Even goldfish can count to three

Apparently.

Not us though. You may recall that Steve of National D3 rebuild fame is determined to retain cast iron pistons in his engine. We replaced ours, on the advice of the good folk at RN, with new alloy ones. This meant also replacing the liners and con rods. When I saw Steve's pistons and liners on his blog, I wondered whether ours might be in better condition, and, if so, whether he might like to use them in his engine (the pistons make lovely doorstops, but it's not really what they were born to). So I emailed him and suggested we bring them up to meet him, either at Napton or Stoke Bruerne, and he says words to the effect of ooh, yes please. So we loaded some big lumps of metal into the car.

As it turned out, we made a last minute decision to visit Stoke Bruerne, thinking that the snow might have stopped for the day, and arranged to meet Steve there. We met him on the towpath and went back to the car park to show our wares. A small crowd (one old man and a small girl) gathered round curiously as we unloaded three pistons, three con rods and ... er ... two liners. Vainly we looked in the boot, under the footwell mats, under the seats, but to no avail. The number of liners remained resolutely one short of a trio.

I was a little afraid at this stage that the third one might have mysteriously disappeared, as a very nice old washbasin we once had did, without trace. Or desperately racking my brains, had I planted it up with primroses as an interesting feature? Used it as a chimney? But no, when we got home (it was the first thing I checked) there it was, large as life and twice as natural, sitting on the workbench. So, lucky Steve gets a trip over to Ramsey to pick it up (as he seems to think they might be better than his - although some ten or so years older), and hopefully inspiration and motivation in the form of a preview of what his project will sound and smell like when it's finished.