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27th April 2008.....Sunday morning I went for my jog at 5 as usual, then woke Spot up. He phoned the AA as he's a member and I'm not and they said that as it was a cam belt problem it was a free ride home. (DHR did 210 mile on half a tank of petrol). The bloke tuned up with a flash pick-up truck and we were away by quarter to ten and home by twelve thirty. Spot had tea and toast then headed off around the M25 car park and I set about removing DHR's head. By six it was out and the problem plain to see, I'd bent all four exhaust valves. looking at the top of the pistons you can see where the big valves had hit the top of the cut outs, so big valve head uses beware. I'm going to be cutting more of the piston tops out to accommodate the big valves next time. For now the other head will be going back on while I sort the big valve one, but I'm removing the whole engine so I can sort the rear crank oil seal while I'm at it. All in all and I know I've got a problem with DHR, but a great weekend. This is what owning a classic is all about.....good mates and a good time and plenty of problems.

26th April 2008.....Well what a weekend! Great food, great beer, great curry and excellent company. Not so good on the DHR front but that will come later. Spot and I went up together on Friday night and only got lost once. The silly lady on the sat nav sent us the wrong way, plus I don't think they have electricity yet up north, as there were no street lights anywhere. When we walked in the door Flod got us a beer and then served up a great late night snack. Edd and Mark turned up about ten past twelve and immediately set about drinking all Flod's buds. We went to bed at about half two and I was first up in the morning of course. Saturday was spent working all day on the cars. We had Flod's HA and coupe, Spud's HC, Mark's HC, Deon's jaffa and DHR, plus later Sid was expecting a Humber to be delivered. I know, why a Humber? Well have a look at the pictures to find out why. Starting with Flod's coupe - the prop was knackered so that was the end of that. His HA - ended up having 4 alternators, and 3 carbs I think and I think in the end was okay. Deon's jaffa - had a lot of tweaking done and ended up going like stink. Mark's HC - had the exhaust sorted and the none working indicator. Spud's HC - was sprayed black while he wasn't looking. It looked okay to. Now for DHR - the tracking was set correctly and two loose steering arm bolts were found. Then the timing was attempted. This caused all sorts of problems. Whatever we did she wouldn't run right. Late in the day we thought the cam belt was out by one tooth so we set about rectifying it. What we didn't realise was the adjuster wasn't tight enough and the belt slipped and then nothing. I thought we'd sorted the starter motor because it turned over the best it ever had. Straight away Edd said "bent valves". Sid's Humber had turned up by this time so we left DHR and had a fiddle with the Humber because Sid was hoping to drive it home. Before we left for the pub the Humber wasn't working either. We had a good evening though, plenty to eat and drink and apart from the funny smells late in the evening, a good night was had by all.

24th April 2008.....I must have a guardian angel looking after me. If you have a look at the pictures below and look very carefully you can just see the small deposits of rust in the boot of SHW/Kara. Click on the pictures to get a bigger view, it will help you see it better. Now another person I don't know personally, has offered the rear end/boot, of a car he's breaking to me. Paul Bottomley had mentioned to Mike Stanley about my small rust problems and in a few weeks time he will cut the back off a car for me, then I can go collect it. It doesn't just end there. Tony has hinted that he might be able to help me get it back from Mike Stanley's place, as I don't think I'll get it in the back of an Astra. But it doesn't just end there either. Tony has also hinted/offered to loan me a nice welder and show me how to use it. (He's going to regret this big time as he hasn't seen me in action. The Outlaw boys didn't give me the nickname 'Dangerous' for nothing). I wouldn't want you all to think that this is a one way street here and I don't give anything back. This weekend I'm taking my old rusty 4 branch exhaust and giving it to Stuart from Sunderland to make a copy for his new GT. (He hasn't seen it so doesn't know how bad it is and he's not got internet access so he'll never read this so I'm okay). I'm looking forward to the weekend as about 8/10 of us will be getting together for a weekend of Viva's, beer and curry. The write up may not be ready on Monday, depends how I feel.

20th April 2008.....Not to much done on cars this weekend. Saturday I spent the day with the family and we had a nice meal out with Vikki and her boyfriend. First time we've all been together and we all had a good time. Vik seems to be mellowing a bit so here's hoping. On Sunday it was 'Drive It' day, so Edd, Spot and myself got together and drove to the Heritage centre in Luton to meet other like minded people. Good turn out and all sorts of cars there, not just Vauxhall's. The down side was I forgot to take photos. Spot and Edd gave me their views on what to do with SHW when we got home, the best advice was take it to Dave Wheatley. As Tony said earlier she's a borderline scrap job. The boys agree but said why don't I try and do what I can with this shell as that would be good practice, then if it looks like it will be to much for me, only re-shell then. As I want to keep the original shell if I can, that's what I now intend to do. (Who says I need practice anyway!). I have since had 3 offers of shells I could use but I think I'll hold off until I've had a go. Mike Stanley has very kindly offered the backend of a car for me so I might take him up on it, but thanks to everyone for their advice. I know I joke around a lot, but it really is appreciated.

13th April 2008.....Still annoyed that I hadn't ran Paul over and bought the GT myself, I set about a day's stripping, hoping to get the bottom finished. This I achieved and also removed the outer offside front wing. This only brought me back down to earth with a bump. The chassis rail this side is a lot worse than I thought. (If only I'd run Paul over). So I then immediately checked the state of the other side which is in far better condition. At around six in the evening I hit my hand very hard with the hamm er when trying to remove the bumper brackets from the bumper, so decided to call it a day. What I have achieved this weekend was to unearth a previously unknown GT, to remove all the underseal from the underside of the floorpan, to remove the front wing, bumper and spotlights and to inflict actual bodily harm on my hand. I will be contacting Tony for some urgently needed advice on making repair panels. Later in the evening I made a voodoo doll of Paul and right now he should not be able to sit down for at least a week.

