Tales of a new business, trials and endless uphill battles

[Jikovron]

For aslong as I can remember I've wanted to be directing my own path in business but never had the actual confidence to overcome huge self doubt and fears of failure, in 2021 when I nearly met with my mortality thanks to covid I remember hating that I'd played things safe as houses like a boring nobody and literally despite continued health maladies I feel that I've got a second run up at life , so I'm starting from nothing at 35 and want to get pushing forward with what is abit of a dream for me .

So basically my sister and I have teamed up to create a new garage/engineering works of which provides the usual bread and butter garage services and also more specialised work less commonly found like large manual machining capability and welding.

We're looking to stock up on a range of common classic parts too so that we can take on most project work without waiting on parts turning up in ebay etc albeit limited space prevents stocking a vast amount.

So far over the last 8 months !

Obligatory huge lathe brought back somewhat inappropriately 

Company car brought down , inappropriately 

Lathe electrical rebuild done because it was dangerous as hell, 415 through the soaked push buttons etc ,,horrible ! Once cleaned and generally setup it's been put to work straight away!

 

this s100 k series swap was quite aquite to drive, getting one to fit the earlier car isn't bolt in like with the estelle and rapid !

Cambelt snappage job on an iveco 2.3, lots of new valves and lapping required!

loads of work done, and loads more hopefully to come ! 

[junkyarddog]

Best of luck with the new venture. 👍

[Bren]

Best wishes

[Sham]

A proper workshop, and not a parts fitter - there are far too few of these. Good luck.

[Low Horatio gearbox]

Awesomeness right  there.  Good luck.

[Shep Shepherd]

Excellent! I wish you success and good times ^^

[sierraman]

Handy to know, out chesterfield way I guess? I use a place down on the Station Road at New Whit from time to time. 

[Stinkwheel]

Good for you and well done, wish you all the best with the venture. Your work looks good

[DeanH]

Well done on having the balls to give it a go, I really hope it works out for you. Where have you based yourself? 

[chodweaver]

So glad to hear this is going well for you!

[rattlecan]

Nice one, good luck with it. I’ve been SE since 2001 best thing ever, not easy by any means & can get scary, especially at the start, but well worth it. Whereabouts are you?

[Morris 63]

Some proper old school mechanicing/machining is a rare thing to find - hopefully word quickly spreads. Best of luck to you.

[Macscrooge]

Hope it all goes well. As others have said, tell us where you are and (unless it’s against the AS rules) post a link to your website. 

[Jikovron]

Thankyou all for your kind words there's no doubt its going to be a stress fest but I'm relishing the challenge my sister has been the star really as I've basically thrown her right into the deep end with welding/fabricating and quite intense mechanical work without any sign of flagging so far, not bad for a former office based employee!

We're based at Derwent foundry, Whatstandwell DE4 5HG 

01629 818296

RRM Ltd facebook

RRM Ltd website

[auntiemaryscanary]

Nice little website you've set up. Gives a good overview. I don't do facething so good to see you having an online presence.

Hope the new business goes well for you and sister.

[High Jetter]

More powarh to you and your sis - sounds like an excellent setup with a great attitude. I'm sure word will spread, over time.

[bangernomics]

Looks excellent and just make sure the kettle is properly installed too!


Gzongenflatch

[Matty]

As I occupy this area of work but have never had the balls to do what you have done, I wish you all the success that you deserve. Top man.

[Jikovron]

Thankyou all, very kind uplifting words

So today's work has been in 2 stages 

This crafter is in for a mystery engine problem, it was bought by the owner stripped like it is with the engine unable to start, when attempted it basically just made like a knock sound every crank rotation and would just fire, so checking it manually I found all 4 cylinders felt like they had compression 1 maybe less than the others and the timing marks all made sense, so I kept persevering to which it did fire up and run on 3 seemingly

Next up today this bad lad, 2.0 petrol freight rover in the exact spec i wanted for a recovery truck, decent underneath too !

