First start at home.

Well this blog is well out of date!!

This is jumping forward a bit as many things have happened since my last run of activity. Mainly my time is now mostly taken up with nappies etc following the happy arrival of our first daughter Emily.

In the garage I completed the engine install - details of that I will back fill later - and now it was ready to run.

So with a trusty assistant, thanks Andy, at the ready we went for first start.

Hummm not so great!

After a quick check of a few things we realised that a minor error had been made. Muggins here had forgotten that the Ford dizzy rotates anticlockwise and had put all the plug leads on in the wrong order!

So a quick re-arrangement took place and we tried again.

Success! With no silencing it was quite loud though not dreadful. the pipes were attached and it it was run again until the fan cut in to check we had cooling. All was well apart from a few water leaks.

This is the final video taken after she was put to bed for the night, couldn't resist one last run!

Gauges - the final decision!

Well, I did say I was prone to changing my mind, so to not disappoint
 
I've done it again. This time though it's the final decision and money has changed hands.

Keeping with my intention to maintain the classic instrument look but introduce a little modern tech to proceedings I kept looking about for an alternative to the speed hut offerings. Whereas it would have been nice to have unique logos on the gauges I was concerned at spending so much on gauges not sourced in the UK.

My targets were:

1)  White on black gauge design
2) Through the dial LED illumination.
3) All electric senders.
4) Minor gauges 270° sweep

Enter the Smiths Flight range.

In the end I went for

Speedometer
Tachometer
Fuel gauge
Water Temperature gauge
Oil Temperature gauge
Oil Pressure gauge
Voltmeter

Here's a brief video of the little dance they do at power on.

So that's one decision properly made - no going back!