Ready for Le Jog

DETAILED ACCOUNTS of the work carried out by David Marks will be published in Practical Classics magazine first and then posted on here at a later date.
A full report on the car's efforts on Le Jog will also appear in print first.
I collected the car from Nottingham today with several jobs on the list still outstanding. But it runs much better and is looking good for Le Jog next weekend.

Here's where it gets a bit complicated

THE FEBRUARY issue of Practical Classics magazine has a more detailed report on what happened on Monday November 14.
But it's not on sale until just before Christmas. Well, blog fans can't wait until then for an update so I'm just going to skip through the day with photographs and tell you that it went from this:

Via this:
To this:

And ended like this:

Off to David Marks in the morning

Setting off just after six tomorrow for Nottingham. David Marks will help get the car ready for its Land's End to John O'Groats trip in December.

I've emailed David a list of things we need to look at. Click on the image of it (right) to read the list. It could be even longer by the time I've driven to Nottingham. Tonight is expected to see the first frost of the winter, too. Got the de-icer out.

I'll be getting a train from Nottingham to Malton to pick up my sister's MGF. This will be the MG Diaries for a week or two!

Ouch! That hurt my wallet

When you take a car into the NEC it has to be low on fuel. So when I filled up both tanks this morning I shouldn't have been surprised at the size of the bill.

It is a record, though: £92.89-worth of Shell Optimax. How long will that last?

On display at the NEC

Arrived at the National Exhibition Centre on Thursday evening and washed the car outside the hall. The Meguiar's drying towel is brilliant and soaked up gallons of water to leave the paint presentable for the show.

The hall lights are very critical of the paint. Everybody expects the car to be perfect and don't seem to acknowledge the fact it gets used so much. Ornaments are for mantlepieces, this car lives on the road and my drive. It shouldn't be perfect.

Fuel tanks are supposed to be drained for the show, but I usually get away with running one tank right down and making sure the gauge switch is set to that side when I take the car inside.

Driving over here, the offside side and rear lights were flickering and I traced the bad connection to a fuse mount. I also replaced the number plate lights at the show. The engine runs much cooler at this time of year.

Time for a clear out

The Jaguar is going to the NEC this weekend. It will be appearing on the Practical Classics stand at the Classic Motor Show - more people picking at the paint and rubbing chins or shaking heads.

The following week the car is going to David Marks Garages in Nottingham to have some work done before Le Jog in December. I need to clear out the boot. Just look at all this rubbish!