So that's a relief. It's taken long enough and over the past couple of days and evenings, the final push has seen the completion of all the complicated bits - although they don't look that complicated - and everything is working rather better than I at first imagined it might.

As with all these type of things, it's getting rid of the lost motion that calls for accuracy in the machining. That's fine as long as I don't mind doing a number of things twice; I'll just shave a whisker off that and.... blow it, start again. I welded up one of the new links last night - marked it all up; nothing could go wrong. When I came back to fit the link on the shifter shaft, the crank was, well, it was nothing to do with anything. How do I get it so completely wrong? Anyway, I kept calm and sawed it in half and welded it back in the right place.

In the picture above, the gear lever is in neutral and I've set the shifter lever forward because it's easier for it to pull over-centre than it is to push so, for instance, when 1st and 3rd are selected, the shifter lever doesn't go past the vertical.

I spent quite a lot of time last weekend milling a complicated bracket to hold the nearside of the saddle. It didn't work so I chopped the thing in half along its length and welded a bit on the rear end to pick up one of the selector case bolts and located the front end under the dipstick housing. I'll make a new dipstick to account for the extra 3/8" under the head. I'm pleased to report that the whole structure is very rigid. Also, there's ample scope for adjustment of the position of the gear lever - I need not worry about Miss X.

There was a bit of an interruption in the proceedings last weekend, Learned Counsel produced some tickets to go Kart racing. I think this was the opening gambit in the pre Monaco Dash psychological warfare tactics. As it turned out, after 2 sessions, I was only 0.6 of a second behind him. He's gone on a diet.

I was just having a look-see round the corner the other day and I noticed a new addition to his workshop - no wonder the Jowett Jigsaw's forging ahead, he's called in the Navigator!

I had a look at the new radiator in the old shell a couple of evenings ago...

I've still got to find a source of false honeycomb mesh to fit on the front. I might mount it on a slightly protruding flange which'll look rather racy. The discolouration at the bottom is just age - it'll polish out relatively easily. Then, I need to cut a hole in the centre of the lower flange because the starting handle needs to pass through to the bottom pulley. I'm not sure how to attach the handle so that it's always in place and held by one of those fancy leather straps. I'm sure I can dream up a scheme - something involving a big spring; that should work.