After going to its new home. our 1956 Jensen 541 has already been used and enjoyed by its new owner as part of the cars shake down. The shake down is an important part of all of our restorations as this allows the Bridge Classic Cars team to check over every aspect of the car for its new owner, who has provided us with a few small jobs to sort out as part of the rebuild.
Our restoration technician Jon began with tightening down the fues holders underneath the 1-piece clamshell bonnet to ensure a good electrical contact for the car before he could move on to the spare wheel carrier under the car. Jon had to make a new threaded bar for the wheel carrier, so after it was cut to length and painted black Jon could move on to his next jobs.
Another part of the cars return is for the team to do an oil change on the classic GT car. After a certain amount of miles, we like to have the cars come back for a full oil and filter change so that our technicians can monitor the health of the new engine. To do this, we have to drain the oil from the cars sump and inspect both the sump plug and also the oil filter housing for any sort of debris, thankfully there was nothing to report on this classic Jensen, so Jon could put in a new sump plug, new oil filter and fill the car back up. As another part of our final restoration checks, Jon went through the entire underside of the car checking that any bolts or nuts were correcrly torqued down and then marking them with a paint pen.
”Continue nut and bolt check, marking bolts as I go. Adjust exhaust height. Raise exhaust and remove rear silencer mounts. Mark and redrill, then trim off excess. Bolt back up and release exhaust. Heat wrap handbrake cable where it passes silencers. Resecure oil foller cap to weather. Fill with 20w50 oil. Remove clean and regap plugs. Replace centre carb jet cap. Run up until oil pressure rises. Recheck and top up oil. Remove All carb suction chambers and pistons. Clean and set jet depths to approx 1.5mmand rebuild arbs. Adjust idle screws. Run up and test, still not right. Richen each carb quarter to half a turn. Check timing, way off. Adjust to 10btdc and then adjust idle speed accordingly. Sounds much better and revs freely.”