[raw]

since then, more has happened:

fitted these

recycling seemed sensible, especially as i had neither longer bolts nor big washers that i could find, to use his method (did have some fuel pipe though) one day i'll redo them properly:



can anyone guess what i made the brackets from?



got them wired in so they can only be on with the main beams, but you can still have main beams without if you want, they even work!

this happened in june:

today was the highlight of it, after having got up at 0400 to go to Abbey Wood for an induction day. noticed on the way there that there seemed to be a lot of greasy spray getting on the back window meaning i had to have the rear wiper on intermittent from part way down the M5 all the way to bristol, and then noticed that something smelled a bit odd when i parked up. all a bit odd!

on the way back, got on the M5 north about 1715 with 1h40 to make it to rugby in order for my friend i was giving a lift to to catch his train to get back to cottesmore, so cutting it fine without even considering the fact i was taking it steady to reduce wear on my wheel bearing, which is on it's last legs btw. as i was going along the motorway, thought two things, one this car doesnt feel right, front end is all over the place, and two the rear window still seemed to be getting that odd yellow/brown greasy spray on the back window, which didnt look like normal road grime! pulled off at the first junction worrying that the wheel bearing might have got worse somehow during the day hence the vague front end, and after checking all the tyres looked ok with air in them, and then shaking the front wheel to feel for play in the bearing, i noticed that the wheel was covered in fluid, which was also dripping off the wheel arch!

opened to bonnet to see if i could work out what the fluid was maybe, to find that the entire n/s of the engine bay was also covered. was at this point that tom and i finally worked out what the smell was, diesel! started the engine back up to find diesel spraying out at an angle from the no1 injector! traced it to the rubber cap on the return line which had perished and split.

gets better, breakdown cover was cancelled with my old insurance policy, new insurance company are closed so cant find if i have breakdown from them, and neither greenflag nor the AA think i'm covered with them, so i had to join the AA, at a cost of £160, in order to have a van come out and fit a 10p rubber cap! better be a good part at that price!

oh well, that's todays woes, on with life eh!

changed my front wheel bearing to fix a rumble when turning right. it didn't fix it.

disabled my immobiliser in order to fix the starting issue. seems like the alarm i have couldn't source enough current to trigger the GRP crank signal and the starter solenoid.

realised that the noise i thought was the wheel bearing was a totally FUBARed gearbox mount.

crossmember wasn't much better :

not great :| mount was absolutely fubared, and the cross member is actually surprisingly rigid, straightened where i bent it with a jack while doing the engine swap, and removed all the loose rust, and it's solid, if not acceptable.

gearbox mount itself however was a different matter, no wonder the gearbox was all over the place!



and the other part (this rubber section is actually moulded around a piece of rectangular tube that's welded to the last piece, but no longer exists!)

fixed the bodge properly and looked at how to fit a V70 electrical fan:

Richard