I was in Cambridge passing near to the garage last Friday so I popped in to see the progress. The reconditioned engine is back, sat menacingly next to the car, the cavernous engine bay eagerly awaiting the new arrival.
We are waiting for new camshaft covers, I've plumped for the slightly more expensive machined aluminium ones over pressed steel for aesthetic reasons.
The rad has been sent away to be flushed and pressure tested, last done more than 10 years ago.
The guys at Ely are currently looking for alternative exhaust manifolds, the old cast iron ones have always given me problems at the join between the manifold and the exhaust, even the tiniest leak making the car sound like a tractor.
Latest finish is likely end of September.
3 day trip up north to Nottingham and the Derbyshire peak district. The car performed flawlessly, acceleration far better than before, lovely engine burble (no longer drowned out by a leaking exhaust manifold), everything working well, temperature stable, oil pressure healthy, even the wipers managed to cope with some fine drizzle. 
My apologies but I've been a bit scarce on the old blog recently, I'll post a detailed update shortly..but the highlight is I finally got fed up with oil burning and blow back causing oil to leak from the filler cap onto the exhaust (fortunately on the passenger side only). So the engine is out and away being rebuilt. The good news is the engine is the original one for the car, the bad news is there are a couple of cracks in the block. More news next week.
Got the oil pipes from Cropredy yesterday, thanks David, swapped out the leaking one in about 20 mins, really easy, the unions came apart with minimal force, the biggest problem was getting the spanner into the confined space enough to get leverage.
