The problems I've had over the last few trips where the car looses power and dies have been traced to the fuel pump. Despite dismantling, cleaning the points and various minor tweeks of the points gap that would work for a few metres or miles it seems the old pump was, well, just plain old. Today in the middle of nowhere Albert simply wouldn't go. The pump would cope with tickover but any throttle and it just stopped.
The breakdown people were called and they rang a local garage I've delt with before (they had an account at the petrol station I had worked at about 6 miles away
). The bloke appeared armed with a new fuel pump! He said "The boss thought you might need this. he said he cut his teeth on these cars". I was so lucky they were the appointed garage - no other one locally would have known this. 
The pump went on and worked like a dream. I asked him how much I owed him and he said He had no idea. "How much are they?" said he.
"Erm, about £60" I said.
"How does £40 cash sound?"
"Show me to the nearest cashpoint!" said I.
So he got £10 for being such a decent bloke, and the next time I'm passing I'll drop a few beers in for the boss too. :lol
Oh and incidentally, Albert's performance has been dropping off recently. That's mainly the reason I took the head off. Turns out a lot of this was due to the fuel pump - it just couldn't cope with high flow. As soon as it was fitted the throttle response was fantastic. Up to this point gas flowing the head had made no difference whatsoever. Off for a rolling road sesh next week too.
Can't wait.
