Faith, our Flying Control Dodge is amazing, especially for a 76 year old vehicle running on 6 volts. From my logs, it appears I last put some petrol in late June 2019. The last event for the Dodge was September and then it was shut away in the container for the winter. The engine was run and warmed through on December 24th 2019 and then the battery removed for the winter. In March, two days before lockdown, I put the Dodge on axle stands to take the weight off the tyres, but it was still without a battery, so wasn't run.

Today, after 7 months of inactivity, and 13 months since any fresh fuel was added, I went to try and give it a run. With such old petrol, I had my doubts. Water and oil checked, fuel pump hand primed and then I turned the engine over a few seconds to pump some oil around. The 6 volt starter seemed to turn so slow compared to the 24 volt Hotchkiss Jeep on Sunday!!

After the oil prime, the choke and hand throttle were set, then I pressed the starter again for a few seconds to spin the engine over and then turned the ignition on. VROOOM! Off it went to a fast idle. Oil pressure 50PSI, idling smoothly, temperature slowly came up - fantastic! The clutch was released to spin the wheels, gearbox and differential over, brakes and steering exercised and lights checked. Everything was fine.

So everything was shut down, battery removed again, clutch chocked in the released position and Faith left to sleep for a few more months. I might be tempted to go for a short drive in the Autumn before the real cold of the winter comes. It was a tad dark in the container and my torch has vanished somewhere, but thankfully I could use the torch on my phone to see to fit and remove the battery.