It's great in the end

The dropped nut syndrom was a real pain !

The local classic car friendly garage couldn't get one for me but recommended somewhere in Burnley. No joy there either. Then I remembered a place in Blackburn I used to use when I restored my Vitesse 20 years ago so I googled them and they were still there.

20 minutes later they had come to the rescue.

Of course then it was a case of refitting the shock absorber but that seemed minor in comparison to the hassle so far.

How about some in car entertainment? I tracked down a Panasonic radio cassette I bought brand new back in 82 for my RS2000 Custom at the time so it's still period. Managed to get that slotted in but on checking the door speakers I found that behind the grill there was no speaker one side!

£15 replacements from Amazon sorted that out so yesterday I fitted those and got everything working so I can listen to my MP3 player via an FM transmitter. Mind you getting the  electric aerial to co-operate proved a tad difficult, yet another piece of rubbish wiring from the past  so now it's not electrical and permanently extended.

From there on to fixing the exhaust which was knocking. No wonder, it was right against one of the rear coil springs. Another hour or so under the car loosening it off and repositioning it sorted that out.

Whilst under there a good time to check the gearbox oil level which might explain the recent difficulty in selecting gears. No problem there as ATF poured out when I took out the top up filler bolt so I shoved some more in and put the bolt back in as quickly as possible.

A road test with the top down was just great so a job well done.

Today I contented myself with fettling the hood (my repaired one recently refitted) and then moved on to adjust the reversing light switch on top of the gearbox as the reversing lights don't stay on when reverse is selected.

Off with the gear lever cover and look at the top of the gearbox only to find that the whole selector extension is floating about all over the place, up and down and right to left - arghh!!!

Right, car back up on axle stands and me back under it.

To those who don't know the LT77 gearbox, there are 8 rubber bushes fitted where the extension bolts to the gearbox. Well, there should be - they were totally missing from mine!

Solution was to strip a set from a spare gearbox I have and fit them. More grovelling around under the car and getting absolutely filthy.

It is great in the end though. The gear selection was absolutely brilliant on the road test, a strange "shimmy" noise has disappeared (I think this was the extension resting on the propshaft - gulp) and the reversing lights work.