What a relief. The builders have finally finished. They’ve packed their sledgehammers and drills and we can wipe the dusty fingerprints off the kettle.
I can now turn my attention back to ROJ – hopefully this weekend will see the sunroof mechanism sorted.
Last night at the close of Top Gear, James May apologised for wasting the viewers’ evening. So he should.
Is it me or is Top Gear just so boring these days…..
Time’s almost up after a week on the farm.
It’s been quite fun with a full house with Robert over from Barcelona to take his Rochdale to a show.
Malcolm’s been beavering away on his Renault 5.. Yes – five. He’s gone all modern!
I took my aircon radiators to be pressure tested – and thankfully they passed. I also fitted my new radiator – but it’s not that new
London hasn’t had 01 numbers for 20 years!
Looks good in the car though.
I’ve also been working on some of the bodywork. Rubbing it down and priming the inside before we fit it to the chassis.
There is some corrosion on the rear panel so I’ve fabricated a new piece to weld in.
And finally, I’ve primed a whole lot of smaller panels and pieces to fit to the car, and today I started working out how the sunroof goes back together.
It’s amazing how quickly time passes when you’re focussed and busy.
Lastly – a new addition to the Farm Museum – a Nissan 200 belonging to Young Phil…
Blogging live from the farm….
Common sense has finally won the day and Gary and Malcolm have persuaded me to use the spare engine instead of the original.
It’s in much better condition and means that we’ll have it in the car a lot faster – and cheaper!
On the frustrating side, alzheimer’s must be setting in. I cannot find one plenum chamber and two wheel arch protectors.. It’s not as if they are particularly small either!
Last week was our wedding anniversary so we decided on a romantic trip to Copenhagen, with a three day excursion to Malmo and Ystad in Sweden. The last time I was in Copenhagen was nearly 50 years ago (frightening thought!)
We stayed at a great little hotel overlooking the Nyhavn canal almost opposite Hans Christian Andersen’s house.
I have never seen so many classic cars out on the roads as we did on this trip, and most of them spotted right outside our hotel – here are a few but annoyingly are all out of order:
Ford in Ystad
DKW in Copenhagen
Next in the queue at Heathrow.
A couple of classic bikes
Pontiac in Copenhagen
Hippy bus at the Distortion concert
Two British brutes outside the Aldi supermarket
Dodge Charger
Chevvy
Tram in Malmo
I was very disappointed in Sweden, I’ve seen more classic Saabs and Volvos in the UK.
This galvanized 2CV parked outside the hotel got much attention
One for Angus – an old pushbike.
Hippy van in the hippy commune of Christania
This is the thinnest building in Copenhagen, and reminded me of the narrow buildings in Vietnam.
Tesla – my friend William McDonough will be pleased…
No idea what this little car in Ystadt is
One of the few Volvos spotted in Seden – in an art installation!
I just loved that big rear end!
I can’t see the elderly in the UK lining up for this…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/8534808/Japan-elderly-engineers-want-final-mission-to-Fukushima.html
Forty years ago I fell in love with a car.
At the the time I didn’t know what colour it was because we had a black and white TV.
The programme it appeared in had such an influence on me, that I used to walk around Hong Kong (at 14) wearing a blazer and cravat (I must have looked a right pillock!).
This is the car at the time…
A DBS (badged as a DBSV8 for the programme) driven by Roger Moore in The Persuaders.
And this is the car today – with me at the wheel!
This was at the Aston Martin Owner’s Club Spring Concours at Althorp park today, it was a really Grand Day Out!
To top it all there were three Bond Beauties in attendence – here I am with four of them!
Valerie Leon featured in The Spy Who Loved Me, Never Say Never Again and The Persuaders. Caron Gardner in Goldfinger and The Saint, Stephanie is the Star of My Life and Caroline Munro was the villainous helicopter pilot in the Spy Who Loved Me.
I still have a huge smile on my face!
I feel like a school boy who’s just learnt another rude word…
That’s the thing about hanging around with engineers – my vocabulary grows with every trip to the farm.. Today’s new word is “Plenum”.
For the past five years I’ve always thought of the boxes that house the airconditioning fans as “the boxes that hold the airconditioning fans”. But no. They are actually called Plenum Chambers. And this weekend I welded up the rust holes in one of them.
Rusty bit almost chopped out
shiny new bit welded in
Now it’s been over a year since I last used my welder, so I ended up by a) blowing more holes than there had been rust, and b) forgetting the rule that when using a flap disc to tidy up the welds, not to be too vigorous or one must do them all over again.
Still I enjoyed my afternoon of welding holes, blowing holes, welding holes, grinding holes, welding holes etc,etc,etc.
The plastic box that holds the condensor is so old and crumbly that instead of trying to patch it up I’m just going to fabricate two new end pieces – once the aircon is in, I can finish packing the engine bay, and work out what else needs to go in behind the dash-board.
Meanwhile back at home – our dreadlocked carpenters have finished ripping out and replacing the rotton window frame and tomorrow start on the decking (at last).
The enforced separation from my car is beginning to get to me - seeing young Wills at the wheel of his Father’s Aston makes me want to get ROJ finished as soon as I can…
Enforced relaxation I find to be anything but relaxing…. especially when one is supposed to be on a skiing holiday! Lazing around doing nothing is not in my character, but I’ve been taking things very easy, as per doctor’s orders.
Fortunately Angus has found some friends to ski (and drink) with. At least I finish the antibiotics today, so a glass of wine with dinner at the Museum tonight will go down a treat.
The snow here in St Anton is disappearing fast, there is still some good skiing up on the higher slopes, and there is one very gentle blue and red ski-route up at Rendl that I’ve been able to get a few runs down.
Most of the time I spend by the pool or in the sauna, but I do feel a bit like Billy-no-mates.
Of course the best bit is not having to worry about work for a whole week.
