Show me love....

Well, what a mammoth effort over a few short days! After the hopeful tone of the last blog entry as I approached Lincoln on the train, it turned out to be a rather longer day than planned.....
32 did run after a fashion but not well enough for a delivery journey of 130 miles or so. It did run but a quick cabby around the airfield proved that it struggled to get above 30 mph and spluttered and misfired under load or at speed. So, back to the hanger for Alf (the resident fitter of the RAF Firefighting Museum) to have a look. The plugs were cleaned and the leads checked, still no joy. The distributor was then removed, in part then all together - still no joy after re-fitting and yet another test drive or two.... By now, the day was moving on and morning had turned to early afternoon to mid afternoon and still no success. By this time, a break was in order, before we returned to fit a new distributor and leads and plugs. At least this time there was an improvement and with a few more tweaks of the carb and the timing, we were convinced that it was running well enough to attempt the drive south. It was half past seven, dark and the cold weather was becoming very apparent.

Ready to go??
 

32 sat outside of the RAF Firefighting Museum at RAF Scampton - Wing Commander Guy Gibson's office was just above where I was stood on the first floor:

 So, after a quick coffee, it was off to Suffolk! A fuel stop at Lincoln was in order and the tank was brimmed with £140 of fuel along with a jerry can for good measure, leaving the engine running just in case it proved difficult to start. Then for the off. All went well as I wove my way through Lincoln towards the A46, all the while trying to get used to the ideosyncracies including the ear-splitting noise from the blowing exhaust manifold, numbed slightly by my earphones.... All well until near disaster..... Just outside of Lincoln, a few splutters and a few misfires.... Really - you're going to stop working now? After all that work? You bugger!! But, with some liberal use of the loud pedal, it cleared and normal service resumed with the handy flashing yellow light at the rear warning traffic of the slow speed. And that was it really. 40 mph, onto the A1 then the A14, a quick fuel top-up near Cambridge and just before midnight, after negotiating some narrow back lanes, Tony's house near Stowmarket hove into view. Time for bed, a very long day....
 
Monday brought a good dusting of snow in Suffolk and once cleared, I hopped in to fire 32 up. No joy. A auick check of the battery brought news that it seemed OK but once the starter was pressed, only about 6 volts was being produced. Once a new battery was installed - hey presto.

A decent run to the shed a few miles away followed then time for some preparation work after a coffee. With three of us, in no time at all, the old low red PVC tilt and frame (dating from its Clywd FB days) were removed and it was reversed into the shed. The new mirror arms and mirrors were added and the old ones removed, the remaining chipboard was taken off the back and the tail and side boards removed for ease of access and drying.

The new mirror arms:

Then, with considerable care, the original cab headlining was eased out allowing access to the wires and to remove the now redundant bolts from the blue lights and the two tone horns. A judicious smack from Tony popped the roof dent out completely! The number of holes left is amazing and will take a bit of filling!

The original, unmolested headlining:

Tony tackles the wiring:

Daylight!

Look - no dent....:

The head and tail boards removed to allow them to dry and be sanded down:

Looking much more AFS-like already!

That was about enough for the day and 32 was reversed back into the shed for more work another day.