This was the NAUGHTY CORNER

You’re over thinking it again, Tim.

IT IS ALIEN TECH. IT IS GLEN. IT'S ALL ALIEN.

*Cries*

(Don't take me too seriously, I love a bit of faux drama. I haven't even begun thinking about doing it yet. I do really hate doing windscreens though... particularly as I have to improvise tools as I go and work by myself in the road to get it done. It isn't going to be easy... there will be real drama once I've got my windscreen out and committed myself. Ohhh, there will be drama then)

To be really honest I'd be much more at ease with those things. It's big, obvious... bolts and nuts and so on. It's the piddly cr*p that enrages me more than the big cr*p. Trying to get a tiddly slither of vinyl up inside a rubber seal when there's barely any room for my fingers, the whole lot keeps falling out and I can't get the glass in because I only have two arms and it needs a minimum of three. GARRRGH. I HATE IT ALREADY.

= )

I've now been through the following thought process and come out in an entirely different place to where I have been previously...

1. I've been thinking of a top-end rebuild but frankly there isn't actually any real tangible evidence it needs one. It's just me, worrying.

2. I want/need to change my windscreen rubber.

3. I also want to get rid of the sun roof

3a. I'm not convinced I can do an elegant and ethical bodge to replace the sunroof in such a way that I end up with a satisfactory result (was going to fake a metal sunroof like a Webasto but just a big sheet of metal)

4. My homebrew satin black paint job is very bad and always will be, and the bodywork would require a tonne of work to get it ready for a decent paint job. Not worth it.

5. But... I will need to blow in some new paint when changing the rubber, and I will need to blow in whatever I do with the sunroof.

6. So I may as well forget the top end rebuild for now, and focus instead on having the windscreen removed, the sunroof removed and glassed over properly by somebody who can do a decent job, and then a quick and dirty blow over all over with more satin black just to refinish the paintwork to tidy the whole car up.

7. Then refit windscreen with new rubber.

8. Result... Tidy car

9. Method.... Call in the experts

10. Conclusion.... Car potentially booked in with a fibreglass and paint geezer, in preparation for RR Goodwood. No need for me to curse the gods of windscreens in the rain for five days straight.


Things move quickly with me. I'm self employed and I either have no money or I have money but I need to use it quickly before my wife does. I've been working on a project for the last two weeks, and I have two more booked in. I've been quietly nervous about the project I've been doing because, being perfectly honest under a psudonym... it beggars belief that people pay the kinds of figures they pay for the kinds of thing I do. I sent my work to the client this morning and was sure they were going to say "We're not paying for this load of old tosh!". He just wrote back and said "Fantastic work, thank you".... so I'm all ....QUICK!, SPEND IT QUICKLY BEFORE HE CHANGES HIS MIND OR YOUR WIFE GETS HOLD OF IT.

= )

I will do, although I must stress that aside from repainting the new roof after the sun roof has gone, and tidying up a few really offensive areas, my paint job is really going to be a cosmetic blow-over. Still satin black, still laid onto a flawed body. It's really just a case of blowing over faded areas, areas not covered properly the first time, and to blacken edge chips, scuffs and the large numbers of areas where large stickers used to be which have left ghosts.

It certainly won't be a restoration pride and joy paint job. It will, however, be a nice solid black for RRG.



Went over to the workshop yesterday. I'm number 3 on his job list, behind my buddy's Hiace and a MK1 Mexico. So it will be a month before mine goes in for attention.

Get the old one rebuilt in the month that the car is sitting waiting for the fiberglass work to be done.

In my experience it seems to cost almost as much to pay somebody to rebuild one as it does to just buy a new one. Granted I've never enquired after rebuild costs for a Ford Essex starter, but in the past that's generally been the case.

I prefer to buy a new one so the car is still fully operational, and then to take the old one apart and get it working again myself, as a spare.

I rebuilt the starter for my Humber by buying 3 other non-working starters off ebay and cannibalising the best parts of each. Total cost was about £20. Took about a month to get good enough parts though, but I had a brand spanking new one on the car throughout so it wasn't sat waiting.

Yep, that's the fella. Hoping I can get a cheaper copy from somewhere like the equivalent of a Borg&Beck kind of place, but I haven't looked yet. Mine hasn't gone completely, but it has begun the steady descent into eventual uselessness. I figure I've got a good few weeks or even months before it finally gives up permanently.

It has always missed occasionally since I've had it. Then over the winter it started missing first go fairly regularly. Last few weeks it's started to miss for two goes fairly regularly.

Yeah, that's likely to be it. I have a specialist Lucas parts workshop just a mile from my house. You can take them an alternator or starter motor and they will get it working again, but charge you hundreds for it.

Don't get me wrong though I will get mine working again, but only as a spare.