Washout

Last weekend I attended a car show in the beautiful village of Lavenham in Suffolk, not far away from me. The weather was forecast to be cloudy and rain at five in the afternoon. That would be perfect as the show was to finish at four. I would get home before the rain. The morning arrived and I looked at the sky, broken clouds with a hint of sun, do I or don’t I go? There was an outside chance that there would be rain, my car might get wet. I have a ‘paid for’ weather app and it’s usually right. Then I have my lovely wife who simply said “it’s gonna rain, you might as well stay at home and do a little more decorating.” That killed it – I was going. I’m not saying I hate painting and decorating, but I would rather stick certain parts of my anatomy in a bear trap to get out of it. Setting of I was watching the clouds so far so good.

I arrived and was directed to the USA car club area, there was one other Corvette there and he looked pleased to see me arrive. We had a chat about the weather and we both agreed it wasn’t going to rain.

There was a few cars turning up, but not the massive influx as you would expect. The set up was good for the show, a circle in the middle where all the cars faced outwards to the other cars facing inwards to the circle from around the outside. Well that was the theory at least. The event opened, and a few people turned up to see what was going on.

The pictures above was pretty much the all the cars there and only took me half hour max to walk around. Then I got the call “Are sure you don’t want to come home as it’s raining here now?” I’m literally only twenty minutes away from home in this village. I walked back to the car and was pleased to see two more Corvettes had arrived.

We of course talked about weather, it wasn’t going to rain. I told them that my local weather girl, had predicted rain – although my ‘paid for’ app was still saying no rain. Unmistakable clouds were now forming.

The tea room was selling hot cups of tea. Then I saw it, the first umbrella went up, then the wave of rain-swept across the field.

Within a few minutes it was carnage, soft tops were going back up, bonnets (hoods) were being closed, windows being wound up, people diving into their cars as more umbrellas went up. My car was now starting to shrink in the rain. Although I was very pleased with the wax beading as I studied it.

Cars were starting up and began to leave. I, of course being the optimist put my cowl guard on thinking that the rain would stop soon. As my ‘paid for app’ said no rain.

I called the wife while running for a tent for cover, who told me the rain was getting worse at home. My ‘paid for’ that wasn’t cheap, that I bought especially for the car show weather forecasts, was still saying ‘cloudy – no rain’. Half an hour later I admitted defeat, the cowl cover came off and stored in the boot (trunk). I started up and set off home, with the language now as blue as my car! It was almost a good car show for the two hours or so that I was there. Almost home I called the wife to open the garage for me so that I could drive straight into it. The car got dried off as best I could and put the dehumidifier on full blast to absorb every last drop of moisture in the garage and from under the car.

Now that the car was dried I came into the house, and I was greeted with that look only women can give, the ‘I told you so’ look. Nothing was said, nothing needed to be said, she was right, (again). My ‘paid for’ app now said, ‘80% chance of rain’, really? I could have phoned them and told them it was raining, and got my money back while I was at it.

Oh, what did I do for the rest of the day? Yep – painting! 🙁

Putting the rubbish bin out later in the evening ready for Monday morning collection, I made a detour via the garage to check the humidity, all was quite dry in there now, so I was quite pleased in that respect. I reset the dehumidifier back down to its normal setting for my garage, the dust sheet went back on and closed up. It was such a shame the rain stopped play, the Lavenham Show is held in a beautiful village, a great little drive to get there and is always supported well with all the proceeds going to the county’s Air Ambulance trust.

Maybe next year we will have some sun.

Share my Content

Cars On The Green

Over the weekend I attended perhaps my favourite car show, Cars on the Green in Bury St Edmunds. Sunday morning I looked out the window and there was a tiny few specs of rain. Now I don’t take the car out in the wet in case it shrinks in the water. So I waited for a while before I made the decision to go. I arrived some twenty minutes later and I almost had to put the wipers on and was uttering the odd colourful blue words at the rain. It must have done the trick as the sun showed itself as I pulled in to the show.

