FatHarris - tales of a motoring moron *Herman Fixed!*

[fatharris]

As sunshine was just around the corner, it seemed right to start preparing the MX5 for the road once again. Once the car cover was removed, it became quite clear that I had become a millionaire without even knowing it.

With a reminder in the rear view mirror about keeping cars off the road too long:

The MX5 saw daylight for the first time since October.

A quick run over with a sponge and reconnecting the battery appeared to show everything still worked, but the OSF wing has deteriorated to the point where it was no longer secured to the front bumper. As the MOT was a day away, a bodge was the order of the day, namely drilling two holes into both the bumper and the wing and locking them together with garden wire. After that, a splash of aluminium tape, followed by colour coding it with some duct tape saw the wing looking slightly less terrible.

The Rust-eze sticker has finally gone too, it had faded away to nothing.

So away it went for an MOT and it failed for a binding front caliper.

 

New caliper, pads and a re-grease of the sliders saw the old girl roadworthy for another year, straight into daily driver duties.

Herman's new intake tube arrived, which was a relatively painless swap.

Turned out to be worse than the initial inspection:

At the moment, Herman just isn't being used again - blame the increase in fuel prices for that. A new battery is on the horizon though, as the Lion one isn't in the rudest of health.

[fatharris]

After all this work, I finally turned my attention to the garage (again).  Last year, I did a major re-jig to the layout, as detailed in Page 1 of this thread. Whilst having the workbench at the back was definitely the right way ahead, the working area floorspace was too narrow for working comfortably on cars, even small motors like the Beat. Swinging the trolley jack about and crawling underneath proved to be a pain in the arse. 

So, the aim of the game was to get as much floorspace back as possible. First step was to mount the bicycles to the roof rafters:

Relegating the boys' bikes and garden toys back to the garden shed did help things as well.

The biggest cause of floorspace intrusion was the floor-mounted racking.

Having had these since we moved in, these were essential in storing the absolute hoard of shite Mini parts. Nowadays, they were a lot more bare. They stood at 1.8m tall and could split in half, height-wise too.  A rough plan was hatched. The racking was broken down, and the separate 90cm vertical sections were reduced in height by 15cm. This height was chosen to allow it to stay roughly in line with the adjacent cabinet already fitted, and allow room to move underneath it.

The test fit of the first unit looked promising:

So the work continued.

Eventually, after a couple of evenings, they came together nicely.

And with the fourth and final unit fitted, I could properly secure the units for good. The rear vertical sections screw into both the wall and the roof trust mounting beam, the units were secured to each other and the front vertical sections were mounted to a section of timber secured to the roof beams.

This resulted in a very secure storage space that also allowed for full use of the floorspace underneath.

The following evening, all the shite that resided in the way was stowed.

Look, I can open the door fully! The ladder and workbench were also wall-mounted at this stage, accounting for the log storage near the front of the garage. The boy's toys came back in for a few days as I had other plans elsewhere.

I think it worked out pretty well.

And then, the Beat was parked on the other side of the garage, just in case! It's been nearly a month and it hasn't fallen down so I think that's a win. Work beckoned for a while after that, so this took a back seat.

Finally, I got back to it though. In our old house, I'd had to buy a tin of garage floor paint to repaint our porch floor as it was ruined. The tin had been sat in the garage, gathering dust for seven years since. 

Seemed daft to let this opportunity go to waste, eh?

I ended up applying this paint with a tiny roller - I needed to apply two coats, and I didn't want to end up having to buy a new tin, so minimising paint wastage in big rollers was the aim of the game.

Whilst in between applying the coats, the in-laws came down, so I got the FiL busy applying a coat of white paint to the walls.

At this point, we wall mounted 1 racking unit onto the wall, and relegated the other one to the shed, which was another ballache in itself!

Next, a toolboard in the corner of the garage was made up to accommodate the air tools above the compressor. Some corner shelves were also made and fitted.

One of the garage bugbears I had was a dark spot in the garage - a Facebook freebie of another florescent light was gained and wired in.

It got quite messy with all these simultaneous jobs going on!

But the work has its dividends, and a few hours later, the garage was ready.

You can see the corner shelves and extra florescent light in this one.

The Beat looked positively dwarfed in the new-found space.

So naturally, I had to test out a theory:

Yep, this will now become a 2 car garage for the winter months.

There was a surplus TV stand in the rear corner of the garage, which I had to avoid when parking the Mazda:

So with that moved out of the way, how far could we go?

Well, as it turns out, quite far.

It's a bit of a squeeze, but both cars drove in with minimal fuss, as long as the Beat is as far back as possible. Theoretically, Herman  /should/ fit in there alongside the Beat, but I really don't want to find out the hard way that I'm wrong.

