I was supposed to be getting the engine back this weekend and was looking forward to fitting that, and the gearbox back into the car, but apparently my engine builder is still waiting for parts. Very disappointing!

So, I decided to get on with other things instead. First on the agenda was the works fuel tank that I have decided not to use due to the amount of holes in it. It's still part of the cars rallying history though, so I decided to repaint it and put it back in the car.
I gave it a coat of grey primer before refitting it and to my surprise, the grey primer showed up a lot more pin holes than I'd originally spotted! Once the primer was dry I then gave it a few coats of satin black. 
While waiting for the paint to dry I found the spare wheel bracket and cleaned that up and secured it to its proper place in the boot floor. I then put the spare wheel in although the 175/70x13 tyre isn't too keen on fitting properly in the original spare wheel well, but it did go in.....sort of!

With the paint now dry, I then refitted the works fuel tank and bolted it in place. I also had to re-route the original fuel line as this will now have to feed off of the main fuel tank in the boot floor. I also fitted an inline fuel tap so that I have control and can shut the fuel off if ever I have to drain the tank, or have a leak any time.

My next job was to fit the rear bumper. I had this chrome painted last September and it's been sitting in my loft since then. I had to find some suitable nuts and bolts for the nearside as both of the captive nuts have been broken off at some point. This wasn't too bad a job and it certainly makes a difference to how the car looks from the back. 

With not much else I could do, (Not on my own anyway!) I decided to put the propshaft back together complete with it's new bushes for the centre bearing. I also then fitted the new clutch release bearing into the bellhousing complete with all the retainer mechanism and springs. (What a pain that was!)
By now it was getting on for 5pm, so I decided to call it a day. There is still plenty to do yet, but my massive list is definitely reducing. (Along with my bank balance!) I'm going to pester the life out of the engine builder over the next two weeks so that I can have my engine back and ready to fit on the next Bank holiday weekend. Wish me luck! 

After what seemed like a very long winter, the breakfast meet at Battlesbridge finally started up again. We must have been a bit keen to get there as we were only the second car to arrive. 
It was a beautiful sunny morning and plenty of cars started arriving. Before long the food and beer tent was open and coffee and sausage sandwiches were the order of the day. 

Good friend Gavin arrived in his Mk2 Triumph and it was nice to have a chat and a catch up as I hadn't seen him for a while.
There were some nice cars there including a Mk1 Cortina with a V-Tec engine in and a very clean Mk2 Lotus Cortina. It was a good day and I'm looking forward to more of these meets through the summer.


Once I'd got home I decided to go into the garage and do a bit more investigating on the 'works' fuel tank. I put the wire brush attachment onto my electric drill and attacked the areas where I'd found the holes the day before. 
I also went right along the bottom of the tank and found six smaller areas where it looked like some smaller holes had been soldered. (Or possibly lead filled) 
I'm now undecided on whether to try and have it repaired or just re-fit it and not use it. It is part of the cars history though and it's a rare bit of kit, so I'd like it in there if only for display purposes. I have some thinking to do! 

 

 After the disappointing faux pas of the previous weekend,  I had spent the week making sure that I had all the correct parts to be able to complete the rebuild of the Lotus brake callipers. This time I had the correct parts and rebuilding the callipers with new pistons, seals and bellows was pretty straight forward. 
I then refitted the callipers back onto the car and also fitted the last two of the brand new set of brake pipes. I finished off with a brand new set of brake pads, so other than bleeding the brakes of air, the braking system is now completely finished! 
I then finished fitting the washer bottle and the bonnet securing catch and I was done. It was good timing too as the welder arrived to weld up a couple of holes in the boot floor. I left him to get on with it and went indoors for some lunch and have a relaxing afternoon. 

However, a couple of hours later, he knocked on the back door to tell me that the fuel tank in the car was leaking. I went out to investigate and found it was the additional 'works' tank that was leaking. We quickly unbolted it and tipped the petrol out of it. Luckily I had only put about a gallon in it the week before.
This was also the same tank that I had put some acid in to get rid of any rust a few weeks back. Closer inspection of the underneath of the tank found a couple of odd 'bumps' under the paint. The 'bumps' turned out to be filler that had gone soft and started rising. Removing the filler revealed tape that had been placed over a hole and then had filler applied. Obviously the acid and petrol had been eating away at it for the past fortnight and this was the end result. 