12th April 2008.....Well I got up early today because I had Paul Bottomley coming to visit me. He's never seen my set-up before so I made sure things were tidy (I even de-scaled the kettle last night). He arrived on time and after a quick cuppa I went to show off the garage and the two loves of my life. I couldn't tell from his reaction if he thought I was mad doing Kara or not, she wasn't looking her best. Then off we went to look at a GT. Now he'd been told the car had been sat in a heated garage for 20 plus years, this turned out to be a lie....it was 30 plus years. And yes you've read correctly, a heated garage. He'd asked me to go along as I am now a world renown expert on the viva GT. Okay, okay he just wanted someone to talk to. When we arrived Bill, the owner, was already there to meet us, as well as Edd who will also go anywhere to look at an old GT. Bill let us in to this huge underground car park which was indeed heated. In fact the heated pipe's went right above the car. It was covered up with a blanket like all good GT's and at this point Paul and I were still unsure as to whether it was even a GT. On the phone Bill couldn't remember if it had a black bonnet, if the gear stick had a kink in it etc. As soon as he pulled the cover back I said to Paul, "it's genuine". It was in very good condition indeed for a car that had sat for 30 years. Bill hadn't even lived in the flats for 25 years, he'd just borrowed a friends parking space. She's a Le Mans blue, Mk1, 1968 GT with a complete and near mint interior. The headling I would sell a kidney for. It must have had a radio fitted from new as the speaker grills in the back parcel shelf I think are original ones. It had crossply tyres which have been kept pumped up, unbelievable! The only thing missing from the car as far as I can see was the two rear wheel trims. Someone like Edd would have this car running and MOT'd inside a fortnight. Paul probably saved my marriage because if he hadn't of bought it, I would've done without question. Mind you I would've had to fight Edd for her so might have lost that one. Back at mine we had a cuppa and a look at Paul's pictures, (I left my camera in my garage), then he left me to dream of what might have been and I went back to stripping! (PS. Paul will be sending me some pictures down soon to add to the gallery, my reader would'nt take Paul's camera card).

10th April 2008....I've now got Kara on my swivelling trolley thing so I can now move her very easily. This let me pull her away from the garage wall last night and start scraping the nearside edge. I have taken some of the underseal off the front nearside footwell and things are looking good.

8th April 2008......Again more stripping, all I need is a pole and a thong and I could make a fortune. I managed to get the front suspension off tonight. The four bolts which hold it on came apart very easy, then I jacked it up and tried to lower it down. It wouldn't come, it was stuck! Some bloody idiot had forgot to undo the steering column! I now have the underside stripped from front to the start of the petrol tank area down the offside and centre and both chassis rails. This leaves the nearside from the chassis rail to the edge and the petrol tank area. Dreading that bit.

7th April 2008......Another three hours in the garage stripping in the evening, I've got quite a pile of rust and underseal building up. Perhaps I can sell it on E-Bay, some mug will buy it.

Week commencing 31st March 2008....Well did you miss me? I haven't updated for just over a week as I've taken some holiday. The best kind of holiday, Viva holiday! The important news is that on March 31st DHR celebrated her 40th birthday. We had a very touching day full of love and thoughts of the old days. No one sent her a card! The beginning of the week was boring as I caught up with jobs I'd promised Joanne I'd do and we took Alex for a day out in London to see the sights, which nearly killed me but then on Thursday it was just me, my garage and some old metal. After a quick tidy up I decided I was going to start SHW, from now on known as 'Kara' after my first grandchild. Looking at Kara it would mean clearing her of the junk I'd piled on her over the last few months. This was a slight problem as space is becoming a bit of an issue and the chances of Joanne letting me buy a shed to store Viva stuff is absolutely zero. With the car clear I put her on some axle stands, (8 to be accurate and I put some old wheels under the wheels, I don't like the thought of being crushed under a Viva), I set about stripping the underseal off. I did the centre section first and that is surprisingly good. I then did the chassis rails and once again, suprise. suprise they are in good nick considering. The gearbox mounting area is gone so that'll be a new pair from Dave. At this point I haven't done the boot bit yet, that may be a littlee different. (See picture). To get to the slope of the floorpan under the rear seat area I needed to remove the rear axle so off that came with very little trouble. The lower and upper arm bolts were tight to undo but no real problem, then the slope was stripped. Here there were small holes, not on the slope itself but on the flat top area and the strange thing is that the holes are on the raised up strengthening swage lines. I could understand it if they were sunken and the water had collected in them but they had rusted on the raised area. Now the only thing I can think of is that the metal is thinner there after pressing due to the stretching of the metal. Still nothing me and my trusty welder can't fix!!!! I then did the offside rear wheel arch and what a difference from DHR, it was great, two holes, the usual one where the bolted plate is and a small hole on the shock turret. Dave had to make new turrets for me and the arches were basically totally re-built. Some good news for me as asking me to make a round wheel arch is a none starter, I'd have done a new improved square version. What I can say after my four days spent on Kara is that she isn't quite as bad as I'd imagined. My intension now is to strip all the underseal off the floorpan, top and bottom, within the next two weeks as Spot is coming up so he'll tell me if he thinks the shell is worth the effort or not. At the moment I think it is.

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