November 2002  - I can now breath a sigh of relief on two fronts, not only have we moved house but Percy passed his MOT the week prior. It was all a bit of a mad rush to get him on the road for two reasons. Firstly to get him moved from one house to the other, although we've moved to a larger house on a neighbouring estate Percy was actually very instrumental in the move. Secondly if I didn't get him at least on the road there's no doubt he would have gone way down the list of priorities and been another 12 months in the project.

The MOT went simple enough, he failed on a missing spilt pin on one track rod end. A binding brake on the rear  near side and excess travel in the pedal eventually traced to air in the seized near side rear cylinder.

Since the MOT at a guess I've done around 250 miles in Percy and so far (touches wood) they have been trouble free. The bulk of the mileage was fully loaded shifting the contents of my old shed and garage up to my Dads during the move and then back again to the new house.

I do have a couple of teething troubles at the moment, a minor oil leak off the region of the oil filter and a snapped speedo cable due to the acute angle it ran through the bulkhead.  I had overlooked the fact the transfer box was no 5 inches further back so I'm trying to source a longer standard cable. The speedo will then need calibrating once it's working. I then need to get the Carbs balanced and timing set up and rolling roaded for the final checks.

I will then be committing myself to the cosmetic work like paint and carpet in the rear and a pair of foldaway rear forward facing seats for the kids which include seatbelts. Leaks in the cabin aren't too bad.

Hows he drive? Well it's fair to say that the sound alone draws glances from pedestrians, He's very much a straight road car but then we new that from the start, perhaps parabolics will help with this in the future. The Brakes are good (Stage 1 axles! And servo don't forget) but I may seek to enhance them further in the future with a disc brake conversion to the front end.

Drivewise he left a Frontera that dared to try and overtake on a 1 in 3 hill at a section clearly marked no overtaking in his wake. The Frontera driver clearly saw the rear end of a 1964 SIIa in various shades of paintwork and though he was in for a long wait up the hill. I don't normally do this sort of thing but the horns just popped out and I gave the throttle a wee tickle.. I've even got the throttle limited at the moment to 3/4 opening so as to save tarmac, rubber and the drivetrain any punishment until it's run in.

I  will post more updates as I progress, I'm off to call Landranger services now to see if I can get a longer speedo cable.- appears we may have a result the Range rover one has the same fitings I'm told and is 1 foot longer :-)

And yes...I'm grinning so hard it hurts!