In an idle moment, I thought I would clean the threads on the flywheel cover. I'd omitted to tape them up when painting the block and so running a 3/16" die down them would do the trick.

I was smiling to myself and thinking that it was the sort of job that can go horribly wrong if you drop the die do...... drat!

Taking the gearbox off was not an option - the last time completely knackered my back for a week - so I got out my remote mini camera and dropped it into the flywheel housing to see where the die had ended up. Fortunately, it was hooked up on a starter ring tooth only a couple of inches away from the top. I carefully manoeuvred the hook implement on the end of the camera...... and sent the die to the bottom of the casing. Double drat! It took two hours to retrieve.

The brake pipe which joins the three-way fitting on the subframe to the four-way fitting at the firewall was fun.

I managed to make a presentable job of the block's water inlet. Stainless is really nice to weld.

A trip to see Mr Holmes who, in exchange for some solid copper manifold gaskets, provided me with the aluminium manifold and air cleaner that suits the Morris Six - both rare items - and a dynamo from which I could remove the pulley and fit to the new alternator, this time without breaking it.

The alternator shaft is 15mm and the pulley bore 17mm All that was needed was a 1mm shim - which I produced from a section of Austin 7 drag link - then slotted to take a taller Woodruff key that I filed up from a larger sample.

I popped over to a chum's workshop to help with the assembly of a pre-war Talbot 75 engine. We got only as far as getting the camshaft and followers seated before coming to a halt trying to understand the valve timing instructions. The dwell between the opening and closing sequence on number 6 seemed unusually long, so we decided to seek advice before proceeding.

Whilst at The Other Wright Brother's workshop, I slipped round to see chap preparing a replica Ferrari. I think this is what I'm going to do with the headlights on the Teardrop Special. I don't want to end up with all that clutter of lamps typical of the Jaguar SS coupés.

On the way home I called in to see Very Learned Counsel who has bought a Victorian railway carriage. It's a 3rd Class 'Smoker', once operated by Great Eastern, and a rare 6-wheeler.

Although not original, one of the compartments had remnants of wallpaper still attached. I thought it looked Continental in design, possibly from the Arts and Crafts period?

To top the week off, I turned up a 32mm od. flange for the water pump. I've got to drill the mounting holes, so it could yet be joining other similar exercises in the scrap bin.

Waking in the night, I realised that the rusty valve spring compressor donated to me by Learned Counsel a couple of weeks ago during a clear-out, might well be instrumental in The Great Collector's Crossley Silver valve grinding exercise.

At 7:00am on the day, I showed it the sandblaster, oiled it up and whizzed off to his garage. The Crossley's head came off very easily and the compressor worked like a dream. How's that for intuition!