New Face/ Old memberI

[Brian Cole]

I first joined Jowett Owners club in 1977/78 when I purchased my Jupiter 0LK685. The car subsequently spent many years in storage until I retired and did a body off restoration in 2007. The car is now on the road again and I was able to enjoy the atmosphere of the superb Centenary rally at Wakefield in July,when I attended in OLK with my stepson Jim. We had a wonderful couple of days and met some of the people that to date I had only read about in the Jowetteer or Journeys by Jupiter. This is my sixth attempt to introduce myself and the car on Jowett Talk and I hope that this time my posting will be successful. If iI have got it right then I will post more regarding our journey and OLK'S history in a later episode.

[Alastair Gregg]

Hello Brian,

You are coming through the ether just fine, lets have your story.

[Jack]

Hi Brian,

Welcome to the board. Tell us about your restoration, and if you have any photos I'm sure there are a lot of members out there very keen to see them - if you need a hand getting into the Gallery and getting photos uploaded our faithful webmaster, Keith Clements, should be able to assist.

More new members, more people signing up to JowettTalk, more posts every day on the board and more readers, great to see.

Jack.

[Brian Cole]

Having re-read my post I have realised that it needed improvement and contained many errors and some poor description and for this I apologise. I realy must check things over more carefully in future, it is so easy in one's enthusiam to submit the post to miss things. I hope this will be substituted for the original post.

We left for Wakefield in rather damp looking and spitty weather. The further North we got the wetter it got, and by the time we reached Newark it was tipping it down. The car started to miss, gradually getting worse, to the point where the engine was cutting out completely on tickover. The obvious suspect was plugs, but as I had fitted new plugs and NGK waterproof caps plus pieces of flat rubber over the plug recesses I was surprised at this happening at all. It was becoming extremely difficult driving in traffic with the engine cutting out every time I braked or changed gear, so seeing an entrance into some kind of yard, we pulled off the main road so as to be able to check things over. By now the rain was coming down steadily and I was feeling a bit depressed. Jim ran off to find a circuit tester and returned successful and smiling. There were puddles everywhere and the whole world seemed to be motoring happily except us, the thought of possibly having to lie under the car was not a happy one. A cursory check of the main systems produced no answers,there was obviously plenty of fuel getting through, and the plugs,in spite of the weather were sparking merrily. Distributor ? No! Plug leads? No! All seemed OK. Providing I kept my foot down the engine continued firing so I decided to push on regardless. We had one or two minor incidents at roundabouts, and at traffic lights we sounded like we were waiting on the start line at Prescott hill climb. The car was fine at anything over 1500 rpm and all went well until we reached the short stretch of M1, before Wakefield. There was a long jam on the road and not wanting to find ourselves stationary in the middle of the motorway, we pulled off on to the soft shoulder, dropped into first and proceeded slowly and sheepishly towards Wakefied, much to the chagrin of the rest of the pack, and arrived at Cedar Court happy but mentally exhausted.

I suppose no experience however unpleasant is totally wasted, and so it was on this occasion. After a good nights sleep and a hearty breakfast I approached OLK685 with renewed confidence and vigour. Having thought things over in bed, I came to the conclusion that there must be a fault in the fuel system. 'Perhaps the carburettor jets had some kind of blockage, not letting enough through at low revs? Dont know, anyway look carefully at the fuel side of things.' The first thing I notice when lifting the bonnet is a strong smell of fuel, rather than the lack of it, I check the delivery pipes, all OK, but hold on, the offside carburettor bowl looks pretty wet, I grab hold of the bowl to dry it, and its "loose", its shaking around, the securing screws are barely hand tight.! A few turns with the spanner, switch-on, it fires and ticks over as smooth as silk. I assume the loosenes was allowing excessive air into the device, and was upsetting the slow running.

OLK had beeen runnning rather lumpilly for a long time before Wakefield and so I think that carburettor bowl was probably loose for a long time. In all my years of motooring I have never had this happen before and I am wondering whether I should put this down to a 'Senior Moment', or whether anyone else has had the same experience.

[Chris Spencer]

Brian - Never admit to senior moments - others start to guess your age. I think we all at times are baffled by what more times than enough turns out to be something quite basic and once spotted we lament ourselves for not picking up on it sooner - then again we are never too old to learn - and there I go giving out clues to the ones who like guessing ages.