Those first jobs after the first drive

I spent a few hours on the estate this morning attending to those annoying first drive faults.

The power steering pump got swapped for a spare one from under the garage bench - that fixed that, no more leaks, I still don't know why the seals are failing on the old one, the shaft is good, probably the seals themselves (chinese ??) anyway I haven't got time to mess with it anymore.

The clunks from the front suspension turned out to be the large nuts on top of the strut inserts were not tight enough, so a quick spanner job fixed them. The rear was also loose damper bushes so that was easily done too.

The rear gearbox mounts are contributing to the noise too, as there is a large thump from the rear of the box on the tunnel floor when you go over bumps, so I have ordered a pair (as it uses 2) of cortina mounts - which is the item that FF used when they built the car, so hopefully when they arrive that will be another issue solved.

The original water temp gauge also wasn't working, but that turned out to be a wire that I had dislodged when removing the dash to fit the speedo cable. I also connected up the lamp in the capillary water / oil pressure gauge, so I can now read that at night.

The V has stayed dry today too, and it doesn't seem to be using coolant, so that's a good sign.

The speedo reads well under, GPS shows that at 25mph the car is doing 30, and at 33 mph 40, but this can wait, I'll send the speedo off for recalibration later in the year.

I made a start on fixing the stereo too, but ran out of time because we are going out this afternoon, but I am now thinking that the car will be fit for the RBRR, after some doubts and worries in the last few weeks.

20 miles now done in the car, a few trips to work, and Gaydon for the drivers meet should see the car up to 500 miles, with time to spare.