:: Diary - February 2007 ::

:: Saturday, February 3, 2007 ::

Been too busy recently to go anywhere near the car, so starting it up today should be a good test of the new battery.

Test passed!

Unfortunately, due to my having a memory like a senile goldfish, and a preoccupation with preliminary procrastination, I forgot that the car was manky when I put it away last time, and I haven't left myself enough time to clean it properly. It is possible, I found, to fill a bucket and wash a car in 7 minutes, leaving 30 minutes to cover 30 miles on mixed roads to the start of the pre-meeting run.

It was an excellent run too, good roads that I haven't been on before and some beautiful views of Scottish scenery, with TVRs in it.

We were a bit late starting. We'd have been on time but Cami decided to take the Griff roof off, without first remembering how it fits in the boot. It was like an episode of the Krypton Factor, but with the important difference that Gordon Burns doesn't have to shout over hoots of derision from the audience. He got there eventually though so after the rest of us woke up we were off.

Here's a few more photos taken on the day:

Oh and that bleeding exhaust joint opened up again on the way home. I have no alternative. I'll have to fix it properly.

:: Sunday, February 11, 2007 ::

Right, time to have another go at fixing that exhaust joint. First a trip to Halfords for yet another exhaust repair kit. I also spot that bird that looks like she's been sown together by a blind sailmaker, but I manage to avoid her.

I take the exhaust downpipe off altogether, and clean up both bits of pipe with a wire brush in an angle grinder. Aggressive but clean! Then I try to thump the pipe end into a more round shape, then wind a couple of turns of metal exhaust tape round the inside pipe. Then I lager the inside of the outside pipe and the outside of the inside pipe with exhaust sealer and push them together, reconnect to the manifold, wind the rest of the tape round the outside of the joint, tighten everything up and it seems to be ok!

The reason I have the angle grinder rotary brush with me is because I plan to repaint the front suspension, which is starting to look a bit tatty. My wee painting elf has promised to come later to do that bit.

So the first bit is rotary brush and scraper, to get the loose paint off - until I discover that the angle grinder is brilliant at removing all the old paint back to bare metal, so that's what I do! I also decide to remove a couple of paint blisters and loose paint from the nearside chassis rail. By the time I have been into all the nooks and crannies with the wee scraper (actually a putty knife) a couple of hours have passed.

I phone the painting elf, who has discovered that he has chucked all his old clothes and doesn't have anything to wear, that he can risk getting paint on. So he's not coming after all. Brilliant.

So I decide I'd better paint this bit before I start the next bit, taking the spring and damper off first to improve access and to enable me to paint that separately. It comes up very nice!

That leaves me knackered and unwilling to start the other side. Besides, it's getting dark. Happy with the day though!

I need to do some serious cleaning and polishing over the next few weeks though!

:: Sunday, February 18, 2007 ::

The painting elf has still not found any old clothes so I'm on my own again.

I attack the driver's side front suspension with wire brush, angle grinder and scraper. After about 2 hours of sweaty toil, I have most of the wishbones and front outriggers down to bare metal, ready for painting.

At this point I realise that I have forgotten to bring paint brushes. Wonderful. This means I have to paint these bits next weekend and then reassemble it all the following weekend - which is the club meeting Saturday so it's not looking good!

As a start, I put the offside spring and damper back on then call it a day.

:: Sunday, February 25, 2007 ::

The painting fairy has bought new overalls so I have an assistant!

He doesn't like painting though so he's going to polish wheels while I paint - a worthwhile task because they are winter-manky.

I get fired in about the painting, again watching various brackets and joints. Painting tubes is a pain in the backside, especially when you can hardly see what you're doing and there is limited space.

Again, it takes a good couple of hours to get it all painted. It feels like longer because of the running commentary about how hard it is to polish wheels.

He's done an excellent job though, with fine wet and dry to remove corrosion, then various polishes finishing with Meguiars metal polish buffed up with a polishing ball mounted in a drill. They are definitely much better but still a bit short of the finish we managed to get on them last spring. Then we remember that we used a 3-stage metal buffing process (the same as I used on the rocker covers originally) to get them gleaming - so that's what we'll do later in the summer!

I also notice that with all this wire brushing and paint removing, the car is absolutely manky, covered in red and grey dust. I also still have to replace the offside front suspension unit, both front inner wings, the bonnet strut, and polish both rear wheels before I use the car again - and that won't be done today, the Hammerite is still wet so I can't put it back together yet.

So it looks like the car will be missing the car club meeting next weekend - only the third time in 4 years that I've had to turn up in the "day-car". I do need to get it looking tidier for this summer.