October 2024

There’s plenty of action on the event front at the moment and of course, by time you read this, I hope you will have enjoyed the Goodwood Revival 2024 and the racing at Castle Combe. Many Members have embarked on a bit of glamping, which has got a bit more sophisticated than when I was camping in a friends’ back garden and, much to the surprise of his parents, appeared at the back door during the night to use the facilities!

One subject that is always popular with our Members driving very hot Healeys in the summer and queueing for Silverstone or other such venues is vapour locking in our fuel lines, often experienced when the car is hard to start after a fuel stop. This usually involves firstly trying to reroute the fuel pipe up the side of the front nearside engine mount and then up the side of the shroud support and then the shortest route by fibreglass covered copper pipe plus flexy pipe to the centre of the two carbs. There are other, albeit expensive, ways to reduce heat in the engine bay and that is to ceramic coat the exhaust system which I have found to work considerably well along with an aluminium heat shield. You may, of course, fit an electric fan but some Members do not think they are necessary but I still like the confidence I have of switching on the fan when you are caught in heavy traffic.

With all the extra electrical items we depend on such as sat navs and mobile phones, especially on a long journey, it can be useful to convert to the car to negative earth as against the positive earth system our cars were originally fitted with. I fitted a alternator from a Mini which is rated at 32A, more than enough to supply all the extras we will need and of course does away with the old dynamo which struggles to manage 22A.

As advertised in Revcounter, the inter-marque event held at Malvern was a great success with many different marques represented. This may hold the future for our cars in the long term with up to 40 clubs involved. An auto solo was held with one class for BMC/BL models. This event is a biennial one, so the next one will be in 2026.

Thames Valley spent a pleasant day visiting Blenheim Palace for a look round and a spot of tea and cake. See the report and pictures later in this edition of the magazine.

For our Northern Members, it was good to see in (September's issue) Tony, Mike and Ivor with their other halves revisiting St Moritz and the Suvretta House hotel in their 100’s. I cannot believe it was 20 years since I drove my own 100 over there for what proved to be a fabulous driving week.

From the FBHVC we have been made aware there are new types of cameras appearing on our motorways. These have the ability to photograph the inside of our cars to see if seat belts are being worn. It does seem a little far fetched but forewarned is forearmed, I guess. The upside is that if a historic vehicle is so caught a simple notification of its age should suffice to explain that seat belts were not fitted in that era.

Road pricing in one form or another has also been discussed but taken off the government's agenda for the moment! I must continue to thank Robin Astle for his input to Revcounter and for his vigilance in scouring FBHVC documentation for relevant information to pass onto us.

The survey into the DVLA actions as regards our historic vehicles has resulted in some 4500 responses which can only be good for our inter actions with registration applications and the like.

A date for your diary is the national Club AGM – Sunday 1^st December 2024 See Notices for full details.

Keep on Overtaking! - Safely!