So I finally have a clean, wide space to work without a dusty floor to ruin my day. Best thing was, most of the items used in this project were surplus items from other projects, so I spent just over £25 on the whole project.

[fatharris]

Finally, I was a moron and didn't adequately secure my bike one night. Came back the following day to find it had bounced off the Beats' paintwork:

A few choice words and some claybar action removed the deposit and I look to have avoided any real paint damage, PHEW.

I gave the Beat a wash, wax and polish for an upcoming show:

And remembered that it was 30 miles away, and I didn't have a spare wheel fitted to the car. Thankfully, I swung by Tony's place last weekend on the way home from a wedding in Bristol (Laguna got 40.8MPG) and picked up the spare tyre mounting plate.

Unfortunately, the wheel securing bolt has gone walkies, and as it was a Sunday night, I had to be creative. My friend had left a section of M8 threaded rod in the MR2 when I bought it and I never threw it out. Mercifully, the rod fitted, so I cut a section of timber and used a hole cutting drill bit to reduce the thickness. When it was discovered I had no M8 nuts left, it fell to Dad of the year to cannibalise two nuts from his old bicycle. His face was a picture when he attempted to ride it after.

The spare wheel itself was a spacesaver. The one originally for the Beat was in terrible condition, with several cracking appearing in the sidewall. Luckily, I had a spare Mazda spacesaver which was the same diameter and PCD as the Beat, so that got inflated and fitted.

Finally, I too all the tools out of a tiny boot, put them in a waterproof rucksack, and shoved it into the spare wheel recess. Job jobbed.

With that all done, the following morning we headed off to St Austell for the car show, MrsH and our youngest followed behind us in the Laguna, with the intention of parking the Laguna in the spectators car park.

Only there wasn't one, so our filthy, dented family hatchback ended up a part of the show - suppose it save us lugging the picnic out of it!

It was a local Mini club running the event and the response to the Beat was fantastic - loads of people had never seen one! Took a photo of a Mini alongside it to compare for size - The Mini is shorter in length, but wider.

However, the rain started to make an appearance so we left in the early afternoon. On arrival back home, I took the Beat to a mate for him to have a spin. 

He bloody loved it.

With that all done and dusted, the car was parked back up and I'll wash it later in the week.

T'was a lovely day for it.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

14 hours ago, fatharris said:

 

Your refurb of the Beat has really made it sharp! I knew the Riviera Run was on and have seen masses of proper Minis on the road over the last few days. I didn't know the show was open to others though - I'd imagine it was pretty busy?

[fatharris]

The Monday was an open show day but the numbers were a bit thin on the ground for something other than Minis - I think it could have been better publicised for the open event. Had a great time though

Amused me greatly that 'Car of the show' for a Mini-themed show was awarded to a Celica GT-Four

[fatharris]

Oh yeah, shout out to my little man who was compelled to stand next to the Beat and tell passers-by all about it

[fatharris]

It was a nice day, so I finally set out to answer the week-old question.



Well, that's that answered.

Fucking tight in there, mind.

[fatharris]

Been a pretty quiet couple of weeks here - but there was an event at work that had a static car display, so I figured the Beat would be an interesting oddity there.

A quick sponge off and drag back into the garage revealed that the rear bumper and light had attracted a scuff either during or after the Mini show.



Not sure when it happened or how, but the boy does go into my garage whilst I'm at work to get his bicycles out so there's a chance it was him (he denied it). Thankfully, a few minutes with some cutting compound and polish rendered the damage almost invisible.



With that done, I strapped the boy in and headed off to meet with the South West sports car club.

There was lots of posh, exotic motors:



And nestled deep withing was my golden nugget





To be fair, there was quite a lot of interest in the car from a lot of people, which was encouraging.

A few days later, I took the Beat out for a small shopping trip:



Would it fit in the boot?



Just about. Perfect for a single fella on a diet, this motor.

With that done, it was time to turn the attention to the MX5. This has been fulfilling the role of my daily for a few weeks now, and it was reminding me of all the jobs I had been putting off before I put it away for the winter.

Like the headlight that failed in dipped beam in October, worked briefly just prior to the MOT, then failed again. New bulb time



As mentioned in a previous post, the lock barrel fell into the door after I repaired and refitted it, typical of those spring clips.

Removed the door card:



And found the little beggar hiding at the bottom of the door. Seven months it has been down there!



Eventually, after way more fiddling and faffing about than I'm proud to admit, eventually the barrel clip went on and stayed on.



