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Fresh from displaying 35 at the Heritage Day in Tamworth, more news from Geoff :
Well did not think that much would happen this month with the Tamworth show being on but things have moved forward.
35 was on show at the Tamworth Heritage weekend and got loads of interest from people at the show and it was great to meet some of the people that worked on him and hear there stories. Well I let every one know there that if they come to our 5th rally (Reliants 75th birthday and 3-wheelers.com’s 10th birthday) next year she will be finished and could be seen as Tom Williams first made him.
Having bit the bullet so to speak I thought I had best get some work done on him. I got all the gear box together and then had to work out where the selector for the gear leaver goes as I just pulled it off not checking the position it was in D’OH. Having sorted it I moved it though all the gears to double check I could get them all.
Next was the hard task of winding up the kick start spring and sliding the cover on so that all stayed in place, after lots of fiddling I got it together. I then placed a couple of nuts on to hold it together and then pressed the kick start lever down and all moved as it should except the kick start lever did not come back up unless you helped it. After saying a polite word I removed the cover again expecting to see the spring had moved but all was still in place. Then I saw the problem the spring had lost its spring and so wound up and stayed there.
So to the other end I received my new clutch cover from George Engineering and what a lovely job they had done on it for me and when put in place fitted like the real thing. If you need some special machining done this is the place to go.
With the gear box only having one thing needing to be done now, I turned to the engine to get some more done on that.
As it still had its protection on it from when it went to the shot blaster I removed it all and was surprise to see that the shot had found its way into the bits that were blocked off. All was ok though as it had entered with out any real force so had not damaged the bore.
The valves had gone a bit rusty so I cleaned them up with a wire brush and it was when I went to fit them that I noticed that the valve springs were different lengths so that job was on hold. As I still needed the piston rings I could not put the head back on so just cleaned all the smaller bits up.
With needing more bits I did not think twice now as where to go so with valve springs, Kick start spring and piston rings (All the bits) in hand I popped over to see the wonderful Mr. Onslow of Vale Onslows. And as I did before I left all the bits with him so he could work his magic.
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