Been keeping busy lately as usual, recent things of note:
Car – Back on the road. I’m also now a Director of SELOC so am involved in the running of the club, am trying to attend more meets and have booked myself in for a track day at Snetterton in June.
Kitchen – Ripped the old work surfaces out, put new ones in, all new stainless steel appliances, and added a breakfast bar. Well, my Dad did anyway, I just helped a little bit.
Cooking – Now far easier with the new kitchen layout, aren’t constantly tripping over each other. Trying to do new things and eat a bit healthier, fewer takeaways and meals more, cooking lower fat meals with sensible portion sizes. Have dropped about 5kg since Christmas which is good.
Hugely disappointing, as it would have been great to run a car like the WRX STI for a few months, then sell it to pay off some of the mortgage and have some upgrades to the Elise, but guess it just wasn’t meant to be.
On the plus side I’ve got a great history for both my cars now should I ever come to sell them, and Subaru are sending me a jacket and umbrella as a consolation prize.
Lots done today getting the car ready and packed away for its winter hibernation.
Started off with a trip to Halfords to pick up a new drying cloth and some Meguiar’s Hot Rims Wheel Cleaner.
I’m not especially in to detailing cars, but I gave it all a reasonably through going over to get rid of all the dead insects and marks from the bodywork and got the car dried off, and overall was pretty pleased with the results.
Next up came dealing with the stone protectors.
The way the sills and sides of the car are shaped makes the rear arches particularly susceptible to getting stone chipped.
It came with a set of clear protectors fitted when I bought it, but these hard got rather worn and look permanently dirty even when the car has just been cleaned.
I’d ordered a set of black stone protectors from EliseParts a while back, but finally got round to fitting them today. Rather than remove the old ones and risk damaging the paint I went with the option of just sticking the new ones over the top.
Next up I rolled the car back in to the garage to see what I could do with the front badge.
The enamel had taken a hit while I was in Scotland last year and broken away.
I had managed to pick up a replacement badge from the Beaulieu auto jumble, but then found out that not only does it bolt on to the clamshell, but the positioning of the crash structure means to unbolt it you have the remove the whole front clamshell!
So until such a time comes that I have a more serious need to remove the front of the car I decided to go with an interim solution and paint it with some touch up paint. Not perfect by any means but it’ll do for now.
Next up I gave the engine a spray over with WD40 to try and clear away moisture from washing the car and prevent any corrosion over the winter.
Finally a friend had mentioned he had a car cover for his S2000 which he didn’t need as he uses it as his daily driver so I popped round there to borrow it.
Fits pretty well and should keep the dust off the car until I take it back out again next year.
So now with the car tucked safely away its transition from daily driver to garage jewellery is complete.
In a couple days I’ll have had my Elise two and a half years. Today marks the first time I’ve actually driven it properly in the past 3 months or so, having had it off the road after new suspension was fitted and waiting to get it set up.
In that time I’ve done just over 12,000 miles, have taken the car to the very North Western point of mainland Scotland, spun it off the track at Castle Combe’s infamous Quarry bend and held a 90mph ‘moment’ with my Dad in the passenger seat (again at Castle Combe). Its never missed a beat only broken down a few times.
Since I bought it its had a new Sport 135 exhaust, Sport 160 seats, a new soft top, upgraded cant rails, new throttle linkage, and new suspension. On paper it’s probably worth around £1,000 less now than I originally paid for it – just don’t look at the maintenance costs!
If I’m entirely honest I’d had a bit of a downer on the car the past few months, having only driven it to and from garages and battling with a persistent sticking throttle issue, and had been toying with the idea of selling up and looking either to get another MX-5 or to do a seasons racing in an MX-5 or MR2 race series. Now the suspension and throttle are both properly sorted however such thoughts are gone, it’s an amazing car and with any luck I’ll still have it for many years to come.
Two hours upside down with my legs against the roof and naught but a screwdriver, socket set and two small spanners for company and the Elise finally has its new throttle mechanism.
Took another hour on top of that to convince it to CLOSE the throttle as well as open it, still at least it has a proper bearing in it now.
Also took it for a test drive with the roof off (after I realised this would make working on it ten times easier) only for it to start snowing as I drove through town, fun times.