There was some great cars there and it’s always a nice atmosphere at this show. I was on the Bury Retro Car Club stand (patch of grass) shared with some great people from the club too. I took up station under a tree unfortunately, which was leaking sap like water through a cheese grater. So much so, that as I was sending a message to my wife I could feel the sap on the phone screen.

I always give the car a quick spray with some ‘quick detailer’ to take off the dust from the road just so the car looks her best while on show. With the sap falling like it was, I decided not to touch the paint in case I damaged it. Yes, I always carry (a lot) cleaning products, but in the location where I was it would have pointless to try to keep clean. So with a heavy heart I let the car get dirty, well what I call dirty anyway. 🙁

The public was allowed into the show from ten in the morning onwards, it was great to see lots of Dads on Father’s Day with their little ones for the day. I think I may have spotted the odd spouse or two who was, erm – not into cars should we say! I started my slow stroll around the massive venue and took some pictures of the cars that caught my eye. I tried to limit myself for the number of pictures otherwise it’s just picture overload. I will start with some UK cars which are starting to command some quite serious money now.

Then some good old American Muscle.

The Cars on the Green show is classed show for all cars, classics, modern, vans, trucks, modified and new, all of which were well represented. On a side note I have spotted over the last few shows that I have attended, there are a few almost new cars creeping into the classic car events. Now I am petrol head and love cars, so if somebody wants to show their car then fine with me. But, what is the point of taking a two-year old Volvo (example car), that is plain standard stock and parking it next to a genuine classic car. Perhaps that is such a controversial thing to say, and I certainly don’t want to offend anybody. I can sort of understand it, the car show scene is full of great people who always seem to help each other out when another car is in trouble.

Perhaps when the organisers of the events say “classic car show” the cars should be at least fifteen years old? What do you think? That way I can get to see more of the old cars that I personally go to see. I really hope that I haven’t upset anybody with that statement, it wasn’t my intention to do so. Perhaps I need to wind my neck in?

Back to this show, there was a couple of live bands and singers, fairground rides for the children, plenty of food stands and stalls for all things cars and couple of random ones as well nothing to do with cars. Lots of people turned up for the day along with a number of seriously well-behaved dogs too.

Perhaps my favourite pic? This one, where the Land Rover stand had an electric toy version of their vehicles for sale. This little lady just loved it and the guys all to their credit let her stay in it for a while. Well done guys, I think they made that little girl’s day.

After my walk around I sat back in the comfy chair and watched the world go by and had some great conversations with people I have been talking to via email; hi Simon!

I can’t wait for this weekend as it might be two shows, Saturday and the Sunday.

If it doesn’t rain of course.

Share my Content

One Way Or Another

This weekend I had been waiting for months, the simple reason is got to see my female idol singing live again.

