A note from Mr Laken explains that he's decided to fit a supercharger to his Special - a 1925 Wolseley with a 6/80 engine.

Readers will recall his adventures in increasing the power of the 6/80 - slippers on the cam followers to smooth out the valve opening, and additions to the piston crowns to increase the compression ratio. These mods were not entirely successful, but as Mr Laken observes, at least we learnt something.

A 1.4L Eaton supercharger has been obtained....

... along with a Honda motorcycle hub.

As if it were no more than a walk down to the shop to get the Sunday's, Mr Laken continues, "So.... [I cut the hub] in half, fashioned an adapter plate and pressed the SU mounting plate on to the hub".

Instead of welding, Mr Laken has opted for 'scotch key' fixings - basically cylindrical keys and keyways locking both mating bodies together.

On the other side, the inlet tract machined to match that of the supercharger.

I've been distracted by the making of the Special's steering wheel. The 3mm steel frame is to be sandwiched between two layers of ash, and each quarter highlighted by a slither of mahogany. I'm thinking of nickel plating the spokes, but that might be a bit too much. An aluminium finish might work better.

To get the threads to align longitudinally as they had to accommodate the steel frame, I made up a plate of the same thickness so the assembly could fit in the vice. Of course, as soon as I went to weld up the boss, my new welder failed and would only emit an HF starting spark and not strike an arc. I've no idea how this happened as I went next door for five minutes and came back to find all the electrics in the workshop tripped. I was also set to weld the attachment tags on the exhaust as well, so this has delayed progress towards the start up.

During a conversation with Mr Holmes, he told me that in making new gaskets for the oil filter cover, people often mistakenly leave out the hole at the top that is the feed. I know I didn't, but could I be sure? I had to have a look.