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One out of two ain't bad ! The 7 was first at 8.00 am, so I thought I'd get up at 6.00 and fix the foglamp.
Now, trying to fix ANYTHING before you've had a cup of tea is inviting disaster, and so it was - I managed to take out the front AND rear sidelights !!
 Wose was to come ..... a lot of the rivetts under the seat had pulled out, meaning the car is a fail due to imminent possibilty of driving with my arse atually ON the road !!!
 So, two weeks to fix and get back to the MOT station for another test ....
11.00am , and with the 7 not passing it was the 911's time !, as I drew in another lovely '68 Porsche 912, which had failed on a lot of welding !!!
 The amazing thing is that 22 years seperate these two cars !!! , and almost all parts are different.
After a very tense 48 minutes, I was handed a green MOT !
1 out of two ain't bad !!, but no blatting for a while , and time for me to hone my rivetting skills !! On nights like these ...... Mission: Ben Long's Thames Valley Meet
Forecast: low cloud, but no rain......
Looking at the sky told another story however...... After a little pondering, I decided to throw caution to the wind and head for Ben Long's Newbury Sevens meet.
2 miles from home I felt a light rain mist on my face (in an aeroscreened car, this feels like a acupuncture session applied with extreme prejudice !), and almost decided to scratch the mission !
Pressing on I took the motorway, as getting to a nice pint of Rin Tin Tin was the priority.
Approaching the pub, the sunset blasted through the clouds, casting an eerie , almost forest-fire like red-sky !
Arrived to find a few other hardy Seveners had decided to ignore the dark clouds, along with a very well prepared Ginetta G33 (http://www.g33.co.uk/). The Newbury meet always has some great cars, with TR 6's, Westfield 11's, A lovely Lotus 23 replica, and of course David's very cosseted Crossflow - possibly the cleanest in UK !! (Hi David !)
The ride back was a formation blast with me and Cannonball Bob flanked by Ben and 4 other outriders on their quad-bikes (those boys are nutters !!!) This sort of stuff almost makes going to work worthwhile (almost !!!!) Sleeping with the enemy ! Deja vu ? - it seems like only a couple of months ago I replaced the 964's alternator front bearing....
Homeward bound from work on Thursday night, a worrying smell pervaded my nostrils ! - that electrical burning smell you always try and persuade yourself you are just imagining !
Pulled over behind 2 parked RAC vans, who just ignored me completely and moved off shortly afterwards. So bonnet up , I restarted the engine to a very deep grinding noise , and the ABS Ligtht on, and sparks emanating from the alternator...Deja vu indeed ! :(.
Crawled back the final mie and a half on sidelights to conserve battery power, fire extinguisher at the ready, and breathed a sigh of relief to be home !
The funniest thing was, after bracing myself for the massive cost of a new alternator, Euro Car Parts came up with a recon unit for, wait for it - 100 pounds !! which is cheaper than a beetle part !!!
Oh, and the opportunity to park the 7 in front of Porsche's HQ was just too good to pass up....strangely though, they weren't their usual congenial hosts, and no cup of tea was forthcoming - I must dress up next time I go !
Rob Mansers 1st Race (Castle Combe 13 Apr 09)The fog was closing in and the weather didn't look good as I hauled myself out of bed at stupid o'clock, made my lunch and left in my usual inimitable style (read as , usually very late)
I decided on the 911 for the journey as it is just one long stretch of M4, and was ue to meet Colin in his Seven at 8.00am. I was late again and about 1 minutes behind, so called Col and said I'd meet on the M4 - Put the hmmer down , and 10 minutes later a green and yellow Seven edged into view.
Arrived at the circuit, where Rob had organised tickets and a car pass for Competitor parking - Decided that the public parking was way too far to walk and managed to blag a space next to Colin !!
  A Foggy start to the day !
Rob has sold his Caterham and teamed up with Edgington Racing , who are a pretty good set-up, and make extremely good coffee !!! (Cheers all !) for a race series in a Van Diemen Formula Renault.
A good performance in wet testing earlier in the week set the scene for the weekend race.
A walk round the pits showed the very diverrse machiner from Tiger R6's and Caterhams, through Formula Ford and Vee, to the Stock Hatch , and even (I kid you not) a race Jaguar X-Type !
 The Hamlet Cigars sponsored XJS racer had a high Luxury-to-weight ratio !
