Chips and fries - technically, not the same.

Man-John, Matt & Discount Dave spent the day helping me sort my collection of garage rammel today.
I got rid of the red Semi bodyshell; I've kept the floorpan, all the running gear and the many boxes of "treasure" that came with it.........even got most of the money back from selling just the shell. Result.

We made the usual mid-day visit to the chippy, ate our fill and did a lot of talking and smoking...........which was nice.
Manly bloke-time rules, so does cake - we had some of that as well.

Sometime later Sarah was feeling hungry and she fancied some chips, I wasn't keen though.

There's the dilemma of it - chips twice in one day, that can't be good for you now can it?
Not only that but the folks in the chippy would probably pass comment too.......hmmm - what to do, what to do?

Putting this conundrum aside for a while we went into town to drop Rachel off at a party.
That's when we saw it, like a beacon in the night, Maccy D's.
Haven't had one in ages.

Dilemma no more!
You see it really is OK to go to Maccy D's and the chippy in the same day because chips and fries are two different things.Obvious really.
Sorted!

Even better when Rachel and all her mates showed up, sat nearby and didn't even notice us.
Until it was too late.
There's nothing quite like the pleasure of embarassing your offspring in a public place, take it from me.

The French

Everybody hates the bastards.
Say what you like about them but you've got to admire them.
Here's for why:

They have one of the shortest working weeks in Europe.
They eat rich food, drink strong wine and have a kip in the middle of the day to sleep it all off.
They smoke with reckless abandon and live to a ripe old age.
They pay less for food, fuel, drink & fags than we do and still kick off at every opportunity.
They strike at the drop of a hat to get better pay and conditions, usually successfully.
They send all their unwanted "visitors" across the channel to soft-touch-central.
Their president is cool and is boning that supermodel bint.

Who's the mugs?
Not the froggies that's for sure.
Vive La France!

It's the Canadians I feel sorry for though - Living between Americans and French...in the snow.

Why bother to queue?

Time for a righteous rant methinks.......

I was sat patiently in a queue of traffic waiting to join the M1 the other day.........as you do.
I inched my way alongside a slip-road joining from the left, leaving a nice gap between myself and the car in front to allow merging cars to join the motorway shuffle.
Not a single driver took advantage of this invitation, instead they all followed the queue and attempted to join right at the very end of the slip-road.

Why would they do this?

Easy, they are all selfish wankers whose journeys are obviously far more important than those of mugs like me who wait in line.
Then there are those geniuses who leave the queue, blat down the slip-road and try to shove their way back in at the end...........pond-scum.
They'll have my front corner off before I let them in, behaving like that.

Also amongst this long, sorry line of wretched souls was one dude who'd clearly not finished his daily ablutions before taking to the road....there he was, contentedly having a shave without a care in the world.

Grow a beard, fuckwit - leave home later!

Some silly bint in a battered Ka was texting the entire time, far too busy to concentrate on driving - she was still at it when we eventually joined the southbound procession of fools.

Is is too much to ask that these cretins stay out of my way?
Or just crash into a ditch quietly and bother no-one?
I'd like to see my wife & kids at the end of the day.....that's not unreasonable now is it?

Book-Face

I'm becoming increasingly annoyed by some of the people on a well known social networking site.
You know the one I'm sure.

Now don't get me wrong, I use Book-Face myself and it has put me back in touch with most of my old schoolmates, at least those I wanted to talk to - this is a good thing.
It's also good for estranged friends or family members to begin communicating again without awkward face to face meetings that might otherwise never happen - this is a very good thing.

What does hack me off however is the absolute arse-water that some people insist on posting.

The "I've just got up" or "I'm watching telly" brigade.
For fuck's sake, it's not in the least bit interesting and it's your business and yours alone.
Why would you think anyone cares?

The world won't stop spinning for lack of updates of your dreary tat.

Interesting is the operative word here, say anything at all as long as it's not pap.
It's a waste of time and effort for all concerned.

As for the games and constant score updates, I can't see the attraction but maybe that's just me. So-and-so has just scored 325,000 points on bloody Bejeweled Blitz or whatever.
WHY??
Don't you people have anything better to be getting on with?
I'm sure I'm missing the point of it all.

They say television killed the art of conversation, maybe so but FaceF*ck has set light to it and pissed on it's grave.

I fully realise a lot of what I post doesn't interest everyone (or even anyone) but it is at least thought out beforehand.
Think before you post, If you don't have anything interesting to say - then don't.

That's me off the Christmas card list then......oh well.

