The car

[Pete Grey]

Can you remember when you could actually REPAIR your car at the side of the road ?.

In the late 1970s I toured Scotland in an elderly Austin 1100, around 2000 miles in two weeks.

Among the bits and pieces I carried were two spare wheels (on the roof rack), good job as I had two punctures - tyres weren’t too good in those days, light bulbs, some cable and connectors, oil, brake fluid, tube of molybdenum grease, Bars radiator leak pellets (looked like turds), hoses, radiator cap, fan belt, spark plugs, ht leads, distributor cap, rotor arm, contact set, condenser, a couple of foot of petrol pipe and clips, steering ball pins (these often used to snap) and a head gasket.

With the tools I carried, apart from the normal sockets, spanners, screwdrivers, feeler gauges etc was a special open end spanner for the ball pins, I think it was 1 3/16 AF, it’s probably still in the garage somewhere.