February 26th. Yellow's gone for repair!!!!!!!

With the help of some good friends I managed to borrow a decent tow car and a great trailer and took 'Yellow' up to my mate in Norfolk ready for him to start work on it.
The weather could have been better, but the day didn't go too bad in general. Even 'Yellow' behaved itself after its 'sticking' starter motor issues on the Friday night.

I have to say, I was very impressed with the Pajero and I'm now seriously thinking about getting rid of my TDS BMW for something similar. It pulled the trailer no problem at all and was lovely to drive.  

All I need to do now is find a few more repair panels for the car and have them delivered to Norfolk so the job cab be finished. The hunt is on! :-)

Thursday Feb 24th. We have brakes again!

After a successful night of adjusting and bleeding brakes, the yellow car can now stop as well as go. It was decided that due to the amount of rust discovered behind the sills on this car that the skill level involved was just too much for a novice welder like me. The job has been farmed out to a mate of mine in  Norfolk and the car will be transported up there by trailer this weekend.
With the thought of having to drive this car up onto a trailer without it rolling off the other end and into the back of my mates Jeep that I'm borrowing,  it was decided it was best to get some brakes on it. The front callipers had seized anyway as well as the rear wheel cylinders, plus the shoes and pads were knackered, so the whole lot have been replaced.
My trusty mate Dave came round to go on pedal pumping duties while I lay underneath opening bleed nipples and getting sprayed in brake fluid! (It wasn't that hard to get Dave round actually, I just told him that I  needed him for something that involved pumping and nipples- he was round like a shot!)
I then let Dave have a play with the air gun to tighten the wheels nuts up and he whizzed round the car pretending to be a formula one mechanic while singing 'you can't get better than a quick fit fitter'. Silly sod!
Because this car has been up on axle stands for so long, I'd forgotten how low it actually is! I had to talk to it very nicely to let me have my trolley jack back after lowering it down at the front and rear! I can see a few problems already when it comes to loading it onto a car trailer because of its 'lowness'!

February 10th - New Shoes!

Picked up a bit of bargain on ebay today! A set of 14 inch Gemini Alloys. These are quite rare now as the mould for this pattern has now been scrapped  and they don't make these wheels any more. I bought them for the estate, but seeing as the rally car was already up on axle stands with the wheel off, I couldn't resist trying one on! :-)

Just need to find some wheel nuts now so I can get them on the car.

Saturday 5th February- One step forward, several steps back!

Saturday morning saw me deciding to cut off the bottom of the front wings on 'Yellow' to see what was behind them. The answer turned out to be 'not a freakin lot!' The car is still worth saving but is now well beyond my skill level. So, it will now be delivered up to a friends house in Norfolk where he will take over what I've done so far and get the car up to MOT standard and solid again.
I'll need to get some brakes sorted out on it first, otherwise he'll drive it into his garage and come straight out the other side! He wont like that!
At least with this being done by him, I now know that it will speed up the progress tenfold (he has more spare time than me!) and this car should now be ready for the 'ten counties in five days' rally in September. Who Knows, it may even be ready for the Scottish Highlands rally in June? Here's hoping!

With this car now put to one side, I concentrated on the rally car. The MOT is due in three weeks time and I know that I needed to repair a small hole in the floor and an out rigger. Funny how these jobs aways sound easy and simple, but always turn into bigger things once once started.
First job was to cut the out rigger off. This was no problem and I found that once I started scraping off all the underseal, the out rigger was like Swiss cheese anyway! I continued to cut this piece off and then found.....you guessed it! More holes! It wasn't too bad actually, just one in the side of the chassis rail and one across the floor pan.
Looks like a week of cutting, grinding and preparing, before welding commences at the weekend! Oh deep joy! I love old cars!

How many layers can you see? How many times had this been plated??????

January 29th 2011- Green is alive again!

Friday 28th January saw the arrival of the new butterflies for the SU Carburettors, and so I started to fit them when I got home from work. It was a bloody cold evening anyway and the gas bottle suddenly running out and therefore the space heater no longer working resulted in me freezing half to death as I stayed out there as I wanted to get the car finished so I could test drive it Saturday morning.
I did indeed get it finished, and as soon as I had I jumped into a hot shower so I could get my skin back to the pinkish colour it should be rather than the icy blue it had turned.
The test drive was over to Benfleet to get some more gas for the space heater and turned out to be very successful! No more sticking throttle issues! Yay!!
Saturday afternoon was spent having a massive clear out of my garage and by tea time I had a lot more room to work in and an estate car full up with junk and general shite! Another test drive to the tip Sunday morning then!
I started late on the Sunday on the grounds of sheer laziness (and the thought of going out in the cold again) so all I managed to do was go to the tip and fit a new weather strip on the off side rear door of the estate. This turned out to be one hell of a poxy job that ended up taking three hours!
So much for not wanting to be out in the cold for long!