I also found another area in the corner where the same 'repair' had been carried out. When I get time, I will clean this tank up a bit more and see if there are any more holes hiding anywhere. Luckily, I still have the original main tank I can use, but it's very disappointing that the 'works' tank isn't usable. (At the moment anyway!)

 I had planned a drive out today to a breakfast meet at Chappel near Earls Colne. However, I learnt of a breakfast meet a bit nearer to where I live which was an open day at Pristine Classics at Stambridge near Rochford. (I was glad of the local distance in case I had problems with the car after replacing the fuel tank.)
We arrived around 10am and to be honest, we were lucky to get in. It obviously starts a lot earlier than the 10am that I was told, as the place was packed and they had stopped letting people in shortly after we arrived. 
There were plenty of cars there although a bit too much modern stuff for me. (My version of modern is 80's and 90's stuff, so not really modern, but modern to me.😂) I did see a nice Jaguar that I liked and a very rare Di Tomaso Pantera. (Haven't seen one for years!) 
The Green Cortina performed ok with no fuel leaks, although I still haven't got the tuning 100% spot on, so more attention is needed there. I shall persevere! 

 So, not having time during the week, I geared myself up to get the fuel tank finished on the Green Cortina and also rebuild and refit the brake callipers on the Lotus Cortina. 
Getting the tank finished on the Green Cortina went well and before long I was refilling it with petrol to make sure there were no leaks and that everything was good. The only small issue is that because it's a Mk2 tank, I've had to use the Mk2 Sender unit and therefore it no longer matches with the fuel gauge in the car and gives a false reading. (It reads way too high- I'll address this at a later date) 

With this done I then moved onto rebuilding the brake callipers. The first job was to fit new seals into the callipers and this is where it all went wrong. Upon trying the new seals that were supplied in a rebuild kit, I found that they were too small! Bugger! The box of seal replacements I bought had P14 seals in instead of P16 seals. (Even though the box said P16)
So, that was the calliper rebuild buggered then. With nothing more I could do, I called it a day and went indoors and set about ordering the correct seals from the internet! 

 Despite not owning any Triumphs anymore, I am still good friends with quite a few Triumph owners that I have met over my years in the club. 
One of them, Colin Wake needed some co-drivers to be able to take part in this years HCR, so he enlisted myself and Dave Maton as his assistants. I met Dave at the junction of the A130 & A12 around 11.30am and we drove up to Colins place arriving at 12pm. 
We then went and found a cafe and had a good breakfast before heading for the start at Petersfield in Hampshire. 
We had a reasonably trouble free run down to Hampshire in Colin's Mk1 2.5 Pi, although we did have a quick stop at Clacket Lane services where we found that the electric fuel pump was leaking slightly. None of us fancied driving around with a headache all weekend caused by the smell of petrol, so we set about changing it. 

With repairs carried out we carried onto the start where we enjoyed a coffee, before setting off into the night. 

The HCR is pretty much a scatter rally and the main objective is to travel through certain counties and points of interest. Photographic evidence has to be provided of where you have been and finding county signs can be quite challenging as well.
 After plotting our route, we left Hampshire and headed through the counties of West Sussex, Surrey, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire before arriving at the halfway point in Monmouthshire around midnight. 
It hadn't rained all night, but on arrival at the services it started hammering down and refused to stop. We all had to start plotting the second half of the rally in our cars as the seating area that we had been promised would be open, wasn't! Not helpful at all! 

Soon after leaving the services, we discovered that the full beam on the car wasn't working and also that the nearside windscreen wiper was catching on the windscreen trim, so it was removed! Pitch black country roads in lashing rain with no full beam and only one wiper! Interesting! 

Our second half route took us through Brecknockshire, Radnorshire, (Both in Wales) Shropshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Rutland and finally finishing in Northamptonshire around 8.15am. We had also captured a lot of village names as extra points and so as a result of this we thought we had done really well. 

A nice breakfast was on offer at the finish and after this had been consumed, the results were read out. However, they only announced the top three places and we wasn't in any of them, so we hadn't done well after all.  Despite not doing well, it had been a good weekend. Dave and Colin are excellent company and we all had a good time. It was good fun driving a Mk1 Triumph saloon again, although I have to say, I definitely prefer the Cortina's now. 

