After about 600 miles of running, including a run up to the lakes to take the photo you see on my homepage, the original engine decided to let go !
Further investigation revealed that the big end bearings had gone, and due to high cost of repair, the car stood on my freinds drive for 18months.

After this time, my freind decided that he didn't realy have time or inclination to repair the car and asked me if I wanted to take possesion.
My wife decided that we had to have it, so we organised a delivery to our house. (to a newly built drive, just for the job !)

First job was to find a replacement engine, to speed the repair I decided to go for a direct replacement for the original engine, and a quick call to Roverland in Leeds turned up a decent example for £100.
I hired an engine lift and over a weekend pulled the old engine out, stripped the ancillaries and installed the new engine.
Nothing un-toward occured and she started on the first try, success !!

Now I had a running car, I needed to get an MOT, due to the car's open nature, some minor repairs to the floor were required and the brakes needed attention, but otherwise no problems. Hey presto - One fully running fun machine !