Once more I have those tickets in my hand and I wanna get there soon as I can. The venue is Thetford Forest in Suffolk. car park opens at 5pm and the and the gates open at 6pm. Pre flight checks were completed at noon, how to get there, what I can and can’t take in with me, weather wasn’t looking good though, thunder and lightning at home and we are going to an open air venue, epic – not. So I got my wax jacket out and my old long wax jacket for the wife to ware. There was no way the rain was gonna dampen my spirits. I estimated forty minutes drive to get there for opening of car parks and the venue address added to my TomTom. In my head I had accepted that I will be the last out of the joint as I would be parked in the corner of some field but hey, bovvered? Nope, as I would be sitting with tinnitus to the sounds of Atomic ringing in my ears. T minus one hour before the departure I’m pacing up and down ready to go. Then it started, the words everyman dreads “I’m just going to wash my hair”. Now two things here – first “just going” does not mean the same thing to a mans ears as it does in a woman’s mind. To a man “Just going” is measured by the time it takes a man to go to the gents and back again to finish the bear he has left on the bar. Second – “Wash my hair” usually means an approximate fifteen stage process, starting with washing the bath out, getting two towels out, arranging of the shampoo bottles, pre wash, main wash, repeat wash what ever next wash, conditioner, leave on, wash off, repeat and God knows what else goes on in the mean time. The fact is that it’s due to persistently rain, so even if Vidal Sassoon was make the hair look stunning, the impending downpour of a few gallons of water throughout the evening is going to ruin any hairdo. The self-imposed departure time has come and gone, we are at stage three maybe seven of the hair process, who knows? The power shower is strangely quiet for a few minutes. Progress. I have got the rubber boots in the car the TomTom is plugged in. Tickets check (again) – yep! The hair dryer fires up, not any normal hair dryer, oh no, this one that is capable of causing a tornado with its own name when on full power. Then the hair straighteners, curling tongs, soft brush, hard brush curling brush what ever brush. Now we are goin’ be “late”, bearing in mind they were due on stage at 9pm. Re-calculations mean I now have to drive just a bit faster, and a then a little bit faster for every agonising moment that ticks by. Eventually the wife emerges – yep she looks great and then I ask her to try the coat on. Then I got the look, you know the one that women save just for their men. I tried hard not to laugh, but it was what we needed to stay dry I explained, as you were not allowed to take umbrellas. We jump in the car and off we go. Driving through Thetford Forest is a lovely drive and the deer are always running about so you can’t drive fast I am careful to look out for these graceful creatures. Eventually we are directed into the entrance where we are told to follow the car in front. Great except the young lady in front now had a convoy of around twenty cars following her. I think she must have been on some sort of “medication” as we were going in one field and out the other, a metallic conga of cars through the fields. Yeah like I need this. We eventually park up and walk in to the queue of people waiting to get in. We charged, (OK I charged and pulled my not to impressed wife along with me), to the front. Now we only had to wait three and half hours for the start and we were standing up. The sun was out no need for the coats at the moment. Time dragged until the Lightening Seeds played their acoustic set for forty odd minutes. Then the words “Please Stand By” flashed up on the video wall. Here we go! Blondie walked on stage and Debbie Harry got a massive cheer. It was a brilliant gig and Debbie was on top form and still looks as good as she did all those years ago. I took loads of photos and a few were blurred due to the dancing (by me), the video I took of Atomic I will upload to YouTube on my channel as soon as I can get round to it. Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed the gig. Not car related I know but this is a special occasion! In case you’re wondering:

Was I last out of the car park? As good as!

Did it rain – Nope!

Was the wife right saying she needed to wash her hair if she was going out? Yeah!

Blondie’s opening song? One Way Or Another 🙂

The car:

Today was all about rubbing down the front valance again and more filler so nothing much to get excited about. I could take pictures of the work but it will look like it did after the first and second fillers. the only difference is that it is evening out the high and low spots which you can’t really see on a camera. The valance is getting to a point where I can put a primer on to protect it. I will post pictures once I get to that point. I have removed the air-con mounting bracket and sprayed that satin black. Again I will post the pictures once it has had its second coat.

