James Doulton's Blog (4)

Today I bought another Dutton. This one has a 3.1 litre Essex V6. It's MOT has lapsed and it has a number of issues, the biggest one being that it has had a front end shunt which has upset the suspension geometry, and the bonnet fit, and the steering. The last 6 inches of the main rail is crumpled, moving the ARB. Finding a good reference to work from to restore the geometry looks to be an interesting puzzle. In this picture you can see that the nearside wheel has a different camber to the…

I went to the KitNet track day at Castle Combe today in my Legerra. It was cracking weather and I had a good day. There were positives and some negatives. So starting with then the positives: My new tyres performed well and took 5 seconds off my lap times (down to 1m 35sec), I finally got the Legerra over the ton at 100.3mph on the straight, I met a load of nice chaps and did a lot of chatting plus, to round off the day, I drove it home at the end of the day. Two of the chaps were Duttons -…

There is a very nice looking blue Melos on ebay item no 161066547569. It has beautiful seats. Does anyone know what they are or where they come from?

After getting the Legerra home a few weeks ago, I have been using it as my daily commute. I have done a few things to it to 'improve' it:

1) I have removed the centre console because I could not take my foot off the clutch with it in place because I have to get my knee next to the steering wheel and my calf was hard against the edge of the console. I have still got to find a place for the dials and switches that were there. When removing the heater controls I found that the outer…