Thursday 30 June 2011

Geared Up

Hooray & Hoorah!
The gearbox has at long last arrived, I picked it up after work & as luck would have it I have tomorrow off, so I can get it straight in the car. The weather forecast say "current bun" all day tomorrow, so it should be happy days.

Equally good is the arrival of a set of motorcycle throttle bodies on a Zetec manifold with air filters., so my stock of parts for the engine swap is burgeoning.

Soon I'm hoping to ba able to post a few more blat reports, but there's a few hours to be spent in the garage first.

Monday 27 June 2011

Promises Promises

Still the Fury lies forlorn in the garage. I was called today with a "firm" promise of Thursday for the gearbox, so we'll see, if it's after that I'll be working in a different town making the pick-up much more dificult & I'll almost certainly miss the Land's End run that I organised. Should that come to pass I will NOT be a happy bunny.

Monday 20 June 2011

Father's Day Spent Laying Down............

............ laminate flooring, building kitchen units, & re-routing some plumbing that will go to the taps - which had the "hilarious" side effect of impressing my wife when she went to wash her car (can you tell it's her new one) & found copious amounts of lovely hot water coming from the hose. Made washing the car easier, but it did mean I had a little re-work to do.
 
So, what news of the car? Dear reader, you will no doubt recall I was promised my new gearbox for the 1st week in June? It's the 20th & there's no sign of it yet. It is allegedly complete - but in Kent.

Monday 13 June 2011

Air Today - Gone Tomorrow

Firstly, allow me to apologise for the tag line above - there can be no excuse.

BUT, some progress has been made, the unexpected arrival of the Eldest's boyfriend & the fact that he had 15 mins to spare while she prepared his tea (it won't last), gave me the opportunity to escort him to the garage & install him in the driver's seat where he trod manfully on the pedal while I leapt from nipple to nipple releasing bubbles of unwanted air (imagine the frog from the ballet of "the tales of Beatrix Potter" - well I was nothing like that). The brakes now feel like they will work if I ever get the car self propelled. Yes, my legion of readers, the lack of gearbox is beginning to grate, (see what I did there?).

Nothing Doing

So, it's been a while since I last blogged - "what's the exiting news then" I hear you cry dear reader. Well, nothing's happened.
When I say nothing's happened - of course some things have happened, I fitted some more kitchen, & my Eldest had a 16th birthday party, but nothing's happened on the car.
This is a disappointing thing. I had the Eldest's boyfriend (just to confirm ............. the Eldest is a girl) lined up to assist with the bleeding of brakes on Sunday, but constant rain prevented it. I could ask the members of my own family, but as they are all somewhat restricted in tallness, they can't reach the pedals. So the Fury has lain once more, bonnet askew, waiting for some attention.
Back on the subject of the birthday party, it went off rather well, I had approached the concept of a garden full of mid-teens with some trepidation, but in the event, my fears were unjustified, they did take some persuading to pipe down after midnight, but the stereo was turned down & the "singing" had subsided by 12:30 (or is it 00:30?). There were no gate-crashers, no fights, no spilt bodily fluids of any kind, no girls crying in a corner, so all was well.

Still no sign of the gearbox that was promised for the 1st week in June.

Friday 3 June 2011

Still Grounded

I'm still waiting for the new gearbox for the Fury, not being able to drive it is frustrating given the lovely weather, but I was promised the first week in June, so it's not late yet. But while the car's laid up, I've been upgrading. I'm afraid the redundancy pot is lighter to the tune of a set of alloy 4-pot brakes, with new pads & discs.

The object is to reduce the "unsprung weight" ie that bit of the car not on the driver's side of the suspension. The discs themselves are 1/2 kilo lighter, while the brake calipers themselves are 4 kilos lighter each side. They also look much nicer - which is important with brakes - ahem.