The Jodel D120 was badged, rather romantically, as the 'Paris-Nice' model - there was enough fuel in its single tank to get it from Paris to Nice non-stop, a distance of roughly five hundred miles.

With this in mind and prompted by a medallion I saw in one of The Great Collector's sheds, I've been wondering what to call the Special. With a ten-gallon tank, the Special's range would be approximately half that of the Jodel. Interestingly, the distance in a straight line from the farm in Suffolk to the house where I was born, is 250 miles, but 'Ixworth-Old Tree', just doesn't have the same ring to it. Equally eligible would be 'Florence-Naples', more exotic, but a bit of a mouthful. I'll think on.

My efforts to stem the flow of coolant from the Morris block's tap arrangement by TIG brazing silicon bronze around the joint, were unsuccessful. My only option was to again drain the system and after removing the tap assembly, weld on a new piece of stainless tube - the old bit was mild steel. I'm keeping an eye on the floor beneath the joint.

Counsel and I continue to work our way through the likely summer-run candidates in The Great Collector's fleet. His 1905 Darracq is about to go off on the 'Creepy-Crawly' run, this year in Oxford. The MkVI Bentley was blowing from its rear exhaust manifold, so we set about removing it. Three hours to remove six nuts and eventually, in desperation, chop off the manifold. It clearly had never been removed, unlike the front one which had been replaced relatively recently. With a borrowed induction heating tool, we tried to remove the studs. Rather than break any off - none of them could be persuaded to move - the car is going off to someone better equipped.

This is the 14hp Humber's starter engagement pedal. The idea is that you get the starter rolling and then engage the rubber wheel with the flywheel. It works surprisingly well, and as you know, is the principle I'm employing with the Buick.

I made up a drilling jig to get the holes right for securing the Dynastart support bracket to the crossbeam...

... and after a lot of cutting, milling, and swearing, managed eventually to get everything in position. All along, I'd half suspected that the engagement rod would interfere with either the car's brake or accelerator pedal, and I'd have to leave out the original support block for the shaft. With the starter wheel only 10mm away from the flywheel, a much shorter shaft will move only 15-20mm, so I don't think there's anything to worry about. The starter pedal for the plunger arrangement is though, going to be a bit of a poser.

So far, it's quite a neat installation. I'll have to make up some sort of shield to keep as much of the weather off the works as possible.

Incidentally, I came across another two souvenir plaques: one from Germany...

... and this one from Spain. Hmm.