1952 Jowett Javelin - Taxi

Great cars so advanced for there time, am I correct in saying that they are one of the few cars that went along the production line upside down only turned up the correct way near the end of build?
I have got so close to owning one on a few occasions, I remember going with my older brother to view one which would have been his first car. Our ultra conservative dad stopped him buying it at the time as he said they were to radical. He ended up with a Vauxhall, what a shame.

The Javelin normally gets squirrelled away in the barn around October time every year - I don't do anything special to it other than make sure the antifreeze is of sufficient strength & remove the battery - It then gets unearthed in March - cleaned up & serviced ready for the year - last year was very different and the Javelin stopped in the barn - with the chance of things now starting ease out of what we all hope is a final lockdown period I decided to go & retrieve it from the barn 



I quite like the patina of the the car - it gets used and its representative of what it would have been at 10 - 15 years old - I don't bother with a cover - the air circulates around the barn and keeps everything dry - but the car has now been in there 18 months and its come out looking somewhat filthy - loaded to the trailer and back to the workshop 



Washed off and then into the workshop 



Goodwood Revival 2019 was when I last used the car !!



Residue has formed on the chrome work but it polishes straight off with little effort 



Fitted the new choke & bonnet cables (they reused the original knobs as these are no longer available) 



Primed the fuel & fitted a freshly charged battery but it wouldn't start - cleaned the distributor cap up & fitted a new set of plugs 



Found a dead suppression cap - replaced with a temporary for now but I have a new cap & leads to build for it - Just wanted to get it running first eventually fired and ran for a short period then died - some further checking reveals that the chokes are not operating fully - time was getting on so I have left it for today and will have another look at it tomorrow  



Sid thought he would pop in to check up on what I was up to and have a quick look at the new project on the lift (MGB GT) which he's taken a liking to 

Yep, carbs really hate standing with modern fuel in them, and plugs seem to suffer routinely if fired up on the stale stuff, so probably worth changing them too

Good luck and keep us posted!

Already changed the plugs - they tend to suffer anyway as they sit in recesses within the head that then hold water so I tend to change them at start of every year - heard some horror stories from other owners with plugs changed at several thousand miles but they have been in 4 + years and over that period seized in the head - I'll drain the fuel tank today and replenish with fresh and see how I get on 

Many years ago my uncle had a Mk3 Cortina and after he passed away it lay in the garage for some time. Eventually my aunt (who did not drive) asked me to get it sold. The clutch had seized on it and in the end I had to let it run up to temperature, pushed it onto the road, started it in gear and drove it for about half a mile with the clutch pedal depressed and jumping on and off the throttle. Came off with a bang and was fine after that.

Nearly ready for drive it day on the 25th April then?!

Don't you have a small hole on the top edge of the rib on the bulkhead which is where the choke outer cable should be secured with a pipe clip?

Rather than a single cable plus complex linkage would it not make life easier to fab a little bracket to run 2 cables from the knob - one to each carb? Much simpler surely?

Looks nice and neat! Got Ms Triss out today (Midget) she was very very unhappy for about 1/2 a kilometer and then burst back into life - I think she really wants an Italian tuneup.