More heater channel flannel

Man-John brough the gas for the MIG and I resumed welding the heater channel and quarter panel.......proper mester's welds that is.
The back end of the quarter panel took a bit of thrashing into shape but it was no match for my 2lb. ball-pein persuader.

Now I was all for fitting the closing panel, but by this time John had started to chunter about being starving so the two of us sloped off to the chippy leaving Matt to tidy the progress so far.

Looks OK when dressed with a flap-wheel


Dinner time, John really looks forward to the chippy all week - Matt likes it too!

Matt chugging down some cloudy lemonade


Apres les pomme frites avec goujons de poisson (chips and fishy bits in batter) it was time to close the gap at the rear........fnarrr fnarrr!
I had peas as well so my "gap at the rear" was preparing to open.

Of course there's another nearly-fits panel for the job, why wouldn't there be?

John offers up said panel


Fits like a dream, a slightly disturbed strange smelling one.
Just a small patch left to drop in now, John's bringing some steel sheet next time out.

Welded shut inside and out


Belt and braces; join is joggled (step-overlapped), seam-welded on the outside and tacked inside. In case you're wondering, the seam-welds are actually many small stitches done in seperate sections of the join until they all merge together.
It's more time consuming and not as neat but a continuous seam-weld would produce far too much heat and distort the thin steel of the panel. If a job's worth doing it's worth overdoing.

Needs dressing but will look sweet when smoothed and painted



Door pillar bottom to sort next time out......

Fitting the heater channel

We fitted the heater channel today - didn't take too long, went in easy and fitted quite well.
The shell hadn't shifted due to the bracing we used in the door aperture.

We used a pair of scissor jacks to hold it while we checked measurements and tacked it in place
What didn't go quite so well was fitting the rear quarter panel repair section - the panel isn't a factory grade one to say the least.....A classic case of one size fits all, or rather doesn't.
Pressing on regardless we marked the extents of the panel and removed the old rotten metal.

No going back now

Matt prepping the car to accept the repair panel
The panel is a bit short front to back so we have opted for a best-fit approach and we'll thrash the reluctant bits into line later.
You can see the panel tack-welded into place and that's where we've left it - no choice really as the bloody MIG has run out of gas so it's game over boys!

Looks better already though.
You can see the panel fits nice at the rear end and is a bit shy at the front, it's easier to adjust the smaller of the two ends to fit ie: the door end........Blimey,anyone would think we know what we're doing

John's bringing the spare gas bottle over next time and we'll finish welding the whole lot.
Just the other side to do then.......oh joy! can't wait.

Doggie doobies?

I see ASDA have a new product line......wonder if you can get them for larger people as well?

It's been a while

Well, summer's coming to an end and we've all been busy doing other stuff so no blogging has occurred.
Just not been arsed, simple as that - it's been much too nice by half.
It's about time we got back to working on cars I thought, so last weekend we popped all the glass out of the shells and took the driver's side doors off....As you do!
Today we made a start on the heater channels on Matt's Baja and My Semi.
We're doing them together as it seems easier that way, we're doing Matt's car first so any f*ckups don't happen to my car.

Before we started cutting we added a brace or two
Hopefully the bracing will stop the shells flexing or sagging
Matt set about drilling out as many factory spot-welds as we could find
We delicately ragged the old channel off
Matt started cleaning up the metal to accept a new heater channel.
John supervising
Next time out we'll fit the new panel......

Fitting the Audi towbar

Fitted the towbar today, what a bastard job!
Had to pretty much dismantle all the back end inside and out.
For those of you that asked why I sprayed it silver and thought it was a complete waste of time to do so.....now can you see why?
The parts that will be seen are also silver for the same reason.
I will hopefully get it wired tomorrow, waiting for my mate to drop off the 7-way bypass relay he's liberated for me.

Mog's wasted on catnip

Sarah planted some catnip for the cats.
It's like cat coke - sends them wappy!
Last year Mog drooled and rolled all over them and killed them all.
This year we used an upturned hanging basket as a protective cage.
This is Mog getting trippy on the 'nippy.

Since I filmed this (1/2 an hour ago) Mog managed to rag one plant through the cage.
I've added a wigwam of garden canes

Special K

We have a friend called Kara (special K)
She sometimes speaks before she's thought things through.....
A few of her better ones:

Vietnamese Whirls
Urethra Franklyn
R2 and D2 the gay robots
The Beastie Boys are black aren't they?

Upspeak & Newspeak

What's with those people who end every statement as if it were a question?

It all started with our colonial cousins the Aussies, their soap operas and what have you.
First called AQI or Australian Questioning Intonation, used as a way of getting a response to a statement (as if it were a question).
We call it Upspeak or Raised Inflection.

