter we attached the engine stand - this was an awkward job which required the help of both Gary and Malcolm - we hoisted the engine up high - then lifted the engine stand up to attach it, then lowered the whole thing down again.

By this time it was getting late and time for Chinese take away - I slept very well that night.

On Sunday I sorted out the workshop, chucked out some scrap and did a few odd jobs - it was such a lovely day that I spent sometime sitting in the garden reading the workshop manual.

My number two engine actually looks in better condition, but it’s untested and we know that the one on the stand actually works - once rebuilt it too will look smart again.

And the cherry on the cake - Malcolm drove me to Bedford station in his MGA - bliss.

Being the owner of a very upmarket motor car, I thought I would revisit my youth and take my fellow connoisseurs of the pastry casing to one of the pubs around Berkeley square in Mayfair.

Much research went into identifying the perfect venue - including inadvertantly visiting a gay bar… I have never drunk a gin and tonic so quickly in my life…

In my early teens I would haunt the local Aston Martin showroom - drooling over the V8s and plaguing the long suffering salesmen, who probably saw me as an over privileged brat but put up with me just in case my father was a potential client.

In my later teens I discovered the delights of pubs such as the Red Lion in Waverton Street and the Coach and Horses in Bruton Street, both still little changed in fabric - but clientele now very different. In the early seventies Mayfair was still very much a residential area, and these pubs were frequented by the staff from the big houses and the trendy youngsters from the mews cottages. Now the bars are full of braying yuppies.

In the end the final choice was the Windmill in Mill Street three times awarded for the quality of their steak and kidney pies.

Even if I say so myself the evening went very well, the quality of the pies was surpassed only by the quality of the company. Although there was nearly a disaster over the booking, which resulted in us having to have two tables instead of one large one, and a very long wait for the pies, we all had A Very Good Time.

My duty now done for a year or so, I look forward to the Summer Pie event - organised by some-one else!

There are some great YouTube clips at DBS in the pond.

Still, here goes for another spine tingling installment of greasy fingerprints and skinned knuckles.

This weekend I finished attaching the heat shields in the rear transmission tunnel and fitted the handbrake cable. I had a good look under the wreck in the barn to check where everything went:

And put the new one together:

Had another go at fitting the front shock:

and gave up again because my hydraulic tool wouldn’t fit into the suspension leg, and Malcolm’s spring compressors were too short, so it’s off to Machine Mart again for some longer ones…

(Not so) Veloco-cycle

Found Malcolm finding another excuse not to do any work on his Renault - he’s got himself an old moped to rebuild - I hope he’s not planning a trip to France on that!

The engine

Regular readers will know of my frustrated attempts to find someone to help me rebuild ROJ’s engine - Malcolm and Gary may have both worked at Aston Martin - but on Vanquishes not 30 year old V8s.

Today a gentlemen came to tea who may well be my salvation.. well ROJ’s salvation. Peter Austin Smith is a retired Aston Martin engineer who worked on V8s when they were new… and may even have worked on ROJ. He lives two villages away from the farm and will come over once in a while to supervise me (and friends) as we strip down the engine, inspect it for problems, and then put it all back together again.

We start next month!

Past (and present) loves 3

Even before the orange Fiat went to be recycled as a refridgerator, we had started looking for a larger, more comfortable car - and found it in this 1974 Vanden Plas 1300 Princess. She may be nappy-contents yellow (Harvest Gold) on the outside and swamp green leather inside - but she still won first prize at the Bank Holiday classic car show on Alverstoke beach

With walnut dash and door caps, and picnic tables in the back she’s like a Bentley that inadvertantly got hot-washed. We never had a nick-name for her, but the Princess served us well for several years until the salt air played havoc with her inner wings.

When I did my classic car restoration course I stripped down and rebuilt her front end, and she is now in my mother’s garage on axle stands until I can find time to finish off some work on the sills, poor girl - having to compete for my time with an Aston!