May 2000
Bank holiday Monday 29th May 2000
Sprayed the rear door with another coat of plastic primer. Fitted the front GRP spoiler with stainless self tappers.
Sunday 28th May 2000
The second front wing is now fitted. Sealed with Unibond, and used a mixture of stainless pop rivets and nyloc nuts and bolts to make it secure. MOT'd the Mondeo, she cruised through, no problems. I mentioned to the MOT man about my Fiesta. He said that its now classed as a kit car, due to the modifications. Apparently the five speed box conversion alone, warrants an inspection by the Ministry of Transport. And because of the engine transplant etc, it needs careful examination by some boffins. And I'd probably end up with a Q-plate, and once you've got one of those, you cant put a private plate on the car. Yeuch.
Check out the Zetec Register page for pictures of the first Zetec engine'd XR3i that I know of.
Wednesday 24th May 2000
Hey up! I'm back. Been in the sunny Canary's for the past two weeks, for my annual dose of sunshine. Had a brilliant time, even hired a Peugeot 306 Cabriolet for a few days to do some serious exploring. Petrol is 35p per litre, the roads are all freshly tarmac'd, and you can drive for miles and miles without a) meeting anyone else or b) worrying about speed traps. Absolute bliss. And the island (Fuerteventura) is absolutely riddled with dirt tracks. My retirement plan now is to sell up, by a small appartment, buy a scooby doo for the off road stuff, and just play and play. Wonderful.
Monday 8th May 2000
Booked my MCP exam. It's on June 16th and is the "#70-059 TCP/IP with NT4.0" exam, an elective for my MCSE, and apparently one of the hardest to do. Time to start revising..
Sunday 7th May 2000
Painted the drivers side inner wing with the Hammerite stone guard paint. Put on two coats so far.
Saturday 6th May 2000
Welded another steel plate to the car, to cover the last hole from the rot I've removed. Cleaned and painted the inner wing with Jenolite primer, ready for spraying tomorrow with the Hammorite stone guard spray. I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel now...
My dad's finished building his Liege kit car. It looks really cool. He now needs to get it through the SVA test, and then it can be registered for the road. Just in time for the summer.
Here are some of the pictures from Hednesford last monday.
The next event to go and watch is the Long Track championships. Which is at Mallory Park on May the 14th, starting at 12:00 noon. National Rods, Legends, Hot Rods, Lightning Rods, V8 Hot Rods. It'll be worth going to see. More details at Incarace
Friday 5th May 2000
Welded the metal plate in beneath the drivers side front headlamp, so I can fit the wing and fill in the hole where the rust used to be.
Thursday 4th May 2000
Drove one of the new dual-fuel Focus's at work today. I tell you what, you really cannot tell that the car is running on LPG. Theres no difference in performance, whatsoever. And if you push the button to toggle between petrol and LPG, theres not even the slightest hesitation from the engine. And, best of all, LPG only costs 19.5pence per litre. Compare that with 85pence for a litre of petrol, and you immediately see the benefits. My company reckons that it'll save £500,000 in fuel bills, in one year! Staggering
Monday 1st May 2000
Off to Hednesford Raceway today, to watch some F1 Stock cars and Hot Rod's. I last went a couple of years ago, and it hailed. The weather forecast is a lot better for this Mayday bank holiday. I'll take some pictures when I'm walking round the pits.