TECHNICAL Dave’s Diary of organ Maintenance Since last month Fve bedded in my ‘aluminium radiator. Further testing bled a bit more air out and so needed a small amount of top up. also had a tiny drip from the top hose, which was fixed with ‘tum af the worm drive elip."m very pleased with how it looks. | also obtained a short length of angled rubber hose (around 40degrees), to replace the first section of the cold air feed which was squeezed too {ight between the radiator and cowl. This, Is now upturned and takes air from just above the top tank You may recall that et the MoT, my GDI emissions at idle were fluctucting due to the tickover hunting slowly between 700 800rpm when the fan was running, ‘The larger, more effcientracatr is one ‘modification that wll help this, e¢ fe the double wrapped catalytic convertor, which | montioned ina previous column. | decided to take this a stage further, by wrapping the headers, using a woven insulation product sourced from Agriemach. | expected wrapping on the car to be fiddly, but the only tough per is securing the ends. Although stainless ties are available, similar tocable tes, have trouble getting enough tension, son tho ond | resorted to stainless worm drive clips. Where the four headers merge into two, they pass through the inner wing, and so for this section | made Up a woven blanket, and used a sheet of rimenic alloy, cut to size to hold it in place, Alter attempting more stainless tes and 20 by Dave Wellings (MSCC 12392 - Former Concours Secretary) faling, used a single worm drive lip, but asthe cover tapers tis prevented rom sliding down the taper by two slots inthe edges ofthe cover, hich are tumed out slighty aso added @ small alloy bracket to the inner wing ppanelin the wheel arch to shield the two pipes from road debris, and water. This pane fits up against the mudiap, creating a Complete shield forthe exhaust The upshot of these modifications isa steady tickover at 700rpm with the fan running, First start up generated alt of smoke, which fm tld is ‘normal or wrap It then settled down. Running to ful temp also showed that the underbonnet temperatura is subjectively cooler. You may have seen | stories around about wrapping causing premature corrosion of exhaust manifolds. ‘The problem with any such stores is that we don't know the quality ofthe manifold in ‘question, nar do we know the typeof wrap, ‘or how it was epplied, Then we dont know to what use any ofthese vehicles were put to,S0 'm prepared to find out for myself! ‘oth august 2008 wos the dey picked up my Roadster ana drove home along the AS from a village lose to Toford. I wes a memorable dayin many ways. The weather was much as it has been this year, ith cloud and heavy showers, and we also had e wedcing toatlend, then a | notday folowing, | So that day was the | best available, and Under the win stayed dry throughout. eant say Iloved my Roadster from day, Certainly | ked ita lot but my relationship with it was 2 slow burn, | which took maybe a couple of years before | | realised just how good the Saris 1 Roadster | is, Twelve memorable years have followed | ator that fst journey, This column, in the September printed Miscellany, represents ten years and 120, monthly columns. When I started this in September 2010, pundits thought that it would be impossible to write something worthwhile every month. Well maybe | not Enough happens in four weeks to kick start my thinking, even when Thave a blank screen with three days to the print deadline! it was my intention o step beck | gracefully ater 120 colurnns, but 2020 is sucha strange year that'lcontinue at least nti the ond of the year, But nthing lasts forever and ten years is far longer than | ‘ever imagined when | sharpened my pencil for the first time, My first job on my Roadster on 3st ‘August 2008, was To remove the sports ‘exhaust and replace it with the standard system, which came with the car It had ‘wo short sioncers, and two long tailpipes, ‘and the noise was unbearable, with a deep drone right on 70mph. | put up with it all the way home, but that was it This Morgan \vas the fist car | evar hac, on which could change the exhaust without jacking ‘up. Whoever had fitted that system, had butchered one ofthe L brackets off the