Shady Goings On

I don’t seem to get to many kit car shows, however I did make it along to Totalkitcar LIVE 2006 at Oulton Park last weekend, I nearly didn’t get there though. The traffic was appalling on the way there (there was a bad crash on the A50) , and there were roadworks and pouring rain on the way back.

The event itself wasn’t very well attended, not many owners had showed up, I don’t know if this was because of the cold windy weather or the £5 entrance fee (shows are usually free for kitcar drivers), there were also few manufacturers.
The show was still worth attending for me, I met some TeamGTM members there, some of whom I’ve only met online before, and put the world to rights. It’s always great to put faces to names.
The highlight of the day for me was to have a few laps round the track in a GTM Libra with TeamGTM member Cameron at the wheel. I’ve never been round the track before (or any track for that matter) and this was a great first experience! Not only was the car an awesome ride but Cameron really knows how to drive and didn’t leave much room for error as we burned our way round!
Later this year I’d like to take my own car round a track (an easier one than Oulton though) and this really put thing in perspective for me: what I can expect of the car, what I can expect from other drivers and what I can aim towards in terms of my own ability.

All in all a great day!

The weather here in the UK has been quite changable just lately, even more than usual!
We have been having some very cold days with lovely clear blue skies, great for driving, but now it’s getting wetter as we move into springtime. All the rain and wet weather has been taking it’s toll on the kitcar (don’t forget I drive it to work everyday, not just dry weekends) and it’s not been firing very well.

First of all the car stalled on my way to work. I managed to pullover safely but the car wouldn’t restart. Two hours later then AA show up an diagnose the fault to the the ignition coil. This coil is what makes the spark that ignites the fuel, so if that’s broke you ain’t going nowhere… got a new coil the same day and it was fine… for a month or two!

The next time I was driving along a 70mph dual carriageway in the outside lane in pouring down rain and the engine spluttered. up oh! Yep it stalled and once again I managed to over safely, this time it did restart but it was very erratic in the low revs. I drove home in low gears and made it back. Now I realised there was an ignition problem so I renewed the HT leads, distributor and rotor arm. Still wouldn’t start. Bummer.

Now thankfully I was able to use Alisons car to get to work as she got a lift to work one day and was away on business another, this gave me a bit longer to fix it up not that it helped because I still couldn’t get it going. I decided to call the AA again (this time they arrived in 10mins, I was shocked to say the least). The AA man sprayed some “duck oil” (a lot like WD-40) all over the distributor cap and it stared first time. Excellent! At times like this I don’t mind paying the AA membership fee.

So next time I know, before renewing the leads, cap and arm just spray WD-40 all over the distributor cap!

I’m in the process of planning a new roof for the Libra, that’s not as drastic as it might sound, the roof has a removable section and this is what I plan to replace. From memory it’s about 1m x 60cm.

The idea is to improve ventilation in the car and therefore more pleasant in the summer. I’ll do this by having an air intake at the front of the roof panel, this will split 2 ways (maybe 3) so that driver and passenger have got their own air supply and controls. It’ll look a bit like a letter Y from above.

The whole thing will be made from fibreglass so I’m reading up on that subject at the moment. I plan to make a fibreglass air splitter for the front of the Libra later in the year so this is the ideal testbed.

The design isn’t a simple one and I’ll have problems with negative angles (I’ll need multiple moulds to make the 1 item) as well as water-proofing: somehow I need to let the air in but keep water (and spray) out.
I’ll also need to colour match the gelcoat to the rest of the car. An alternative to this is to make it out of carbon fibre however this is very expensive and in my opinion it won’t look as good.

90% of our holiday photos are now online, and I’ll be on with the rest shortly…

See them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shadycraig/sets/72057594061144465/

And if you click more there are a few teasers
(more…)

Once agin it’s been some time since last posted… partly due to doing loads of diy until recently anyway. We’ve not done any diy this week but we did get plenty done at the weekend.

Since last time I wrote we’ve given the paintword a second coat, changed the pendant light fitting in the bedroom and finished stipping the banister of paint. The bainister still needs sanding down to bare wood and then treating with a clear varnish or wax.The rest of the woodwork on the staircase needs to have it’s paint stripped and this also needs sanding back.

To help out with this time consuming task we’ve bought ourselves a detail sander. It was only £25 (or there abouts) from B&Q and as it’s their own brand we also got a 3 year warranty for free, so that’s not a bad deal. It’s got a sandpaper triangle that vibrates so that you can get into all the tricky corners, because the front tip usually wears out first you can remove the pad a rotate it round to use the next corner. Cool eh?

We’ve ordered carpet and that’s now arrived at the shop, but we need to finish the hall, landing and bedroom before we can have it fitted. Que ‘to do list’…

• Strip paint from staircase
• Sand back staircase and banister
• Fit iron balusters (yes that’s one from the dictionary)
• Change plug sockets in bedroom
• Fit ceiling spot-lights in hallway
• Refit radiator in bedroom

There’s probably more besides but that’s enough to be getting on with!