Sometimes it's the little things that matter. Or, in this instance, the little things that add up to make a bloody big difference to a small car. Poppy, bless her "heart", had quite a few issues. For instance, she had up until not so very long ago only half a roof. The reason why is a story for another time (see here) but essentially she was damp (read: sodden), with only one working headlight, one working sidelight, a windscreen so dirty you couldn't really see out of it (which is a bit of a stumbling block) and her paint is flaking off.
Knowing the damp was a) my own fault and b) soon to become a major issue, I stripped out both seats (which, due to the wiring, meant cutting a wire for the headrest speakers for the passenger side - nice job on fitting a connector there so the seat could be fully removed, previous owner), removed all the crap, of which there was admittedly lots, and the foot well mats. Knowing how much damage fully removing the carpet does, I elected not to do so. The car was left open all day and then with a bowl of cat litter in to soak up the moisture for a couple of nights after. It seemed a lot better but more needed to be done. So I fenced off a day and used it to properly sort the car out: first off, hoovering out scrubbing the floors with carpet shampoo to really get the carpet clean and not mouldy. Then leaving it to dry, before re-scrubbing. The surfaces were all cockpit shine-d and the interior of the windscreen and windows were cleaned with Mr Muscle glass cleaner (by the way, this is not made for inhaling - I was coughing and struggling to breathe for a full three days after). The outside of the car was washed, meaning quite a lot of the crappy paintjob came off again. Seriously, who pays to get their car resprayed but doesn't bother stripping it first? As a result, it's flaking and about three different colours. NOT impressed. New respray when I can afford it, and a proper one this time too! Finally, the exterior windows were Rainex-d and the whole thing was left to dry.
Poppy looked, felt and smelled 100 times better after the day's work although not perfect. Mum lent me her dehumidifier and I left that running for a day or so, which made very little difference - clearly she's not so damp any more! Then I remembered I had to change a headlamp. The sidelight was driven into by someone, so it's cracked and I'm waiting on a replacement, but the headlight was just a bust bulb. Turns out, though, that Mk1 main beam bulbs are a pain in the neck to change - SO much fiddling, so many screws. I'm sure it'll be quicker next time but it took me a good 15 minutes of prodding to get it sorted. The headlamps themselves got a good clean while I was doing it, too, which has been for the best.
To top it all off, the handbrake light came on while hoofing it round a roundabout at, ahem, a halfway legal speed. I panicked then, realising that the car was in fact still driving in a straight line and thus the handbrake *wasn't* on, calmed down. Turns out that's a sign the brake fluid is getting low. An easy fix :-)
Poppy is both happier and cleaner now, which is fantastic, and I also got to play with power tools yesterday (not on her, thankfully) so, all told, I'm a happy girl!
Monday 7 January 2013
The roof saga...
So... I might have done something a little silly a few weeks back...
Poppy has dodgy, freezy locks that have been dodgy since I got her (almost a year now!). When it's cold, the driver's side one doesn't work at all, so I have to climb in via the passenger side, and the passenger one only works if you turn the key fully while operating the handle. So, now you know, this might make more sense...
It was a cold day in December and, surprise surprise, I was running late for work. Well, I had photocopying and planning to do before teaching so actually not that late but I was still in a rush with a fair bit on my mind. I opened the passenger side, climbed in and started the engine to warm the car, grabbing my scraper on the way out as the car was iced over. As I got out and watched the door close (gravity was on its side), my heart sank. I tried the door. Frozen of course. So I was stuck outside with the keys in the car (and, of course, my mobile too - what a fool) and the engine running, with the boyfriend out at work. For want of a better word, cock. Next door had keys to our house, where my spares were and, indeed, a phone to call the RAC if necessary but, of course, next door were away. I looked for the weak spot in my car to break in and it was bloody obvious - the roof. Now, my zip-out plastic windscreen had been steadily falling apart over the previous few months and no amount of re-stitching was helping. So I set about unpicking the rest of the stitches. Which was, actually, a worryingly easy task. Once I'd got a bit undone, I attempted to reach in and undo the lock with my hands and subsequently with a broom. No use. So, gritting my teeth, I unpicked all of the stitches and, sitting on the boot of the car, crawled in over the windbreak.
