tea boy

The weekend was lost when the Doc said, I think 'we' should cut the hedges... As soon as I got home last night, it started raining. Obviously, as soon as I had got out of my work clobber and been washed, the sun came out... Anyway, the sun stayed out tonight so I carried on with my wheel arch repair section. There was some bishing and some snipping going on. At this point I got a message that said Ronny was coming over. Who is Ronny, you ask? Well, we need to rewind a few months or so, to when I was making the repair section for the other wheel arch. I had it lightly clamped in place, with cardboard under the clamps when I emerged from under the arch and caught most of the clamps and put loads of dents into the outer arch. They hardly showed up in the pictures but trust me, it was a right mess. Anyway, I've been trying to get someone to come and get rid of those dents for me, but it has proved to be remarkably difficult. A few weeks ago I bumped into Ronny at a job I was doing at a Skoda main dealer. Turns out he used to work for BMW and used to work on E46s and thought they were cool. He is now a mobile dent man... It has taken quite a few weeks but he has finally been able to come over. He spent about two hours bashing my car but he has removed the dents. I am glad to get that job out of the way. I didn't carry on with my piece whilst he was here because I didn't want to cause any distractions. In other news, my roof has gone missing... Cheers.

Tonight I was looking at this. I'm thinking, now that it isn't going to have a return lip, maybe I can make a new piece without all the welded up slits in it. How hard can it be? Off we go then. I cut it out a bit larger to start with, because the original repair piece is too short for the hole... The electric nibbler was perfect for cutting this out. Next, I started bashing some shape into it on the sandbag. I did a bit of smoothing out on my rugby ball stake with a slapper. I bought a pneumatic planishing hammer about three years ago and it was still in its box in the shed, untouched by human hands, I decided it was time to try it out. I bolted a piece of wood to the bottom of its frame so I could clamp it in my workmate bench. Then I gave it a go on the piece. I spent three hours bashing, slapping and planishing to end up with this. Is it any good? No. How hard can it be? Very. Cheers.

Nige wins a cookie, roof and pointing. Still considering which colours to go for on the stone cladding... I did forget to mention one important thing. No car work tonight, the weather was far too inclement. The joys of the English summer.

It really is 82 pages of English. You may, or may not, be wondering what the devil is happening Chez Tea. Well I have been doing things, but for the most part they have been the 'wrong' things. The car has been worked upon, but it was the wrong car, viz, the Doc's emergency backup Audi. She had mentioned that her phone holder kept falling off and that it would be nice if there was a screen on the dash that she could use for navigation. I thought that shouldn't be too difficult to do... My research showed that to convert it from a single to a double din size radio, all I needed was to remove the old radio, the centre console and HVAC controls, replace the single din 'cage' with a double din one then put it all back in and the HVAC would just move down into a lower position. Easy peasy. I bought the cage and set to. This is the new cage installed, along with the console back in position. My research didn't tell me that the console wouldn't go straight back in without being trimmed. I had it in and out more times than an in and outy thing, trimming a bit then re-trying until it fit. I didn't want to cut too much off and mess it up. Then the HVAC wouldn't fit... I had to trim that too. I sanded it a bit at a time and kept trying it in. I took off the metal trim to make it easier. Here it is trimmed to size with the metal trim back on showing how much I had to remove. I trimmed the metal to match it. I spent far too many hours doing all this, but in the end, she has a screen. I lost a weekend's worth of work time because my friend invited me to the Great British Jaguar day at Bicester. He has a Jag. The weather was nice and you could get tea and ice cream. There were a few Jags there too. That was the bank holiday weekend and on the Monday I was forced to do some gardening in the tropical heatwave. We had a load of planty type things growing at the front of the house, I had to remove all those. I didn't get a before picture but there was loads of green stuff about the height of the plinth on the front wall. I also did lots of lawn stuff. I hate gardening. The reason I had to do it then was because this stuff was coming. Anyway, with all my duties taken care of, I could get back onto the BMW. Except, the Doc said something like, the cloth on the top of the car is drooping on my head... She doesn't like drooping things, so I had to do something about it. I removed the panel and the cloth more or less fell off. But it left this. This is the stickiest substance in the world. I tried every chemical I had but nothing would remove it. I tried a brush on the drill and that did remove quite a bit but it could be a bit brutal on what is quite a fragile panel. I had to scrape and sand most of it off by hand. I used a tiny wire brush on the Dremel to do all the fiddly bits around the edges. There were a lot of hours wasted doing that. I had to do a couple of fibreglass repairs on the back of it to strengthen it up. I filled a few holes in the front where I had damaged it with the drill. Once it was prepared, I glued on some new fabric. In the kitchen because the short-lived heatwave was now over and had been replaced with rain. I could have done with an extra pair of hands to do that, but the Doc had gone away with the nipper and left me to it. It is now back in. Whilst all that and the pillar trims were off I took the opportunity to fit a mic for the phone. There was over 40 hours in the headlining job, most of it cleaning off the old stuff. To paraphrase JFK, we choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they would be easy... Hopefully that's it for bonus extra jobs and I can now get back to the main event. Oh, in case you were wondering if the Doc was pleased with the job I had done, she hasn't even been to look at it yet. She has absolutely no interest in cars whatsoever. Now, where was I? Oh, the rear inner arches. I had bought some aftermarket outer arch repair panels for a non M E46 to use as a starting point because it would give me the right curve and the return lip. The one for the driver's side worked quite well, but the curve on the passenger's side one wasn't quite right. I have spent hours faffing with it to make it fit. Originally there was a double lip where it folded in and then folded up leaving a lovely trough to catch all the road dirt and encourage corrosion. I was never going to replace the second lip. After lots of contemplation, I have decided that I am also going to do away with the first lip too. I am going to use some panel bonding adhesive to stick the inner to the inside of the outer arch and then I will fold the lip of the outer arch over on itself similar to the M3 CSL type arch. To this end, tonight I cut off the lip and trimmed the curve to match the outer. I then need a flat section to mate up where I can bond them together, so I used the jenny to create that. I had to run it through the shrinker to straighten it out. This is how it sits now. Hopefully you can see the flat area. Now that I don't need the lip, I am contemplating throwing this away and making a new piece from scratch, because it is a bit rubbish. I'm not sure yet. Cheers.

