After our disappointing Lands End Matt and I were determined to début our new Liege on the MCC’s Testing Trial, even if it wasn’t quite finished. The mechanical stuff was sorted, but there was still some detail finishing to do and the hood wasn’t done yet, so the new car was still at the builders over in Evesham. We left Hitchin for Evesham in the Vauxhall on Saturday afternoon, complete with tent and sleeping bags. The plan was to pick up the Liege and drive down to camp at the venue. As well as the camping gear we had our cooking equipment and all the ingredients for breakfast.
We got to Evesham OK and transferred the gear to the Liege. Not an easy job as it’s a tiny bit smaller than the Vauxhall! We started off OK, but by the time we got to Cheltenham the engine temperature had started to rise. We stopped to find we had lost all the water because the temperature sender had popped out of it’s hole. It appears that when the car was put back together after painting the builder had shortened the hose extension where the sender fits, and the clamp wouldn’t hold it in properly any more.
We had stopped outside a house and a chap popped out to give us some water. We re-tightened the sender clamp, filled her up and crossed our fingers while we slowly warmed up the engine. It was to no avail, the sender popped out right before our eyes. Our rescuer kindly offered to drive us in his car to try to find a new hose, but we gave up after trying three or four filling stations because it was getting late and all the motor factors were now closed. The chap took us back to his house and we rummaged about in his shed and found a piece of half inch copper pipe with a valve on the end, left over from when he installed his washing machine. This did the trick and we drove off with a wave and a bit of pipe hanging from the top hose!
Like true MCC people we followed the Exeter route down to Warminster and stopped at a Little Chef for a bite to eat. It was raining pretty hard by now, they had rooms free at the adjoining Travel Lodge, so we stayed there rather than “enjoy” the camping experience.
We were up bright and early on the Sunday morning for the Testing Trial. It was the first time we had done the event and enjoyed the experience, despite the weather and problems with the fuel pump which kept packing up in the morning. This cost us a good time on the early rounds as we kept having to jump out and give it a clout. We managed to scrounge a new one from a Sprite driver during the break and thought our problems were solved. However, no sooner had we got going after lunch when the throttle cable pulled out. We soon fixed that and had a good last round but didn’t put up the sort of performance that would trouble the scorer.
With a long way to go we left the trial at 5.30, dropped the Liege off in Evesham and finally got back to Hitchin in the Vauxhall just before midnight. It was a good weekend and we found out a lot about our new car. Role on the Edinburgh.
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