Whilst the MX5 was in the garage, I also finally re-secured the wind deflector so it was stay upright (been putting that job off for 18 months - two nuts nipped up and it's good to go again )

The passenger side window was quite stiff to wind up and down - old dry grease was the cause here, so the door card was removed and the old grease removed and replaced.



With all the 'big' jobs done, it was time to tackle the one annoying aspect of the car with a budget of zero pence.

Spot it?



Yes, it's this little fella.



Bit of duct tape and some white paint to make it a Kernow cross until I come up with a permanent solution of new plates



The paintwork on this Mazda is looking absolutely appalling, so I think this will end up recieving a roller paint job - it's already a write off with visible body damage so preserving the value is not a concern to me, but having it all one colour would be quite nice.

There's a fella on Facebook selling NATO green vehicle paint for £25 a tin so that looks to be the winning idea, once I get some replacement wings of any colour for it

Sent from my VOG-L09 using Tapatalk

[Jenson Velcro]

Spotted the flying banana in Plymouth this afternoon.

looking good with the hood down, and the exhaust sounding fruity.

👍

[fatharris]

Oh man, another long-winded update batch.

BEAT:

Once again, marked its territory with a tiny weep from the front coolant hose join. The hose spring clip was found not to be in the best state of health. Replaced with a Jubilee clip and monitoring for further leakage. Does appear to still be weeping ever so slightly but not enough to panic about.

Been a nice couple of months for the Beat. I had a full alignment done on the car following the rear end suspension replacement. Handles much more confidently now.

Attended a few shows:

(Launceston - 7/10)

Recreated one of my favourite photos of a Beat on the internet:

Stuck some stickerage onto it because I'm 5 years old inside

Did some more shows:

(DriveNQY - solid 10/10 for this one! The car park was almost as interesting as the show.)

(Cars and coffee style meet in Porthleven - 9/10 - got to drive the green Rover there :D)

Annoyingly, I noticed a while back that the doors were fouling the intake grilles, so I attempted to rectify that:

This side worked lovely with a bit of fettling.

The other side, less so.

It had already taken a chip out of the paint so I wanted to get it sorted.

After 45 minutes of sheer arseachery, this was the best I could achieve:

Nowhere near perfect, but does clear the grille now. I went to a local model shop to purchase a tiny tin of enamel model train paint that matched the colour of the paint chip I picked off the door. Colour match was pretty spot on, but I didn't notice the tin was fucking satin finish, not gloss. Oh well.

Took it to another show (Probus Rally, 6/10 - didn't bother with any photos)

Stopped by a fancy house for a photo on the way home:

Another show.

(KOVC @ Penhallow - 8/10 - too sodding hot!)

After that, it was a case of prepping the car for Shitefest - doing all the important things.

Like re-securing my USB socket after the securing nut detached.

And whilst the centre console was out:

It made sense to change the gearshift gaiter. The old one was pleather and had a hole in it.

The new one was a real leather one for a Renault Laguna 3 (so god knows why I have it) and fitted rather nicely in its place.

With all that vital* work completed, it was off to ShiteFest!

I was in charge of the route for the convoy so I made sure our route capture the Nant Y Moch reservoir, Elan Valley and Pen Y Pass, with all the adjoining mountain roads.

So how was the Beat?

Absolutely bloody fantastic. It absolutely skipped over the mountain roads like an excitable terrier, scampering from corner to corner, its size proving to be a massive benefit for those winding roads. It did transpire that the Beat was burning oil on the overrun though, with a small puff of smoke visible when the throttle was re-applied, but it's not significant enough to warrant any further action beyond me adding a bottle of stop smoke at SF - the level is now steady.

One thing I did notice was I must have forgotten to secure my oil cap during a top-up at a stop, which was now long gone - DOH! Luckily, it was a remove filler tube so not having one didn't affect it and I actually had a new spare on at home.

Eventually, I split from the Kernow Konvoy to head to Plymouth to see family and meet up with MrsH, and we convoyed back home later that evening, her in Herman.

Some quick maffs revealed that on the dual carriageways, the Honda averaged 42MPG there and back, on the mountain roads up there was 55mpgh, and the mountain roads home was 61MPG. Average for the trip was 50mpg. Astounding.

In the morning, I noticed the car grows a better beard than me:

Fitted my spare oil cap:

And regretted parking next to the fire at SF 😂

 

Thankfully, it's all cleaned up now.

I lent the Beat to MrsH to commute to work. She wasn't chuffed with the additional decoration to the wheel that I'd forgotten about. Oops.

No sense of humour sometimes, that girl 😆

As it stands, I'm running out of miles on the insurance pretty soon, so it'll be parked up soon.

There's a few jobs coming up that I want to do over the winter months, but we'll see if it can happen in time. For now, I just want to enjoy it.