After breakfast , which absolutely MUST be of the 'greasy spoon heart attack' variety, we sat up on the bank next to the start line. Almost immediately an on-fire red R6 headed off track towards the marshall station directly in front of us - it was amazing to see how fast the flames took hold, and some indecisiveness from the marshalls meant the bodywork got some fire damage. (Must check the extinguisher in my Seven !)
The next catergory was 'Stock Hatch' which is mainly football hooliganism on wheels - 40 mainly Saxo's into one corner simply does not go !, and rolls, shunts, and just plain bad driving abounded !, and the second race was abandoned.
Rob's two races were much more gentlemanly, with no John Cleland BTCC type tactics in evidence.
At the end of the day we headed into Castle Combe Village, proported to be the most picturesque in England, for a couple of beers, and possibly the thickest sandwiches in the UK !
Incidentally, ALWAYS take your sun cream with you , and remember not to wer your sunglasses all day to avoid 'polar bear' eyes ! - My boss asked me if I'd been skiing over the weekend !!!
Full album HERE  Rob's Formula Renault
2009 First Night Sortie "Steve McCarrots takes you for a drive in the County, the county is Hampshire, the drive is at 'just under the legal limit' Officer!!"
the shriek of 3 crossflows pierced the night as we headed for Odiham. A blacked out Chinook slipped quietly overhead, as we pressed on into the night on our own, equally important, mission !
Blasting through the hedgerow lined B-Roads, unhindered by traffic, with the cloudscape back-lit by the moon, as seminal driving experience ensued, and
the odd car that we did encounter was treated to a mobile flame and thunder spectacle not seen since Operation Desert Storm.
The post-blat euphoria subsided as we debriefed at the Wild Bean Cafe over Machiato's and Creme Eggs !
Well done gentlemen.. A very unexpectedly superb drive. MBC (Most Courageous Blatter awarded , once again , to Mr Carrots !! )
'Who Dares Blats"
WightBlat 2009 After the phenomenal success of the first 2 WightBlats, '09 had a lot to live up to.... This is NOT normal crossflow behavior despite rumours to the contrary ! How many ReHaBbers does it take to fit a hood (under expert direction from SWMBO !) R-Formation
Saturday night involved even more booze, and a fantastic raffle. The Wight Sevens even got the Caterham boys over with their complete fleet, R300, 40, 500, and CDX press cars. Sunrise Sevens Scramble (29th March 2009)Big Boys Toys !
6.30am - Awaken, I look at the clock "You are effing joking" I mutter as I haul myself out of bed - feeling I've only been asleep for an hour,and now I'm going to miss the first Grand Prix to freeze my bits off trying to keep up with "Carrots" on another legendary Sunrise Sevens Blat (This is impossible, and should only be attempted by trained professionals in a controlled environment !)
Screaming along empty roads , hoping that Jenson and Rubens were doing the same (they were), I suddenly remebered that I'd sent off the pedal box cover to be powder coated and hadn't had it back.....the icy blast made me wish I'd put on thicker socks !!!
Pressing on I reached Farnham station for the 7.15 rendezvous with Carrots, where we were joined by a third wingman in a very nice polished Ally and Carbon-winged Superlight.
 When's Breakfast
Our Squadon leader lead us out and we peeled off from the station car park, and into 'blattle' in a 'missing man' formation as Cannonball was unable to join due to adverse weather at Amazingstoke Airfield.
Once onto the route Carrots adopted his usual position - a small dot on the horizon ! , the only method of tracking being to follow the oily mist and pop...pop...pop of the overrun .
Halfway through we stopped for breakfast only to find the whole town deserted and all hostelries with closed doors. A few minutes later 8 TVR's thundered in Nice to know other people have the same idea as us.
We stopped at ???? to find the whole place deserted,and decided to press on to the end point in Guildford, where we sat in the cafe under the bridge, and the finish to a perfect morning....
....a nice cup of Tea, follwed by a blat home to find BrawnGP had cleaned up at the Melbourne GP .
A nice cuppa...and a large greasy breakfast to follow. 'Getting to know your Se7en' at Caterham CarsFinally, after 3 years of trying, I got onto the much-oversubscribed 'How to keep your Caterham alive for the compleat beginner' course, very kindly hosted at Caterham Cars Garage in....surprisingly, Caterham !, by the Lotus Seven Club.
