I have a hairy wedge

Me n Rexoid and Dan on saturday for a bit...

Did loads of little T25 jobs like fixing lights and fault finding electrical bits n bobs and also after much glueing of Armaflex and fighting with hardboard....

I finally have a roof lining in one of my vans woohoooo



Don't worry about the slightly moody gap between the cab and the rear...










































Its covered ;-)




. and yes I have tested it for catching fire over the cooker... all three gas rings on at once in a closed van extinguisher in hand and its fine - well I gave it ten mins of the worse case of using all three at once and no probs

Not sure what to do with the bit over the cab... it might collect stickers... 

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Hardboard and lights

Rex came round today with his recent T25 purchase and we set about fixing his non working dashboard lights.  This proved a good distraction as today hadn't started well to say the least.

It was an easy task and good to accomplish something fairly early on.  We then got ambitious and managed to insulate and line the roof of my T25 with hardboard.  Not by any means easy as the board ins't as bendy as the roof near the gutters of the T25 and needed three of us (Dan turned up too) to lever in the cut sheets drill the pilot holes and put the screws in to hold it.  However the roof is now insulated and lined up to the rear of the cab and the van no longer goes "cling!!!!  when you shut the sliding door, nor will it over bumps as the roof can no longer flex that way.

The bit over the cab needs doing next, that will be tricky its a terrible shape to try and work and the fixings aren't going to be easy...  looks liek rain tomorrow so may try that on bank holiday monday.

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More bits...

Ok dropped the kingpin kit off at buggy central yesterday and a full engine gasket set as there is a slight leak form the oil cooler seals too and a whole gasket kit is only four quid.

Did all the running around in the bay because it needed a good run out.  The gearbox is really on its last legs though and I've had the relpacement one since last november so I have a funny feeling I know what I'll be doing August bank holiday weekend if I can find a spare pair of hands to help that isn't at VWAction.

... and I really MUST finish the dashboard and bits in the cab...  I might do that this morning actually if the rain holds off... 

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Fuggy update

Its time for a Fuggy the Buggy update.

It failed its MOT last week :(   but... it only failed on the front kingpin bushes being worn.   If you beleive the old wives tales this is a nightmare of a job.  In reality its a case of undoing the steering knuckles and taking the new kingpin kits to an engineers to get the new bushes fitted and reamed.  So this should happen next week and once its passed I'll get a couple of months of insurance on it and take it for a few blasts as long as the weather holds this summer :)

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I love a nice big seat
Current mood: happy

Well its been a heady day ...  hot as hell and all afternoon I've been out in it with Spooky Paul.  Much grinding drilling and welding and the odl evil mk2 golf seats are gone , replaced by a pair of recaros out of some old Ford... cossie or some crap like that.

The result is..  they're more comfortable, slightly lower so the passenger has a better chance of tehir feet touching the floor and they adjust!  The old ones were jsut welded down.  Because they're lower I've been able to put the stock steering wheel back on which is making the steering a lot easier.

The seats, the wheel change and the bigger mirros from peppercorn show have transformed the driving experience completely.  It never was hard work driving it across the country, but now it will be truly pleasurable.

After a long arduous week where very little has gone right in matters non-VW ...  it's nice to be able to declare a VW victory as a piece of posotive news to draw the week to a close :)

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Schmokiiiiin’

OK the can of tint spray turned up :)






Much better :)

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Lens tint

I remember back in the 1980s you could walk into any car shop and buy a can of spray tint to turn your rear lights and indicators smoked black.

You can't buy smoked front indicator lenses for a late bay as far as I know, only orange or clear and as the rear lights are smoked and all the detailing is black the current stock indicators jsut don't cut the mustard.   So I bought some clear ones at peppercorn and thought I'd jsut wander into a chavvy car shop and get a can of tint.

Wrong!  Spent a good chunk of yesterday going round car shops trying not to look out of place even though I wasn't wearing any sportwear and drew a complete blank.

However... good old Ebay :) Ordered some this morning so should turn up mid-week.  I'd like to get the lights done before the club annual fundraising BBQ next sunday :-)

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A nice squishy pair

I have secured some replacement seats for the T25.  Sold unseen but bought off a mate of mine who has then surplus to requirements.  The previous owner put early mk2 golf seats in it poorly and they have some issues:

1) they have no adjustment back and forth
2) they're too damn high, only the tallest of passengers can reach the floor
3) unless you have skinny legs you can't get under the steering wheel
4) the small steering wheel is only on there because there's no room for the stock one with those seats in and small wheel with fat tyres requires popeye arms to steer it
5) they're that horrible tartan cloth pattern

So, better lower seats with runners for adjustment are order of the day, then I can put the stock wheel back on...  date in the diary is 26th July for this to happen :)

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Bit of a catchup...

OK well the summer got here and I stopped working on thigs and started enjoyng myself.  Bad I know but what else do we buy these cranky old cars for.

I still haven't sold the golf, not sure whether I want to or not at the moment, I've had a few people come and ahve a look but I've not wanted to sell it to them any more than they've bothered to come with a sensible offer of cash.  Such is life, its running well lately went on a  few trips took me at good haste to kent last week one evening etc...