 

[High Jetter]

Brilliant stuff. So the Beat goes on...

[fatharris]

BX:

The right rear boot floor corner was an absolute mess. A sea of patches and in dire need of replacement, I decided another patch wasn't going to cut it this time.

Time to cut the lot out.

It was only when the removed section was actually on the bench and visible, was the true extent of the bodgery revealed. 

And just how thin the metal had gotten in some places.

This time, I wanted to try and use thicker metal. 1mm came out, 1.8mm was going in - that should at least last a bit longer.

So, all marked out:

And shaped. First thing I noticed was just how much harder it was to shape 1.8mm compared to 1mm. With just a bench vice, some angle iron and a hammer, it was going to get tricky.

This time, to ensure good penetration, I held a flatttened section of copper pipe on the underside of the sections I was welding. Weld doesn't stick to copper, so it allows the weld to pool without burning through to reduce the risk of blowing through the metal. Worked a treat, too.

Making the rail was a bit of a challenge. 1.8mm is a tough bugger to bend, and I was going to have to make tight box sections. 

To get around this, I noticed that the internal dimensions of the rail were the same as pushing 2 of my angle iron bits together to make a box shape (Pic shows what I mean)

So, I welded the angle iron bits together to maintain the box shape.

Measured out the required dimensions

And started twatting it into shape. A rubber mallet proved to be the best non-damaging method to getting the metal bent over.

The 3rd and final bit of angle iron was then brought into play to allow the tabs to be formed.

Until eventually I got the rail shape I was after. Almost dimensionally perfect to the section still fitted to the car, but I'm confident it'll be fine.

After that, it was a case of removing the reinforcement bracket from the old section. Took a lot of hacking and slicing to free it! Eventually, it came off, and was cleaned up/ ground down ready for welding.

And that's been it for the BX really for the past couple of months. Will get back to it pretty soon, I hope.

Once thing I did do yesterday was have a quick go at the bumper corner scuff with some scratch remover. Obviously I'm not stupid enough to think it'll undo the deep scuff, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much of the other little bits of damage it helped with.

I'll be working on this sort of task every so often. The car itself does still start and drive although it is very fume-y and smokey. Possible consequence from not turning a wheel in in anger since early 2021?

[fatharris]

MISC:

Helped a friend in need of assistance. Their '08 Fiesta was making typically horrid wheelbearing noise on the rear and a chuffing noise up front.

First thing I noticed when I took it home to my garage was how hot the OSR wheel had gotten.

So wheel off:

Which confirmed that (a) the brake was binding slightly, and the wheel bearing itself was on the way out. The wheel bearing on both sides was replaced, handbrake adjusted and sent out for a test. Same problem. Once back to the garage, I took the drum off for another check and found one of the brake cylinder pistons had seized slightly on.

Mercifully a quick fix.

Once replaced, the handbrake was adjusted again and all was good. Ended up saving time during the handbrake adjustment by leaving the drum attached to the alloy and just pulling it off and on for quick adjusts.

Next up, the chuffing. Found to be one of the injectors. 
Lots of faffing ensued on my part, having never changed injector seals before.

After a bit of time, the injector came out.

Lots of scrubbing of the injector and the surrounding area followed, along with cutting the injector port mating face.

Had loads of trouble removing this seal in the head - eventually it transpired that I've taken the top face off the seal and was trying to prise out the seals internal metal ring.

Up yours car.

After much faffing and cleaning, the new injector seals were fitted. A long test drive to drop it off with my friend proved that all was working once again and I've heard no complaints since so I guess I did all right. Got a nice bottle of port for my troubles

Other jobs around the garage - Found a neighbour chucking out these drawers. £5 later and they're mine. Still in the process of tidying them up and sorting them out. Good to get some more space though.

Cat decided that loafing in direct sunlight wasn't stupid enough, and tried to intensify the progress. Tit.

And I undertook a zero-budget build of a playhouse for my boy.

He absolutely loved it. The entire thing, wood, screws, etc.... were all held in or around my garage so it was totally free. Heavy thing too, was a 3 man lift to manoeuvre it into position - where the boy had an imaginary 'house'. It wasn't meant to be weatherproof or anything like that - just a little something to stimulate a fascinating, flourishing imagination. He's had it 4 days and it's already filled with toys, a chair and his cleaning toy set 😂

It did mean the driveway parking situation was pure bedlam whilst the playhouse was on the driveway being built. Typically, I needed the MX5 to commute the following morning so plenty of shuffling required!

And that's me up to date. 

Thanks for reading!

[fatharris]

Spotted at one of the shows.

