It’s been a big year for Agnetha and, if all goes to plan, she’ll return to the road early in the New Year. Since my previous post I’ve been putting the interior back together and fiddling about with the cooling system as shown in these videos:
Most recently Agnetha had her first tyre change this century and, judging by the 1977 date codes of the old tyres, possibly her 2nd tyre change ever. And she had one final trick up her sleeve: Allegro wheel rims are normally 145R13 or 155R13 but Agnetha’s are 175R13. It turns out there are a handful of surviving LHD Allegros with this slightly chunkier size so presumably it was some kind of regional requirement. Works fine for me though, because there is a plenty of choice for rubber in this size. In the end I opted for Zeetex all-seasons with a 50% discount and free overnight delivery – very rare to get such deals on spares for an Allegro!
Putting the new tyres on became urgent as the brakes now work very well and after a few brake checks I noticed the old tyres were starting to tear!
Finally, it was time to check a couple more details off the list. The battery clamp was one of the few components that was entirely missing from Agnetha when I bought her in 2022. After some intensive chin-scratching in the aisles of Castorama I was able to cobble-up a convincing clamp from some threaded rod, a pair of wingnuts and a 90 degree steel profile. To prevent any unwelcome excitement with shorting the battery terminals I made sure to insulate the profile with duct-tape (black, for increased resistance…) Last but not least I figured out how to connect the breather pipes, brake servo, manifold and carb correctly, in the absence of BL’s Heath-Robinson emission control system (which was a pile of crap, apparently)
With Agnetha’s breathing sorted out I tried a little carb tweaking to bring the idle and raucous cold-start under control. Doing this I found a massive vacuum leak coming from the seal between the master cylinder and the servo. With that corrected it was quite easy to set the idle and choke settings for a smooth and undramatic start, hot or cold.
All that remains now is to fit a new exhaust, tend to a little welding near the rear swing-arm mounts and fit new bushings/seals to the steering rack; the first job of 2025 will be to find a workshop to take of all that on and get it tested and registered. Then at last we’ll be ready for the inaugral supermarket run!
Projekt Agnetha 