The New Forest opened the New Year with an Auto Technical 
Evening at the Empress of Blandings, Copythorne on 18 January 2018. This pub is the home of the centre, and is able to provide a good sized room above the bar, and this was the venue for the evening.
We are fortunate to have in our centre area, Eastleigh Auto Electrics, and John Burton the owner agreed to come along and spend an evening trying to educate us all on how the parts under the bonnet work, fail and why.
John has titles after his name for the work he does to support the Jaguar Drivers Club. They are, Director of the JDC, Technical Advisor to the ‘E’ Type register of the JDC, and finally, Chairman of the ‘E’ Type register.
A large table was set out with parts that John had brought along. These ranged from a huge 12 volt battery to the contact points of a fuel pump. We were told that we should all carry a digital volt meter, and that unless the battery showed 12.65 volts when tested ‘IT IS NOT FULLY CHARGED’
Steadily and methodically John went through each item providing anecdotes, facts and warnings on why they break down if you abuse them, ignore them or they were poorly made in the first place (being polite here).
John’s favourite part had to be a ‘bolt on’ radiator cooling fan of approximately 15 inches diameter. This was picked up and put down at least 10 times to demonstrate that its make up actually blocked the air from passing through it and every other bar should be cut from it to let some cooling effect happen, or better still throw it away!
As you will see from the photographs, there were many members in the room (31 in all) and questions were frequently asked regarding all these new parts now sold with electronics involved, to this John pointed out that they may not always be the best step forward for the older car. ie: Do not purchase a rotor arm with a rivet through it, they will short out! After a refreshment break, we then had a conducted tour through some 200 photos on the overhead screen. These were of cars that have crossed John’s path in need of attention for mechanical or electrical works.
The evening broke up with a resounding thank you to John, for his knowledge and detailed explanations, and then folks gathered around the table of parts to debate further points of interest to individual members, which went on for another 30 mins.
Thanks again John for your time and effort.