Share my Content

Brakes stop play

It’s been a bad weekend for the part-time mechanic…

I’m back on the blog again, do I hear cheers? Ok maybe not then. The last couple of weekends have been mental and I have not had a chance to update the blog properly, for that I apologise. Last weekend I had to put up a Summer house that was going cheap from B&Q (that’s a big DIY wholesale for those who don’t know who they are over the pond). Well it turned upand was unloaded from the lorry, there was no book of words (instructions). Now I do know that being a bloke it’s mandatory to throw away the book of words as we don’t need it. But, I wanted to check that everything was there this time. To cut a long story short the wife was on the phone giving some poor geeza a hard time. I keept asking for the phone to sort it out, but I was declined my kind offer to have a word with somebody and get it sorted. It turned out that the wife tactics of being upset and complaining worked over my method of having a major rant and losing my rag! We work well – the good cop / bad cop thing! In the mean time I am preparing the car for the brake bleeding I wanted to do. No bits means I can’t put it together, I can do my brakes. I was getting out the Sealey vacuum bleeder ready, the spanners were ready, the fluid was ready, and then the car turned up with the bag of bits and the book of words as a special delivery. I thanked him through clenched teeth, and he spent a while looking at the car in the garage. He liked the car so I decided he wasn’t so bad after all. I had to make out how grateful I was at receiving the bits as I could now put all my car bits away again and go build the wooden hut, sorry Summer house! Oh yeah – like I was well chuffed. NOT. So I started to check the bits and they were all there so I started to build it. ~~I followed all the instructions,~~ I worked out where all the bits were to go and it was looking OK. The sky was getting dark and race against time before it rained on the untreated roof was on. The rain held off which was good and I got to the point of getting the doors on. Well they may have been dolls house doors as they didn’t fit. They will need a router on there to shave about half-inch of the hinge side to enable them to fit in the gap. The lap of the boards was concave in the middle, the doors meet at the top but had a gap I could get my hand in at the bottom. I just so love flat pack. Why was it cheap? Now I know why the doors were from a garden shed and two different ones at that. Now with the right hump, I downed tools and declared that the darkness stops play and the now darkening raining cloud was now hanging over my head following me around.

This weekend was my time on the car and was going to blog it. So Saturday morning I went to the garage and got everything ready. The Vacuum tool was out, the spanners were out, the fluid was out, the wife was out! I decided to check the inside of the brake Master Cylinder and it was a little rusty so I got my 2000 grit sandpaper out and removed the loose rust. The bottom of the bore had a little pitting in there, but it wasn’t bad, so I decided to go for it. The reservoir was filled and I pushed the brakes a little. Checked, all was fine, no leaks. Pressed it a little more, checked all was still fine. I went to the rear of the car and got the bleed kit ready and started the vacuum. Nothing coming through so I give the pedal a little nudge to get the fluid moving down the pipes. Then I went to check. There it was, fluid dripping out of the gap between the master cylinder and the power booster. So I slung a load of rags under the now larger forming puddle over my nice paintwork in the engine bay. I had a little syringe that I sucked out the fluid and decanted into the plastic bowl near me. I didn’t know what was coming out faster, the drips from the brake cylinder or the tears from my eyes watching the brake fluid going to waste. I locked of the bleed nipple and killed the vacuum. A quick call to my Mustang hotline Adam, he said, is it doing this? Yep! Is it doing that? Yep! Conclusion – the master cylinder was indeed faulty, well I am sure that was what we decided it was at the time. So now I have to decide, replace the single reservoir, or upgrade to dual reservoir. I know that a dual is not the original but then again I will have a separate system if one side of the master cylinder went wrong. I slept on it, I read up about it and made my mind up. Dual reservoir is the way to go. Also when I upgrade to discs, I will be ready there that side of it as well. So when you read this Adam, get me a dual master ready! 🙂

Brake bleeder connected to the rear wheel

Today I have been sulking a bit as I can’t do a great deal, so I decided to catch up on the blog. I have updated some pages and added a new page.

Updated:

Front Valance (Part 2), or click here for the quick link

Rear Brake Drum Rebuild, or click here for the quick link

Rocker Covers, or click here for the quick link

Hand brake Cable & Hardware Replacement, or click here for the quick link

Added:

Brake bleeding and issues, or click here for the quick link. With this page I will be updating it as I go along so it will be a running guide if you like. Once I have got to use the Sealey VS402 I will post a review of it, but at the moment I has been used. Not through the lack of trying I might add.

I am in the process of doing a rust comparison between the Granville Rust Cure that I have reviewed (click here) and the FE-123 treatments. I started a few weeks ago and have been watching the results so far. I will keep you updated and start a review once I have a little more time to go and results to hand.