Excellent!

The Doc Had us on manoeuvres at the weekend so I didn't get much time in the tent at all. I welded up the slots on the repair section. The new welder... Well, working it is like the Krypton Factor. When I managed to get it going it seems quite good, but I need to have some time to get used to how to work it properly. Monday and Tuesday evenings saw me bashing at the panel to try to get it to fit. I have got about ten hours in it now, and it still isn't quite right. Now I remember why I have been putting this job off... Last night was quiz night and despite a third of our team being AWOL, we won, yay! I have been thinking about how I am going to tackle the fit today and was expecting to be working on it when I got home, but The English summer intervened. In order to not waste an evening, I found the manual for my welder online. I didn't have much joy trying to read it on my phone so I printed it off. My old welder didn't have a manual, it had an on button, a power knob and a wire speed knob. The new one has those too, but the knobs do lots more things and there are buttons and a screen, filled with hieroglyphics. I might be a bit of a Luddite. Actually, I don't mind the technology, I just need to fully understand it. Anyway, homework for tonight is to study the 82 pages of the manual. If my brain doesn't melt I will be able to get on with the job soon, weather permitting of course. Cheers.

I thought that John Surtees was driving a Lola that day in Monza… I’m guessing a Rover 827 engine.

It always comes back... I haven't done anything with the car since Monday because I really need to be getting on with the wheel arches before I can do the next jobs. The problem with the arches is not procrastination this time but rather the lack of a working welder. I ordered it a few weeks ago and they told me it would be around the end of May before it arrived. That wasn't ideal, but that's what it was. Well it turns out that the tides from Norway have been quite favourable and it turned up at the yard this afternoon. I went to get it after I had finished all my jobs for the day. When I got home and I started to set it up the first problem was this. Which forced me to root through my drawers. I know not everything is perfect in Britain but we do have the best plugs in the world, unless you happen to stand on one without your slippers on... I specifically ordered a machine with the Binzel/Euro connector because I thought that I might want to use my four metre Binzel harness. I got that because I can get in to do stuff without having to have the welder stuck under my armpit and it has been especially helpful in the tent where space is limited. I did miss that when I was forced to use that Sealey set when my original welder packed up because the Sealey had a really short harness. I was glad that I went for the Binzel connector when I saw the new torch. The shroud is really heavy duty and consequently quite bulky. This would be ok if I was building a ship or something but it might be quite unwieldly in a wheelarch, for example. The shroud and tips are also Kemppi specific rather than the universal Binzel type, of which I have stock and they are also cheap and easy to find. I suspect that the Kemppi stuff would be less readily available and more costly. Also, the harness itself is much more heavy duty. It doesn't show up as much in the picture, but this would make my arms fall off if I had to hold it for too long. Once I had decided that the Binzel was going on there, I got it all assembled. It also came with a new regulator and some universal mig pliers. After all that waffle, I expect you are wondering how it performs. So am I because the Doc, who had been out to donate blood, returned home at this point with fish and chips, so I didn't get chance to test it. Cheers.

Saturday after my physio appointment and then breakfast at Ten Acres with the Doc and some friends from up the road, we went and ordered a new log burner. As we are on oil heating, and certain people are intent on making sure that the world can't get hold of any oil, it seemed like a good idea. In the afternoon I had the bright idea of trying to fix the central locking on the Doc's dogging car. The passenger front door didn't unlock. That was a horribly fiddly job which I wished I hadn't started, but I did manage to get it going again. Sunday was visiting my parents. Papa Tea seemed a bit brighter, but he still isn't that good. Today, the Doc said that I could help her doing some gardening, if I didn't have anything to do... Of course it suddenly became vital that I cleaned my car with a fresh stock of fallout remover because it was absolutely filthy. I think I last did it a couple of years ago and in the intervening time there has been quite a build up. The roof, bonnet and boot lid were the worst, being large horizontal surfaces. The door jambs also collected of bit of stuff. I didn't do these last time so they were ready. They look much more pleasing now. The sill step thing got cleaned too. I did end up with some water in the boot when I pressure washed it all off, so I dried it up with a towel and then used an air blower to make sure it was dry in all the seams, I had to fix the compressor first though, because it packed in when I was doing the nipper's Fiesta the other week. I spent about seven hours cleaning, all told, but it did get me out of the gardening. Cheers.