The convoy doors offend me greatly it had to be saidbso I'll have to swap those for some earlier jobs 

Chassis is all sweet so that's getting painted up ASAP and the cab will go BL blue I think 

Here's a wierd thing, the pistons stop short by 8mm which to me seems mad, its a 2.0 O series so has the 89mm stroke rather than the 75mm of the 1.7, the engine itself seems to have been bored out 20 over and maybe overheated a few times as the radiator is new as is a few ignition bits, it running terribly prompted me to take off the head as the carb settings and ignition timing seemed to make no difference to running at all !,,I might end up building a new 2.0 out of a 1.7 and reusing the oversize pistons !

[Jikovron]

Having a look at the freight rover again, I decided to whip out the +0.5mm pistons to reuse in a seasoned 1.7 engine block as I feel the bores in this engine have suffered through an over heat, so I instructed the chief apprentice sister to whip the sump off and bop out the pistons so I could strip the 1.7 to a bare block and get the parts off to the rebore shop expeditiously 

Easy work for wor kidda who is a bloody fast learner at this sort of work 

i compared the crank to a B series but alas the bastard is different, I could have coverted a spare 1.7 to 2.0 without much effort if so !

this VW 2.0tdi which runs of three but feels like every cylinder has compression actually snapped off 2 of the exhaust rocker arms so it might be that with a set of new ones fitted that it might be OK however I dislike the idea of valves that have been forced up by the piston so will recommend a head rebuild at the very least.

[dome]

On 11/04/2024 at 13:40, Jikovron said:

 

Cambelt snappage job on an iveco 2.3, lots of new valves and lapping required

On behalf of @Cavcraft I'd like to thank you for keeping another one of these on the road🫡

 

[sporty-shite]

Looks like you're loving this, too, which I'm sure makes the job so much easier. 

Best of luck on your venture. 

[Dave_Q]

Just replacing the rocker arms on a diesel is pretty common, the valves tend to go straight up and down so don't get bent when contact happens.

Might be a slight love bite on the piston but nothing really to affect running.

I would definitely stick just the rocker arms on first and run it up and see what it sounds like.

[bangernomics]

On my old mk5 transit the belt went and bent the pushrods and I reckon a lot are sacrificially designed for the rockers to pop as much easier to do.

The old tranny just had a new belt the rods straightened in the vice.

Good luck in the new venture and if you are considering selling the sister on let me know.


Gzongenflatch

[Jikovron]

Today's job was to fit a roof rack to a camper which had hit a bridge and crushed the rack and bent all the brackets, after welding new rails onto it and straightening out the brackets we got the rough smoker forklift out and immediately had to mess about with 'fork extensions' 

Tightened on and missing fasteners repatriated, and also we fitted our own design of fabricated pannier box carrier frames to the door along with relocating a ladder to the side and number plate and lights to the top of the door !

[jon.k]

How much weight do you think the back doors will be able to take in those boxes? (genuine question)

Great thread!

[robt100]

Looks like you're going great guns at this. Liking to work so far, I'm also hoping the change of freight rover doors means you might pick up the old sliding ones from the Daf versions😆

[Mr_Bo11ox]

You look like you might have the right setup to have a look a job for me actually.

I've got this thing sat on my drive slowly getting fettled. Stud pattern on these is 4 x 110, really odd size. I've got a quite rare set of refurbished Lotus Eclat (not elite) 14" alloys that i reckon would look the business on it, but they're 114mm pcd. I can well imagine that fitting them might involve redrilling hubs or whatever, if its even possible at all. Might you be up for taking a look? I guess I'd have to send the car & wheels over to you on a truck (no big deal as I'm only about 9 miles from your workshop) and you could see what you think about it.

[Jikovron]

On 21/04/2024 at 09:47, jon.k said:

How much weight do you think the back doors will be able to take in those boxes? (genuine question)

Great thread!

I stood on the frames a few times to get on the roof and it flexed the door skin a smidge but wasn't enough to be concerning, he's on about using it for sleeping bags only 

[Jikovron]

On 21/04/2024 at 11:42, robt100 said:

Looks like you're going great guns at this. Liking to work so far, I'm also hoping the change of freight rover doors means you might pick up the old sliding ones from the Daf versions😆

Would need a panel van for those I think! 😆