The bay I'm feeling guilty about, its been in the garage for weeks now!  I've not got the money to finish off the interior just yet but I have got a lot further with the design of the signwriting so things are waiting in the wings now...

The T25 remains the stalwart of the fleet presently having taken me to VW expo and Peppercorn and a friend's BBQ over the aslt three weekends.  I'm so glad I bought it, means I've not had to rush anything with the bay.

More later, I have a few ideas for the T25 and a free weekend coming up so who knows ;-)

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Its sucked in air when u released the pressure

OK this is a bit of a alte psot...   these events happened on the 8th of May i.e. three weeks ago but I've been a bit slack in posting a blog (slapped wrists)

Had been ahving some woes with the brakes evena fter changing the amster cylinder.  I'd bleed the rbakes up and slowly they'd go spongey again and rather inconsistent sometimes a good brake pedal sometimes a worryingly long pedal. A further bleed round showed taht while the system bled up fine one of the rears wasn't really giving fully clear fluid out the bleed.  Rather... it was misty with tiny air bubbles... so fairly obviously the slave cylinder was sucking in a little air round the seals when I took my foot off the pedal.

I was expecting to have to change the rear slave cylinders soon anyway as when I did the brakes overhaul a couple of years back they were the only part that wasn't in need of replacing so it was just a matter of time.   Bit of a forrage in the shed revealed the pair of brand new cylinders I'd picked up some time back just in case and so thursday 8th of May saw those fitted without any major headaches along the way.  Since then I've taken the van to a few meets and shows, and to southend for the day and all has been well once again in the stopping department :)

Still no interior in the bay though...  will see what funds are left at the end of this month...

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A bit of touching up

Did a few things on the jobs todo list today for the bay, finally put gloss black on the door mirors and fitted the cab door seals.   I'm peleased to say the cheapo GSF ones fit a lot better than the expensive original ones from Schofields.  this has all proved to amke the driving expereince both quieter and less breezy :)

I also removed the front grille screws, indocator lens screws and the screws holding the headlamp rims on and gloss blacked the crew heads and put them all back in, it looks much better, the metal finish especially of the ones in the front grille was starting to annoy me. I need to do the six in the rear lenses too but rain came and stopped the fun today.

Did manage to get round to rebleeding the brakes though and they're much improved although I think I've got a rear wheel cylinder on the way out.  The left rear seems to eb sucking ina  little air when you bleed it and the van does pull slightly right under breaking so i'll dig the pair of slaves i ahve out of the shed tomorrow and sort that sharpish.

More soon :)

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Gratuitous Car Pr0n

Took the panel to its first show yesterday all was good, managed to get a platform built friday night in it so sleeping was OK :)

Then I took advantage of the empty field this morning and took a few (ok a lot) of shots of the van...  here's ALL of them :)

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VW show approaching

Thought it was probably time for another update.  Life’s been rather complicated on the VW front just lately as I’ve had to lend the Golf to my girlfriend as her MGF has done the Mandatory Gasket Failure K series engine trick and there’s been a lot fo scuttling about in that direction.

However I’ve managed to get a few things done on the bay ready for the VW Elemental Show this weekend.

- The rest of the insulating is done apart from the inside of the sliding door which I’ll do later or tomorrow.
- The tailgate and sliding door rubbers are fitted
- The front numberplate is now mounted on a hinge underneath the left hand side of the bumper (after much deliberation)
- The headlights work properly again, the insistance of it to sit on main beam was a broken relay unit.

There still isn’t an interior in it of any description and I’m supposed to be sleeping in it saturday night, I have however got a sheet of 12mm ply and a few other odds and sods and a plan to construct a sleeping platform friday night before leaving for the show saturday morning and all the rest of the creture comforts are in the T25 which (hopefully) my mate barry will be taking.

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Cleaning!

Don’t worry i didn’t actually break with tradition and wash any cars myself...  I got a bloke round to do them for me :)

The Golf, I’m selling ti at some point so it was in need of a full valet so it got the full works, seats were shampood, carpets too, interior trim detailed, wheels, wash and wax and a steam clean for the engine.  When the weather is a bit better than yesterday it will get a full wax and the bumpers blacking etc


Then he steam cleaned the outside of the wedge, it needed it!


.. and valeted the seats in the bay as they’ve never been done and were bad ebfore they got full of filler dust on the body shop.

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Getting a bit sticky

Well first proper day off of my week off as yesterday was a bank holiday monday so it was everyones day off if you get me...  working on the van.

Obviously there’s still lots to do on the van so after a bit of a slow start I began the job of insulating the van with Armaflex.  I did as much as I could before the glue got too much for me and the roof is insulated all bar the two little bits behind where the rear door hinges are, and I used the offcuts to do the middle panel non sliding side and made a start on the rear sidepanel as well.  I also began revnovating the rubber floor mats in the cab and between the seats in the walkthrough, a brisk going over with Tcut revealed someone at some point has put bumper black or similar all over both of these but I persevered. Time will tell if it all goes milky and horrible it may well all end up in the bath getting scrubbed with a scrubbing brush. One of the benefits of not living with your girlfriend is that nobody is going to explode at you if you get the bathroom filthy :-)

If the weather holds tomorrow I’ll finish the insulation and any further work to the mats and then set about giving it a decent coat of wax now the paint has been on a few weeks.

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