Looking for an argument against rolling 40 year MOT exemptions?
Step this way Sir.

 

She's a cornucopia of bodges. Remarkably, three weeks before this photo was taken, it received a clean MOT pass. Almost impressive

[Dave_Q]

I cannot fathom how you would prefer to spent 14 weeks drilling holes and putting on pop rivets rather than buying a welder from Lidl and trying to learn how to use it, you've got to admire the tenacity

[fatharris]

6 minutes ago, Dave_Q said:

I cannot fathom how you would prefer to spent 14 weeks drilling holes and putting on pop rivets rather than buying a welder from Lidl and trying to learn how to use it, you've got to admire the tenacity

Maybe his garage doesn't have an electric socket? 😂

[fatharris]

A quiet summer holidays really, but seems daft not to update.

LAGUNA:

As usual, steadfastly reliable. The MOT was looming, and with one tyre suffering a slow puncture, and two on the limit of wear, we finally dug the original wheels out from behind the garage to get a set of part worns fitted.

Christ, this turned out to be a palaver. Took them up in the back of the Laguna but didn't want them fitted to the car yet, so I could have a quick scrub and inspect of the suspension etc before the MOT. First time I get back, start fitting the wheels, I notice one of them isn't matching in size - would be an instant MOT fail. 

To make matters worse, the wheel weights used to balance the wheel were fouling on the brake calipers. I took them back in Herman (The Laguna was on axle stands by this point) and they tried shrugging their shoulders and saying there's nothing they can do, although they eventually balanced one with the weights slightly more inboard - told me to try it on that but wouldn't do a par of them balanced like that, which meant that when I found out that it would fit, I had to go back a third time to get another one re-balanced. Very poor service and shall not be returning to Redruth Tyres again.

However, after a day of pure arseache, the Laguna finally had a set of matching alloy wheels for the first time since 2019!

It was then shunted through an MOT where it had three failures - two of which were for headlamp adjust being too low - guessing the smaller wheels didn't help! Adjusters were checked for free movement and moved slightly up. The final one was for a power steering leak. The Laguna had a power steering pipeline leak a couple of MOTs ago and was remedied with a new pressure pipe, so I started hunting. Eventually, I found the return hard line has been slightly pinholed by it's securing clip, which was a bit of a bonus as it wasn't a pressurised line. Once thoroughly cleaned and de-greased, this pinhole was remedied with some self-amalgamating rubber tape, with some black spiral wrap to protect the assembly. The securing clip was then bent slightly to accommodate the slightly thicker, repaired pipeline and re-secured.

Once that was all finished, it was returned for a re-test and came back with a clean sheet pass!

Six weeks later, the power steering still doesn't leak and the level hasn't dropped, so I'm calling that a permanent repair. That being said, today we took it to drop the boy off at his first day of school and there's a new stink in the cockpit, which will warrant urgent investigation over the weekend if the weather allows. Hopefully along with a service, as I've had the stuff on the shelf for a while now waiting.

Mazda: This is starting to be in need of a bit of work soon - the power steering has always leaked a bit, but it now seems to have increased in severity. Still liveable, but definitely needs investigation soon. Sadly, the rust is starting to take hold of the passenger side lower rear quarter again - it was only replaced about 6 years ago. Still ace to drive though.

Did forget to put the roof up during the one rain shower we had in August - thankfully survived!

 

Herman: Used all the remaining fuel in the tank when times got tight - will now be SORNed for a while until the fuel prices just fucking chill for a bit.

BX: Just don't. Untouched.

Beat: Following ShiteFest, the Beat was meant to be having a bit of a break. Then I got a call from a mate inviting me up to the Peaks District for a three day piss-up.

Some man maths were calculated to see if it was even financially feasible, and realistically I had a choice of two cars. With the Beat, I'd planned two route, in order to account for me trying to avoid motorways to save fuel and just have a more enjoyable drive overall.

So, with the figures all stacking up nicely, I loaded a couple more jerry cans in the boot, all my luggage in the passenger seat and footwell, and set off on a lovely 10.5 hour journey via the Fosse Way, stopping regularly to enjoy the scenery and take some photos.

          

(First fuel stop - 251 miles from home - worked out mid 50s MPG!)

It was a very enjoyable, save for a van driver trying to get me murdered in the final 1/4 of a mile. Various truck drivers were surprisingly enthusiastic when they saw the car, and I got a few honks and waves  I parked up, and had a very enjoyable evening.

 

The following afternoon, I had already pre-planned a nice figure of 8 route of about 100 miles to sample the best driving roads in the area - and the Beat did not disappoint

                       

 

                      

 

                  

         

         

I had an absolutely fantastic drive - the weather was excellent, the roads were quiet and the scenery was breathtaking at almost every turn - I ended up going through Winnits Pass twice just to take it all in!

