BB March 4

A long overdue update. The car went away in November and wasn't really looked at until January, with the
exception of truning the engine over every few weeks. But as the spring got closer, as with all young men, my mind
turned to thoughts of internal combustion.

The first thing I wanted to do was to re-seal the exhausts as I was getting a lot of popping on the over-run - ion
itself not a problem, but I am always concerned about the effect on the valves. I have the stainless steel exhaust
system and the metal is quite thick, which means that the clamps have a lot of work to do. I'd tried firegum, but it
seemed to turn to chalk and gradually disappear. In the end I read somewhere that silicon sealant (the type that you
put around your bath) is the stuff to use. Dis-assembling and re-assembling with the slicon sealant was easy, and it
does seem to have made a good seal. Lets see how long it lasts.

The othere concerns I had were aesthetic. At the dambusters run I saw that Colin Wilson had edged his aluminium in
aan aluminium U channel and it looked fantastic. Mike Meakin was buying some and kindly got mine and dropped it
off for me.

Forming it into the nmecessary curves is hard work. You have to bend it until it is stiff, and then anneal it and let it
cool and then bend it some more. For those of you who haven't discovered annealing, it is a way of de-stressing
metal where it has become work hardened. For aluminium, you coat it is soap (which only acts as an indicator), and
then heat the metal where it is work hardened. When the soap has gone black, then the aluminium has been heated
enough and should be left to cool.

This made the job quite lengthy, but by walking away when I got frustrated and coming back to it I soon had the
front mudguards, cockpit and lower side edges completed. Just the rear mudguards and rear seat lid to go.

I also took the opportunity to fit some copper edging to the cowling. This was simply done by cutting along a length
of copper brake pipe with a dremel, and then fiting it over the cowling edge. I think that the finish looks far better.

Apologies for the quality of the photos, I took them with my camera phone.

Yes, I'm afraid it's true, I'm selling the Brooklands. I could write a description, but there is plenty of
information on this site. The mileage is 1800, the MOT runs until end April 07 but the tax is running out this
month. As you can see by the mileage, I'm just not using it enough and my personal circumstances mean that it has
to go (and believe me, that was hard to write).

It's running well, we were up at the Dambusters Run this weekend without a hiccup. There aren't many of these
up for sale, and this is the only 2+2. Offers in the region of Ł6500, to find out more contact me at john(at)
11tinkers.f2s.com or call me on 01487 832194.