Of course, at this point, the other next door neighbour returned (no, not the one with the keys!) and saw me with my legs hanging out of the car in a most ungainly fashion. He laughed. Lots. Tom is now disappointed that he didn't also take photos. I'm not. Getting in to Poppy to sort this all out gave me lots of bruises and a ripped hood but at least we got there in the end I suppose, albeit 20 minutes late for work too.
Now, with a missing rear windscreen on a cold, wet and windy December day, I was less than happy. And cold. It was clear that I needed to book an appointment with Jack Smith Trimmer's in Swansea to get a new hood. In reality, all it did was speed up a necessity but nonetheless...!
So I now have a lovely new mohair and glass roof that I'm utterly in love with and shall write a somewhat more coherent post on the Swansea trip soon...
Poppy has dodgy, freezy locks that have been dodgy since I got her (almost a year now!). When it's cold, the driver's side one doesn't work at all, so I have to climb in via the passenger side, and the passenger one only works if you turn the key fully while operating the handle. So, now you know, this might make more sense...
It was a cold day in December and, surprise surprise, I was running late for work. Well, I had photocopying and planning to do before teaching so actually not that late but I was still in a rush with a fair bit on my mind. I opened the passenger side, climbed in and started the engine to warm the car, grabbing my scraper on the way out as the car was iced over. As I got out and watched the door close (gravity was on its side), my heart sank. I tried the door. Frozen of course. So I was stuck outside with the keys in the car (and, of course, my mobile too - what a fool) and the engine running, with the boyfriend out at work. For want of a better word, cock. Next door had keys to our house, where my spares were and, indeed, a phone to call the RAC if necessary but, of course, next door were away. I looked for the weak spot in my car to break in and it was bloody obvious - the roof. Now, my zip-out plastic windscreen had been steadily falling apart over the previous few months and no amount of re-stitching was helping. So I set about unpicking the rest of the stitches. Which was, actually, a worryingly easy task. Once I'd got a bit undone, I attempted to reach in and undo the lock with my hands and subsequently with a broom. No use. So, gritting my teeth, I unpicked all of the stitches and, sitting on the boot of the car, crawled in over the windbreak.
Of course, at this point, the other next door neighbour returned (no, not the one with the keys!) and saw me with my legs hanging out of the car in a most ungainly fashion. He laughed. Lots. Tom is now disappointed that he didn't also take photos. I'm not. Getting in to Poppy to sort this all out gave me lots of bruises and a ripped hood but at least we got there in the end I suppose, albeit 20 minutes late for work too.
Now, with a missing rear windscreen on a cold, wet and windy December day, I was less than happy. And cold. It was clear that I needed to book an appointment with Jack Smith Trimmer's in Swansea to get a new hood. In reality, all it did was speed up a necessity but nonetheless...!
So I now have a lovely new mohair and glass roof that I'm utterly in love with and shall write a somewhat more coherent post on the Swansea trip soon...
Tuesday 11 December 2012
London to Brighton 2013 [not about MX-5s for once]
In May 2013, my boyfriend Tom and I are planning to walk from London to Brighton in aid of Mind, the mental health charity. It's a 100km endurance walk and, while I'm not usually totally sure of people doing things like this for charity (I mean, some of the funds are going to offset the cost of running the event - why not give it all to charity?), this is for me both about raising funds and raising awareness of Mind. And mental health in general, for that matter. The walk starts in London on the 25th May and finishes on the 26th in Brighton; what would have been my Dad's 70th birthday. Appropriate and yet entirely co-incidental.