 Dave Maton came up again today to help with a few things. The plan today was to remove the Mk1 fuel tank from my Green Cortina and replace it with a Mk2 version.
The original Mk1 fuel tank on the Lotus Cortina was completely rusted through and so the guy I bought the car from gave me a Mk2 tank for it instead. However, there was also a very, very rare 'tank guard' fitted to the Lotus which I assumed (wrongly) would only fit underneath the Mk1 fuel tank. (See below.) 

So, my train of thought was that because the Green Cortina has a five speed gearbox it is more suitable to be used on long journeys or events. Therefore, it would also make more sense for it to have a Mk2 fuel tank. (Because it holds ten gallons of fuel compared to the Mk1's eight gallons.)
We got the Mk2 tank into the Green Cortina, but were unable to get the job finished as a new seal that I'd ordered for the sender unit hadn't arrived. 

So, we got on with the job of fitting the Mk1 fuel tank into the Lotus and also fitted the very rare tank guard. With this done, we then refitted the secondary fuel tank which was an optional extra for Cortina's back in the day. It's actually a Mk1 Cortina estate tank, but fitted into a tubular metal frame. You can also see where the original filler neck would have been, but this has been welded shut and another filler neck has been crafted into the middle of the tank. (See below.)

The Mk1 estate tank is the same capacity as the Mk1 saloon tank, so the twin tanks on this Lotus Cortina now gives me a capacity of sixteen gallons. That will make a difference. 😊

Our next job was to start running some more new brake pipes. I haven't yet received the new pistons for the front callipers that I ordered, so unfortunately we wasn't going to be able to get the brakes finished today. 
However, we did fit the newly refurbished brake servo and ran some new brake lines from the master cylinder and four-way valve across to it. The brake pipes do need lining up a bit better, but time was now up and Dave had to make tracks and get home. We were very pleased with what we'd achieved though. Every bit of work carried out is a step closer to bringing this car back to life. 

I had the day off today, so I thought I'd crack on with a few outstanding jobs on the Lotus Cortina. The main job on my list was to strip both brake callipers down in readiness for the new pistons to arrive. 
Three of the existing pistons were reasonably easy to get out, but the last one was a real challenge. Eventually, I managed to get the piston out far enough to clamp it in the vice and then tap the calliper away from it with a copper hammer. As you can see below it was in a bad way! The others were all knackered as well! 

I had to separate the callipers to be able to get the pistons out and the bolts proved to be quite tight as well. In fact I managed to break my 5/8th's socket before adding some heat to finally extract them.With this done, I then jacked the car up and altered the steering track rod arms so that the wheels looked straighter. I had fitted new track rod ends a few weeks back, but couldn't adjust them properly until they were on the car. Once the wheels were straight the car looked much better. 
Another job to do was to fit the newly refurbished brake and clutch master cylinders. The brake cylinder was already in place, but had to be connected to the brake pedal. This is always fiddly, but I eventually managed it. The clutch master soon followed and is another job I can cross off of my list. 

The next thing to do was to remove the old rough black paint off of the cam cover. I used a brass brush attachment on an electric drill and luckily it came off quite easily. 
I then sprayed it with several coats of etch primer, before adding several coats of top coat. I have to say, I was quite pleased with the end result. It should look quite smart on the engine when it returns. 😊

 My good friend Dave Maton came up today to help with the Lotus Cortina. I had a huge list of jobs to get done, as the plan was to finally get the Lotus off of the rotisserie and back on its wheels.  
I made a start before Dave arrived and rebuilt the front hubs and fitted new bearing races and new bearings. I also cleaned up the discs with a wire brush attachment on an electric drill. 

When Dave arrived our first job was to bleed the brakes on the Green Cortina so that I at least have one car to do the shows with. Fitting the new remote brake servo the other night had allowed air into the system which need to be expelled. With this done successfully, we moved onto the Lotus. 

I started by fitting the front hubs back onto the car, while Dave was fitting new bearings and retainers to the half shafts, and oil seals to the axle. The old bearings and retainers have to be cut off of the half shafts very carefully with a thin cutting disc on an angle grinder so that you don't gouge into the half shaft.
The new bearings and retainers then have to be pressed onto the half shafts with great pressure, but luckily I have a 20 ton press in my garage, so this was no problem. The original oil seals put up some fight before they would come out, but they had been in there for sixty years! 

