Lockdown 2 : electric boogaloo, car plans?

Working throughout as per last lockdown.

Need to remove Bmw interior to loft to access rusty bits... and find the holy grail of a left inner wheel arch... that will take ages with the noise / demands of life and family time as well!

Mid way thro doing exactly that

Fed up with the curse word poor working environment and it depressed me every time I got motivated to work on the car again

If i can get it organised and with everything having a place I can get stuck into the project cars again

This 😀

Got Two 8 x 4 sheets of Ally , swage tools, Cleco's + pliers and a beading machine so ready to start the interior panels and bulkheads of the race car....so no excuses..

I'll be mostly finishing off a few last bits on the door I swapped on to the LS430 daily to keep the rust at bay.


Also, I'll be keeping a close eye on Facebook, Gumtree and eBay - with the MK3 Supra and a motorbike sold recently, I've got cash for a new project. Narrowed down to off-road capable vehicles, most likely a Suzuki SJ (if there are any out there still mostly stock!) or a Jimmy or MK1 Vitara. Eyes peeled!

I will also most likely start cleaning and painting bits of the Honda Melody I recently bought that the previous owner had kindly flat packed 😄




Penance pic for posting a bike:

Been working from home for the past 6 weeks so it'll be more of the same for me - nothing's changed. However I shall make a concerted effort to get in the garage at least four times a week to do things like spruce up my new (old) steering wheel and continue working on the Midas.

Only downside to this is that the propane heater won't stay on (thermocouple dodgy?) and I don't know how to fix it. Google may be needed...

Like others, as a “key” worker, I’ll be going in as usual. However, this year’s drastically restricted socialising has freed up a lot of tinkering time (and money).

My wife is going to be working from home, so that means keeping out of her way in the day, so my rest days can be spent guilt free in the garage. I have to finish getting the bits arranged for my Bantam engine rebuild, and with luck the associated engineering that I’ve had to farm out will still get done. I treated myself to a new welder last month, so have been making a combined bench/trolley/storage/hot-work affair that I’m hoping to finish shortly, which will significantly tidy one corner of the workshop. With that done I can move full steam ahead on reinstating the upper floor for storage, and in turn start moving things around into more permanent, less chaotic and easier accessed homes.

As my 4 months hunt for a new job is really not giving me energy and I needed a break from my own (car and house) projects (everything finished gives at least 5 new jobs to do I did not count on beforehand..) I helped my dad (77yrs. car nut which had some big surgery this year so cannot lift stuff currently etc.). He had an old Alfa Giulietta 1300 engine (according to # 1962) which was standing in the darkest corner of the attic above the garage for at least 40 years and he could really not remember how he got it there. Most likely a few blokes together after a few beers just pulled it up. And it was now needed for a project.

However due to some reconstruction work to the garage in this long period the way up was not an option anymore for bringing it down.
So I worked out a plan to use the only hole available with a hoist:


And down


Only at least 5 tonnes of Alfa and Volvo parts to sort and get down more...

Thom

Bought a new welder, and ANY excuse to use it and I am straight in my coat and gloves! Tried to fix my other half's "Dog food" fork as she doesn't ever want to sacrifice some heavy designer brand fork - Turned it to iron filings unfortunately - Tip. There's a lot of metal out there that is allergic to welding! It was like shooting holes through paper with a sowing machine!

I am a Key worker for IT systems - Putting in decent wifi for people is an expensive but much in demand at the moment - Sky/BT/TalkTalk router's give up and quit disgacefully when everyone's at home watching youtube/netflix.

Working on the Black 9000 with it's recent b204 replacement engine - last one lasted 15 mins due to me not even thinking about doing what I tell EVERYONE to do to an engine you don't know, check the oil feed pickup. Clean out the sump. Made myself a fantastic trophy to remind me what a TOOL i can sometime be.