With the house to myself today, I moved inside to work on the kitchen table in the warmth for once. For anyone who’s ever thought that the only difference between a 4-cylinder (left) and a V6 (right) tachometer was the dial face and maybe a resistor or something round the back, prepare to be surprised… The inner workings of these things is fascinating – a blend of bi-metallic springs, resistors,…
You’re all correct and better illumination’s been part of the plan all along. It actually turns out that there was only one working bulb on the old set of clocks, so no wonder I thought it was dark anyway After robbing Peter to pay Paul and moving bulbs about, I finally had a full working set. The dash illumination ones are at 9, 11, 1 and 3 o’clock behind little…
This evening I had a spare hour, so I spent some time soldering the brass connectors from the 14-point multiplug onto the car loom. The best thing I can say about my soldering is that it’s secure, if a little workmanlike Luckily it’s out of sight behind the dashboard, and when you slot the doofers into the multiplug it all looks quite good I then moved into the engine bay…
After a week off from mucking about with the car, living the high life of a long weekend away in France, one’s mind naturally wanders to what the next job is going to be… The current dash has a number of faults – primarily that there’s no trip counter (so I don’t know how far it is since the last refill), but also because the gauges are vague (and don’t…
This week’s little jaunt is a trip across the hills to Yorkshire, for Andy Ellis’ meet at Scotch Corner. 215 miles there and back. Why is it that most of my journeys start with the bonnet up? It’s daft … it started fine in the garage, I drove it out, I switched it off whilst Selina went to get a “spare” jumper and when she got back I turned the…
In celebration of it being “National Alloy Wheel and Brake Shoe Day” in Croatia yesterday, I thought it only fitting to get my arse in gear, get out to the garage and get the wheels finished up and onto the car If you recall, the old tyres on the steel wheels are 165/80/13s and the new ones are 205/60/13s. The difference in the width of the rubber can be seen…
“What a difference a day makes Twenty-four little hours Brought the sun and the flowers Where there used to be rain” Dinah Washington sang that back in 1959 and it came on the radio this afternoon whilst I was out in the garage. Of course, technically speaking, the second line should have gone something like “fourty-five and a quarter little hours” to be totally accurate, but I was willing to…
Highs and lows, eh Today’s certainly a low Re-jigged a load of stuff so I could spend all day out in the garage re-stripping the wheels after my first aborted attempt at painting earlier this week, cleaned them up, masked everything off, sprayed on some black and it’s just … well, shit would be one way of describing it. A less kind way might be to say that it’s very shit …
After a strange few week’s break, I’ve had the urge and the time to get back out into the garage This co-incided with the arrival of a set of “10GG” nuts from SpeedShack which are needed for my new wheels – 5/8″ sleeve nuts to fit an M12x1.5 stud. At £1.95 a nut though, if my retirement fund has a shortfall in a few years, I’m going into business making nuts and washers …
More rain this morning, but at least most of the garage roof leaks have now been fixed Was just out there tidying up really, and whilst admiring my recent handiwork had one of those “doh!” moments. Crouching down to look through the grille, I could see the fan, the relay and the thermostatic switch … and the noise of the rain on the roof made me think of rain and spray…
Ahhhhhhhhhhh! You would not believe how cold it is out in the garage tonight! Ran some wire through to the cockpit for the LED to show me when the fan’s on, and put it in its temporary position on the steering column shroud. It’s earthed onto the column itself, along with (I think) the ignition, so the wiring was straight-forward. The wire comes through the bulkhead to the right of…
Yesterday gave me three simple jobs – stop the leak in the top hose, remove the viscous fan and finalise the wiring. Taking off the fan would be quick – I’ve done it before – so I started there The viscous hub on the fan attaches to the water pump shaft with a large 32mm nut, which is reverse-threaded (so that the normal rotation of the shaft causes the nut…
OK, first up I’ll admit straight off that I spent some time putting a couple of coats of Hammerite on the fan shroud and my new brackets Having reassembled everything, I then drilled some holes in the bodywork to mount the brackets onto. To reduce vibration and noise, I wanted to put some kind of rubber isolator on each of the brackets … browsing the shelves of B&Q turned up trumps…
It is indeed a 12 volt LED, so hopefully none of that confusing stuff about resistors applies You lost me on the second sentence, Group4_Mark2 I just chose blue cos’ it looks cold, not for any technical reasons Had to go and get some more yellow crimp connectors at lunchtime, so got a multi-pack of lots of flavours and a packet of yellow piggy-back ones. This meant I could have a convenient take-off…
Went out shopping to Maplins armed with a big list and came back with a bagful of goodies A 30A relay, an in-line fuse holder with 20A fuse, some 30A and 3A wire and a nice little panel-mount blue LED… The thermostatic controller I got from the Staffordshire Vehicle Components stall at the NEC Classic appears to be much the same as any other generic thermostatic switch kit… Before starting, I’d spent a bit of…