MASCOT March - April 2009

From Bob Andrews in Sussex - 3 February 2009

Dear Mike. My 4AB Roadster has been the subject of some renovation and maintenance during 2008, and as usual, jobs take longer than planned. First, I decided to modernise the distributor with an electronic unit, but this appeared to ruin the performance - more like 20bhp than 36. On asking the advice of our wonderful Bill (Haverly), he asked if I was sure the car was running properly before changing the distributor, and if so, suggested not looking for other possible cause. So sure was I that it was OK before the change, I contacted-the Midlands firm who had supplied the unit. They were very helpful, saying they had to buy in the positive earth units and that they had experienced some trouble with it. So "Send it back and we will return it to conventional."

But when it came back the performance was still dreadful - was I red-faced! I started by checking the compressions - 35 - 40 - 30 - 35. No wonder! It just goes to show how you don't notice a gradual deterioration in performance. By this time it was high summer, and I limped to Singer National Day and back. I then found an absolutely excellent motor engineer, and asked him if he minded me removing the head and taking it to him for valve grinding. He said politely he would prefer to do the wholejob. A good decision - the car has never run so well or done so many mpg. Believe it or not (Bill!), my wife and I drove to SNCR at Fort Nelson on a glorious day, cruising at 50mph, then stuck in traffic for 3/4hr through the Chichester roundabouts. Modern cars pulled over boiling, but the Singer did not boil (quite), showing the thermo-syphon is not all bad. It was a great day out, meeting many old friends, and, wait for it - 43 mpg!! No, I did not mis-calculate, and No, the tyres weren't blown up hard! However, the car does have a 4.4:1 final drive, but this only helps by about 2mpg due to much use of the indirect gears.

In August the Roadster took us to Devon and Cornwall in appalling weather, with 50mph headwinds and loads of steep hills, and still did 41 mpg. Thanks, committee, for an excellent club, a terrific magazine with such interesting articles, and most important of all, lovely helpful people.