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Come on scottie, that pics needs updating... light covers with chrome surrounds and a much bigger grin... i need you to keep going and Paul, as it keeps me thinking about my build at the very least...
This is normal , you will get your enthusiasm back . Just take a break from it , don't even go in the garage !
I get this mid way through most projects but I never give up . I know that given some time away is a good thing. My Triumph Roadster project hasn't been touched in a month , but I'll be back on it over the next week or two.
Those headlight covers look great, and really finish it off! Well worth the effort.
Perhaps subconsciously you are worried that the engine won't work properly, so you're holding back. I'm sure it will be fine, you've definitely done all the difficult stuff!
I don't know anyone else has experienced what I am going through right now, but I am finding it incredibly difficult to muster up enough enthusiasm to go out to my car and continue the work needed to finish it off.
If anyone has any advice on where I can dredge up any enthusiasm from to put my car back together, that would be most welcome!!!
Is this the normal reaction to finishing a two year build, or has my trolley come right off the f***ing rails?
Hi Scottie
I have exactly the same problem.
About six weeks ago I took the beast to the MOT station full of hope. As my friendly ex-REME tester waved me in over the small hump outside his workshop the tails of the exhaust clamps on the centre joint, which I had neglected to cut off, caught in the locating track of his door, ripping the system from the manifold and the boot floor from the vertical panel beneath the tank.
We managed to free it and, despite it now not being testable, we pushed it onto the pillar lift and removed the system. He had a good look at the frame while it was in the air and pronounced it rust free, which was the only crumb of comfort.
After the humiliating tow home I ordered new mounting rubbers and a couple of days later all was well. However, like you, I then couldn't stand the sight of it and retreated to internet world for solace, buying a new project to take my mind off it.
I'm going to take the 'D' for its test again next week, not because I'm fired up again, but because I'm off on my motorcycle expedition to S.America for 10 months on Sept. 14th, and I feel the need to know what wants doing.
Don't worry Scottie, you've probably given up because you served in the Army.
After all, when the army threw the towel in at Dunkirk because a few panzers turned up and had to be saved by the Navy (oh, the humiliation), and Adolf was choosing the wallpaper he wanted to have in his proposed new office in Ten Downing Street, it was left to the RAF to carry on the fight, despite overwhelming odds, and keep Blighty safe until the Japanese eventually invited the Americans to join in on our side.
If only you'd served alongside me as a crab (ask a sailor) instead of poncing around in camouflage you might have developed the staying power to finish a two-year build with a smile on your face.
So, time to employ some stiff upper lip with a dash of good old British spunk, stop being a buttf!cking quitter and get your car back on the road sharpish.
Oh, and the chrome headlight surround looks good btw.
Well, following the RAF history lesson on WW2, I decided to get cracking!
I rushed into my workshop, found my torque wrench, and set it to 46 foot-pounds.
Its not much, but its a start, and every little helps, as one greedy supermarket chain keeps telling us.
Oh,and Mr T forgot to mention the fact that in WW2, whilst poncing about in trendy cam-kit, the army destroyed more aircraft on the ground than the whole of the RAF did in the air
over north Africa. :-) :-) ( Double smirk)
I thought the British armed forces were on the same side!
Been catching up with your thread Scottie. The cars looking fantastic though it's a shame about the setbacks. Glad you've recovered your hwyl!
I did not intend to cause confusion here!
The British armed forces were on the same side, well most of them were anyway. ( There is always the odd spy or two)
Perhaps I should have put "The army destroyed more ENEMY aircraft on the ground than the RAF did in the air"
Just a quick post, I did get to torque the head down, and then fitted the rocker assembly. Whilst torque-ing that down, it became apparent that there was something wrong with the torque wrench.
I put it in a vice, and sure enough, it would not "click off"
The Bank holiday put paid to buying another one right away, but I have a new one now.
Today I took the rocker assembly back off in order to get to the head bolts to re-check with a new wrench. They all needed a wee bit more before they clicked, except one, which felt like it was about to shear off.
Total f___ing despair, and lots of swearing as you can imagine.
In my heart of hearts, I knew I had to take the head back off, buy a new set of head-bolts AND another new head gasket, and start again. (Does this shit ever end?)
I went online searching for the spares I would need to do the job again, and stumbled onto a site where someone else had a similar experience, but when he took the nut off (the bolt he thought was going to shear off) he discovered that the nut had stripped its thread, so he fitted a new nut and torqued it up to the correct figure, job done.
I rushed out and found to my delight that I had the exactly the same situation, so I fitted a new nut, and now it is torqued up again.
Not an ideal thing to have happen, but that has to be better than doing the whole thing all over again.
(Now I await the flak!)
About six weeks ago I took the beast to the MOT station full of hope. As my friendly ex-REME tester waved me in over the small hump outside his workshop the tails of the exhaust clamps on the centre joint, which I had neglected to cut off, caught in the locating track of his door, ripping the system from the manifold and the boot floor from the vertical panel beneath the tank.
Took the beast to my sensible tester again today. Got over the hump with only the very slightest scrape (at 0.0001 MPH).
The new DVLA computer system wouldn't let him test it on line, despite recognising the vehicle. It kept throwing up error codes, so he had to contingency test it - result below.
On the way back, it ran out of fuel.........................
p.s. Good to see that your head saga is coming to a satisfactory conclusion!
Luckily the 100 year experiment concludes in 2018:
Commerate, Celebrate and Innovate
I feel nauseous already. A ghastly motto from the money-making PR-speak people. I think we can see how the event will go:-
A "C" formation of Hawks over the Mall on HM's birthday (there won't be enough avaialble aircraft to spell-out "100"). Rest of flypast comprising of a Voyager and a Reaper UAV flanked by two F-35s from Boscombe Down.
The final public display by the Red Arrows, timed to mark the RAF's anniversary, and coinciding with the expiry of the remaining hours on the Hawks will be a "special theme" at RIAT, comprising of a Red Arrows flypast, a Typhoon display and a static line-up of museum/civil aircraft tracing the RAF's limited history on the cheap.
A special magazine from Key Publishing with lots of stock images we've seen a million times before, and some new photos of er... Typhoons. Lots of articles on how forward-thinking and progressive today's RAF is, and some old photos of Spitfires and biplanes.
A couple of new books that look suspiciously like every other "Big Book of the RAF" but with rather fewer good photographs, as the publishers will not be able to find the money to pay the reproduction fees that RAFM and IWM now charge for photographs that used to be free so that they can afford to advertise on tesco fuel pumps.
Some exciting new RAF merchandising - track suit, socks, baseball cap, pencil sharpener and a competition to win a cut and shut chinook that bounced off the gates of Brize Norton a bit hard, or a mk1 Puma (one previous careful South African owner) - booby prize will be an inert storm shadow missile!
Plus a special BBC programme hosted by John Sergeant, in which he enthuses in a slightly pointless fashion over nothing in particular. Then he flies in some ghastly civilian twin-prop along side a Typhoon, whilst making more fatuous comments. The remaining seventy percent of the programme will comprise of interviews with "the people who made the Royal Air Force" (ie cheap vox pops).
Think that's a fairly accurate run-down of what will happen.
Scottie - the Halfords 'chrome' on my rear lights has started to flake off the plastic after two years revealing the white plastic underneath. I plan on spending another £6 to replace it soon.
