Anyway, I put a canister of petrol in the new tank and connected up the old Lucas battery that came with it with some jump leads to my other car. I turned the key once, dash lights came on, the petrol gauge lifted slowly and slightly to the empty line.. choke out, turn the key.. And it started! Yahooooo! :)
It needed a little throttle to go with the choke to begin with and then it sat and happily ran on the choke. I could rev it hard and it wouldn't stall when it came back down. I let it run for a while and then pushed the choke back in, still running nicely. Then I switched her off and tried again on the key without the jump leads and she started quick and easy two or three times in a row.
I topped the water up before trying to start it and noticed it dropping out from behind the fan straight after so that looks like a pump seal, at least. There's also a very brief grating noise from the front of the gearbox immediately after starting up.. first port of call I think is to get it on axle stands now and take it up and down through the gears to check for anything obviously wrong.