After a couple more days of relaxing and skulling beers, Sunday night was taken gently, to allow a fresh head for an early start.

Got home at a reasonable time, having had a wonderful weekend, made all the better by that little yellow buzzbox. There are a few niggles that have raised their head, most importantly the stereo was cutting out whenever the volume got too loud, but nothing too strenuous. I'll also be looking at brake upgrades in the near future as I'm not a big fan of the feeling of the front brakes.

Either way, home safe and sound, and a toast to the Beat, and mid-50s MPG across the entire time

     

Misc: Someone in the village was offering a free hot tub with a shitload of issues. I took it on and we got started, as we're still on a fixed tarrif for our energy and MrsH always wanted one - happened to coincide nicely with her birthday and didn't break our 'no presents' rule this year.

First thing it needed was a good scrub - it has been in a wet shed for months and was stinking. Cleaned up nicely. With it inflated, MrsH immediately found the pinhole puncture in the sidewall - quick patch on it, first fault fixed.

Second fault was the unit was throwing error codes whenever the heater was turned on - stripped the unit down and carried out some wiring checks and found a thermal fuse had blown - fitted the spare and a new error code popped up relating to the 50c sensor. Removed it and did a few functional checks on it - all turned out fine, which pointed to the main board being the culprit.

£23 later, a good secondhand board arrived and with a new filter fitted, we filled it up and all functions work correctly - result!

It's been taken back down for now, as I want to liberate some more pallets and make a permanent shelter for it. Energy-wise, I think our bill crept up by £15 that month, and I think most of that would have come from the initial warm-up as it appears to be pretty good at retaining heat when we turn the heater off.

Other Misc:

Saw a 'Batmobile' which was formerly an MR2. Poor thing. The back end I'll try finding a picture of again

 

Spotted another Beat in Cornwall! This was being driven by Jean, a lovely lady in her 70s, and the recipient of my donated heater knobs back from February. A very nice example and well-specced, with working R12 air conditioning, a rarity! 

Spotted some other fun chod this month at shows too:

All in all, an enjoyable summer holiday

[3VOM]

You drove past the usual Northern Powerhouse meeting place in your tour.

[fatharris]

1 minute ago, 3VOM said:

You drove past the usual Northern Powerhouse meeting place in your tour.

I believe the technical term is 'screamed past'

[3VOM]

1 minute ago, fatharris said:

I believe the technical term is 'screamed past'

You'd probably want to, to be honest.

[Matty]

@fatharris sat having a pint in the centre of Bury just now and there's some excellent loon hammering a white Beat around the centre. No photos because I'm really slow. Brilliant though, never seen one in the flesh. Good noise they make as well!

Edit, just found it!

[fatharris]

[mention=18190]fatharris[/mention] sat having a pint in the centre of Bury just now and there's some excellent loon hammering a white Beat around the centre. No photos because I'm really slow. Brilliant though, never seen one in the flesh. Good noise they make as well!
Edit, just found it!

Oh wow! What a little beauty, that's had a replacement roof with a glass window, you can tell because now the rear view is like looking out of a WW2 pillbox you also find you can only drive these cars by using the revs, so it sounds like you're doing a million miles an hour, when I'm reality you're sitting at 30.

MrsH doesn't like driving it because people assume she's speeding and flip her off. Guess I've got thicker skin

Sent from my VOG-L09 using Tapatalk

[fatharris]

End of year update:

Mazda: This has been the daily for the rest of the year, doing everything from the commute to the school run. Unfortunately, it was leaving rainbows on the driveway and dumping PS fluid at an alarming rate:



Remarkably, this was the same fault as was in the Laguna - a pinhole in the return line. To add to the issue, nobody seems to supply pipelines for this particular model year of MK1 MX5. So, this had the same style of repair as the Laguna - clean, degrease, rubber tape, tywrap. Touch wood, it's been absolutely leak free for over four months.

It's got an MOT in April so we'll see what comes from that.

Laguna: The Laguna has been running lovely for MrsH as her daily. The rear door lock actuators have started getting a bit sluggish in the cold weather.

Only other fault was MrsH called me on the way home to say her car was sounding extra loud. Told her to swing in by the swimming pool where I was at with the kids before she went home.

Glad I did, she'd have ripped the bloody thing off on the speed humps in the village



Luckily, they were removable nuts and bolts, not studs, so once I got the car home carefully, it was sorted within a couple of hours. The gasket even held in place from the detached exhaust so it ended up being a free fix.





The roof headlining has been getting damp in downpours again, so that requires further investigation.

