stuboy

Bit of a milestone in this today 

I've replaced the headlights (both sides) with new ones...........from a land rover S2 (or S3, memory fades) instead of direct replacements from Lotus (basically £40 a side rather than £100.  Didn't take pictures of those however.  
I've bought a new window frame for the passenger door (not looking forward to that bit) - needs replacing.  Drivers side is fine.  
Ha ha ha!!    
The radiator from a lotus parts provider (or ebay) is around £250 (give or take) but I'd read somewhere that an MGTF radiator fitted.  I picked up one (new one, not OE) in aluminium (literally half the weight) for £60 (tres lucky) - even they're usually £100+.  
It's the same wide and depth and the exit/entrance are exactly the same too.  Thought it was worth the risk so went for it. 
Putting the fans back on needed a little bit of fettling to the radiator (but judging by the v small screws used on the original I think my solution is robust enough.  I cut some right angle bits of metal (from our illustrious local Aldi) and used them as extender tabs.  I was v reluctant to drill through the old fan shroud but didn't have a choice sadly.  some of the screw holes were missing anyway. pictures below.
My father in law had given me (actually my tractor mad son) all his boxes of tractor bits that he'd kept 'just in case' - some of the stuff must be 70 years old.........but you never know........and I aint one for throwing anything out either..........so..........with one way or another have managed to fettle it all together and it fits too.........not fitted yet because of the (terrible) fitting methodolgy Lotus use to secure the radiator to the car.  I need to still do some work to the front.  
You can see that the total volume held by the new radiator is less (on the sides) than the old.  If it proves a problem/insufficient I'll simply accept defeat and buy a proper one.
 
 

Hell no. I'm sure my bikes will survive in it. Although I'm thinking about a few ground anchors & chains for additional security. 

Car drove excellent on the way home and returned 44.8mpg. Just a knock from a front suspension link somewhere as declared in the advert. It only did it on the very last speed-hump outside my house so can't complain.
It's incredibly clean and tidy and a credit to the previous owner. My wife and son are big fans of it already.

Collected, a pleasure @Schaefft

Refreshments stop at the geese place. Car is huge!

 

Polished the Rovers lights up. Very cloudy when I got it-now a lot better.

anyone else spot the pontiac on the right of the picture

no sadly but id used to go in there with my dad..

anyone else spot the pontiac on the right of the picture

Import? Looks bit battered..

Possibly this place if same town.

Possibly this place if same town.

is it fast mister

New one is delivered tomorrow by Amazon for £15.99.

Apart from accidentally cutting someone up on a roundabout today - honestly, lane choice and indication suggested they were going around the whole way, not coming off, and then the Princess did that weird bogging down thing that it does sometimes I've never been able to solve - this thing drove past me while doing some shopping.

Not my photo, I wasn't able to get one, so I stole it off Pinterest.  It genuinely looks better on the move than it has in any photo I've seen of it.  I knew it was up north somewhere, and a regular at Whitby for obvious reasons, now I wonder if it's actually pretty local so I shall be keeping an eye out for photo opportunities on this one.  Someone did tell me what it was built on once, but I've since forgotten.

Man down. Here we see K39 XEA being parted-out, owner has banger-boy profile.

Surprise surprise! The postman came with the el cheapo thread file. (eBay £8.90 inc 24hr delivery)

Yesterday I exclaimed ‘how hard can it be’! The answer is VERY, but not in a tricky or technical way, just gruelling, knuckle bashing and tedious. It needs enormous pressure applying to cut any material, light filing just skates over the top achieving nothing. I spent the best part of 2hrs attacking the thread but finally I can thread the hub nut all the way on by hand. Hopefully there’s enough good threads to achieve the required torque, I’m hopeful.



I should be able to refit the handbrake cables and reassemble the drums tomorrow if the car cooperates.
-Steve-
 

I present to you my most recent purchase. 
1/18 Norev BMW 325i Touring.

Doesn’t the XM just look absolutely phenomenal 

also enjoy my shiny spheres 

riding and driving absolutely fantastic, really pleased

I know its being a bugger but washed it after being neglected, 

I know its being a bugger but washed it after being neglected, 

I would have had satisfaction knowing that I bought a mint Sierra for £4k, which would have been nice.
However, since taking possession of it, the weather has been absolutely horrendous, including rain almost every day. This means that I wouldn't have driven the Sierra anywhere and thus I wouldn't have enjoyed the ownership experience. Doing this work has kept me busy whenever I had spare time mid week in the afternoons and most weekends and as I managed to complete most tasks without any significant issues, the process has been rewarding for me and I have managed to keep a few regulars entertained.  
 

My cunning plan to sort out the damaged front bumper trim was to cover it with silver vinyl tape. Back in the day, when I had 10 year old Sierras with chrome trim, I would cover the trim with red vinyl tape, to make them look like newer versions - see photos on page 1.
I got a roll of this stuff from Amazon. It says "High Quality". 

Ten minutes later, the front bumper looked like this.

Unfortunately, the quality of the tape is not brilliant and where I pulled to extend it, the tape discoloured slightly. Not to worry, it looks better than the sun burned plastic strip.
Once finished, I was left with one sexy looking front bumper.

I then spent a couple of hours sorting out a few miscellaneous bodywork jobs.
I sprayed over the non-matching oil based paint on the inner side of the nearside sill.

I rubbed down a couple of small rust plebs on the back door. Fortunately, these are located beneath the trim strip and the repair won't be too obvious once finished. I'd rather have a small repair patch than leave untreated corrosion under matching paint.

I did the same on the offside front door.

There were also a couple of rust plebs on the sills, which extended from beneath the door seals. I treated them in the same way.


I will touch up all these areas with the matching blue aerosol once the oil based paint, which will subdue the corrosion, fully dries.
Whoever re-sprayed the nearside front door, re-used and badly applied the trim strip. The front section of the strip was peeling away.

I got this stuff out. It's not the best, despite what the adverts say but hopefully it will do.

At this stage, I need to explain that I had a different plan that involved putting pressure on the trim to make it stick but it didn't work out and I had to think fast and came up with this arrangement before the adhesive started to set. 


Hopefully, the trim will be secure and I won't have 25 litres of 10W40 spilled all over my workshop floor.
I won't have much time tomorrow or Friday to make more progress, so the plan is:
This Saturday - finish off the bodywork repairs that I started today, tidy up and spray the front suspension components, clean the underside of the gearbox and engine sump and paint the sump.
This Sunday - finish off what I started on Saturday, get the car back on its wheels and apply protective coatings to the underside areas that are currently concealed by axle stands / ramps. Then let everything dry.
Next Friday (Easter) - fire up the engine again, bleed the cooling system. Weather permitting, pull the Sierra out of the workshop and give it a deep clean and hoover. Take pleasure in taking plenty of lovely photos. Clean my workshop, which is a total mess, just about everything is covered with a layer of black spray residue. 
Next Sunday (Easter) - if the weather is shit on Friday, undertake the tasks scheduled for Friday, otherwise I shall rest.
Next Monday (Easter) - the 1st April, get the Sierra taxed and take it out for a drive and take some more photos. 
 

 

I left the paint to dry overnight and this morning.
I removed the masking tape and broadsheet to reveal sweet looking bumpers.


The front grille looks sweet too.
Next issue, sort out the sun burned bumper trims.

I have a plan and Amazon have delivered the solution but unfortunately I ran out of time this afternoon to make further progress.
Definitely more soon.