Share my Content

What a rocker

Another productive weekend on the car

The sun was out when I got up, thanks to the inconsiderate neighbour who decided that revving his engine up would be an ideal way to warm it up. Don’t you just love those people? Anyway I was all excited to get the last brake set on and the drive shaft back in. True to form out to the man cave got all my tools out and lined up the parts like a load of soldiers on parade. I assembled the brakes in record time, and came up with a little tip. If you have the drum brake spring removal tool there is a one end of the leg that will allow you to slide the spring onto the center pivot, apply a little grease or oil on the leg and the spring will just slip straight over onto the pivot. Simple, but effective! So the brakes were with the drive shaft now out in the garage with me. Everything assembled fine, nuts done up fine and the drive shaft went in no problems at all. You can see the whole process here or go to the Photos section Drive Shaft. The last part of the jigsaw was the hand brake. This was missing off the car so I need a new one. Thanks to Adam at Mustang Maniac again, he provided me with all the parts I needed when I was there last. The cable was fitted into the backing plate and the cable was bent a little to make the route correct. Assembling the front end linkage was a breeze. I have now written up the process and posted the link in the Photos section under Wheels and Brakes, Hand brake replacement or click here for the quick link. During this work it had started to rain but I was unaware of that as I was sort of wedged under the car again. Once I got out from under the car my next job was going to be postponed. So while I had all the tools out I decided to the rocker covers of the engine, they were going a little surface rusty and didn’t look to pretty. So like a man possessed I took the bolts out and removed the rockers. Then it hit me, the mixture of engine oil, fuel, metal and old car. That’s the smell of a classic car, or is it the smell of something leaking? I have mentioned it before, Eau De Mustang. I cleaned up the rockers and they have been rubbed down, treated, primed and painted, I’m not sure if it will work or not, but I will give it a go. I have pics and I will post them as soon as I have sorted them out, hopefully this week sometime. My postponed job i mentioned earlier, I manage to start today (Sunday) which was the inside of the front valance anti rust treatment. Again I have pictures of that little project ongoing as it stands at the moment, click here or go to the Photos Body Work section.

On another note, my new back gate. Yes it looks nice, but now it does not shut properly, it does if you push it at the bottom. The reason is it has warped badly at the bottom part. There is the thickness of the gate that it has moved about two inches. So if left on its own without shutting it properly via the latch you can see through the gap. I am not happy about it. I can’t complain as it’s wood and a natural substance. Does anybody have any ideas on how to get the gate back into shape? It’s gutting as the gate was perfect for about three weeks, then all of a sudden it has moved which is probably a result of the rain. Give me a classic Mustang any day to work on.

I just thought I would post a pic picture of the old set of shoes from the drivers side rear brakes, they say a picture speaks a thousand words. I had only three: OMG!

Share my Content

Dodging the rain

Dodging the rain again today.

The sun was out for about 3 hours. Ok, I exaggerated a bit, I should have said it stopped raining for a couple of hours. The break in the rain allowed me the hour or so of quality time on the car. I decided to fit the Scott Drake fan shroud on the radiator. It was a nice hassle free project for a change. I have written a review of the parts and a step by step of the fitting. The fitting start to finish took no more than an hour all in. The next part for me to do is the Bumper stone guard paint or top side.

The New Year seems to be charging towards us rather than creeping up on us.

Share my Content

Day in the man cave!

The weather is not good 🙁

Well, I am starting to get the hump big time with this weather now. I was beginning to think I should build an Ark to get the animals in two by two instead of my Mustang! The rain was so bad that I couldn’t get out onto the car today, let’s just say it was very persistent in trying to get me soaked through and prevent me from going out there. The next best option? Man cave! (My shed in other words,) shed it was to be. When did it stop raining? Just as the sun was going down. Marvelous! It was not a wasted day in the end though, I worked out where to finally put my vice (vise for the USA readers). I have made a few adaptions to it for a quick release version. The review for the vice is here or in the main menu at the top, it’s good bit of kit.

I will try to get out on the Mustang radiator to fit the new shroud or at least start work on the Bumper Stone Guard tomorrow.

Looking forward to a New Year with better things in store for us, with any luck.

Have a good evening everybody and I wish you all a very Happy New Year.

(Just in case you don’t come back before then).