Arthur Foxhake

Another fanny magnet just arrived!

Nah, neither. My love affair with Granvias ended with a cracked head.
Your old one is just storage space, the other one went off on an overloaded sprinter beavertail a few weeks back. 
Cheers though.

New boot and NSR door, perfect colour match! Just need to remove the tints as the donor car has tinted windows (aftermarket so I can peel it off) but it’s made the car look a million times better for £90, I didn’t even have to do anything, young lad breaking it changed it all over on his driveway for me!

As title says 'Life,' and I reported my wife's death 3-1/2 years ago.
It's only right to mention that  I have somehow managed to find a new lovely lady.
It's very new,  but we are off to Sunny Beach quite soon on holiday.

Long overdue update:
Interior welding completed, and seam sealed up (this left it all 20 different colours:

Under back seat area, much new steel here

Several types of primer on the inner arches
so I painted it blue

a Fourtrak with a boot floor 
started to put the trim back in, after drowning the innner bits in Dynax S50 cavity wax.


refitted the roll cage and seat belt mounts for the rear seat belts.
Quick flash back to what this all looks like:

Fourtrak with the structural strength of an apple pie

Fourtrak chassis. Which is good.
would have been better if there was a floor above it

when people say “just grind it back til you find clean steel” what they are really saying is “I’ve never owned a Fourtrak”
So, I’m still going with this crap pile.
And I’m even putting it back together.
Even my mates think I’ll finish it now, they’re more supportive now, after originally being a bit “WTF you doing you maniac” for a fair while.

The Elves have been busy.

 

I assume Amelia has found it by now, been difficult to keep the garage out of bounds.
Still a few small jobs, but it may get a test run soon.
Thanks to CAR.I.P,  TMR Supplies, Shaw Tyre and Exhaust, and ABL signs.

Thread resuscitation:
Spent ages back end of winter / early spring rebuilding my VW T25 engine, which went through my project funds like an oil rig fire.

so the old Daihatsu took a bit of a back seat for a while, but I did continue the grind of cleaning up the whole underside of the shitbox.
Clean machine 
Detailing World territory 
“Been in cleaner swamps”
Drove myself insane and deaf with one of these

Then had an issue with my trigger finger, so was on the go slow (looks like carpal tunnel) for a while.
Did a bit at a time, rust killer as we go 

I love you, Bilt Hamber Hydrate 80
After a very not short while, it was ready for some primer

Under the boot floor

Nearside rear arch and rear chassis
 Gearbox area, looking back
 
Inner arch and crossmembers, it’s the bit where all the suspension and rear axle go

in the bad old days
 inner arch was like this a while ago 
So, yeah I’m still going with the old knacker
and yeah, it needed so much welding it gave me carpal tunnel
Gotta love a Fourtrak 

A couple of weeks ago a photographer bloke got all his light up umbrellas and stuff out, and did a photo shoot of this chariot for a feature in Practical Classics magazine.  

I don't yet know when it will feature in the mag, but I'll let y'all know when I find out. I wasn't expecting to be featured myself, but sure enough, sporting work clothes and a general "well turned out tramp" look, the photographer snapped away. After an hour or so he was done, and I arrived at the inevitable conclusion that my photos will always look a bit shit compared with those  done by a professional. 

Been a few years since these were last pictured together.


Had a switch around at the shed the other day. 

Knocked a frame up tonight, I need to re-do the uprights again as stupidly miscalculated my measurements and they are slightly off but I have enough wood so will do them tomorrow. Top and bottom is fine though and I jigsawed it so it fits tight to the slider on the window.
Im not any good at carpentry so don’t judge, it’ll do the job! 
 
Just need to get some filler to cover the screw holes then I can stain/paint it.
Rather than curtains I think I’m just going to grab a cheap roller blind, easy enough to fit.

Well that was a fucking mission.
couldn’t for the life of me find my jigsaw so I shot down to the Saturday morning auction in town and picked up a black and decker for £7, swung by Screwfix and got a pack of decent quality HSS metal cutting blades. 
 
Cut the hole out, cut was a piece of piss albeit a bit wobbly but it doesn’t really matter, you can’t see the cut when the window is in.
Primed the body, primed the glass, started gluing… got until I had about 8” left and ran out of glue 😂 this was 5:30, the glue is quick setting and Halfords shuts at 6. Jump in the car, flat out to Dereham Halfords, 2 tubes of tiger seal, flat out home, scrape all the original glue back off, glue up again and throw it in. 
 
It’s far from perfect, but it’s in and all done for £50 odd including the glass. 
 
I’ll leave it a week and make sure it’s water tight then can make up an internal window frame to box it in. Will also need to get the Nato green paint out to touch up where I got a bit enthusiastic with the black body primer.
 

Didn't get round to this at the weekend,  but did get on it this evening.  
Wheel and drum came off

I cut the old bearing off, much quicker than using the press, and it would allow me to inspect the bearing surfaces. No noticeable wear could be seen, but there was a couple of chips out of the hardened surface of the outer track.

This explains why there was plenty of noise, but no discernable play. The new bearing and locking ring were pressed on to the half shaft

and once slotted back where it came from, normal quiet running was resumed.

Yaris leg, wing, sill, doorskin. back wheel pointing in a strange direction.

I'm not one to brag, but how's this for a pole @chaseracer?

Few more photos tomorrow maybe.
I've had 10 hours on this today. That's not me in the photo either.
 

Annoyingly, I've had very little time available for this over the last couple of months.

So far, after nearly 400 miles, it's been good. I need to address an annoying rattle in the drivers door at some point, but other than that, all is well in GLi world.

I wear motocross type goggles when grinding, very hard for a spark to get in them.
I hate getting stuff in my eyes.

A potential cheap grom popped up near me, TBF I should have heeded the warnings of the 9,999,999 price, "offers or swaps" and vague failure description but I messaged him just in case.
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/739696153843570
Been offered a grand already, apparently but holding out for more. I can't see a reason why the engine cutting out for fuel related reasons would cause the starter not to work so tried to offer much less than this on the basis that it might need a rebuild.
I should just keep on with getting this Chaly on the road as its kinda like a Grom only MOT and tax free and cheaper to insure.