Tales of a new business, trials and endless uphill battles

[Jikovron]

Those will either come out no bother, or they will cause so much trauma that you will have to move to a new area for a fresh start in life 

[robt100]

Any more updates?

a) I want to see how my jag turns out 🤣
b) to see if @auntiemaryscanary and @Floatylight  have booked their work in with you yet 🫣😅

[Jikovron]

So yes more stuff happened on the Jag, namely the visceral centerpiece known as the luft pompe superdinks was stripped, checked, determined to be a good un and thusly more power was wanted  talk of the 5% pulley was quickly quashed with no words and so the 10% pulley was bought along with the special oil ,£20 nub of grease and anaerobic sealant, it all got machined and booped together with such things as torque settings, waiting times,adapters, imperial drive wrenches and metric sockets, then the unit was returned to the valley 

Then a chap reminded me that i needed to complete his rover K series- skoda estelle swap so i got the lathe going, reminded myself of the dangers of a big lathe and ripped 3kg off the outer edge and resized it for a rwd estelle ring gear rather than the larger id one it came with 

Also it needed a spacer/spigot bearing holder made too 

So the next thing is that swapping the lathe chucks over is so much a physical nightmare that i went and bought another lathe to leave the 3 jaw on 

Also we broke up a transit custom which had turned on its side, then weighed in the shell , whilst it looked overweight it actually was on 10 over, 680kg for the shell on a 330kg trailer 

[Jikovron]

Then we bought and stripped a knackered mgb which everything sold fairly speedily

Then we found the forklift was out of order so had to make other arrangements to load on the trailer

Then we got some real work in which actually isnt that common, a clutch change and oil seal swap on a A35, the 948cc plant was actually slipping the clutch!!! 

note the thickness difference

Of course initially i removed the gearbox, then couldnt get the box past the steering rack so whilst the arms gradually failed in the task i racked the mind till i remembered reading in a sprite manual 25 years ago that you had to rotate the box 45 degrees clockwise to let it come out!

Then after all that palaver i noticed this design excellence, hydro mechanical brakes ! 

 Then straight onto an auto box swap on a figaro, thos was tense as the gearbox turned up mad late, was missing the torque convertor and had abit of the bellhousing missing,  the symptom was the gearbox slipping horribly so it barely moved, i couldnt be arsed dealimg with the 'reconditioner' so just said best to swap it really, so it was swapped over anyhow and thankfully it drove excellently !! 

Then we hosted some cars for a banger racer and as soace was limited, we improvised much to the annoyance of the environmental agency 

I made a start on rebuilding up the K series engine for the skoda swap to hopefully minimise the issues that often afflict the otherwise excellent power unit in this picture i was checking the liners for wear and height

Also i visited Carsington water and one of my favourite features was the image it took of the car, so being a insufferable dad i pressed my face on the windscreen and encouraged the kids to do the same , unfortunately the picture isnt that clear

 

[comfortablynumb]

15 minutes ago, Jikovron said:

unfortunately the picture isnt that clear

Bet it's clear enough for them to fine you for wrong parking tho! 🙄

[robt100]

5 hours ago, Jikovron said:

Then we got some real work in which actually isnt that common, a clutch change and oil seal swap on a A35, the 948cc plant was actually slipping the clutch!!! 

 

 

 

 

Was this the one that tried to make a run for freedom when I turned up with the laptop for the Jag? Lovely looking thing, not so keen on its handbrake 😅

[Jikovron]

Not much of a handbrake at all, more like a suggestion of rolling resistance !

Next up the 205 diesel which i thought was clean actually had alot of daft bits for rot at the back of the sill and in the front inner arches so after some chuntering and laudable language i just dropped the fuel tank and got on with it 

The best course of action i felt was to just get the worst bit done so i could weld the other bits with the car still mobile at least which was good as the k10 micra brakes started to spew out fluid from the wheel cylinders, these had objected to being put back into use so i rebuilt the drums with new everything  Straight of the back of that the A35 came back to sort a steering box which was leaking ep90 all over the inner wing etc

These have a combined box with column so its a dash strip and suspension partial strip to get enough space to withdraw the unit 

As noted the cork ring gasket was shrunk, and the surface looked like the moon with craters all over, so i covered it in superglue, them smoothed it back with emery cloth such that smoothness was achieved, also the club had some tiny lip seals procured which sorted the leak no bother once reassembled and the lash adjusted 

 

 

[Jikovron]