Many of you will be aware that, in 1999, when I was nine, my father died. A recently retired airline pilot with a loving family and plenty of friends, you'd have thought he had everything he wanted. But depression isn't that choosy and, on the 19th April, he took his own life. Everyone I've ever spoken to who knew him said what a brilliant person he was - kind, calm, professional. The sort of person I can only ever hope to be. I miss him every single day and the pain doesn't get any less, you just learn to live with it. But it means that any single thing I can do to stop someone else from going through it all is worthwhile. Mental health isn't as obvious as physical illness but it doesn't make it any less important. People are still somewhat reticent to discuss it too, and that needs to change.
It makes me sad that Tom never got to meet my Dad but, nevertheless, he wants to walk with me. Anyone else who'd like to be part of the team is more than welcome!
A link to, undoubtedly, a Justgiving page will be stuck in here when we've booked our places :-)
Many of you will be aware that, in 1999, when I was nine, my father died. A recently retired airline pilot with a loving family and plenty of friends, you'd have thought he had everything he wanted. But depression isn't that choosy and, on the 19th April, he took his own life. Everyone I've ever spoken to who knew him said what a brilliant person he was - kind, calm, professional. The sort of person I can only ever hope to be. I miss him every single day and the pain doesn't get any less, you just learn to live with it. But it means that any single thing I can do to stop someone else from going through it all is worthwhile. Mental health isn't as obvious as physical illness but it doesn't make it any less important. People are still somewhat reticent to discuss it too, and that needs to change.
It makes me sad that Tom never got to meet my Dad but, nevertheless, he wants to walk with me. Anyone else who'd like to be part of the team is more than welcome!
A link to, undoubtedly, a Justgiving page will be stuck in here when we've booked our places :-)
Sunday 16 September 2012
General bits of maintenance...
Poppy needed some general maintenance done a couple of weeks back. Spark plugs were changed with very little effort (although one of Tom's leads split - whole different, rather long story!) and then it was on to a full oil and filter change. These are meant to be done every three months or something but, due to not actually being made of money, I can't really afford to spend £30 on a fresh flush of oil and a new oil filter, plus about another £15 for the spark plugs, quite that often - once a year will suffice as long as she's running well, for now, I think!She had to be put on ramps, which was utterly terrifying to drive her up to, not least due to how low she is. Then it was on to taking the filler cap off, undoing the plug on the sump and letting the oil drain out into a waiting bowl. As you can probably see, I missed somewhat as wasn't expecting the oil to spurt quite that far! The socket required for the sump plug was a surprisingly large one - 19, and it took a bit of doing to get it undone.
Once that was, eventually, completed and the oil was draining out slowly, it was on to getting the oil filter extractor thingy round the oil filter, attaching an extender bar and cracking it off. As I have the smaller hands of Tom and I, that one was my job - once the engine had cooled down a little, it wasn't awful. Admittedly, you can't see anything at all when your hand's underneath the engine trying to twist the oil filter off! Once the extractor was wrapped round and the bar was attached, it took a bit of effort to push against it but the filter cracked off without too much trouble.
Nonetheless, replacing the new filter was easy, just with a little manoeuvring in around the pipes and lines, but it took far less time than getting it out did! The sump plug's washer was replaced and the plug put back in, and tightened to the required level, and, after wiping up and getting rid of the used oil, the oil and filter change was complete!
Apparently, I did it so well that Tom got me to do his a couple of days ago! Just as straightforward although his oil was a damn sight hotter - ouch!
Shift Boot Changes
We bought three sets of shift boots and oil after noticing that the shift boots on Bluey were utterly worn and leaking smoke into the car. Changing Blue's boots took a fair bit of trial and error but made such a difference. When fiddling about with Poppy, I took the gearstick leather cover off and noted that the top boot was pretty worn through; odd, as no smoke had been coming in at all but there we go. See below!
Tom's girl, Lucy, was up for helping me so we got stuck in with the spanners and screwdrivers. Taking the gearstick and boot out was no problem, and the turret was full of oil, reassuringly, but it took a *lot* of pushing and pulling to get the boot off the stick.
