Been A While

Another gap has formed in the writing – for which I humbly apologise. There are a number of reasons, firstly I’ve done very little to the car – because it needs very little doing (this is a good thing), also I’ve been to Iceland for a week – which was fantastic.

Iceland is a surprising place, it’s the size of England & Wales put together, but while we have about 55million people, 10million of whom live in the capital, Iceland is home to 1/3 of a million people, 120,000 of whom live in the capital. The people are very friendly & all speak very good English, which is nice because my Icelandic is a little rusty. The English speaking was put into sharp relief home when after a week in Iceland having no difficulty at all understanding any Icelander we came across, Mrs Blatter completely failed to understand the waitress in the coffee shop at Gatwick airport. Hmmm.

Iceland has the biggest waterfall & the biggest desert in Europe & is perched on the rift between the American & Eurasian tectonic plates, which is why the whole country is powered by steam. We saw waterfalls, walked on a glacier, watched geysers, made snow angels on a black beach, swam in a hot open air pool in a snow & hail storm & saw the northern lights. Not your usual kind of holiday then.

  On the car front, I’ve purchased a cam cover from a Silvertop Zetec, these are made of alloy rather than the plastic one the engine came with, so I’ll be attempting to polish it to make the engine bay look more “period”. Of course if (when) I get bored I’ll buy some red crinkle paint & do it with that. If all goes well, I’ll need to mess with the cam pulley cover. It touches the inside of the bonnet & is quite a bit bigger than it needs to be, so I might model it up & see what can be done.

 I also need to re-attach the rear valence after I broke off one of the fixings last time I took it off. I’ll probably move the GoPro mic from the passenger door shut to the back as well otherwise Mrs Blatter’s screaming will drown out the engine noise.

BUT, the big news (relax- it’s not that big) is that the date & location for the 2015 Rallye des Jonquilles has been published & my form has gone in, so with a little luck Mrs Blatter & I will be going on that on April 12th. I have a certain amount of “dressing up” to do (on the car) before then – there’s some stickerage to put on to emphasise the ‘50s styling on the car. But for now I’m saying nothing more on that.

It All Works!

I've just come back from a test run in the Fury & I can report that it all works - well, everything I've been messing with recently. The image in the right is the view from the new 3D printed GoPro mount , showing the windscreen washers during what could be called "the money shot" & as you can see they hit the screen 1/2 way up - perfect (the big black thing is the wiper blade). Also, the view in the rear view mirror is much improved & when I topped it up with fuel, the gauge went to the "F" rather that 3/4 of the way there, so that also was a good thing. I know I have a gallon left when it hits empty, so I should have a gauge I can rely on. Just the speedo & the oil pressure gauges to sort out now.

 

And there are signs of spring in the air!

Plinth - What A Good Word

From the driver's seat

As Cinderella might have said if she had a speech impediment "my plinth has come".

And it fits, and it's in the car!

From the outside

Fitting it was a faff as I had to lift the dash top & get my fingers  squished between the dash & the top cover, but in the end it's fitted & it seems to work. I can't be sure until I take it out on the road, but it looks like I can see over the folded soft-top on the back of the car


Then I put the dash back together, & trial fitted the GoPro (yes I know I don't need any more places to fit it) & Bob is your uncle.



From the outside again

 

Some Day My Prints Will Come

I was approached this morning by a man holding a piece of black plastic in the shape of my centre mirror plinth / GoPro mount fresh off the 3D printer – and I saw that it was good.

The finish around the GoPro “fingers” is a bit “steppy” due to the limitations of the process for reproducing radii, but the (empty) GoPro case I’d taken to work slid into it snugly and the nut fitted in the hex socket and the bolt fitted and when tightened it gripped the GoPro case without snapping off the fingers – Success!

If it’s not below freezing when I get home (frankly unlikely) I’ll see if I can fit it to the dash top, though I’m unlikely to have the right size bolts.

3D Printed Mirror Mount

The chance to have something 3d printed has arisen, so here’s a picture of the CAD model, it’s basically a plinth to raise the rear view mirror up by 25mm to a point where (hopefully) I can see something other than the roll bar’s diagonal brace.

As you can see I’ve taken the opportunity to add a GoPro mount onto the side so I can dash-mount it.

Fuel Gauge - Working

Well well well, after a month or so of tinkering, the Fury is all back together & returned to road-worthiness. The principle problem to be solved was the lack of a fuel gauge, it wasn’t a problem for general purpose blatting as I could fill it up before the off & be sure of getting home within the tank-full. But with the Rallye Des Jonquilles approaching as well as the “Rogue Runners” tour of Britain, the need was becoming a pressing one.

So with a heavy heart I started removing the tank all over again. I was expecting to find one or other of the wires to the level sender unplugged or broken by some heavy handedness when re-fitting the tank a while back - but no, all was well. So I took out the sender (a fiddly job at best) with the intention of testing the whole system, it was only when I tried to turn on the ignition that I remembered I’d taken the dashboard out. So – once I’d found it, laid it roughly in the car, plugged in the gauge loom, turned the fuel pump off & the ignition on, twiddling the float on the sender resulted in the needle moving up & down nicely, so it was working – except that I knew that it wasn’t – such is electrical fault chasing.

I put the sender back in the tank & bolted it down. I rocked the tank to & fro & could hear the sender moving, but the needle wasn’t (sigh). When I took the sender out again, I noticed the float was ½ full of petrol, so it had been submerged & sure enough as I re-inserted it, the wire to the float pot got caught round the rod the float attaches to – stopping it moving. I put it back more carefully, rocked the tank again & the gauge came back to life. Hurrah!

So the tank got re-installed & a day or two later the dash went back in, to be followed by a brief drive up to the petrol shop, where £10 worth made the needle go to half full. Job done.

So the next job is to repair the rear valence bracket that came adrift when I took the valence down & apart from a spanner check & maybe some tyres, it’s ready for another year’s blatting.

Squirt!

I got a little more time in the garage as my wife was “going into town for a couple of bits” & “wouldn’t be long” so I knew I had a few hours.

 

 

 

First I checked the clearances on the 13” wheels at full lock, the tyre touched the front of the wheel arch, but nothing a trim couldn’t sort out.

  

So as Mrs Blatter was still in town, I thought I’d take the dash out ready for a couple of things that needed doing, then when it was all out & there was still no sign of Mrs Blatter’s return, I thought I’d attach the new screen wash bracket, which meant taking the air filter off. Having emptied out the various small stones, flora & fauna out of the filter, I could drill off the two remaining mounting holes & a hole for the pipe to go through. I found a grommet with a “strain relief” tube attached, sorted it all out & riveted it to the car.

Key in, ignition on, push the button & the jets hit the perfect spot on the screen. Pleased with that.

With my hands now too cold to hold tools & my wife STILL not home, I locked the garage & went inside.