What a fantastic place, the workshop is actually an old theatre that just oozes patina , and the walls of Caterhams showroom are adorned with famous owners like Johnny Herbert and, Chris Rea. Caterham had their entire range ut on display, including the Top Gear Car of the Year R500, which has a very coolcombined radiator and oil cooler. They even have a replica Top Gear lap time board
 Jill Judd showed her new fitted trailer cover - How good would this look in my Garage ??? "Damon Hill makes me Sick !"Superb video !!!
PH Breakfast Run to Loomies (Feb 2009) The menacing Ducati mob surrounded me..........
Meant to post this a while back but didn't get round to it (quite a feature of my life !!!!)
It was a cold Sunday morning as I donned as many layers as would fit under the harnesses of the Seven, and ventured out to meet the Pistonheads Sunningdale & siurrounds Pistonheaders for a 100 mile run to Loomies Diner at West Meon hut.
VerySideWays organised a fabulous route through forested A-roads, breaking out onto fast open roads as the sun came out to welcome us to a thundering soundtrack thanks to the TVR's Some impressive machinery came along for the ride , the prototype Morgan Aeromax was lovely, along with about a squadron of low-flying TVR's !! Hello to Shabs and BrightYellowTVR !!
All-in-all a superb run that I will be repeating !!!  7 Upgrades : Nearly there !Missed a fantastic blatting weekend ....BUT .....
It's nearly finished.
Rear lights all finally wired in. Just waiting for the bulbs from E-Bay !, grilles re-sprayed , antirollbar painted and ready to fit. 5inch headlamps and mountings sprayed and rewired, ready to go on.
so hopefully , the final pieces of the puzzle to finish.....paint suspension, refit ARB, wire in the lights - after ditching the spade connectors for some nice 5 way connectosrs from Vehicle Wiring Products.
  7 Upgrades - LightsNext up its the lights. SiCrad kindly donated his chrome 5inch headlamps, which are now a nice satin black. The 7inch lamps are ready to come off , and a broken indicator pod replaced. The wiring harness is a little messy with bullet connectors , so am ordering some 4-way connectors from Vehicle Wiring Products , which, after a bit of soldering should tidy things up a bit. The painter has called, and will be able to re-paint all 4 wings shortly too. Anti-roll bar now removed and ready for repaint and re-fit.  7 Upgrades4 weeks to go to WightBlat , so probably the best time for me to start the upgrades to the 7 I should have started back in November,
but as the garage was too bloody cold and the TV, and Living room too cosy, my favourite pastime, procrastination took over....
....Anyway , back to the present !
3 years ago , Steve Foster one of the local Lotus 7 Club members , made a limited run of aluminium light blocks to
replace the Caterham solid rubber blocks, and if you were watching the new R500 doing its superb lap of the Top Gear test Track ,
coming in a very creditable 4th fastest (The other 4 are worth over 1 Million each)
Top Gear Lap Times (mins)
Gumpert Apollo - 1.17.1
Ascari A10 - 1.17.3 Koenigsegg CCX (with Top Gear spoiler) - 1.17.6 Pagani Zonda F Roadster - 1.17.8 Caterham R500 - 1.17.9 Full Top Gear Power Lap Board : http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear/show/powerlaps.shtml
...Back to the blog, so in a nutshell, out of all the jobs I had to do , with a complete Saturday to do it, I managed
to get the front grilles resprayed and the rear lights changed !!!
  I better get a move on...!
Next up is replacing the 7inch lights with the sleeker and lower , 5inch units , which were chrome, and are now
black-packed in satin paint !!! Spring is in the Air !The plan today was to get the suspension off and ready to go to Powder-coating, last week, I managed to buy a set of metric hex sockets, only to find I need imperial. A hangover from the old Lotus 7 days is that the Caterham variant is a mish mash of metric and imperial sizes. Could I get an imperial hex anywhere – Not even Halfrauds stocked them ! Ended up blatting round Reading Bracknell, Ascot & Sunningdale, which was very pleasant !! Ran into ‘VerySideways’ from Pistonheads in his very nice Chimaera, and also saw a couple of other TVR’s out enjoying the sun ! (Hello !) I could have kicked myself yesterday….looked out into the work car park to see Pete’s (and Rob Margels' old) very nice Sylva Stryker, also aeroscreened like my 7 (Good Man), and wondered why I hadn’t had the foresight to drive my 7 in – oh well …next week maybe – hopefully we are due a sunny summer this year !!!
Caterham UpgradesFinally, after talking about upgrades to the 7 since November !!!, got round to doing something !
