Friday night, heading for Beaulieu where the Jaguar will feature on the Practical Classics stand at the Spring Autojumble.
I left it late to allow the Friday evening rush hour time to disperse. Set off from Peterborough around 7.30pm. Fabulous warm evening for a long drive south.
Ten minutes out of Peterborough on the A1(M) I smelled burning oil and the cabin took on that misty appearance that you might normally associate with Benson & Hedges. I pulled off onto the hard shoulder and the smell got stronger. So it was definitely me then.
A pool of oil had formed on the exhaust manifold (the guard is missing) and it was bubbling and smoking away merrily. Two years ago I fitted a very oil oil filler cap that had ‘JAGUAR’ cast into it. The rubber seal had perished so I fashioned a temporary gasket out of cardboard. It was leaking like a stuck pig, as they say in Yorkshire.
I gently removed the cardboard ring, replaced it the other way round and tightened the cap as hard as I could. I checked it twice before Beaulieu and it wasn’t leaking anymore.
Met news editor Nigel and deputy editor Ben in the Passage to India restaurant in Lyndhurst at 11pm. Very late for chillies that hot!
THIS IS the story of life with a classic car. I drive a 1972 Jaguar XJ6 and write about it here. I'm Martyn Moore, former editor of Classic Cars magazine. This is a two-year story about the roller coaster ride of classic car ownership. The most recent entries come from a classic car rally in 2005, the last journey I made in the car before putting it into storage. Use links on the right for earlier entries.