Putting the gearstick back together was pretty straightforward though 'lubricating the shaft' was essential in getting the boot back over it to the point it needed to be: the upper requires a lot of manoeuvring to get the ring down low enough. After that, it was just a case of screwing the centre console and other bits back on and twisting the knob back on.
Poppy drives just as beautifully now, although the shift changes did have a little resistance in them for a few days afterwards, and it didn't take more than half an hour in total to do the change of both boots and the oil - I can't recommend the Haynes manual highly enough, as ever!
Tom's girl, Lucy, was up for helping me so we got stuck in with the spanners and screwdrivers. Taking the gearstick and boot out was no problem, and the turret was full of oil, reassuringly, but it took a *lot* of pushing and pulling to get the boot off the stick.
Putting the gearstick back together was pretty straightforward though 'lubricating the shaft' was essential in getting the boot back over it to the point it needed to be: the upper requires a lot of manoeuvring to get the ring down low enough. After that, it was just a case of screwing the centre console and other bits back on and twisting the knob back on.
Poppy drives just as beautifully now, although the shift changes did have a little resistance in them for a few days afterwards, and it didn't take more than half an hour in total to do the change of both boots and the oil - I can't recommend the Haynes manual highly enough, as ever!
Monday 9 July 2012
A rather exciting adventure...
The plan for early morning on Friday 5th July was to get up and drive down to Dover. So that's exactly what we did; a 4am start and a 0445 leaving from home to catch an 0800 ferry to Dunkirk. Poppy and I had never been abroad together so it was pretty exciting! I drove down to Dover, roof down of course, struggling to keep my eyes open after such an early start. Driving onto the ferry was absolutely terrifying as, while my spatial awareness is pretty good, there's still an awful lot that could go wrong, but we parked just behind another '5, albeit a Mk3, and had a chat with the owners which was nice. Then up into the ferry for a cooked breakfast and a cup of tea. Yum!
Tom made me drive off the ferry into Dunkirk; we were off to a supermarket to pick up some provisions for the day's lunch as well as a couple of Artichokes for my mum (they're cheaper in France!). Having never driven on the continent before, I was utterly terrified and had a few 'where am I going?!' moments when lanes seemed to just disappear without warning. Good thing the boyfriend was there as a calming influence! He drove onwards from the supermarket, having deployed a Munzee there, with the intention of visiting Rotterdam. As it happened, traffic was against us, even relatively early on a Friday afternoon, and we spent most of the afternoon in traffic. Some driver swapping was necessary, both because we were getting bored and because Vodafone had buggered up both our phones, so calls needed to be made. That said, we saw some totally random parts of Belgium and the Netherlands, tiny little backroads that we'd never have otherwise come across so it wasn't all bad! The only issue we had was that, with it being hot and the engine essentially idling for so long, we noticed that the engine temperature gauge was reading higher than usual. No overheated engine for my car, thanks! Blowers went on 'hot', pointed at the sky, and we sat like that for about half an hour. Thank goodness we could have the roof off to prevent us heating up too; that's apparently an old Mini owners' trick - can't imagine it's so pleasant then! So, we ended up reaching the hotel in Haarlem about 1900 and checked in. Er, well, tried to; laterooms had made another mistake and not actually bothered to book our room with the hotel. The manager, a lovely woman, rang laterooms up to ask after we'd shown her our booking reference and suchlike and they said they'd sent the email previously. A likely story as two minutes after the phone call, it arrived in her inbox! Hmm, that's the second cock up they've made out of, er, two. There was some saving grace in that the hotel itself was lovely so we got undressed, showered, drank a couple of glasses of 8.5% alc. beer that we'd picked up in Carrefour (cue spinning heads!) and walked down to the hotel restaurant for a super tasty dinner before a walk into Haarlem itself for a beer.