Once this had been done, we then spun the car onto its side and Dave fitted a new metal brake pipe that runs from the front to the back of the car. whilst he was doing this, I fitted the newly refurbished brake master cylinder.

While the car was on its side, we then fitted the newly rebuilt half shafts so that we could move onto the next stage of fitting the back plates and brakes. We then fitted the rear back plates, new wheel cylinders and adjusters along with brand new metal brake pipes. 
By now, time had caught up with us and Dave had to leave at 4.30pm. However, we had had a very good day and achieved everything that we wanted to, so it was now time to finally remove the car from the rotisserie. I went and got a set of wheels and some car ramps from the shed and we got the car back on its wheels for the first time since last September. 
It's been a great feeling bolting bits back on, instead of the relentless removal and cleaning and replacing and refurbing over the past six months or so. It's also nice knowing that the car has new wheel bearings, new brakes and new brake pipes all round and all new suspension bushes too. 
There's still plenty left to do, but every job I do brings it closer to completion. I couldn't have got everything done today without the help of Dave and I am very grateful for his assistance. 😊

 The new remote servo for the Green Cortina arrive today, so I decided to get it fitted. It's not a massive job and it's the same design as the previous one, so I can use the same bolt holes and I wont have to alter any of the metal brake pipes. 
The worst bit was trying to find the two bolts inside the passenger compartment that are situated under the dashboard. As you can see from below, the remote servo bolts through the fire wall. 

The whole job only took about an hour though, so once I'd finished I went into the garage and stripped down the hubs from the Lotus Cortina. I thought this would save a bit of time when it comes to Saturday and the heavy work load I have lined up. 

 I managed to get a couple of hours in the garage tonight and decided to refit the suspension legs onto the Lotus Cortina.
Before I fitted them though I removed the front hubs and discs in readiness to fit new bearings and bearing races. To be honest the original bearings do seem ok, but I need to keep in mind that these could well be sixty years old and even if they aren't, they would have been coated in the same grease since before 1977. (That's when the car was last on the road)
With the hubs and discs removed, it did make the suspension legs a little bit lighter to lift (not a lot though!) and I had them fitted within a couple of hours. 
The bottom ball joints put up a bit of fight and I usually get a trolley jack under the bottom of the legs and jack them up to give me more room, but because the car is on a rotisserie, it's not possible to do it that way. 
it was a good nights work though and it knocks another few things off of my massive list of impending jobs. 

 I had another few hours spare this morning, so I thought I'd try and get ahead on the Lotus. Dave Maton is coming up next Saturday to try and help me get the Lotus back on its wheels, but there's a lot of work to do before that can happen, so I wanted to get a head start. 
The steering linkage was the next on my list and I decided to fit all new track rod ends. (There are four of them!) With fitting all new track rod ends, the tracking will have to set up at some point, but that's not important right now. Annoyingly, I also forgot to take pics of the refurbished steering linkage and track rod ends, so I'll use a picture of how it all looked just after I got the car. It will give you an idea of what it all looks like. I'm pleased with the progression so far though. 😊 

 Today was to be another test drive day for the Green Cortina. I had fitted another set of idle jets since the last test drive, so I wanted to see if it had made any difference. 
I decided to stop for breakfast before I got to the Billericay meet this time as the cafe at Billericay is very good, but the queuing and waiting time for food and drinks is ridiculously slow. 
My cafe of choice this morning was the 'My Place' on the A127, but when I slowed to pull in my brake pedal seemed to stick, but then free itself quite harshly. 
I had noticed the sticky brake pedal feeling a few times recently, but nothing as bad as this morning. I suspect that my remote brake servo is on the way out.
 Once I had eaten I carried onto the breakfast meet with no further issues. When I got there I adjusted the tick over on the carb as I felt the engine was running too fast and also adjusted the air mixture screw to give it more fuel.

There were some nice cars at the meet, including my friend Keith's Lotus Cortina and a Mk2 Cortina with a turbo and injected Lotus V8 engine. This engine also has four camshafts and a secondary radiator in the boot as the radiator under the bonnet is not up to the job of keeping the engine cool! 
On leaving the meet I had to endure my sticky brake pedal again only this time it got much worse as I had to dab the brakes on on the A127, only this time, they stuck on and stayed on. Luckily a parking lay-by was very close by, so I pulled in and opened the bonnet. My suspicions were the brake servo, so I removed the hose that runs from the inlet manifold to the servo and a loud gush of air escaped out. With the air released the brakes then freed off and I was able to drive the car home. So it was indeed a servo problem. I'll get one ordered and fit it when time allows. 