Mid to late August here 

This rot box came in for a 'quick' weld up so i got started ! Suspension mount and its connection to the outersill was cut and patched over with a view to working decency 

Next up was the S2A landrover back in for further mild tweaks, id suggested the short prop with a 100mm spacer was abit hopeless, and give it was made from 2 axle flanges and centered on the front only by bolts was alarming, so a longer prop is in the offing, however as the chassis was to interfere with a longer prop i cut abit out to clear it 

Then as the lt77 only allowed a 16inch prop at the back the angles where bonkers so i dropped the axle to fit some wedges, then didnt as he wanted to try other possibilities !

we made a new Hi/Lo selector shaft which meant buying some bsf taps and dies to make it to his brief 

Next up was to make a stainless frame to mount a 300tdi airbox in place of abit of box section and plate such that it didnt hide the injection pump so badly 

Also made some full face spacers for the leaf spring plates so the poly bushes has something to bear against properly and some 10mm leaf spacers which were to be used later 

 

[Jikovron]

Sometimes you get in a job that is no bother at all where all is ok, the task is finite and nothing goes wrong, as in this excellent example of a pre capri,,,capri, it haf been welded all over underneath and looked really tidy despite being overlapped joints all over, this was just wanting some cavity wax blasting in and a general check over for any bother of which i found nothing amiss  1500 pre crossflow still in place 

Then the jag of many electrical devices was looking ready for an mot upon which the air suspension and rear lights were found to be inoperative, or in the case of the lights monofunctional , a long bit of research uncovered bother with the fuse boxes on these and rear modules as pictured however in this case a replacement boot fuse box restored the workings

The P6 tow car was playing up terribly by severely spluttering and cutting out which was really annoying given it would barely top 30mph at times

already the fuel system was ruled out as i fitted a temporary 10l tank, the ignition sparked fine so i checked the engine by way of a leak down which revealed dodgy valves on 2 and 3  a futher check of the cleaeances revealed a very tight inlet on 2 such that it never actually closed

on these the head bolts hold the cam box down so when removing the cam caps you have to use spacers to retorque the head back up as you go along removing caps, what a palaver 

i sanded the shims down a few thou where needed , then had to manualy  rewind the ratcheting hydraulic  tensioner as it didnt have the grub screw feature to unlatch the ratchet 

obviously it ran basically the same after

then i did abit more on the K series conversion by making a custom size trigger wheel for it 

i also furthered progress on my 120LSE by adding the box section reinforcment to the sill and A piller 

[worldofceri]

On 18/01/2026 at 11:22, Jikovron said:

after some chuntering and laudable language i just dropped the fuel tank and got on with it

Nice use of the word chuntering. Off topic, is this a regionalism? My antecedents are from Ron’s general neck of the woods, but I’ve hardly ever heard anyone use this word outside my parents and grandparents.

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, worldofceri said:

Nice use of the word chuntering. Off topic, is this a regionalism? My antecedents are from Ron’s general neck of the woods, but I’ve hardly ever heard anyone use this word outside my parents and grandparents.

Aye, oop Norf peeps introduced me to it

[N19]

2 hours ago, worldofceri said:

Nice use of the word chuntering. Off topic, is this a regionalism? My antecedents are from Ron’s general neck of the woods, but I’ve hardly ever heard anyone use this word outside my parents and grandparents.

In widespread use in S. Yorks when I was growing up!

[Dan302]

10 minutes ago, N19 said:

In widespread use in S. Yorks when I was growing up!

North Lincs too

[comfortablynumb]

Much want for that classic Capri, beautiful 😍 

[Jikovron]

Next in was to weld the floor of a disco 1 300tdi, seatbelt mounts and the inner arch joint to the floor was buggered

The rover remained barely driveable so after another round of 10mpg and heavily missfiring i noted cyl one and 2 were unable to take a leak down reading beyond hissing air out loudly through the carb and exhaust so i took the head off, found the exhaust valve burnt and.cracked and the inlet of one horribly pitted, evidently getting parts for a rover 2litre quickly is a none starter so i welded the exhaust valve and hand ground the seats them with an angle grinder and drill till they could be lapped back into the seat, as the valve was now massively further in the seat than before i elected to grind the end of the valve with a view that a gap maybe bigger than desired is better than no gap

After all that it regained compression and ran brilliantly before intermittently bogging massively,,,FUCK sake , anyhow a second look at the points given everything else was sorted revealed that the spring had lost its temper and was barely closing the points leading to it sparking randomly, so swapped those for actual lucas ones which cured the problem finally,,