9th Feb 08
Wow, we have had a productive day. Phil has devised a schedule so we know what we should be doing each weekend. Today was exhausts. We have to remove 4 exhausts, one from each car, and fit three, one to each working car. This palaver is because Phil wants his Mongoose which was on Mister Two (the breaker) on his car. I’m a bit fed up with my rattly Janspeed as it’s rather loud, so I’m having the one off the red one, which looks like a custom job. Humphrey is having the Janspeed as it’s a good racing car noisy exhaust. He currently has a standard one. His new exhaust will be fitted when we do the gearbox change…
Earlier in the week, Phil removed the Mongoose from Mister Two, so today he set about removing the custom one and once this was off I polished the tailpipes with Autosol, whilst he fitted the Mongoose to his car. Just as I was Autosol-ing the mongoose, the bodywork guy called to say that Humphrey was ready, yay!
We zoomed down to the bodyshop in Sakura and admired his handywork. It had taken him longer than expected and cost Phil about £262. However we now had a car that would pass the re test. We booked Humphrey in for a retest and had an hour to kill. We had noticed that one of Humphrey’s indicator bulbs had blown and upon investigating discovered that the indicator/ sidelight assembly was sat in a pile of rust and not much else! Phil made a little bodge, in case the indicators were tested again. We weren’t sure what a re test would cover and didn’t want a failure on something as small as a blown bulb, and we especially didn’t want the MOT guy to see that nice pile of rust!!!
Here's what the bodywork guy did, not that it's particularly descriptive!
Anyway, he literally just had a look at the work done to pass the re test, so it was all panic for nothing. We now have a MOT’d Humphrey!!! I drove him back from the test centre too, so at least I can say I have driven him now!
As it was such a nice afternoon, I decided to attack him with soap and water whilst Phil removed the Janspeed and fitted the custom exhaust to Sakura. I got thoroughly soaked as I tried to power wash him with the hosepipe, and then rather frustrated as I realised how dirty he actually was. I swear I have never seen a car so dirty! There were cobwebs in the headlights!
It took a lot of elbow grease but he now looks passable.
We have a Porter Cable polishing machine thingy which we will use to try and improve the paintwork a bit, as it’s horrendous but I thought I’d have a go with the T Cut to see what a difference I would make. You can certainly see a difference now but it took a heck of a lot of polishing and my arms ache!
Well that’s it for this weekend as it’s Phil’s birthday celebration at his mums tomorrow. We both feel a real sense of achievement at the moment though and are currently on schedule!