Old faithful

I'm preparing our old faithful Evo2 for sale.

We've owned PAG for a good few years, and it's been a reliable car for the light use it has enjoyed. However, this Delta is sitting in a corner of our garage muffled up against any difficulties, and is not being used at all.

With Deltas as with life, an exciting, challenging friend is more stimulating than a quiet, steady companion. All our attention has been taken by other unruly members of our fleet, one particular white car has pushed me to despair. Actually getting this white car to do what it's supposed to do, drive along, has been such a thrilling achievement, poor faithful PAG has been ignored.

This Lord blue Delta is known to us as Bambi, with it's quiet manners and Bambi coloured interior. It's time to offer Bambi to a new home, where he can be driven peacefully, in the manner he's happiest with.

Bambi came from Japan, he's had light use since his arrival in UK. The red cam cover coating was flaking off, so I removed it from the engine for refinishing.

This showed how good the camshafts looked.

To recommission a Delta that's been standing for a while, I will start by blowing any rubbish out of the spark plug holes. Then I remove the plugs and the cam cover, I will then run some oil over the camshafts and drop some oil down the bores.

I then turn the engine over with the starter and build up some oil pressure, and the oil coats the cams. Then reassemble with the plugs cleaned or renewed, and hopefully

the engine will start.

I stripped the old powder coated red off the cam cover with power drill

wire brushes, and a soft pad in my grinder.

Then some light flatting with dry 240 grit paper.

I mask up the raised strips with masking tape and a sharp blade run down their edges, also I mask up the oil filler hole,

flakes of the powder coat rubbed off by the oil cap fall into the cam area.

Then a light coat of etch primer from a spray can, when that's dry give it a coat of red wrinkle finish, or this case a spray can of satin finish cellulose red.

Leave it alone, next day strip the masking off, with some 240 paper on a small wooden block you can rub the paint off the raised lettering, and leave a good silver finish. This paint system is more durable than powder coating, with the etch primer actually keying into the alloy item, and you can do it in your shed!

I had ordered a new gasket set for this cover from Eddie, after fitting carefully, it only fits one way round, I installed the cover and started to clean up the engine bay. It's looking nice, there's no rust at all,

so it only needs a wipe over.

I put some fresh Shell Vpower in the tank, the fuel cap was stiff to remove, with the spark plugs back in and hooked up, and with the fresh cover on I turned the ignition and pressed the remote starter button, the engine fired up happily on the second try. The oil pressure built up well.

This operation is course a dramatic smoky happening,

lock up neighbours pop in to see if there's a fire, and I run out

to avoid choking with the smoke. The car is happy sitting there puffing

its dramatic cloud!

PAG is a lovely car, my next job is to free the back brakes off.

I'll keep you posted with my progress.