130 replies to this topic

[RalphyBMW]

Speedies are lovely, but just too rich for me. Quite fancy anthracite TD's though... Not sure about wrapping the V, didn't learn "that" much when wrapping the screen!

[oakmere]

Maybe an Anthracite wrap on the 'v' now.

Paint it to match the wheels.
I like how the v's are making a comeback I might dig mine out.

[RalphyBMW]

I need to remove it to smarten up the grill, might give it some thought when I eventually remove the front clam.

[RalphyBMW]

Swapped my Gaz for some Elise Bilsteins & Eibachs on Wednesday night, front end is a bit higher than it was but the softer front springs are better on coarse surfaces.

Thursday morning saw quite a test for them; I had a meeting in Tredegar late morning, cue over 200 miles of mostly motorway, journey went very smoothly, certainly better following a play with the lumbar adjustment.

For the return, I had planned on heading to Upper Brynamman to take the Black Mountain Road, A4069 to Llangadog, on to Rhayader, Llandridnod Wells, Knighton, Church Stretton, Market Drayton, Leek, Buxton, and on to Dore, near Sheffield to help my sister buy a car. The appointment in Sheffield was agreed for 7pm, and couldn't be any later as it would have been dark. As things were, by the time I had juiced up the car and grabbed a bite to eat, it was after 2:30, and getting wet, so with some regret I decided to head straight to Llandridnod Wells, from there to Knighton, Church Stretton, Bakewell and on to Dore. The car was sublime, utterly bloody incredible. Traffic was generally very light, but the roads were generally damp and a bit slippery; using the car with respect seemed to avoid any issue. Driving through the peaks was among the most challenging, with plenty of snow still on the ground and some very uneven roads. I had the evenings appointment in mind but trying to make up time against the Garmin was challenging to say the least.

She bought the car;


The route looked something like this;


Dirty car when I got home;




In the day light;






Gave it a quick wash in the rain on Friday night, then in the sunshine on Saturday morning I was delighted when a guy saw me walking to the car in Sainsbury's car park told me it was "truly beautiful"! That never happens with my Focus, my small daughter suggested it was because the Focus is gold...

Anyhow, the compliment and seeing a bloke in a TT spend about 20sec putting his roof down prompted me to take the roof off; following the obvious "grocery tetris" the roof had to go behind the seats, only the second time I have had to put it there, but it went in fairly smoothly.



And more gratuitous clean pics;





Having sat outside in the wind / rain / sun for the past 24 hrs it doesn't look like that anymore, but does look much better than it did! I am looking forward to using this as my daily for the foreseeable future, having the roof off on Saturday morning was wonderful.

[RalphyBMW]

Few minor changes, swapped the Alpine KCE-250BT bluetooth unit for a KCE-400BT, mainly just because it adds bluetooth streaming, this was a really easy job. Over the weekend I have cursed quite a lot while attempting to fit the Quantum lowering brackets to the front suspension; one of the ABS unit mounts broke so I need to acquire a new one, though it is secure in the meantime. A bigger issue was that when I was torquing up the R/H shocker top, I managed to strip the nut. This led to me staring at it for a while trying to work out how to sort it, before buying a set of nut splitters, which did the job nicely. I refitted the original bolt, torqued it up to 45Nm and all seems fine. Coated the backs of both new top brackets, and the rear washers with ACF50, which should prevent corrosion but also makes everything really greasy up until the next glove change. The N/S was very easy compared to the O/S, this time I didn't bother using the new fixings for the shocker top, just reused the original. Next it occurred to me that going from the very low Gaz to the much higher Elise to the now slightly lower Elise suspension, that my camber settings would be well out. Cue a bit of research and a quick and dirty solution of removing two 1mm shims from each side. I did remove the other shims at the same time, wire brushed them to clean them up a bit before refitting. In total I had 4 1mm shims on the O/S, and 5 1mm shims on the N/S. Haven't really driven it yet to see if there is any difference; it was quite prone to understeer previously, more so than with the Gaz, which I guess makes sense. Will try to get a couple of pics shortly to compare to previous.

[RalphyBMW]

OK, the difference isn't massive but I think you can tell;

Before:


After:


Before:


After:


And a gratuitous shot I took on Friday, mostly because it's not often that I am stood above the car;


I have only driven 2 miles since making the adjustments, so nothing useful to add on that front yet.

[Mangham54]

Looking good... as ever. And I am glad to see that the V still adorns the nose.

[Claws]

[RalphyBMW]

Thank you! Won't be coming off until the front clam comes off, and then only to make it easier to repaint the grille and clam. Then it will be going back on.

[RalphyBMW]

Claws - I do prefer it to look clean, but getting it looking like that is certainly more fun than washing!

[Claws]

Shiny is great, but I do love a car that looks like it has been used properly!