... there being some sort of felt or rubber-like washer whose purpose was to discourage the egress of diff oil along the rear axle cases. There was nothing to it but to see if I could remove the nearside casing, complete with back plate and sundries, leaving the half shaft in place and see if I could do something to fix the leak.

The first discovery was that the handbrake shoe return spring had broken again but this time I've worked out why; I'm adjusting the circuit at the wrong end allowing the cam to go nearly vertical which is too much for the spring. Another saddle on the operating cam will bring the shoe closer to the drum and if I shorten the cable at the cockpit end of the circuit, the stop will be reached sooner and all will be well...

So I wasn't dreaming; the felt washer was there but it was absolutely soaked with oil and had probably shrunk over time. I measured the distance from where it might sit in the casing and be effective and added another felt spacer about 1/4" thick on the diff side. Most of the leak would have been going through the centre of the washer so the extra spacer was made to be a reasonably tight fit.

The casing had to come off to do this and I was very nervous about the bolts dropping into the bottom of the diff - hence the wire-locking! As it turned out, they couldn't go all the way in but I didn't know that at the time. If the extra washer works for the trip to France, I can at least (now I know what to do) on my return, dream up a scheme for a more permanent fix.

I haven't quite worked out what all the mystery's about but this is the only view of the Jowett Jumble Sale that I've been allowed of late. This is the spray shop and in there are the wings. I'm assured that the car will be finished - the upholstery was done last week in great secrecy - by the appointed time and I'm hoping that it may turn up at our local get-together in a few days.

No such cloak-and-dagger stuff with The Great Collector. The Darracq's magneto decided to play up a few days ago and Counsel and I were drafted in to sort it out. I vaguely remembered that about a year ago, we discovered one of the carbon contact breaker points had come adrift so, in the absence of a new part, we mixed up some Araldite and glued it back on - as a temporary measure of course. Well, we forgot about it and The Great Collector was the other day, just going out of his gate when the car faded and died (at least it had the decency to fail at home rather than at a busy junction in town). As a get-you-home measure, I suppose you might be able to go a short distance on the trembler coil (the Darracq has two ignition systems) but I wouldn't have thought it was good for it. It was discovered that our repair had departed the fix - so to speak - so a new bit was sourced, the magneto remagnetised and now there's enough spark to light up Blackpool Tower.