Saturday was spent in Amsterdam; the car didn't move once! As this is primarily a car blog, I'll gloss over most of that day but suffice to say I rather like Amsterdam - there's something about the pace of life there that was really...nice. We found a lovely little bar, technically a Gay Bar but I don't suppose it matters at lunchtime, and sat outside in the sun on upturned flower pots in a quiet, residential area, with a few beers. Bliss!
On the Sunday, after quite a few beers the previous day, we woke at a decent time and, rejecting the possibility of a sauna at the hotel due to its requirement for nudism, grabbed a coffee (Tom's social engineering understanding helped here. Ahem) and got in the car to drive to Arnhem. Tom thought I'd like to see Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery as I've always been interested in World War history. The drive down was pretty miserable; not roof down weather by any means as it was absolutely pissing down. Side lights had to go on to see but not my main lights as I was too precious about my car to stick beam benders on the actual headlights! It was nice that, after only having done it once before, on Friday, I settled into driving on the right quickly, despite the rain. It was somewhat less nice that my car did leak a bit; it got taped up on the passenger side with parcel tape (don't ask why we brought parcel tape...) but I just got wet! There may be some seals that need replacing then...
We drove down to Arnhem, just over an hour from Haarlem, with the Wonderstuff playing in the background, and attempted to follow the signs for the Cemetery. As it happens, we may have got a little lost but only temporarily! Within a few minutes, we were parked up and, matching 'Club Mango' Paramo jackets donned, we got out the car. We read through the list of names and signed the visitors' book and wandered round, taking in the loss around us. One of the saddest things was the few men who'd been seconded from their original unit to another, sometimes a unit of a completely different country - they died with relative strangers around them trying to defend and fight for a foreign country. I guess the Cemetery, being WW2, hit me more than the WW1 ones have ever done in a personal sense - any one of these men could have been my Grandfather and I will admit that I had tears in my eyes walking around. The three decades between the world wars made all the difference for how recent WW2 still feels.
Fifteen minutes or so after we arrived, a man walked up to Tom and started talking to him. I was on the other side of the cemetery so missed their introduction but, when I walked over, he was telling Tom about his experiences and of how his father had buried a pair of young British soldiers and of his own search for their descendants. He took us over to see their graves and introduced himself as Rudy; an engaging Dutch man with some fascinating stories to tell. You can find out a little more about his story *here* . He took us to the Airborne Museum at Arnhem and managed to talk his way into us getting in for free; for showing us the Museum and telling us his stories, Rudy really did prove a highlight of our weekend and I couldn't thank him enough!
We finished our walk around the Museum and drove toward Dunkirk. Tom took the driving this time and we had the lid down the whole way. This did, admittedly, mean that we got soaked at one point! An awful lot of people driving past looked at us like we were completely nuts but an English couple did beep and grin; it clearly amused them that their fellow countrymen were quite so hardy. Or something. Probably more of the 'or something' ...! We had to make an 'emergency' fuel stop as the fuel line was right down but, seeing the prices in the Netherlands, we pressed on to Belgium. Good thing too as the fuel was over 20 cents a litre cheaper than where we'd previously seen it. That and we got 299 miles out of my tank; best ever that we've had. Admittedly, we did have to fill the 35-litre tank up with 37 litres but there we go!
A couple of hours of interview practice on the ferry home (thank you lovely!) and I took over the 3 hour drive from Dover to home. We put the lid down, as it wasn't raining, and, excepting a quick stop for Tom to grab a jumper, it was a clear, quick run home. Of course, the man who doesn't fall asleep in cars fell asleep so I took the opportunity to grab a few photos! He'd been drinking beer with a straw on the first bit of the journey after Dover, including driving through the customs checkpoint, so he maintained it was that and not him that fell asleep! We got home just before midnight and collapsed into bed, curled up together, to a good night's sleep.