Once I was home I decided to go and play with the Lotus for a few hours. I had fitted the front axle on Wednesday evening after work, so the next stage was to refit the anti-roll bar and track control arms.
This turned out to be a bit of a mission as I had replaced all of the bushes, and being an anti-roll bar everything has to be very taut with hardly any movement. 
After a couple of hours, everything was fitted and as it should be and now that I'm finally bolting things back on instead of removing them, I feel that I'm actually moving forward. 😊

 After speaking to a weber carburettor specialist about my issues with the Green Cortina, I was advised to try changing the idle jets to a bigger size. Being a twin choke weber there are two jets, a primary and a secondary. 
The standard sizes are 55 & 50, so I purchased two at bigger sizes. The first combination I tried was a 60 & 55. I then took the car for a long test drive. It did make quite a difference and the car felt happier a low speeds and the popping and banging on the over run reduced dramatically. 
I then returned home and decided to change them again. This time I tried a combination of 65 & 60. I went for another test drive, but to be honest it didn't really feel much different to the first run. (Although I didn't go as far)
The car is a lot more drivable though, but removal of the spark plugs showed that they are still quite white, so it appears the engine is still running lean. I think I'll need to having a chat with the carburettor specialist again to see what the next move is. 

 Every night for the past few weeks I had been concentrating on finalising the engine bay on the Lotus Cortina. The engine bay being finished will be a massive step forward as I'll then be able to start putting the car back together. (I'm sick to death of sanding, cleaning, de-greasing, wire brushing etc.)
Once I felt that the engine bay was acceptable, I gave it a few coats of etch primer and left it five days to dry and harden. I was quite happy with the result to be honest. (See below)

Once the primer had dried and I was happy with the finish, I requested the presence of a guy from work who used to be an auto spray painter. (Glen) He's the same guy who painted the floor for me and the quality of his work is very good. 
I was home a good couple of hours before Glen was due round, so I ignited the diesel heater in the garage to get it nice and warm and also stood the paint in front of the hot air vent to allow it to 'thin' before use. 
After checking over my work, Glen mixed the paint and then got down to the job in hand. 
He laid on a light coat first to form a barrier and give the paint something to stick to, and once that had dried he went full on with a beautiful coat of Ford Ermine white. 
We had a break while we let the paint fumes dissipate and then Glen gave it another coat. We still had some paint left in the gun afterwards, so we painted the front bumper irons as well. (For some reason they are black on standard Cortina's, but white on the Lotus Cortina) 
By about 8pm, we were finished and called it a day. I'm very pleased with how it looks and the temptation to start bolting bits back on this weekend will be massive, but I'm going to leave it a week or so in order for the paint to harden. I don't want to risk dropping things on the fresh paint and marking it. 
At last it feels like progress has been made. Since I've had the car all I've done is removed bits from it and made it worse and less like a car. I've even taken to looking at pictures of when I first bought it, so I can remind myself what it looked like, but now I feel that I'm finally moving forward. 😊
Last August when it looked like a car. 

With the ongoing tuning issue with the Green Cortina, I have been experimenting with changing the primary and secondary main jets in the twin choke carburettor. (32/36 DGV)
The standard jet size should be 140 & 135, but in recent weeks I had increased the jet sizes to 145 &140, then 147 & 145 and todays test drive would be with 150 & 147. 
The drive went well, but to be honest I didn't notice much difference since the last change of 147 &145.

 So, I've probably gone as far as I can go with the main jets. The acceleration is fine  and the car is very responsive, but I'm getting a lot of popping on the over run. The car also doesn't seem happy at lower revs and doesn't drive smoothly. 
I'll need to do a bit more investigating, but I'm definitely improving the car, so I will persevere. It did feel good driving it again today and it was a nice morning to find a cafe and enjoy a nice breakfast! 😊

With the end of 2025 bringing engine woes, the start of 2026 would all be about getting these sorted on the ZR.

