Coming or going? Not stopping…
It’s been a while since I mentioned my ex-Targa Florio Fiat Abarth Vignale Sperimentale (aka ‘Push-Me-Pull-You’ or ‘Goccia’) in these pages because it’s been out of action. For reasons I was unable to diagnose, it was suffering from intermittently locking front brakes, despite all components including the master cylinder being new.
Irritatingly, like most problems of the intermittent kind, it didn’t manifest itself when I was at base with jack and tools handy but only when I was out and usually in a location guaranteed to embarrass. Having found myself brake-locked on the forecourt of my local petrol station, I decided to park the car at home until I could sort it properly.
The brakes would release themselves after standing for anything up to an hour, which led me to think that the new master cylinder – probably made in the former Yugoslavia – was defective. Finally, having being accepted for the ‘Farnham Grand Prix’ parade (held in memory of local hero Mike Hawthorn’s World Championship), I trailered the car to my restorer. He diagnosed that, despite apparently sufficient free play at the brake pedal, it seemed not to be returning fully every time it was depressed. Fitting a more powerful return spring did the trick – a satisfyingly simple and inexpensive solution.
It’s far too easy to describe the British as weather-obsessed but to be a Brit is to understand why it is so. After one of the hottest summers in our history, with weeks of uninterrupted sunshine, it chose to rain on our parade. Fine on Friday, fine on Sunday, wet on Saturday. Nevertheless, as reported in last month’s there was a fine turn-out of stalwart (and weatherproofed) enthusiasts – many in entirely roofless sports racers. My Abarth at least had a roof but I discovered that the relentless rain somehow found a way of penetrating the interior, requiring lots of mopping before my laps of a closed Farnham town.
Fortunately my passenger could mop the constantly steamed-up windscreen en route – an almost impossible task for the driver while on the move, as the supercar-sized screen is so far away you would need bionic arms to reach. I’m now working on an extended ‘mopping stick’ for future wet excursions.
Glorious sunshine the following week encouraged me to blast some condensation-dispelling hot air through the Abarth by shooting down to Goodwood, below, for a bacon butty at the Aero Club Café. Well, any excuse for a drive now it’s been fixed.