Whilst I was attending to the throttle linkage, I thought I would drop the carb in the sonic cleaner but had no special cleaning fluid. I popped down to the shop and bought a couple of litres of fizzy drink and gave that a go; it works on old copper coins after all.

The result, like most of my experiments with various cleaning fluids, was unspectacular, but it did loosen the dirt sufficiently to gently show the parts the wire wheel and then the polisher.

Buoyed by this restorative treatment, I got carried away and distracted from what I was doing previously.....

... which was making a second throttle cable bracket to replace my earlier failure. This version was made slightly longer and will accommodate a larger diameter thimble.

At the pedal end of the cable is another bracket which holds a second adjuster. The bolt was drilled to take the cable and a captive nut welded to the other side of the bracket. The steel is such rubbish that the weld stuck to the 1950's nut - being of excellent quality - but not the plate until I gave it some stick. TIG is just not possible. Perhaps the tin content is very high; boffins will be able to advise.

I remembered that I had to make up a new plate and elbow for the rear of the block. I had just enough 5mm stainless sheet to mark out the plate and a spare 90° elbow in the come-in-handy pile.

The mill made short shrift of the centre hole and I got the stud holes in the right places too. I'll have to shorten one end of the elbow to tuck the pipe in really close to the block so it doesn't clang up against the throttle mechanism and the exhaust downpipe.

There were no problems when it came to welding the fixed yoke to the propshaft. I used the arc facility on my small welder, laid down a root weld in the 'V' and went over it again. Not quite up to professional standards, but it's not going to come apart.

A string of little jobs had to be completed - the chain links for the clutch fandango, the flat for the throttle pedal and, I dug out of stores a very old ratcheting control lever which I shall employ for the choke. The flange is for a 2" downpipe. Learned Counsel wants to make a new roll cage for his next Locost - the tube is a smaller diameter. Rather than buy two sets of mandrels, I might contribute to the new set and reduce the exhaust diameter. It shouldn't make any noticeable difference to the MS.

The charitable interpretation of this picture would be that I was leading the pack during this recent track-day event. There was suddenly a flash of yellow and the Porsche (just visible) came flying past. I was about 20 seconds off the lap record, but by no means the slowest of the day. To add lightness and gain speed - less carbs and sugar?