Well, yesterday, I had my first proper drive in my car, post restoration.
Had an invite to a clay pigeon shoot from a pal, and went in convoy with another mate in his Boxster.
The back roads between Northampton and Kineton in Warwickshire on a quiet Sunday morning are absolute heaven.
So, how'd it drive?
I was expecting to have all sorts of teething troubles and had packed a pretty comprehensive tool kit and spares package.
Happy to report that I didn't need to get the spanners out at all!
Not perfect though, a few niggles appeared:
Desperately need to get the gearbox oil replaced (what a tool to have forgotten to replace it when the 'box was out), I have the oil ready, but the bl00dy drain plug rounded on me Friday night, so didn't get that done. 'box was fine when cold, but got a bit notchy when really warm, which would suggest to me that it's down to crap oil needing changing. Also think I may need to slightly adjust the linkage, as on one or two occasions, snicked reverse going from 5th to 4th. I'm also going to rebush the linkage whilst I'm at it.
Did drop down to five & four cylinders at low revs for a couple of miles as I set off back, cleared itself after a good revving. I suspect that a couple of the refurbed injectors I put on are not up scratch. Though definitely running rich, so may have been a bit of plug fouling. By the time I'd got back, I noticed the idle speed was higher by about 200rpm, was ticking over at 1200. Need to get the mixture and idle sorted.
Temperature and pressure remained great though, the thermostat to the front oil cooler hadn't opened, oil temp remained at the low side of normal, and all driving had been on open roads, no sitting in traffic.
Only other problem was a broken drivers side window mech (hence the window down the picture!
I took the door card off when I got home to discover that the metal bracket at the bottom of the glass holder had cracked through stress (probably caused by years of non lubrication). Should be a relatively simple fix.
And must strip the paint off the cooler pipes, bad mistake in painting those silver. look so wrong!
Overall, a great first drive, finished off with a lovely pint of IPA
Cleaned the new plugs - slightly better, but still not right - in 2nd practice. Changed them out for the 5 (!) spare Bosch Black Platinums that I have been carrying around for the past 15 years or so in my box of bits, and instantly sorted, pulling like a train! Now I need to find one more..... 
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