What a great weekend. We'll be going back to Amsterdam some time, I hope, or at least another trip to the Continent some time soon. We need to capture the elusive Munzee just offshore from Dover aside from anything else! Thank you to Tom for being wonderful and sharing the driving with me all weekend. <3 you x
[photos to follow]
Tom made me drive off the ferry into Dunkirk; we were off to a supermarket to pick up some provisions for the day's lunch as well as a couple of Artichokes for my mum (they're cheaper in France!). Having never driven on the continent before, I was utterly terrified and had a few 'where am I going?!' moments when lanes seemed to just disappear without warning. Good thing the boyfriend was there as a calming influence! He drove onwards from the supermarket, having deployed a Munzee there, with the intention of visiting Rotterdam. As it happened, traffic was against us, even relatively early on a Friday afternoon, and we spent most of the afternoon in traffic. Some driver swapping was necessary, both because we were getting bored and because Vodafone had buggered up both our phones, so calls needed to be made. That said, we saw some totally random parts of Belgium and the Netherlands, tiny little backroads that we'd never have otherwise come across so it wasn't all bad! The only issue we had was that, with it being hot and the engine essentially idling for so long, we noticed that the engine temperature gauge was reading higher than usual. No overheated engine for my car, thanks! Blowers went on 'hot', pointed at the sky, and we sat like that for about half an hour. Thank goodness we could have the roof off to prevent us heating up too; that's apparently an old Mini owners' trick - can't imagine it's so pleasant then! So, we ended up reaching the hotel in Haarlem about 1900 and checked in. Er, well, tried to; laterooms had made another mistake and not actually bothered to book our room with the hotel. The manager, a lovely woman, rang laterooms up to ask after we'd shown her our booking reference and suchlike and they said they'd sent the email previously. A likely story as two minutes after the phone call, it arrived in her inbox! Hmm, that's the second cock up they've made out of, er, two. There was some saving grace in that the hotel itself was lovely so we got undressed, showered, drank a couple of glasses of 8.5% alc. beer that we'd picked up in Carrefour (cue spinning heads!) and walked down to the hotel restaurant for a super tasty dinner before a walk into Haarlem itself for a beer.
Saturday was spent in Amsterdam; the car didn't move once! As this is primarily a car blog, I'll gloss over most of that day but suffice to say I rather like Amsterdam - there's something about the pace of life there that was really...nice. We found a lovely little bar, technically a Gay Bar but I don't suppose it matters at lunchtime, and sat outside in the sun on upturned flower pots in a quiet, residential area, with a few beers. Bliss!
On the Sunday, after quite a few beers the previous day, we woke at a decent time and, rejecting the possibility of a sauna at the hotel due to its requirement for nudism, grabbed a coffee (Tom's social engineering understanding helped here. Ahem) and got in the car to drive to Arnhem. Tom thought I'd like to see Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery as I've always been interested in World War history. The drive down was pretty miserable; not roof down weather by any means as it was absolutely pissing down. Side lights had to go on to see but not my main lights as I was too precious about my car to stick beam benders on the actual headlights! It was nice that, after only having done it once before, on Friday, I settled into driving on the right quickly, despite the rain. It was somewhat less nice that my car did leak a bit; it got taped up on the passenger side with parcel tape (don't ask why we brought parcel tape...) but I just got wet! There may be some seals that need replacing then...
We drove down to Arnhem, just over an hour from Haarlem, with the Wonderstuff playing in the background, and attempted to follow the signs for the Cemetery. As it happens, we may have got a little lost but only temporarily! Within a few minutes, we were parked up and, matching 'Club Mango' Paramo jackets donned, we got out the car. We read through the list of names and signed the visitors' book and wandered round, taking in the loss around us. One of the saddest things was the few men who'd been seconded from their original unit to another, sometimes a unit of a completely different country - they died with relative strangers around them trying to defend and fight for a foreign country. I guess the Cemetery, being WW2, hit me more than the WW1 ones have ever done in a personal sense - any one of these men could have been my Grandfather and I will admit that I had tears in my eyes walking around. The three decades between the world wars made all the difference for how recent WW2 still feels.
