There are a few options for steering wheels out there - MOMO, Tourist Trophy and Mountenoy are a few, spanning a range of styles, materials and prices. Having had a good look through I'd settled on a Moto-Lita 14-inch 'Mark 4' wheel. These are really nice wheels with a chunky hand-stitched leather rim and polished chrome drilled spokes which I thought would suit the late-model B very well.

Getting the old wheel off is by most reports a git of a job, made harder by the later models having a collapsible steering column. This means the normal method of giving the steering wheel nut a whack with a hammer cannot be used for risk of having the column collapse.

This trip would test out a few things. It would be the furthest trip the car had taken since we'd put it back on the road; being done on the wettest weekend in Cumbria for about 1000 years it would also give all the seals a good test.

With the weather getting colder, the so-far neglected heater valve needs replacing to allow me some heat in the cabin. At the moment it is jammed on closed (probably a rusted return spring), preventing hot water from the engine block from circulating through the heater matrix.