So far in April.......

1st of April saw Amanda and I with Amanda's parents, in HOE, meeting up with a few other YTCC members at Horbury working man's club ready for the April fools day run.

The weather was superb and we did an interesting run through West Yorkshire ending up in a pub for lunch.

A diverse set of cars took part, from a 1928 Ford model A tourer originally from Canada (central throttle pedal too!) to a 2003 Merc C class coupe (Malcolm's 2500s estate was receiving some MOT work)

The pub seemed a mecca for classic cars with a bright orange e-type and touring car replica RS500 Cosworth Sierra to mention a couple, already in the car park before our lot turned up.

The PI hasn't been left out this month either, with a quite extreme Recaro seat from an '80s Fiat Strada Abarth being added to the driver's side for a (Practical Classics) classic car trackday at Blyton Park, Lincolnshire. A combination of very hard old tyres, no ARB and a complete lack of talent in that Recaro (bucket loads of enthusiasm though) resulted in dramatic understeer/oversteer, lots of tyre and exhaust smoke and a realistic tribute to The Sweeney. So much fun and 70 hard track miles resulted  in FRanK needing a half litre of oil and quite a few litres of petrol!

Drive it day today saw us at a small car show at Morley, near Leeds. Another YTCC event we went with friends in their Bond Equipe and MGB and met up with malcolm in his newly MOT'd 2500S estate.

Lots to do and see at this event, but sadly overshadowed by appalling wearher which gradually made the field resemble the Somme. Six guys now know how heavy a PI is to push out of a waterlogged field.

Three pre war Packards, all at one small show must be a rare sight indeed, at least two of them are owned by the same lucky guy, the green straight six from '38 was on the April fool's day run. The cream straight eight is just huge, with the engine block being a good 4ft long.

I bet the guys who pushed the PI off the field were glad that the 62 Cadillac Sedan DeVille and 65 Zodiac had left before the field got really wet.

Not many cars sit a good 3ft longer than a mk3 Zodiac and make it look almost squat.

Not to be left out and because it was drive it day, I took my son Callum back to his Mum's in HOE this evening, so thats's Two mk2s used today.



Estate trailling arms part3

So I finally got to complete the trailling arm swap this morning. The halfshaft with new UJ had it's splines cleaned and greased, the new hub securing nylocs were tightened (gently) and it was time to put the drum back on.

The drum that came off had a couple of fairly deep grooves in it from the shoe rivets in a previous life. I had noticed this before but this time I could remedy it. I still have the original rear brakes off the pi from when I upgraded to Stag rears, so a quick ferret around had one of the pi ones ready to put on. The picture shows the grooved original on the right.

After putting the replacement drum on, reseting the rear brake adjusters and reconnecting the handbrake cables it was time to put the wheels back on and see what difference this work had made.

Driving the estate down the road I could instantly feel something missing.

When I replaced the original rubber bushes in the trailling arms for yellow poly ones I fitted new CW 520lb uprated springs. There has always been a little harshness from the rear end with no weight on board, it has always felt smoother with rear passengers. I put this down to the uprated rear springs.

This harshness has now gone, so it must have been down to the inferior yellow polys, good news.

So then I tried the estate up to about 70, much quieter, well you can here the exhaust more actually, but the knackered UJ must have been contributing it's own tune to the naturally more boomy estate ride. So that was two very noticeable differences, makes the job seem more worthwhile and if I can score some petrol tonight, we can go on the 'April fool's run' tomorrow.

Estate trailling arms part2 and my achilles heel

So the long day at work yesterday lasted just over 15hours, I was quite relieved to find that the expected long day today didn't materialise. So with a car run booked for Sunday there was no time to lose.  

 30mins in, the old trailling arm was off and after a bit of a struggle the refurbed arm was on and bolted up. But then disaster struck.

Whilst checking the driveshaft outer half, in preparation to regrease and slide it back into the inner section, I found the UJ was notchy and stiff in one plane. No play, but very stiff and very knackered.

