Been a bit quiet recently - real life and the bathroom got in the way.
Firstly I fitted the bonnet prop that Andy Haasad kindly made for me. I used rivnuts to fix into the carbon fibre bonnet - after a couple of false starts these went well. My main problem was I hadn't got any sort of clip to plug the prop into when not in use. I made a clip out of aluminium - no good. Then another one out of steel - again no good. Finally I decided I could make something out of a stick of plastic I'd got knocking around
This is part way through version 3
This is it finished and in place. Looks a bit rough but it does the job nicely.
I've been a bit crap on the photos here - the prop itself looks really nice and the worst bit of it all is the blue clip that I made. I did take some photos but it was dark and they don't really show anything. When I get a chance I'll take some more as the prop is a thing of beauty.
For some time now I've been concerned about the gearshift. Those of you on the scottish trip might have heard me talking about it. After that I undid the coupling at the front of the gearbox and re-did it up. That certainly helped loads. However over recent weeks it's become a lot worse so that changing into third has become a bit of a nightmare.
I knew it was either the shifter (which is a wevo job, very slick and only a few years old), the clutch (which I took a chance on during the rebuild, gambling that there was enough material left to take me into the next financial year), or the gearbox (which has after all done 270,000 miles without a rebuild).
Talking it through with Ian he thought the symptoms pointed towards the shifter. I agreed but wasn't so sure - after all the shifter was nearly new, and the problem seemed to get worse at higher revs - it was getting so I had to do a sort of gynocological dance to get it from second into third, and I wanted fifth I had to make an appointment 48 hours in advance.
This lead to some entertaining overtaking manoeuvres where I shot alongside someone in second then dropped back whilst trying to find third, then shot past them once third was engaged.
I've known the logical first thing to look at would be the shifter but I've been putting it off for the last few week-ends as I didn't fancy spending a couple of hours fannying about only to confirm my worst fears that it was going to need a full gearbox rebuild.
This last week-end I could put it off no more.
It was a fiddle to get the shifter out (had to disconnect it at the coupler end to get enough room to lift it out.
Once I got it onto the bench my heart sank. Every single joint was perfect - no creaks, rattles or stiffness. It looked a bit grubby so I cleaned it up. while doing that I noticed that there was quite a bit of black gunk in the plastic sleeve (item 2 in the pic below - the shifter rod slides through this)
I cleaned it out and noted that it was quite thick. I think it was basically old grease that had combined with the 10 tons of dust I'd created during the bodywork to form something with a consistency of snot and concrete. It came out quite easily and I put some alumslip in there instead.
When I reinstalled I added a bit more alumslip further down the shaft to make sure it was lubricated properly.
Once it was all back in I once again undid the coupler at the front of the gearbox, moved the shifter into third and reconnected the coupler.
When putting it back together I still wasn't that optimistic - I could see the gunk wouldn't have helped but I couldn't believe it would solve all the problems.
Well I was wrong.
Once it was back in and connected up it felt like a different gearbox - it felt like a different car! Gearchanges are quick and slick - as good as they've ever been. Since then I've been excited about driving it on every journey because it feels so great. Amazing to think such a small detail could have such a big effect.
I LOVE MY CAR!
In celebration I even washed it.
Happy days.
