Filled it with 10l of fuel, cable tied the loose wires out of the way, rolled it out of the garage and turned it over. Monumental fuel leak. Doh! The clamp on the outlet of the fuel pump was too big and so not tightening enough. I’ve replaced it with a small jubilee clip for now and will source a fuel hose clip a bit smaller than the previous one.

Turn it over again – fired but didn’t catch. Turn it over again… brmmm!! A quick inspection for further leaks showed there was none, so I shut the bonnet and got in. “Why’s there a lot of smoke coming from the bonnet?”. Back open the bonnet goes and it’s coming from the manifold. It’s all the fibreglass dust burning off. I’d thought that’d happen when dusting off as much as I could a few weeks ago but in all the excitement I forgot. Suppose it’s always good to investigate smoke anyway!

Shut the bonnet again and went off for a drive round the block. So far so good, no hesitation (though I didn’t take it through the rev range obviously), brakes seem ok and doesn’t appear to pull in any direction.

That’ll do for now – I’ll plan the finishing of it this weekend and book the IVA on Monday, aiming for a mid June date I expect. Only two months later than I was pushing for. Oops!

Still, it’s alive and it drives. Happy days! There is the obligatory video, but it’s on Facebook. I’ll have to get the original file from my friend who was videoing it and upload it to YouTube or something.