Preparations to start-up,

It's been hard to find time these past weeks to focus on my BN1 restoration, however I've been slowly but surely diagnosing several small issues in preparation to get her started...

The carburetors had a few small fuel leaks so I rebuilt the jets with new rubber seals instead of the cork ones...

I re-set the timing by turning the engine to TDC (top dead center) and aligning the distributor to fire number one, and re-adjusting the point gap to .014"

I replaced both the fuel flex line and the oil pressure flex line as both originals were leaking - at least I tried -
I was able to get some replacement 'Smiths Petro-flex' labels for the new hoses from British Car Specialists...

I replaced the engine/gearbox mounting bolts with some proper BSF ones, including the 2 dowel bolts that I was missing,

I replaced the tiny leaf springs in my early BN1 door check strap assemblies - I made the new springs out of a street sweeper quill that was just the right size of sprung steel for making the tiny springs...

Finally, yesterday my friend Mike Owen was visiting to work on another car in my shop, and inevitably had a look at my car while he was there...
As it turned out he noticed my new points looked dirty and after a quick cleaning, we turned the key and she fired right up for the first time!    -As you can imagine I was absolutely elated that she fired up so easily after simply cleaning the points. 

Thanks again Mike Owen, I'm glad the issue was so simple,  and meanwhile I've learned a lot in diagnosing and sorting out several other small issues that I now feel better about..
Once my new set of push-rods arrive I'll be able to run the car some more and fine tune the adjustments..

Until next time -