First up though was sorting a few little issues with Red Shed II, this was to be ready for the first autotest of the year right at the beginning of January. Apart from a coolant pipe leaking before the start the day went well, and I finished up 2nd overall and 1st in class.

With a bit more work Red Shed II was then ready to go again for the February autotest, landing back from Turkey just hours before the event wasn’t the most ideal prep but the day went well and we finished up first overall and taking the win by over 50 seconds. Good to be back to winning ways in the Red Shed, though it did claim yet another alternator….

So another little job done, and a tyre change and puncture repair the Red Shed was off again to do its now annual car trail with Cambridge CC. This is fun event, and with all the rain we have had this year, it was very slippery. The car ran well, no issues at all this time and we finished up 3rd in class and 7th overall – not bad competing against crews who do these types of events all the time.

Here you can see my ‘style’ of driving isn’t delicate, but it worked more often that it didn’t

So on to the MGZR Rally car…. .this turned out to be some major work with many late nights working outside on the drive (no garage here!).

Work done

Engine swapped for a 1.8 ‘135’ engine, which has been ‘hugged’ by Ian Mepham of Performance Motorsport.

Suspension all fully rebuilt and serviced

Engine bay cleaned, and various little cracks weled up

Wiring cleaning up

New radiator and fan

New lighter flywheel and clutch

Oil cooler fitted

New driveshafts

This work isn’t quite fully complete yet but will hopefully be all competed in time for the Kent Targa Rally.

 One of the reasons my Lotus Cortina has such a solid floor is due in part to the poor design of the rear crankshaft seal on the Lotus twin cam engine. Known as a 'rope seal', these seals have always been known to leak oil and there didn't seem to be any options around to stop it. However, a guy that I sold a set of wheels to has three Lotus Cortina's and has recently developed an alloy sump, with a back plate and new seal which will eliminate such leakage. 
Bearing in mind that I have just painted the underneath of my car and I'm also in the process of replacing every rubber bush, the last thing I want is oil peeing out the back of the engine and coating my floor and new rubber. So I bought one of his kits. 
They're certainly not cheap, but will be a good addition to my car. Plus, I took it to my engine builder the following day who thought it was a very good idea. 

 Whilst working on the underneath of the Lotus Cortina, it was evident that the car had had an oil leak for a number of years before it was laid up. (Most likely due to a leaking rope seal on the back of the crankshaft)
This has probably had a lot to do with keeping the floor rust and rot free, but had also had a detrimental effect on anything made of rubber! 
The special LC split propshaft has two rubber bushes in the centre and both of these had become seriously contaminated, as you can see from the pic below.

Whilst removing these, I also removed the gearbox crossmember and found that the rubber part of that was totally oil contaminated too. Needless to say, a new one has been ordered and will be replaced once it arrives. 

 Since Christmas I'd been hoping to get the underneath of the Lotus Cortina painted, but the cold weather and the damp from the constant rain had been preventing me from doing this as quick as I wanted. I did however, manage to fit in the odd dry day here and there and eventually managed to get the floor finished. 
The first stage was painting two litres of red oxide which was then followed by a good dousing of stone chip primer. The final coat was two litres of Ford Ermine white. 
Once this had time to harden and dry it was time to start fitting up. Good friend Dave Maton came up for the day and we started making progress refitting some mechanical bits. 
The battery lead went on first. (The battery is in the boot, so the lead has to run from back to front.) The leaf springs went on next, followed by the back axle and hand brake cable. The differential was next and then we got down to the laborious task of making up brake pipes. 
Since I've had the car all I seem to have been doing is removing parts and cleaning and sanding, so it felt really good to actually start fitting bits back on. Progress at last!

With it being an ex-rally car it's had a had quite a hard time in the past and although the floor is rust free, the out riggers have taken a bit of a battering. They are still solid though, so I'm happy to leave them as they are. 
While Dave was here, I got him to help me remove the additional 'works' fuel tank. (So called as they were mainly fitted to the 'works' rally cars. 
This is a very rare item and I've already been offered good money for it. However, it's a vital part of the cars rallying history, (Along with the roll cage) so I will be keeping it. (See 'works' fuel tank below)

We'd had a good day, but by mid-afternoon we'd done all we could and called it a day. I appreciated the help from Dave and as said, I now finally feel that I have turned a corner and I'm now moving forward. 

Always carry a spare Maton in your boot! 😄