Spent yesterday evening fitting some new rear springs/dampers to the Celica. I really dislike using spring compressors but luckily these springs aren't that beefy so went pretty smoothly:
Patented removal method
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Someone's been here before as they've fitted the rubber top mount insert inside out..
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Done (needs all tightened up but will get to it later as other bits still to go on)
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It was such a nice day that I took the Alvis back to work after lunch. I realised there was no petrol in it when I ran out. Luckily Tesco was in walking distance and they had fuel cans. I have put another three gallons in.
After finishing work I had to do an urgent site visit and took the Ami out of town, it was fine on the slow twisty lanes, but did run out of steam a bit on a particularly steep hill, with the speed dropping to 21mph.
Because as we all know, I am a paranoid old gimmer, I made a shade for the passenger side of the Jag to stop that horrible sunshine from fading the paint. It wasn't/isn't pretty but it does the job. The Merc, the wheel centres on the passenger side (where the sun gets it) have faded from the pretty silver things with blue inserts into... just silver things.
Moting a 2006 MINI cooper S auto this morning, my glamorous assistant drove it in to work and said she heard a very loud crack from the passenger side. At first I couldn't find anything then onto the brake rollers and CRACK felt it through the car. The same again coming out of the rollers so it's not the brake. Took it down the road and again one singular crack from the nearside.Back on the ramp but I ran out of time before I found the problem.Failed it then carried on with all the other mots and retests. Put the MINI back on the ramp at the end of the day and after twenty minutes looking I finally found the cause. Luckily it was what I suspected and what I failed the car for. There is a nice shiney line on the subframe between the anti-rollbar mounting bolts. The subframe is cracked.
I thought about washing my MX5 for a local car meet tomorrow.
I didn't, owning partly to laziness and partly due to the fact washing it is about as useful as rearranging deckchairs on the fucking Titanic because of the state of its bodywork.
