After 180,000 miles my Mark 1 needs an engine rebuild. It was starting to run hot and was becoming very difficult to start and although it still seemed to pull well when running it had low compression on at least one cylinder. In addition there have been ignition problems for a while which is perhaps not surprising given the various tweaks to the wiring over the past 47 years. I have virtually full history on the car which shows no major engine work and the engineer working on it believes it has never been apart.

Below are pictures taken at Appleyards with the engine out. The engine requires a new crankshaft and two connecting rods as a result of wear from the crankshaft moving about (the car is a manual) in addition to all the usual machining, bearings, etc. Several piston rings were also broken.

While in Appleyards I have had the engine bay tidied up and a new wiring loom fitted and I will eventually have a new wiper motor, uprated alternator and re-cored radiator installed.Mike (previous owner) had a lot of bodywork done on the car by Cropredy in the mid-80s - so about 30 years and 95,000 miles ago. This included a new nearside full front wing, new sills, most of the front end panels and a new nearside rear wing panel. He then had the wing seams repaired and the car repainted again about 16 years ago - a couple of years before we bought the car in 2003. I had a few repairs done and the colour changed back to (the wrong - Peugeot Meteor Silver) grey in 2009 at a cost of £900 (!) so it has lasted very well really considering. Graham has, we think, found evidence of the original "Thunder Grey" on the B-post and it looks to be a non-metallic, slightly brownish, warm, dark grey and he will try to get it matched for us.

What we are aiming for is really good repairs to the damaged panels (rather than a total rebuild) and then returning the car to the original colour. I want to keep as many of the 48 year old bits as I can. And the Cropredy rebuild in the 80s is also an important part of the history so I need to keep as much evidence of that as possible.The seats seem to be a little past their best ("not repairable"!) but I can't bin the original leather... once its gone, its gone forever - so the car might end up looking smart on the outside but still a bit shabby (well-loved?) on the inside...