Fifteen minutes or so after we arrived, a man walked up to Tom and started talking to him. I was on the other side of the cemetery so missed their introduction but, when I walked over, he was telling Tom about his experiences and of how his father had buried a pair of young British soldiers and of his own search for their descendants. He took us over to see their graves and introduced himself as Rudy; an engaging Dutch man with some fascinating stories to tell. You can find out a little more about his story *here* . He took us to the Airborne Museum at Arnhem and managed to talk his way into us getting in for free; for showing us the Museum and telling us his stories, Rudy really did prove a highlight of our weekend and I couldn't thank him enough!
We finished our walk around the Museum and drove toward Dunkirk. Tom took the driving this time and we had the lid down the whole way. This did, admittedly, mean that we got soaked at one point! An awful lot of people driving past looked at us like we were completely nuts but an English couple did beep and grin; it clearly amused them that their fellow countrymen were quite so hardy. Or something. Probably more of the 'or something' ...! We had to make an 'emergency' fuel stop as the fuel line was right down but, seeing the prices in the Netherlands, we pressed on to Belgium. Good thing too as the fuel was over 20 cents a litre cheaper than where we'd previously seen it. That and we got 299 miles out of my tank; best ever that we've had. Admittedly, we did have to fill the 35-litre tank up with 37 litres but there we go!
A couple of hours of interview practice on the ferry home (thank you lovely!) and I took over the 3 hour drive from Dover to home. We put the lid down, as it wasn't raining, and, excepting a quick stop for Tom to grab a jumper, it was a clear, quick run home. Of course, the man who doesn't fall asleep in cars fell asleep so I took the opportunity to grab a few photos! He'd been drinking beer with a straw on the first bit of the journey after Dover, including driving through the customs checkpoint, so he maintained it was that and not him that fell asleep! We got home just before midnight and collapsed into bed, curled up together, to a good night's sleep.
What a great weekend. We'll be going back to Amsterdam some time, I hope, or at least another trip to the Continent some time soon. We need to capture the elusive Munzee just offshore from Dover aside from anything else! Thank you to Tom for being wonderful and sharing the driving with me all weekend. <3 you x
[photos to follow]
Saturday 26 May 2012
Fitting the CB
* With thanks to my wonderful boyfriend, Tom, for doing most of the work here while I made dinner! *
Just we did like in Scarlett, we decided to fit a CB radio into Poppy. It was fairly easy with Scarlett so we thought it'd be just the same this time 'round. How wrong we were...
Unlike in the Mk2, the MK1 radio mount is fiddly and in an extra hole in the boot so, while swapping the aerials round wasn't too bad (just watch your paintwork!), screwing the aerial cable on to the base of the aerial was a bloody nightmare. In the end, my little fingers came in handy in doing this bit but it still took us a good 15 minutes!
That done, we attempted to remove the radio/clock cubby and radio to have a look behind and swap in the CB etc. Sounds simple, right? Yeah...or not. Firstly, whoever had the car previously and fitted the remote locking had glued the clock cubby back in and that was, frankly, just a state. Secondly, as photos to be uploaded soon will show, we got the clock out and...wow. Well, I've never seen wires THAT messy. Tom was pretty worried about the safety, too. There was a ridiculously long, curled up, cable in the space too - I'd found a disconnected end of a cable in the boot that didn't seem to go anywhere after my MOT anyhow and we'd not been able to work out what it did. It did, it seems, nothing as it connected to the metre of cabling behind the radio that ended in yet another unconnected connecter. Er, what? Tom reckons it was once a CD changer but was now a complete waste of good space. Took the wire cutters to it, anyhow, and successfully removed 2 metres of utterly pointless cable. Weight and space saving too!
The black box confused us for a while - transpires that's the immobiliser. For anyone wondering, it seems that disconnecting the immobiliser from its cabling to fiddle around behind the radio is perfectly safe and the car will still start after! Nonetheless, with that in the way, the CB was never going to go in so I left Tom trying to move all that to the back in the spaces while I got on with dinner.
