MadaboutKitcars

Oh, one last thing, if you don't have a spare battery to power it for playing with, I used the power supply I borrowed from one of my spare pc screens, it was 250v/ 12 dc at 5 amps

It takes 3 amps to run the amplifier, anything less amp wise, and at higher volumes it will distort badly as there won't be enough current to power it correctly.

I should have one of those Maplin multi-voltage, multi-plug mains adapters "somewhere".

Although i am annoyed that this has reminded me about that DealXtreme web site! As there is just _so_ much stuff on there that i didn't know i couldn't live without...

Dave, I'm not going to forgive you for this, but I resisted the urge to visit that website for 24 hrs, I broke down this morning and had a peek!

Bloody hell, I found that I need about 90 per cent of the stuff they are selling DESPERATELY!

So, for all the gadget freaks out there who cannot resist the urge, take a look at this

http://www.dx.com/

Hey Scottie, I see this Subaru van has had the veedub treatment, thought it might be of interest

Thanks Landmannnn, hopefully mine'll look a bit like that when its done!
Some of the earlier vans like that had 600cc engines, then they upped them to 998cc, but mine has a 1300 water cooled lump.
I guess the 600cc ones must have been air cooled, as I don't see any holes in the front panel for airflow.

Yep, it is a 660, saw it for sale for £6k!

At 1300cc mine is hardly in the Aston Martin camp, but at 660cc it must howl along like a wounded snail!
6 grand!

I took advantage of the sunny weather today and put more blue paint on one of my other projects, my micro-van VW front panel.

Not a brilliant picture, but it does show that the panel is blue, and not the horrid pink and white which is how it came to me:

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Wednesday

Today I trial fitted for the first time, the dash after having completed the
support frame.

Unfortunately, the speedo was fouled by another support bracket I had modified earlier. Back to the drawing board.

To be really honest I shoved the dash forwards, and snapped off one of the spade connectors on the rear of the speedo. Thankfully, it was a "twin" and only one side is used, so I got away with it this time!

I re-worked the frame and made a 2 inch tube spacer to keep it behind the speedo more.

With each thing I do behind the dash now, seems to reduce the amount of space available, which was tight to start with, but it really is getting very cramped now. I think I will have to lengthen some of the wires feeding the instruments as I can now see that they will no longer be long enough to reach their new positions

So much still to do, and so little time it seems.

Here are a couple of pics, the second one is a bit blurry, but I was so cold having been out in the tent for so long, I could not face going back just for a better pic!

But it does show the difference:

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I managed to get a little work done on the car today, and like the super market says "every little helps"
I soldered some extra cable onto one of the gauges, and started on the other one too.

Once done the gauges will then reach the new position on the dash.

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Monday

I have not updated for a few days, and feel perhaps I should.

I have done lots of small jobs on the car, but because they are small jobs, I have taken no pics, so didn't think it was worth posting.

I have found some Jag switches, which I will need for various things, and checked out their workabilty, soldered ends on with connectors, (because I can do this in the WARM house!!) Also with long leads and connectors it will make the job of finally doing all the dash connections a lot easier.

Drilled holes in the dash to fit them, tidied up some of the spaghetti under the dash, etc, etc.

Doesn't sound like much, but all takes lots of time as its fiddly stuff to do.

Also, I must have spent a day or two helping a friend who was told his central heating boiler was completely buggered, and he would need a new one at a cost of £2500.

The boiler was producing hot water, but no radiators would work.

He got a second opinion plumber, who told him it could be fixed for £2000.

I asked a mate of mine to have a look at it, and finally, I sourced a new divertor valve on line at at 80 quid, and he an I spent 6 hours yesterday fitting it etc, and now the house is red hot, and the radiators are so hot they hurt the hand when touched.

It really pays to persist, and I have a talent for that.

two and a half grand my arse.

We were so busy, we took no pictures of that either!

I will try and buck up on the picture front!

Scottie

Well done on the boiler front Scottie, If someone tells you that something is broken, remember always ask them what part of it is broken. If they cant answer you that, send them on their way!

You have it exactly Danny, I always ask that!

If the plumber was given a truth serum, he would have said:

"well, I don't really know what's wrong with it, but I can see an opportunity to make a lot of money here out of a gullible tw*t like you"

I had a similar thing with my phone. I cracked the screen. O2's two suggestions were 1) upgrade (£300), or 2) buy a secondhand one on eBay, "but it will probably be stolen," their words, not mine. They made it clear that there really was no point in having it repaired even though it was only three months old. Well, I bought a new screen for £70 and (with not much to lose) I took apart the phone and fitted it (with the help of lots of YouTube clips). I now have a working phone and a sense of satisfaction.

