Laying up the Minor for the winter

Well, do you put your car away after the last rally? Or do you use it on Sunny afternoons all through the winter? Are you one of the innovatives who puts a calor gas stove in the passenger footwell to use the car the whole year round?
The service list is similar for all these eventualities. Skip them and end up by the side of the road, five o’clock on a busy roundabout in fog and rain with the temperature hovering around freezing, the mobile phone battery dead or worse, no credit, a hungry child in the back and a whinging SWMBO who will be late for a hair appointment. It’s not that I’m sexist, these things just happen this way.
Rule Number one: a battery will not last a fourth winter. Yes, there are weird and wonderful chemicals you can add to the electrolyte from recipes in magazines aimed at mini enthusiasts and these will foam and bubble quite excitingly. But the battery will not last a fourth winter. Replace it in September/October just as the first frosts are waiting around the corner and you’ll not fall into the frosty morning trap. [Swing the handle if you must, but there’s an art to not breaking your arm in the process…..!]
Rule number two: fill with antifreeze. Ok, so you didn’t drain last year’s. So get a hydrometer and syphon off some of the coolant and check. Bet you used cheap glycerine antifreeze anyway and it only lasts a year because it evaporates faster than water. While you’re heading for the sun in August or ticking over merrily at a concourse for the judge, the antifreeze is busily evaporating. Sort your hoses first and then refill with two litres of antifreeze and the rest water. If you do it in September then any leaks will show themselves before the worst of the winter and it’ll be an easy Sunday Morning job to sort. While you’re at it, invest in a bottle of screenwash additive and pour the lot in.
Rule number three: buy some points. I presume your distributor cap and leads are in good working order? Aren’t they? Grab hold of them while the engine is running and you’ll soon know! Fit new points in September whether your car needs them or not. New ones will last right through until spring with only one adjustment after a hundred miles while the old ones might not. The silver tarnishes with age as well as use. How much are they? £2.35 at my local shop. Is it worth it?
Rule number four: see to your brakes. Braking on snow and ice is no joke. Personally I back off my front shoes by one notch in the winter so that gentle braking brings the back brakes on first. This is pure preference. Make sure you have plenty of lining left to last until spring. Pack some grease onto the pipe unions behind the drum and the bleed nipples too. This prevents corrosion from salt and makes it dead easy to strip and replace if you need to later.
Rule number five: see to your lights. The hanging connections at the front inner wings are a constant source of trouble in the winter, bad earths, bad connections, dim lights. Take them out and scratch the connections with a strip of sandpaper. Check the earth connection at the nearside. Fit new black connectors. Buy a spare headlight bulb or sealed beam and put it in the boot.
Rule number six: Buy those spares you’ve been meaning to for years. A fan belt for instance. It lies on top of the petrol tank, takes up no useful room. A petrol pump. A hammer keeps an errant pump going for a few miles but if you’re on unleaded then the diaphragm might be the problem and the hammer won’t sort that. Let’s face it, everyone gets a petrol pump problem sooner or later, a spare in the boot is insurance against one failing in the snow on Christmas Eve.
Rule number seven: change your torch batteries. Enough said. Carry the torch with you, see if it’ll fit into the well in the boot and leave it there.
Rule number eight: While you’re in the boot, blow up the spare too. Consider an aerosol of instant punture repair, wrap it in a towel with a bag of silica gel and leave it in the boot. Do I have to tell you punctures only happen when you’ve got a white T-shirt on!
Rule number nine: stock up on CD’s. What better way to relax while you’re waiting for the breakdown service because you skimped on the previous! [Requests to the site please, I’ve been buying Deep Purple and Grateful Dead!]
Rule number ten: Print this and fasten to garage wall!!

Brake failure

Tech tip for this month – The Mystical Case of Brake Failure.

Most of us run a VW, an Audi, a Vauxhall or BMW as well as a moggie. Some of the more unfortunate among us run Fords! Service interval 60,000 miles, courtesy car and check the tyre pressures one Sunday morning just before you belt down the motorway on holiday. The dealer gets the car once a year, plugs it into the computer, changes the plugs and the air filter and charges you £300.00. Know the story? Way back in the 1950`s and 60`s when our moggies were built, life was a little different. Everyone washed his car on a Sunday morning and while it was drying, he opened the bonnet and went through the weekly checks. Oil, Water, Tyre Pressures, Brake Fluid, Lamps. Along with re-gapping the points and greasing the nipples once a month, the owner driver more-or-less did his own servicing and it had to be regular and often. The first service interval would be 100 miles, oil change and filter. The next service was 1000 miles, the next 3000 miles. In between you did your weekly checks.

How we forget! In those days it was common and a must. Now, it’s unknown. But the car hasn’t changed. It still needs its weekly checks to make sure everything is A-OK. And the case of the girl with the 1963 convertible……lost her brakes going down a long slow hill…..Managed to stop on the handbrake and called the AA who towed her home. Hubby hadn’t checked a thing in five years. FIVE YEARS!! Passed its MOT every year, where was the problem? The problem was that the master cylinder was dry. Bone dry. Nearside rear brake cylinder was leaking very gently. Had someone checked the fluid regularly it would have been spotted before it became something of an emergency. Okay, so now he checks everything weekly. It cost him a set of brake shoes on top of the new cylinder and a new pipe because the old one wouldn’t come out. The pipe should have failed an MOT anyway but it was well gunged up so the tester probably didn’t spot the rust. When we got to the other end of the pipe we found a split in the flexi too. But that’s another story………

1. For a car in regular use at least a couple of journeys a week, regular Sunday morning checks should include: – Tyres. It’s easier to spot wear on a particular place early if you do this
every week. A bent steering component would alter the tracking and wear would be on the outside edge or inside edge of one or both tyres. Evidence is “feathering”. The edge of the patterns rises to a “feather”. 2. Brake Fluid. The master is under the driver’s toes. Unscrew the cap and just have a look. It should be just half an inch or so below the filler neck if the
brakes are adjusted properly. If it goes down, adjust the brakes up and check again. Still down? Suspect a leak at a wheel cylinder.

3. Water. Or should that be water and antifreeze? Check the level. Water normally finds its own happy level and this varies from car to car. If it’s above the internal fins in the radiator
leave it alone. If you really need to top it up, use a mixture of antifreeze and water made up in an old pop bottle.

4. Oil. The A-series engine unlike modern lumps was designed to use oil. The amount varies from engine to engine but half a pint over 500 miles is not undue cause for concern. Top it up. When the colour becomes anything darker than caramel, consider changing it and the filter.

5. Dashpot oil. The black plastic or brass knurled nut on the top of the carburettor unscrews to reveal a plunger. If you remove it and then pop it back there should be some resistance
and you need to force it back. If not, top up with 3in1 oil or similar, about a teaspoonful or two.

6. Battery. Check the electrolyte levels. The liquid should be above the plates. Remove the battery and wipe with an old cloth, smear the terminals with Vaseline, very lightly, The negative end of the battery will most likely need topping up regularly. Here you can use water defrosted from the freezer or a bottle of de-ionised from the corner carparts shop or, if it isn’t a new battery, from the tap. Wipe the tray and remove leaves and debris.

7. Washer bottle. Enough said. It’s not in the Haynes manual but then washer bottles hadn’t been invented in the fifties. Unblock that nozzle on the bonnet that you’ve been meaning to see to for three weeks too!!

8. Lights. Just make sure they all work and replace the bulb, scrape the rust, as necessary. Reminds me, my interior light………

Next checks at 1000 miles…………