Winter Jobs

 Yes it's January & it's cold in the garage - but needs must.

With the rear axle looking fixed (hopefully) I took the car down off the stands & ramps & put just the front on stands to put some more anti-squeal shims on the front brake pads to get a quieter life (my girlfriend won't complain about the brake squeal). Obviously that's an easy enough job, but while I had my head in the wheel arch I noticed some corrosion at the rear lower corner where the paint had come away. Nothing serious, just a little surface rust on steel sheet 1.5mm thick, but I got out the rotary wire brushes & cleaned it back before running some polyurethane sealer up the join & giving is a thick coat of Car Builder Solutions' "Wonderseal". When it's cured off I shall over-spray it with black stone chip paint.

Yes, I know it looks a bit of a mess, but it's meant to, it protects the surface from stones, I used it in the Fury's wheel arches & never had a single star crack. the Stylus hasn't got any & has many star cracks.

Also getting done is the installation of new cameras. My lovely girlfriend bought me a pair of DJI "Action 4" cameras for Christmas & while they have the same fitting as the GoPro Hero 3+'s I've been using, there were a few tweaks.

Firstly the camera doesn't fit in a waterproof case - it is waterproof, except when the charging door is open. I had cut holes in the GoPro cases for the power lead, so they weren't waterproof either, but often it just rains a little bit, so I've drawn & printed a "shield" to keep light wetness away from the power plug & a tethered cap so I can close the charge door, run the camera off the battery & still keep the charge lead's business end dry. They are printed in TPU, so are soft & flexible, but extremely tough. Of course if it's proper rain, the hood will be up & either the camera arm will be folded across, filming through the windscreen, or the camera will be on the outside mount above the windscreen running on the battery.

Not a very clear picture of the power lead shield, cap & its' tether.

A clearer picture, but the shield's not on the plug in this one.

The cameras themselves seem pretty good, with stabilisation built & any number of different options. I will keep it simple, I only want the lowest setting it does as that's still better than the Hero 3+ that I was perfectly happy with. I'll be keeping those for the occasional views from the radiator intake / door mirror etc.