WELL !
Time seems to have snuck up on me , and christmas has also snuck up on me , in fact a lot of snuckering has been a happenin!
Since i last wrote my waffling drivvelfest , i have spent 7 weeks in the colonies ,doing "missionary work" .
While there i was lucky enough to be allowed to gate crash the local vintage car club saturday lunch's , which was a treat ,my new friend Colin
took me out in his spanky home built Bentley , and a mighty fine job he has made of it too .open top two door .
Exciting things that happened were..
A) i was sabotaged by a bit of crunchy bacon which upon biting down on it let me with a fair sized bit of tooth to spit out ,
treatment ongoing.
B) Went swimming ... got my ears blocked . Luckily one of the chaps with the vintage car infection was a retired dr , and he offered to syringe them ....
Now..
I don't know if anyone has had this done before , but i was not really aware of the process, i assumed it was a little sort of sucky thing that would pull out the blockage ..
ER ..NO.
I was looking to my right chatting(as usual)... when he approached me , on my blind side ,with a kidney dish and a bloody great chrome turkey baster ..
I held the dish under my ear ,not catching on ,and all of a sudden ,had the feeling someone had just connected a local fire hydrant to my lug.. .
for what seemed like about 10 minutes i felt a colossal pressure on my drum , slightly cold , and not at all pleasant .. i may have started weeping slightly,
My new Doctor friend ,Robert,was definitely bearing down on the giant syringe with gusto...my drum felt like a big trampolene with 15 heavy bouncers on it .no pun intended .
Of course none of this prepared me for the revolting gooook that then issued forth ....it looked like the ash from a complete cigarette left burning on a formica worktop.
He then proceeded to do the other ear , which was bit more difficult since i had not been pouring embalming fluid down it for weeks trying to get it to pop..with this ear the hydraulic pressure reached such proportions that i nearly put my neck out holding still .
Veronica enjoyed salaciously describing the erstwhile contents of my ears as two broken up champagne corks of yuckyness! ...it quite made her day ! well ...really .
i AM immensely greatful to him , THank you Robert...i have a new appreciation of any music with a lot of treble in it .... i should have carbon dated the exudation since i am sure there was a lot of historical childhood detritus .
Anyrdup , then it was soon time to go back to the old country , and distraction after distraction ocurred ,with my sister buying a derelict hs to fix up and stuff .
now i am slightly back on the ball with "The Medusa Project" (sounds like a cold war film )
Firstly ,V very kindly got me a couple of these ..
Which are 14.7 slc wide band o2 sensor controllers , to stay on the car full time , instead of carting around my innovate lm1's which are really for the dyno and testing .
this left me with a "oh where am i going to put them" dilemma , they are a bit modern after all !
They will put out a 0 to 1v signal , and i thought hey , if i can change that to a 1-2v signal , and the scale is 10:1 to 20:1 , then i can use a simple digital voltmeter to show air fuel ratio ..
eg , 14:1 afr will read 1.400 volt ...just blot out the dig point... easy peasy !?
Well, it would be easy peasy if i had any idea of how to change the signal ,however i am v lucky to have an incredibly kind friend who whipped up a little board to do just that .THANK YOU ANDY !!
now where to put the digital read outs .... i bought some to match the temp gauges in the back to the time machine console on the car , and so whipped up these little holders from solid brass ,by hand ...
old brass door plate..
sexy little holders..
now if you were to say to me that looks totally tooo much ..my reply would be ...
...and ?
next i wanted to make the speedo a bit more ana ..speci....ok ...basically ...weird...
i got a lens from a projector headlight ,and ground a flat on it ..
like so ..
I now need to work out how to hold it in position ?
Any ideas ?.... i did think of super gluing a strip of metal on the flat and gluing a magnet under the ally plate ,but some oick would snarffle it .
Next it was on to project steering boss .
a very kind gentleman sent me this ...
I removed its appendage ,drilled out the eye sockets , and mounted a pair of colour changing leds in there ..as you do .
then got a 3v battery holder and finangled a push button switch down the column that switches on and off when you press the horn ring .
Now to mount the thing ..
i hoicked out the old boss , and tried to get the paint off it so i could resin the face onto the back of it ..
like so ..
i got it totally transparent with a load of over cleaner ,but then realised it would always show the rover shape ..pox.
option no 2..
i made a mould of the thing.
To do this i pumped a whole tube of silicone , onto a tupperware thing ,and them poured in a load of corn starch , and mixed it all up ,with my bare hands .
Things to note ...
A) wear gloves the stuff is stickyer than anything to can imagine , I'm not mentioning blankets .
B) wear a gas mask ..the vinegar smell of the silicone is a minor irritant when maybe sealing the bath to the wall ...try pumping a full tube out in a unventilated room . .. my sinuses felt like someone had put me on my head ,and filled my nose to overflowing with raw vinegar , i think i used up 20 years worth of skin up my nose in 10 minutes .
C) Don't do it in the kitchen ..see above ....veronica actually had to run for it .
D) ,wear aye protection ...um ...you know that thing when you slice onions?...nuff said .
after making the mould , and then blundering about with tears streaming down my face with hand glued together with dubious amounts of white stuff ,i needed a bit of a lie down.
The mould set quite well,but was a little crinckled in places , i decided to try just slathering silicone over the boss to see if it would work better ..
Cue 4 days of soaking it in petrol trying to get the silicone off..
So made another load of spooodge , and this time put it in a peanut lid like so ..
i polished it v smooth with my palm , and then pushed the boss into it ..
And this one came out mirror smooth , perfect ..now i think i may try pouring in some resin , letting it go stiff,the resin that is, and then rest the boss on it and pour in the rest ?
LASTLY, rear suspension...
My rear springs are a bit too soggy ,with only one leaf..
and i need to stiffen them up . i found i had a slightly naff pare of adjustable shock in the stores , and i am pondering fitting then with some 90 lbs springs off my turbo mini..
needless to add , they are too short.. so i would have to make some plates to bring the current shock mounts down.
i think that's about it , oh..apart from the great number plate debacle where i am trying to make my mind up between a cheap dateless ni plate , an expensive 3 number 3 letter plate or a medusa relative plate .
i quite like the idea of..
STR812M for straight 12 .. and that sort of thing... oh and also G18RGN for gorgon of whome medusa was one of 3 .
there you go , sorry for not much action on the thread, i must do better , happy Christmas to all and a Super Spanky new year
regards
robert
