Unpretty...

A busy couple of days and all appears to be well at last. After the problems of matching the two manifolds, Tony dropped by yesterday and we fitted the new exhaust manifold that he had found at Chris Morter's place in East Anglia. It went back on quite well, although a stud which fastens the inlet manifold on did break necessitating a dash around Grantham to find a replacement bolt or stud bar. That replaced, on went the carburettor and the throttle linkage was reattached. After a few turns, it fired up and quickly settled to a decent tickover, which then demanded a test drive. I have to say, it's decent to drive and flies along, of course much more quietly with the manifold and exhaust not blowing! A good 25 miles round trip told us that everything was OK! One thing we did add this time was a gasket between the manifold and block, just in case. These were purchased on eBay and appear to be NOS although not made by Bedford; they were marked up as being for the S type, the RL's smaller brother. With the petrol carrier's penchent for rasping, we figured that it might be a good idea. Seems fine now, time will tell I guess....

The copper gasket in place with added gunk:

 The gaskets as they arrived:

All back together again!

With the 'can carrier' now running again, Operation TLC can begin! The old thing hasn't been loved for a while really, so I started today with a good clear out of the cab. There was a decent accumulation of dust and muck in most areas but especially the 'hard to get to' areas under the seats and behind them. The Dyson soon sorted that out although the clearance did reveal a good deal of surface corrosion under both seats but especially around the battery box under the passenger seat. This will need dealing with pretty soon before holes appear!

Under the driver's seat before:

...and after:

Behind the engine cover:

Corrosion around the battery box which will need painting:

I also carried out a few other tasks such as scraping the overspray from the chrome radiator grille surround at the front as well as rebuilding the driver's seat back - the random piece of metal rod that I almost threw away wasn't  quite as random as I'd thought.....