2014 Christmas Roundup

Unfortunately we have not been able to make much use of the Stanley this season.  We did mange to attend a few events. Brooklands Museum's Great War Muster in August, and in October the Shalbourne Classic car show and  Englefield Sawmill open day. The latter event involved  a 64 mile round trip, our longest road run to date, and the car performed very well.  Frequently using the  the 'steam enema' fitted last winter to blow through the burner vapouriser and getting more used to appropriate  burner control valve settings seems to have reduced our carbonisation problems.

Now that the car is laid up for the winter we are fitting the  new top bows, made from measuring up a sister car here in the UK. The first trial fit went OK, now the bows need to be finished off, painted or varnished, and resin bonded into their metal sockets.

 The car is booked into David Nightingale Coachtrimming for a new hood to be made in March.

There are also a few small maintenance jobs,  including fitting a stack blower to quickly clear fuel vapour if  the pilot burner goes out, after a rather alarming bang when the car was standing in the drive just prior to the last run of the season. This mishap also slightly damaged the smoke hood, which has now been been repaired by steam car experts Julian and Justin Goold.