Return Of The Stylus

 Yes the Stylus has returned.

After laying out an obscene amount of money for a year's road tax (£345! - which I wouldn't mind if it had a supercharged small block V8 - but it'll happily do 40+mpg at 70 on a motorway AND it's made from re-used parts!) I took it round to my brothers house through the stationary traffic at M25 Jcn10, then the very next day I took it 115 miles to see my lovely girlfriend. But before that, I tested the various systems, knobs & switches & found the rear fog light didn't work. This was disappointing as it's a switch from a Sea Harrier, but I ordered another couple of switches (standard sort of thing for a car this time) & they had arrived by the time I got home, so after a bit of a fiddle, I replaced both switches & the car is ready for the MoT next month - unless something else breaks.

Here they are - all systems go. Fog light on the left, screen heater on the right, swarf from enlarging the holes underneath.

But, there were no problems in 177 miles, so I'm happy with that.

Not Much To Say

 Yes, sorry, I've not had much to say recently, because very little has happened to the Stylus. This is partly to do with it being very reliable, but mostly because it's been so COLD. It has been very VERY COLD for a very long time. We also went to see my son's family in Scotland, planning a couple of things to see on the journey - we were planning on calling in at Scotland's "National Museum of Flight" (sounds very grand doesn't it? Has a very professional looking website too). Turns out it was SHUT - only opens at the weekends in Feb. So we looked for other things to do & it seems that the vast majority of Scotland was SHUT. We did find a small car museum that was open Weds to Sun, but the road to it was SHUT.

However, summer is coming in spite of the outside temperature & I've started tidying up some of the car's minor irritations. The Stylus has been pretty good, so there's no real "work" to do, I've topped up the fluids & changed the oil, but apart from that I've been printing bits for it.

First, the walkie-talkie. I'd tried various ways of mounting the two way radio, most recently with a large P-clip, but there's a few requirements to be met. It needs to be quite high in the car so the signal can get out, it needs to be close enough for me to reach if there's a problem (for normal use there's a remote Press To Transmit button so I don't need to touch it) & the wires don't want to be dangling across the interior.

There's a space on the lower tube of the roll bar which works well, but the P-clip mounting I came up with is "permanent" - I can't just take the radio out if there's a problem with it.

So I drew up a better mounting that holds the radio by the belt clip & is inevitably 3D printed, it clamps round the tube quite nicely & is printed in TPU - which is polyurethane, so it's softish & won't rattle, but because the belt loop on the radio has a double return it won't jump out if I fail to notice a speed hump & take it at 40.

It worked so well, that I started looking at other parts that needed a tidy up & I've now re-drawn a steady for the new GoPro mount - the one that allows the cameras to look over the roll bar, but folds in seconds if I need to put the roof up.

Also on the activity list is a new mounting for the GoPro remote, at the moment it's just held on to the dash with sticky-back velcro, it wobbles & it's started to "migrate" leaving a smear of sticky goo on the dash. So I'm adapting a GoPro mount to hold the remote in place (also with a 3D printed thingy), which will allow a degree of flexibility as well as not being so floppy.

When the weather warms up a bit I'll do some more preparation, but until then, I'm staying indoors.