Components arrived in mail today so I was able to finish off the External VFO project which will replace the limited VXO in the Brendon radio. Lucky hit I guess as all it need was a wee weak of the trimmer cap to bring the tuning range from 3.50 to 3.81Mhz! Smack in the 80mtr band allocation.
Nice tuning too using the geared 3:1 drive of the tuning capacitor. The circuit design used a 0-350Pf tuning cap with a 18mH inductor wound on a T50-2 torrid. My capacitor is a 0-600pF and my coil omits the torrid by being wound on former made from a 35mm film canister, it resulted in an inductance of 22mH. Rest of the components where to Steve Hartley's G0FUW's circuit in the document "An alternative Intermediate VFO aka a VFO for the Brendon TRx"

Steve's instructions to convert the Brendon to an external VFO:

• Remove L102, that isolates DC from existing VXO.
• Remove wire link D from near IC100, that isolates existing VXO from IC100.
• Solder a short piece of bare wire (e.g. scrap resistor lead) in the hole left by wire link D, nearest to IC 100
• Connect inner of mini coax from VFO output to to new 'pin' and braid to ground plane
• Job done.