Absolutely classic symptoms of diverter valve. Actually it is normally just the £8 motor needing replacement
A normal condensing boiler is £600, £1700 is a reasonable fitted price.
Well done, you seemed to have overcome the rip off plumbers in your area!

Monday

It seems like an age since I worked on the car, but I have not been sat on my bum. I needed to repair my conservatory roof as when it rained , I noticed a puddle on the floor, shock horror, and all that.

It stopped raining and I was up there with a heat gun to dry it out quick, the repair took a fair while, and in my heart I know the roof needs replacing, but really not at this time of the year!

The minute I stopped working and cleared away the tools, the rain started again, but I was able to give it two fingers, as the roof is now water tight.

Also, I have been playing the lumber jack again, and cut a fair amount of timber.
So much that I am having to really plan out where to stack it so it does not get in the way.

I am hoping to start back on the car shortly, in between Christmas cards and all that festive (commercial) rubbish!

Here are some pics:

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This picture has been on before, but its my favourite, so here goes again:

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Tuesday

Well, I finally got out to the car and took the drivers door off yet again for sorting out.

When fitted the door, I honestly spent hours and hours, which ran into days, trying to get the door to fit right.

This has nothing to do with Chris's body shell or anything like that.
It has everything to do with me lowering the car way way down, and then getting hit by all the knock-on effects that generated.

The hinges were really out after lowering, I don't mean lowering on the suspension, that came later, but lowering the body shell onto the Spitfire tub.

I knew I could never get the car down where I wanted it by just suspension lowering, so the only other way was to dump the body lower and closer to the Spit tub, ( more than Chris had intended)

So that's what I did, but the knock-on effects which I had not forseen were horrific. and caused me several days of extra work.

Modifying the hinge brackets, the hinges themselves (three times!) the list goes on.

And the list is still bloody going on, hence all the door fitting and extra mods
that I am still doing and will continue to do until I get what I want.

Lots of you out there must have been in the position, where you look at something on your build and think "yeah, I can live with that" but really, deep down inside you have that horrid niggly feeling that you really can't live with it, and you are kidding yourself, and worst still, you know that one day, you will have to bite the bullet, and do it properly!

That sort of day comes to me quite a lot, and it came this morning with regard to the door fit. I knew I just had to sort it out.

Over on the "other side" Paul has just had one of those days and chopped his bonnet in half!! So I know, he knows what I mean.

I've been busy, and its lunchtime already, so here are some explanatory pics
to be getting on with, more after lunch

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Call me crazy but the sides and back look alot like a vw camper. Possible opportunity to make a mold to make a small camper on to a beetle chassis. Just saying so tempting as they have stopped production in mexico. Rust free camper.

Okay Zag you are crazy! The sides of WHAT look like a VW camper?

My XKSS?? :-)

Oop the merc van

After lunch

While waiting for the resin to go off, I had a look at the passengers rear door shut lines, and was not sure it was good enough.

Then I did some photographic study of Steve (the coolest dude on earth at the time) McQueen's XKSS passenger door shut line in the same place.

No one back then said that looked awful, and after all this was, and is, the most famous XKSS of all time, all 6 million quids worth.
I have two pics for comparison, and will not be doing any mods to mine.
If it was good enough for Mr Cool, its good enough for me.

Here's what I mean:

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So I carried on with the drivers door, which had the holes covered up and re drilled out, had the rear edge extended by a half inch or so.
I filled and cut it roughly to shape, and now it is a tight fit in the doorway, and will be sanded to a good fit at a later stage.

One more step.......... another day's work....

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Scottie - I get the feeling that doors are a pain at the best of times.

But clearly the changes you made to lower the car have taken this to another level.

The good news is that at least it sounds like you are winning the battle.

Good luck, Paul.

Welcome back Scottie, I was getting worried about how i was going to get my daily fix - wood chopping just wasn't filling the void that you had created by selfishly taking a break from the car.

I honestly don't know how you do it - my car is also an outside although minus the tent and I just can't bring myself to get out there. The excuse I have told the wife is I am waiting for parts, not so much of a lie as I had repeaters on order from Italy and I am awaiting a package from France for some Marchal spot lights

Seriously though the car is looking good! plus you are inspiring me to actually get our there and do some work over christmas if I can clear enough space in the garage to do some work