Paint: drying…
I do sometimes wonder if the poeple who read this blog (if any still do!) are beginning to think that watching paint dry might be a better use of their time.
Still, here goes for another spine tingling installment of greasy fingerprints and skinned knuckles.
This weekend I finished attaching the heat shields in the rear transmission tunnel and fitted the handbrake cable. I had a good look under the wreck in the barn to check where everything went:
And put the new one together:
Had another go at fitting the front shock:
and gave up again because my hydraulic tool wouldn’t fit into the suspension leg, and Malcolm’s spring compressors were too short, so it’s off to Machine Mart again for some longer ones…
(Not so) Veloco-cycle
Found Malcolm finding another excuse not to do any work on his Renault - he’s got himself an old moped to rebuild - I hope he’s not planning a trip to France on that!
The engine
Regular readers will know of my frustrated attempts to find someone to help me rebuild ROJ’s engine - Malcolm and Gary may have both worked at Aston Martin - but on Vanquishes not 30 year old V8s.
Today a gentlemen came to tea who may well be my salvation.. well ROJ’s salvation. Peter Austin Smith is a retired Aston Martin engineer who worked on V8s when they were new… and may even have worked on ROJ. He lives two villages away from the farm and will come over once in a while to supervise me (and friends) as we strip down the engine, inspect it for problems, and then put it all back together again.
We start next month!
Past (and present) loves 3
Even before the orange Fiat went to be recycled as a refridgerator, we had started looking for a larger, more comfortable car - and found it in this 1974 Vanden Plas 1300 Princess. She may be nappy-contents yellow (Harvest Gold) on the outside and swamp green leather inside - but she still won first prize at the Bank Holiday classic car show on Alverstoke beach
With walnut dash and door caps, and picnic tables in the back she’s like a Bentley that inadvertantly got hot-washed. We never had a nick-name for her, but the Princess served us well for several years until the salt air played havoc with her inner wings.
When I did my classic car restoration course I stripped down and rebuilt her front end, and she is now in my mother’s garage on axle stands until I can find time to finish off some work on the sills, poor girl - having to compete for my time with an Aston!