My other halfs dad dropped in, and this coincided with the arrival of a little package from Demon Tweeks. Luckily, this time, they had sent the right stuff (They sent a battery last time !), a battery bracket for my newly acquired race battery from MDS (www.mdsbattery.co.uk).
The bracket is actually for a different make of battery, but the dimensions were similar, so I was pleasantly surprised to see it was an OK fit. Some 'massaging ' later the bracket was made to fit, using my trusty Dremel, and Richard's steady hand - Why can't I cut in a straight line !!!!
Anyway, some filing (to cover my 'not-quite-straight cutting' later and the new box was in. After removing the old battery box, the next project was decided - the aluminium shelf the old battery sits on looks like someone had taken a hammer to it !!!, so that'll need covering !!
 Richard hard at work in the Fabrication workshop, a bit like American Chopper, but on a smaller scale !!
Next, R500 rear lenses with Steve Foster Aluminium light-blocks, 5 inch headlamps , and suspension to be powder-coated.
Roll on Summer 09 !!! Floody Hell ! (A rant)Left work this eve at 5:45pm
It is now 7.45pm
I live 13 miles from works....so that is about 2 miles per hour.....so far. Have spent the last 2 hours sitting, driving through ever deepening water, sitting engine off mainly, then lurching a few feet forward at a time. However ,have cleared a large amount of email (which is good - I get lots of email), playing Microsoft Pinball (something I haven't done for years !!), phoning the girlfreind, and generally 'WFC or Working From Car' ....
...In fact, I am writing this blog whilst watching everyone on the other side of the road sail past. (Grrrr...)
So here I am , a mile from home sitting between Mr Innocuous green Xsara MPV, and Mr Exec BMW with so so bright Xenons wondering how a 'bit of weather' seems to bring this country to its knees !!!
Ho hum !
PS: Got home at 9.00PM !  Sideways Action ! Well, some people would be salivating at the prospect of some 'sideways Action', but the last few days have been 'interesting' in the Porker (or 'fast beetle' as my 'friends' always call it ! ).
So, with trepidation ,I set off nice and early this morning to beat the rush !!!! - A329 was covered in slush, so no-one knew where the whitelines were (I wish I did !!! :), and onto the M4 which was down to two, lanes , then onto the A33,which was as slushy as the A329.
The worst part of the jouney has to be the Swallowfield - Hook un-gritted bit....There are some hard 90 degree bends, and I had to overshoot off a bend down a side-road the other night, narrowly missing a recovery truck pulling out the previous unfortunate out of the ditch !
Made it to work today !! - but nearly got stuck trying to 'turn around' (Donut !) , in the car park !!!, the only other car parked the FD's G4 Challenge Disco , so I thought I'd park in next doors car park !!! (Much easier to get out of !) Roll on Summer !!! (or I'd be happy with just 'Spring')
 New Years day at the Phoenix, Hartley WintneyThe first day of the new year is alwayas a great meeting at The Pheonix pub, where the Vintage Sports Car Cub was founded, and is always packed affair with the pub carpark quickly overspilling to the nearby roads, verges and even the dual carriageway central reservation.
Managed to get up early and bag a space IN the pub car park (A first for me), and after stopping an Asto Martin DB4 from revrsing into me , took a look around.
Highlights were the Jag C-Type and XKSS racers, Lancia Aurelia, Aeroscreened Morgan !!, a superb stripped out Porsche 356 hardtop (with aluminium seats no less !!!!).
This was the first and last blat of the new year (so far) as the battery has finally succumbed to the cold !!!!
Front suspension and wheels are coming off for powdercoating and the engine is getting a spruce-up, with a few goodies fro Demon Tweeks etc.
     New Years ressolution is to update the blog a bit more !!!Porsche Alternator BearingWith Summer (hah !) , and dry days becoming a thing of the past I thought I'd better replace the fan bearing on the 964 , as it's been sounding a bit like gravel in a washing machine. So, as Porsche want some exhorbitant sum for a manual , I found a great site called http://p-car.com/, which although for a later 993 model, has all the usual fixes for Porsche ailments. 2 hours later the alternator and fan unit is out of the car, and a quick hand-spin of the fan proved that it was the fan bearing (£80!) rather than the alternator itself (£320!) Once I have got hold of a puller-tool to separate the fan from the housing and actually remove the bearing I should be in good shape to repaint the fan and polish the shroud, and get the old girl running again. No puller seems to fit - so off to Northway to get it taken off then Acorn Bearings to get a replacement ! Rob |
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