BMW: Nothing done. Needs some attention/a damn good clean before it goes back on the road. Runs out of MOT in March and it only did 1200 miles for the entirety of 2022. That's the fuel prices for you!



BX: Nothing done (again). Currently living outside under a cover.



Beat: This went straight through another MOT with no advisories!



Mostly been off the road, getting a few jobs done.

First one was getting the car up on stands and having a check of the underside for any signs of rust coming through. Couple of little bits of hammerite needed topping up, but otherwise clean underneath.



Another job was the stereo was cutting out at high volumes (necessary during high speeds with the roof down).

So, strip down of the centre console again:



The initial thought was the amp was over heating. Took off the heat sink to check:



And spotted that the thermal paste had slipped. Replaced.



This was not successful, not the subsequent replacement amplifier board. Eventually, instead of taking the power feed from the stereo circuit, the stereo power is directly fed from the cigarette lighter, and a step up transformer used to bump it from 12 to 24v. It seems to be working fine now.

Finally, I started looking at the issue I had with the watertight integrity of the roof. The roof skin had shrunk terribly over the years, and the previous owner had tried to compensate for this by over tightening the latch hooks, causing them to bend.



Both sides were straightened in a vice and screwed in to a sensible length, the roof seal mounting frames were straightened with a hammer, and the car parked under a hose to see if there was any progress being made.

It was still pooling in the footwells, so the screen frame seals were checked and unblocked - the previous owners appeared to have stuffed some foam in the middle of the drain tube. Whilst there, I re-installed the seals correctly, as they were displaced and slightly twisted.

The car was parked in a downpour earlier and there was a few small drops in the cockpit so I've got a few more ideas to try when some parts arrive.

Next post will be the miscellaneous stuff, but please enjoy the work of this up and coming graffiti artist spotted when doing the school run.

[fatharris]

Misc:

Ah yes, this little nugget of joy popped back in:



My friend was away with work so I offered to get it MOTd for her. Failed on a driveshaft.

So, old driveshaft out. Typically, all the fixings were rusty as arseholes and the job took twice as long as it should have.





Annoyingly, after I placed the order, I got an email saying that the shaft was out of stock for a fortnight. Emailed back and asked for a refund, got no response for a couple of days, and suddenly, a knock on the door and a new shaft was here

Once fitted, I went underneath and gave some of the exposed crustiness at the rear end a quick touch up to give it another couple of years. It passed its MOT and got handed back to my friend.

The winter got really rather cold and so I hit up Facebook marketplace and got a bargain infrared heater:



It was naturally cheap, so it was a bit ropey - it was covered in body shop detritus and overspray, and all four of the caster wheels were hanging off.

So, time to give it a bit of a spruce up:



The caster wheel mounting frames we re-shaped and braced inside with wood before replacement:



The reflectors removed and polished:


As were the bulbs, which were covered in overspray. The cable was also replaced for a much longer one.



It's still rough, but it is better that it was!



And all working:



Unfortunately, whilst it was lovely heat, once it was off, the heat disappeared, as is its nature, so it was time to move in a different direction.

I made some enquiries with a neighbour and got put in touch with a fella that was living off-grid. He worked as a builder/roofing guy and had recently refurbished a local pasty kitchen - he had all the removed foam roof insulation for sale at super cheap prices.

For £110 delivered, a deal was done and the insulation arrived on my doorstep that evening.

As expected for the price (it was looking to be about four or five times as much to buy it new!), It was in pretty poor shape - it had been in the rain, it was soaked in cooking grease and covered in dirt.



A morning of pressure washing and scrubbing them with parts cleaner yielded items that were clearly second hand, but didn't smell.



This was placed in the garage with a dehumidifier to allow it to dry fully.



It was a tight squeeze!



Eventually ( I was working on this when the kids had gone to bed) after a few days, I had cut all the boards down to their required sizes (you can see it in the background of the IR heater refurb photos) each roof joist void would get 6 bits of insulation to cover the entire area.

I used a combination of nails and steel wire to hold the insulation in place. Took a few weeks of faffing about, but it shaped up nicely:



Doing the joists above the plastboarded ceiling was a pure ballache - no space to move at all, and dirt constantly falling in my face



The benefits of the insulation demonstrated itself during a light snowfall halfway through the insulating:



And it's worked! Last night the outside temperature dropped to 2c, garage stayed at around 8c.

The garage ended up being an absolute nightmare to manoeuvre around during all of this:



The garage door was also insulated with some leftover foam from when I took the soundproofed partition wall down. Planning to add another layer.



Finally, there was no way to close the door from the inside now the foam was in the door.

Enter, the most useless tool ever - the box spanner.