A little later, when I wandered outside to check, it transpired that the radio was pretty much jammed in, too, so we spent 10 minutes or so fiddling around with screwdrivers trying to press down the metal spokes on the side to get that out - eventual success (though putting it back in later was as much of a hassle again!). It also transpired, with all these bits out and the wiring tidied a little (Tom wants to put some real work into that but last night wasn't the time and we didn't have all the equipment we needed), that my CB has the aerial cable coming straight out of the middle. This is fine. Except that my car has a metal brace straight down the middle of the radio slot - that's going to need a bloody big hole drilled in it! CB doesn't quite fill up the hole either, although, admittedly, neither did the clock cubby: I suspect that this was why it had been glued in.
Not to worry - we still need to order a new Mic for mine as we only had one lying around the house. Possibly with a couple of adjustable/angled aerial mounts - both on the MX-5s are off at a slightly jaunty angle! So...lots to do, but we're getting there :-) Having a CB in the car should be a laugh, especially as Tom and I are planning a cross-Europe road trip in September with both cars and a couple of friends. Fun fun!
Just we did like in Scarlett, we decided to fit a CB radio into Poppy. It was fairly easy with Scarlett so we thought it'd be just the same this time 'round. How wrong we were...
Unlike in the Mk2, the MK1 radio mount is fiddly and in an extra hole in the boot so, while swapping the aerials round wasn't too bad (just watch your paintwork!), screwing the aerial cable on to the base of the aerial was a bloody nightmare. In the end, my little fingers came in handy in doing this bit but it still took us a good 15 minutes!
That done, we attempted to remove the radio/clock cubby and radio to have a look behind and swap in the CB etc. Sounds simple, right? Yeah...or not. Firstly, whoever had the car previously and fitted the remote locking had glued the clock cubby back in and that was, frankly, just a state. Secondly, as photos to be uploaded soon will show, we got the clock out and...wow. Well, I've never seen wires THAT messy. Tom was pretty worried about the safety, too. There was a ridiculously long, curled up, cable in the space too - I'd found a disconnected end of a cable in the boot that didn't seem to go anywhere after my MOT anyhow and we'd not been able to work out what it did. It did, it seems, nothing as it connected to the metre of cabling behind the radio that ended in yet another unconnected connecter. Er, what? Tom reckons it was once a CD changer but was now a complete waste of good space. Took the wire cutters to it, anyhow, and successfully removed 2 metres of utterly pointless cable. Weight and space saving too!
The black box confused us for a while - transpires that's the immobiliser. For anyone wondering, it seems that disconnecting the immobiliser from its cabling to fiddle around behind the radio is perfectly safe and the car will still start after! Nonetheless, with that in the way, the CB was never going to go in so I left Tom trying to move all that to the back in the spaces while I got on with dinner.
A little later, when I wandered outside to check, it transpired that the radio was pretty much jammed in, too, so we spent 10 minutes or so fiddling around with screwdrivers trying to press down the metal spokes on the side to get that out - eventual success (though putting it back in later was as much of a hassle again!). It also transpired, with all these bits out and the wiring tidied a little (Tom wants to put some real work into that but last night wasn't the time and we didn't have all the equipment we needed), that my CB has the aerial cable coming straight out of the middle. This is fine. Except that my car has a metal brace straight down the middle of the radio slot - that's going to need a bloody big hole drilled in it! CB doesn't quite fill up the hole either, although, admittedly, neither did the clock cubby: I suspect that this was why it had been glued in.
Not to worry - we still need to order a new Mic for mine as we only had one lying around the house. Possibly with a couple of adjustable/angled aerial mounts - both on the MX-5s are off at a slightly jaunty angle! So...lots to do, but we're getting there :-) Having a CB in the car should be a laugh, especially as Tom and I are planning a cross-Europe road trip in September with both cars and a couple of friends. Fun fun!
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