Cars arriving and leaving

It is a time for change in the workshop this week: The Scimitar has now left for home and chose a sunny day on which to do it. Slight surprise there because I’d rather expected it to be raining after Cherine and I lavished a good helping of combined Autoglym and elbow grease on the car the day before.

By Wednesday evening the Scimitar’s place had been filled by a nice early Triumph TR6 which is to be prepared ready for the fitment of its overhauled engine and gear box.  Typical of the marque, the old engine had sounded surprisingly well right up until the time that it was retired after developing a habit of oiling plugs. ‘Surprisingly well’ means that it sounded like an acceptable but slightly tired old TR and didn’t give away the fact that all six pistons were ‘picking up’ on their cylinder bores or that the camshaft and followers were in shockingly bad condition.  The Triumph arrives in the company of sundry cardboard boxes stuffed full of parts which I’m hoping will turn out to comprise everything I need to fit it all back into one piece.

The Jaguar XK8 finally has panel illumination that works, now that suitable  bulbs have arrived with the main dealer, and the car will be ready to go out tomorrow before I start sorting through the aforementioned cardboard boxes.  One expected job which hasn’t materialised is washing a layer of dust off the Triumph, since the trailer ride to the workshop has proved remarkably and unexpectedly efficient in removing the lot by the time I arrived.  The car has been covered with a fabric dust sheet and although it hasn’t prevented dust from settling on the coachwork it has been very effecive in preventing it from sticking!