Makes a decent enough grab handle.

The future plan will be to get a diesel heater during the summer months when the prices are lower, and to have some form of spray bar to distribute the hot air a lot more evenly around the garage.



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[ruffgeezer]

Interesting read, thanks @fatharris,  certainly some things to consider when I rebuild my garage later in the year.

[fatharris]

15 hours ago, ruffgeezer said:

Interesting read, thanks @fatharris,  certainly some things to consider when I rebuild my garage later in the year.

Thanks, it seems to be tradition that once a year, I get unhappy with something in there and decide to improve it. There's still a few jobs to do this year to make it a bit more comfortable,  but the emphasis has been to make this as low budget as possible whilst still being safe/strong - it's been quite satisfying seeing my spare piles of DIY shite and gubbins slowly being used up over the course of the last couple of years!

[ruffgeezer]

For sure,  I can't wait to get the old shanty shed pulled down.

I think I will end up replacing it with a prefab garage, just as long as it stays drier than what it replaces!

[fatharris]

As part of the ongoing dream to be able to use the Beat as a fun commuter, one of the challenges I have is trying to make the cockpit more watertight. This is an ongoing exercise in futility, but another key part of this arrived in the post today so I got started.

First things first, popped the heaters on in the garage an hour before I went out, to get it a little bit more comfortable than the ~6⁰c ambient temperature.



Baking in there now

I would be working on the drivers door, which would require the door card to be removed:



Which exposed this mess.



I was warned about this by Tony when he did the work package on the car back in '21. He did say there was a lot of sealant in the cavity to make up for the rotten bit, but this still resulted in a lot of lateral play in the window, which I'm hoping was causing a negative effect on the sealing of the windows.

After a bit of faffing, it came out relatively easily.

As demonstrated by the photos, the old one was completely ballbagged!



You can see the difference in the guide slot too.



As it had disintegrated internally and split into two pieces at the time of the rebuild, it was filled with sealant in an attempt to keep it going. Buggerance to clean off though.



A little bit of fiddling and manual adjustment was required, particularly on the lower adjustable bolt thread, which was pointing ever so slightly upwards, affecting the lining up of the remaining bolts.



Eventually, it all came back together fine, and the window appears to have less play in it now.



Will it provide a better, dry solution?

Well, we'll have to find out in due course, preferably not during the salt season!



Cheers.

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[fatharris]

Quiet day today, so I pottered about the garage. First job was fixing a puncture on the boys bicycle, then reattached the head on ol' faithful. Bit wonky now, mind, but still sweeps



After that, it was onto more jobs around the garage, firstly greasing up the garage door mechanism - a job I've forgotten to do for years, but makes a huge difference.

Finally, I looked at the garage door frame. The bottom of each side had rotted away over the years.

The entire frame is probably due replacement soon, but I had some spare wood of 'roughly' the same dimensions, so it was time to chop the old rotted section out.



Naturally, the world's worst camera doing stellar work today:



Not perfect, but it's better than a gaping hole.



The other side was starting to go as well, and I already had the tools out, so it made sense to do that one too.



Like a metaphor for my cars, it's a lot worse on the bits that were out of sight.



Last job of the day was fitting another layer of insulation to the garage door, and sealing as many drafty bits as possible. Again, budget of zero and trying to use up stuff from previous DIY projects over the years, so it's not a flawless finish but hopefully it'll make a difference.

The foam was secured with screws and penny washers, and I'll get some glue on there when the weather warms up.



All in all, a pleasant day had

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[fatharris]

Not a great deal to update on.

Polished and waxed the Beat.





Got up at a very unrelaxo 0430 alarm, picked up my mate in Plymouth:





And headed up the line to Somerset for the Haynes Museum breakfast meet - we'd registered for a spot in the paddock as part of the '90s' theme.



There was a decent mix there:












We popped into the museum afterwards as well and had a great time

As my friend is soon to be leaving the country for Japan for a while, he let me all his car cleaning kit and spare spray paints he had etc. Always gratefully received!



The chicken hutch was letting in rain, so a new roof was hastily cobbled with some scrap aluminium. Dry inside now




Took advantage of a deal at Halfords that went viral, which resulted in me picking up these two lots for a total of £35:



Finally, after being taken off the road in July because fuel was silly, Herman is going to be lightly fettled in the hope of passing the MOT booked for this time next week.





Took the rear lights off to clean the space behind as the water flow was always weird. Found acres of dirt in there!



Even though it had a lengthy wash, there's still loads of bird shit embedded into some of the surfaces, it's already burned through the lacquer too, just to add insult to injury.

That car was immaculate when I got it 9 years ago

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