Some things had started to come together, but there were unforeseen hold-ups. For some reason Parcel Farce delivered my new serpentine belt and water pump to the nearby town Post Office, which I couldn’t get to until today. Typical.
But the squeak had subsided, but that might be due to the duller weather. The water pump pulley still had a very slight wobble, but it didn’t look serious, I might just pack the parts and some ground support for the jack in order to do the job. Must remember the breaker bar in that case and a few sockets. By the time I have enough stuff to cover all eventualities I’ll have exceeded the gross train weight…
What I did get to was the tyres and Matt from Event Tyres came and replaced all four, it seemed like a good idea, I mean they weren’t even the right size. An outlay of £227 is quite a bit in terms of Jalopy motoring, but there is no skimping on tyres. After all they are the only thing in contact with the road, if you have some recycled condom ditch finders fitted, who knows what part of your car will be touching it after some attempts at wet cornering.
I also got the wheel alignment on at the local MOT station. They’ve got the gauges and didn’t take too long and relieved me of £25 for the privilege. Still it no longer pulls left and the steering wheel is straighter.
The rain has put off some of the bigger things that could be done, including pitching the tent that arrived. I have no Idea how that is going to work… But I did get the Saab to the local illegal immigrants who work the local car jet wash. Now, before anyone complains, these guys are fantastic and do a brilliant job, it’s just that a couple of months back they got raided by immigration and one of them was deported…. Since I haven’t been in a while I must admit to not recognising any of them. I wasn’t generally a customer, but more of a passenger whilst in plaster, though impressed enough to use them myself.
It looked pretty good, but there are a couple of rust bubbles on the right side that will need attention, the orange bits do polish out, when I get to them… I have even cleaned (mostly) the wheel trims, but it looks kind good without them. Maybe I’ll track down the earlier kind of stainless ones…
To finish off, I stuck on my 99p delivered eBay GB sticker. I couldn’t get one from Halfords as it had advertising on it, this was plain and printed poorly. Not as good as the one that fell off a while ago, but suits it. My idea for a range of retro accessories is growing so I even made old school style beam deflectors, read beam blockers. They do look a bit home made though with the fabric tape, anyone know where you can get pvc sheets?
Simon