Wasn't it warm today? The chap at my first job always gets me biscuits and today it was a bumper bag of broken chocolate digestives. That picture was taken after I had a good go at them... It was still warm when I got home and I was even able to go in the tent without a cardigan. The tent is on the east side of the house so is usually in the shade and consequently quite cool. I'm really just killing time now because I need the welder to turn up so I can get on. I need to get the underneath sealed before I can put anything on there, I need to wax inject stuff and I can't do that until it's undersealed etc etc. So, as I still have some tape left, I thought I would use it. I did this stuff in the drivers side rear corner of the boot. I possibly might not have bothered with it because it will all be covered by the boot panelling. Actually, all the wiring will be covered by something so... I did a full covering rather than the loose spiral. I had that white electrical boxy thing off and scrubbed both it and the area behind it. That cable tie is not done up because I decided to swap it for a slightly larger one. Oh, I fitted the battery earth lead too. Like I said, just killing time. I could have done with the welder for the bank holiday weekend... Cheers.

The quiz was less than ideal, we finished third... from the bottom. In mitigation, half of our team were absent. The clever ones, seemingly. As I had run out of tape, I had to do something not tapey, so I drilled a hole in my freshly painted boot. This is a bit higher up the panel than it should be because I didn't want the drill chuck to catch the floor whilst I was doing it. Hopefully this won't be a problem. I touched up the hole with one of the Doc's artist brushes. Whilst the paint was drying I had a look at this bit of wiring. I know I said I had run out of tape and it wasn't due until Friday, but as luck would have it, it arrived early. With that bit finished I stuck some new cabe clips on the wires for the new hole. The paint was dry so I stuck it in. The hole being higher does make it a bit tight, but we will have to see if I get away with it. Cheers.

Cheers, Phil. It is going to be mostly standard, honest... Bit of a long day at work today and late home, but taping up wires isn't a terribly strenuous task so I got straight to it. Working through the boot lid is also less uncomfortable than inside the cab. This bit will clip to the side of that chassis leg when the new clips are on. Like so. It then goes forward towards where the rear bulkhead would be if the seats didn't fold. It passes through the 'bulkhead' through that rectangular spongey thing and then joins the rest of the loom. The rest of the wiring in that area needed re-taping and there was a clip missing, so I made a start on that next. But then I ran out of tape again. That didn't last long, but when I checked what I had ordered it seems that I had got a much smaller roll than last time because I didn't pay attention. Anyway, please accept my apologies because I am not able to make the taping wires look very exciting. This is mainly because it isn't very exciting... More tape is due on Friday. Quiz tomorrow night, so I will have to do something without tape on Thursday. Cheers.

It was the mother-in-law's birthday this weekend, which put the kybosh on any tent time. Saturday was a barbecue at the sister-in-law's, which disappointingly didn't involve a barbecue at all. There was lemon cheescake though. Please be aware that I am not the person in the picture! Sunday was out to a restaurant, an hour and a half drive from where we live but much closer to the sister-in-law, which I suppose is to be expected because she had arranged it. There was cake. Today on the way home from work I picked up another installment of my parts order. Just small bits and pieces but one of them was this cable clamp which I needed to fasten down the main battery lead in the front footwell. Also when I got home, the Tesa tape which was supposed to arrive on Friday, then changed to Sunday finally arrived on Monday. This meant that I could spend three hours kneeling, sitting and bending into all kinds of uncomfortable positions to re-tape the loom and to replace lots of these 'fir tree' type clips. Once my back and knees had had enough of crawling around in the cab I did a little bit more in the boot. I fitted that clip that had cost me hours of my life searching tinternet to find the part number of. I still need to work my way forward on that part of the loom to re-tape and replace several more clips. These are most of the clips I have replaced tonight, some of them just got slung out of the door and will have to be picked up later. In other M3 related news, this was waiting for me when I got home. I quite like quick steering and this is a brand new 'black tag' 2.5 turn rack which has made it all the way from Australia in less time than it takes for some tape to arrive from this country. The number of turns is on the casing. It is untouched by human hands. I have known about these for a while but have been put off by the fact that the quicker ratio can upset the traction control system, but now you can get a magic box which modifies the signal so that it works properly. Well, I hope it works properly... Cheers.

Yes, you’re right. I hadn’t looked at them, just advised by the MOT man that it was getting ready. Stupidly assumed that the old one was bolted on… I won’t fall for it again.

You will have to factor some weight back in to account for the required reinforced underpants...