Several weeks ago, Georgie and I dropped off some clothes and shoes for a friend to take to North Wales where we met up at his Mother's 80th birthday party. We tied that in with a two week motorcycle holiday so knew that we wouldn't be abel to take any decent clothes on the bike...hence dropping them off.

This gave Georgie and I the opportunity to drive over to Flimwell in the E-type to collect our clothes and have a cup of tea and delicious cake with Richard. Unfortunately his wife was at work but we spent a very pleasant hour with Richard talking about how successful him Mother's birthday pary had been, and how much we enjoyed it.

A silly road closure caused us unnecessary greif because as it turned out the road was not closed but they had not removed the signs! Other than that we had a great run out in the car and a very enjoyable day out.

I was pleasantly surprised by the fuel economy since the work done on the carburettor set up. Let's hope it stays that way!

FUEL: Langney 85,298 £108.00 – 61.40 lts. Used 10.3 gallons for 196 miles @ 19.02mpg

End Mileage 85,362 (69 miles)

It was a nice day today so I thought that I would take the E-type to my golf club as a few chaps had said that they wanted to see it sometime.

Fortunately the car went better than my golf!

End Mileage 85,293 (6 miles)

My car was ready to collect so I bought it home the long way just to have a little test run. Although the brakes seemed a little better they are still not 100% so I am expecting to have to take the car back for more work sometime! Clearly it is not an easy job.

End Mileage 85,287 (25 miles)

I spoke to Gregg about the brakes and he asked me to drop the car in so that he can have a look at them, so Georgie kindly followed me up to Chiddingly so that she could bring me home.

End Mileage 85,257 (24 miles)

My lovely E-type has had so little use this year that just wanted to take it out for a run, albeit not very far. It also gave me the opportunity to road test the car after spending so much on it!

The car is going beautifully so no problems but I feel that the breaks need bleeding.

End Mileage 85,243 (21 miles)

My E-type was ready to be collected so Georgie drove me up to Autohistorics where Gregg ran through all the work that they had done on my car... in fact, just a little over £6,000 of work!

The two most important jobs that I had wanted done were the slow starting issue that the car has had since I bought it, and the breaks sticking on which has reoccured for years and beaten all those that had tried before.

The poor starting turned out to be a combination of problems. Firstly the car had completely the wrong petrol pump, which was designed for fuel injection and also installed upside down! and secondly, part of the problem was that all the carburettors needed to be stripped and rebuilt to factory settings, along with adjustments to the throttle linkage and choke linkage.

The issue with the breaks sticking on, but only when hot and after quite a lot of driving, that had been difficult to replicate for garages to diagnose, was due again to a combination of problems. The solution has been to replace the servo and strip and clean the master cylinder and reaction valve and carry out maintenance of various parts of the breaking system.

The breaking system also needed to be protected from the heat of the engine so various heat shields were fabricated and installed.

Lots of other stuff was done to the car including a full service and MOT, so now the car is just about faultless! Certainly it ran very well on my return trip to Eastbourne and I am delighted with the way the car looks, handles and runs.

End Mileage 85,222 (25 miles)

NOTE: 63 unaccounted miles whilst the car was away being fixed. See Invoice 08/07/23

I have booked my car into an E-type specialist that was recommended by Eagle E-type. Strangely it is in the unit next door to the company that I first used back in 2015, but they only moved to this location a couple of years ago.

I met Gregg, the owner, who has many years training on E-types and he immediately put his finger on a the solution for a couple of persistant problems that the car has had since I bought it, and which had defeated the other companies that I have used.

End Mileage 85,134 (23 miles)

Two of Georgie's relatives from Australia came to visit us this weekend. I had never met them but they were very easy to get on with and we had a good time. Fortunately the weather was much much better than we have been having, so it was an excellent opportunity to take both my E-types out for spin.

So today we decided to take George and Sarah over to Sissinghurst Castle Garden and I took George on the way out, and Sarah on the way home, going out via Boreham Street and returning via Hooe.

This was the first proper run in the E-type for a long time and it performed well with the exception of the breaks binding on again so I shall have to take it to the garage and get them to deal with it. The car was a joy to drive and both my Australlian guests loved it!

I had forgotten how many people wave as you drive by, and come up to talk to you when you stop! People just love E-types!

I started the journey with not much petrol and the garage that I stoped at didn't have the high grade fuel so I pushed on. Coming back from Sissinghurst was nerve wrecking as the low fuel warning light was on and we were not passing any petrol stations. Fortunately we had Georgie with us driving in her Mini so if we had run out then we could get rescued! In the end I found fuel at Tesco Esso Express which was a relieve!

FUEL: Battle 85,102 – 46.81 lts £72.51 (10.3 gallons)

End Mileage 85,111 (81 miles)

I collected my car today from HPC Classics. It is looking absolutely beautiful and ready either for a new owner should I sell it this year.

End Mileage 85,030 (4 miles)

Today's journey was not for pleasure but because I needed to take the car to HPC Classics so that they could carry out a compression test. This test is simply to give any perspective buyer an understanding of the condition of the engine in terms of cylinder wear.

At the same time they took a look at the exhaust system, which whilst in very good condition, is for some people a little too 'sporty' sounding! I wanted to get an idea of how much it would cost to put in two additional silencers and they quoted about £500 to £700.

Whilst the car is there, I also asked them to check the oil and water levels, brake pad condition, ignition system and to clean the engine. Hopefully I will be able to collect the car sometime next week.

End Mileage 85,026 (4 miles)

It has been a long time since I took this lovely car out for a spin, and whilst the temperature was only about 5 degrees the sun was out and the sky blue.

The car took a little starting as it has been standing unused for so long, but once it coughed into action it went as well as it always does. I did have a bit of a scare because when I went to start it the car just went 'click' and nothing happened. I tried and I tried but with no joy so assumed that the battery must have died so I took the battery out of my red E-type and that was no better. Then the penny dropped, I hadn't got the gear lever in park! Once I corrected that, it was all systems go!

End Mileage 85,022 (42 miles)