Everybody reading this blog who works on their car will have an Achilles heel, think about it, something that you really detest and hate doing, that you always have problems with. Mine is UJs

After dismantling, this was what I found in the 'sealed for life' UJ. At least replacing this UJ will make a difference. After spending far too long replacing the joint I was left with the rebuilt shaft. 

I wont have any chance to get the shaft refitted and the handbrake and rear shoes reset until Saturday now, but at least this won't need doing first. I hate doing UJs.



Estate trailling arms part1

Having obtained a spare pair of trailing arms and having become concerned over the suitability of regular poly bushes to avoif NVH on an estate, I cleaned and installed some superflex items to the spare arms and prepared to change them. Recent warm weather and Amanda working 10-6 gave me a spare hour or so yesterday to get started.

Having removed the rear wheel after jacking the car up and supporting under the rear sill jacking point, the handbrake cable was disconnected, the drum was removed and the 6 small retaining nuts removed from their studs. Driveshaft withdrawn and brake backplate secured out of the way after undoing the brake pipe retaining nut on the trailling arm bracket, left me with the scene below.

The rear shock retaining nut was removed after supporting the underside of the trailling arm. Once undone the jack can be carefully lowered and the spring removed, I had already loosened the trailling arm pivot bolts.

So the trailling arm was removed and on the floor. I installed new springs, poly insulators and the poly bushes shortly after we bought the estate, so the insulators were taken from these arms, wiped and placed into the cleaned arms in readiness to reinstall.

The picture above shows the replacement arm ready to go in, I had cleaned it up and sprayed with clear laquer. Looks much better.

Replacement is just reversal of removal, cleaning and greasing the splines on the driveshaft is a good maintenance idea and new nyloc nuts on the six small hub retaining studs should be considered essential. The box of new nylocs is just showing at the bottom of the picture.

The brake shoes and inside of the drum were sprayed with brake cleaner to safely remove any dust and the drum and wheel were replaced. The trailling arm bolts should be tightened with the car's weight on them and the handbrake will need to be adjusted once the nearside is completed. This took an hour and a half to do one side, the other side will have to wait until the next couple of hectic long days at work have finished. Mind you we need the car for an April fool's day run on Sunday.



Stoneleigh 2012

The scene at our house the morning before Stoneleigh, Mum and Dad had arrived a couple of days before, so just the trailer to pack and 100miles to travel.

When we arrived at 'the cowsheds' Mike Weaver was already waiting with the FF estate on the trailer, so that was 3 of the cars for the stand already there.

 The trip down was foggy and wet, so the estate had another wash and polish ready for the next day. Mum and Dad did the same with Cecil, by the time the photo above was taken, Andy Roberts had arrived with Janey the Stag saloon and Kevin and Ann Warrington had buffed  their French blue 2000 OPaL to perfection.

Sunday saw the rest of the show cars arrive bright and early including Pete Johnson's Mk1 pi estate, formerly known as 'Gonzo', the shots above and below show the stand during the day.

It's fair to say the stand was busy all day, we had a great time.

Thanks to all who helped us put on the stand at Stoneleigh.



RBRR prep starts here.

The very first part of a cunning plan began this evening as I picked these up locally. 

 The last RBRR was very wet on the M5 from Bristol in the early hours of Sunday morning and we already have a V8 estate and a 4x4 V8 estate on the run,the only logical car missing was a 4x4 estate with a 6. Hence the large off road wheels and tyres!

Obviously I am joking,Amanda wouldn't part with the MOMOs.Preparation for us will possibly involve some more bodywork,I have the panels to get the rear end of the estate refurbished.......I just need the money to get Pete to do it!
We are car 55 this time and along with all the other competitors we will be raising money for 'Children with Cancer'.October 2012 seems along way off at the moment,but it will soon be here.Good luck to everyone else who is now getting their mind focused on car preparation and see you all at 'The Plough'

A new edition to the fold

After some extensive searching Dad has something to keep the GT6 company in the garage.

This is just how the car looked after driving 120miles back to his house, the overdrive needs a look at and Dad isn't sure about the rear fogs or front spots, but it looks a good sound basis for future improvement. It looks like last year's RBRR in the estate has a lot to answer for!