Oh, but everybody needs to know a Dave. Makes the slow days entertaining.
GHT doesn't know what he's missing, I've got bodyroll for days and all the giffers want to chat to me. Except that one giffer who wouldn't believe it was my car and insisted it belonged to my parents, that was very strange.
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Another day of Princess fettling, another update for you all. Tyres were dropped off at the local place but won't be ready to collect until tomorrow, not really a problem as the car doesn't need to be back on its wheels yet. I'm going to tick that one off the list for now as they'll be on the car tomorrow and sorted. With the bootlid off again I found that the cause of the problem was one of the latch components was 180 degrees out and I know how it happened; the mechanism almost fell apart as I was fitting it, since it's a fiddly job, and I thought I'd put it back together properly. Clearly not. I can sort that out easily enough now and I've freed the latch from the catch, it also explains why the lock wouldn't release the catch. I stripped all the paint off the outside of the boot and found yet more excessive filler work to deal with some very minor dings. I then put a good coat of primer and a quick top coat of relevant colours on just to keep it moisture proof. I'll do more work on this before it goes on the car and tidy up the colour splits properly, this was a bit of a rush job.
Two little holes were drilled so that the washer pump could be attached securely to the bulkhead. Nice and smart and no need to alter pipe or wiring lengths, I'm very happy with that.
Mike investigated the random relay and wires that had lived behind the battery since I bought the car. One wire needed fixing but the rest is seemingly a relay for the electric fuel pump that used to be fitted. It was tidied up properly, made safe and may be utilised if I switch back to an electric pump in the future.
Mike also completed the wiring for the fog lights. We can't test them as we've still got that issue with the blowing fuse but from looking back through photographs and eliminating other wiring we know that they're connected to the correct wires. We also know the fog lights work as they were bench tested before being fitted to the car. Wiring route was a little tricky as the big square hole can't have the wires running through it, they have to go through the double skinned bit instead. The wiring loom will likely be tidied away behind the custom trim panels I'll be making, if there's enough length and suitable gaps, it may also go through the double skinned section. For now, it's not in the way.
The other job that was dealt with was reconnecting the fuel sender wires. This didn't resolve the fuse blowing issue so we now know that the wires up here were not earthing/shorting on the bodywork. It also highlighted that the other reason the car stopped running was I'd run out of fuel... which I've never actually done before! Chucked a jerry can of fuel in because the needle only came up to just below the red on the gauge, it was that empty!
With the only wiring job at the back now being the high level brake light donated to the cause by Trigger, the boot mat could go back in. Spare wheel is staying out for now until that light is wired in as Mike will probably have to sit in the boot to do it. Usefully, not having the boot lid on makes Mike's life a lot easier for all this horrible wiring work that he seems quite content to beaver away at.
On pulling the plugs today I found they were all quite sooty, confirming my belief that the car is running rich since fitting the cone filter. That wasn't much of a surprise, retuning the carb is on my list after all. Speaking of the list...
MoT list update:
> make hazard switch work
> tune the carb
> identify insecure CV joint fail from previous MoT
> identify why fuse #5 is blowing
> connect fog lights -
DONE
> connect number plate lights -
DONE
> stick number plates on -
DONE
> make the indicator lights work -
DONE
> fit the new tyres -
DONE
> fit a new washer jet pump -
DONE
> find the loose steering component -
DONE
Not much to go! Saving as many pennies as I can now for insurance, tax and MoT expenses. There may be some other minor items to attend to as we go through final checks that I don't know about yet but overall, it's look pretty good