I popped over to see Awkward and Co with the latest purchase.

The Morris ran well, though I suspect a little rich. There was plenty of vibration and weird harmonics going on, which I'll investigate as time allows. Underneath the car. as we searched for loose and wobbly things that might be causing the problem, Awkward discovered a spare half-shaft strapped to the chassis. A couple of bungees sorted out the luggage rack chatter and secured the starting handle that was clattering despite its leather keeper. The next morning, I discovered a gallon of fuel on the floor and a dripping patrol tap.

I drained the tank and happily with just four easily accessible bolts (that's a first) and the pipe union to undo, quickly removed it from the scuttle.

The fuel gauge was also inoperable and I soon saw why.

The arm and float were missing.

Quite a lot of rubbish fell out and once I'd sorted out the tap - all it needed was a locknut on the tap spindle - I poured in some rust remover and left it overnight to do its work.

For the gauge, I first made up a rough aluminium pattern of the float arm to get an idea of the segment radius and number of teeth that were needed to get the needle to go from empty to full.

Having determined all the dimensions (more or less) I set about making the quadrant in brass. It was a bit of a fiddle and took a while to complete.

A spring holds the quadrant against the needle's gear, and it seemed to work reasonably well.

I suspect that a proprietary arm would give better results, but seeing a complete gauge advertised at £125, I thought it might be educational to have a go at making the arm myself, after all, that's the fun part of owning a 100-year-old car.