It pisses me off when people talk to you and raise the tone of their voice at the end of whatever drivel they happen to want acknowledgement for.
Don't be weak, you don't need approval....just say it, stand by it or fuck off!

Don't get me started about the state of the English language either.....
Have you noticed how what we learned at school is no longer practiced?
If you've ever read Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell, as I did in English Literature, you'll see Orwell was right - if a little previous by 20 years or so.

Newspeak is here now!
The English language gets smaller every year.
The vowels are just the first to go and we abbreviate everything.
We have become a nation of illiterates.

tbh I blame the txt generation - lol (not)
Microsoft, they're as bad - there's no such thing as US English.

Reclaim the language before it's lost forever!

Respraying the Audi towbar

I bought a used towbar for the Audi off ebay, cost me £54 delivered.
Not bad considering the same item costs £144 new and comes with a bunch of tat I don't need.
All it needs is repainting, to be honest if I had bought a new one I would have still repainted it as the paint they use is nothing short of shite.

Before
Soon removed the corrosion with a wire-wheel, gave it a few coats of QDAC primer
that's Quick Drying Anti-Corrosive primer to you.

During

I tried out my new spraygun, an old DeVilbiss gravity fed gun Dave's brother Paul gave me.
The difference between using my previous "best" gun, one I got from Machine Mart and the DeVilbiss is amazing.
There is much more control with the DV, it just works.
When the QDAC has properly cured I will hit it with a few coats of silver MIO like the floorpan.
I'm proper getting into this spraying lark !!

after In the last picture you can see how the camera flash reflected off the mica particles in the MIO.
Makes a lovely job, I think I'll get some black MIO and see whether it's suitable for the semi.

Choghurts - Muller not interested?

Those arses at Muller haven't replied to my email about choghurts.
You'd think they'd jump at the chance and pay me a right old royalty for the concept.
Bet they nick the idea and make them anyway.
Shite-hawks!

Spraying the 'pan with MIO

Time to hit the 'pan with the second layer of paint, MIO - Micaceous Iron Oxide.
This will be the barrier layer and I will not be shy with Mr.Spraygun - not one bit.
Looks damn fine.......you can see the mica in the paint glittering under the right light.
Almost a shame to put a body on it
Left the factory seam sealer on and some of the factory weld spatter, authentic!
Sweet, definitely not having carpets.
Flipped the 'pan over, added some seam sealer and wafted the underbelly.
I'm going to put an absolute shit-load on here for maximum protection
Takes a bit of work to get the MIO sprayable as it has such a high concentration of solids, 40% - it's thick stuff.....
Might well leave the MIO on the underside and forget about the planned third layer (black)
It looks that good, then again high-gloss black is always cool as well.....

Spraying the 'pan

The floorpan is finally ready for a blast of primer - YAY!!
A quick blow down with the air-line and a wipe with some thinners and we're off.....















Matt has a go













I concentrated on spraying the underside as there's still a small amount of work to do on the central tunnel.
As the car is a semi-auto it has no clutch, also no provision for a clutch ie: no clutch cable conduit running inside the tunnel - BOO!
I've got to cut a small window in the top of the tunnel and weld in a metal tube for the clutch cable.
This modification can be easily spot primed when done.
It's more important to protect the whole 'pan and repaint a small piece later.














Looking good eh?














The upper part of the 'pan has received just a light dusting of primer to keep the air out and corrosion at bay.....that and I have used the entire litre of paint I bought.



















Health & Safety at work

















NICE
The 'pan will be having two more coats of paint after the white Anti-Corrosive primer coat.
Second coat will be a healthy dose of silver MIO, tougher than old boots - this is the barrier coat.
Third will be gloss black for that "finished" appearance.

The reasoning behind the different colours is simple, if the 'pan is scraped or the paint gets chipped off it will be easy to know how close to the metal the damage goes.
Start worrying if you see white!

Removing jacking points

The semi 'pan is solid and original apart from some replacement jacking points.
One of those is hiding a small amount of rot.














Now I don't like the factory jacking points, never have - they are far too flexible.
I prefer to lift against something solid like the torsion beams.
So I decided to remove them and use some of Matt's discarded panels to fill the gaps.

Repair panel laid over and position marked













Cut on the lines!
Second line is where repair panel will fit to, panel is overlapped and "joggled" or stepped.














new panel in place, requires welding on underside, finishing and dressing back














What a difference a grind makes - after a little dressing with the flap disk

Blasting the Semi

Stripped the semi floorpan down, borrowed a sand-blaster and set about cleaning.
The 'pan really is as solid as a rock, I've never seen one this good.
It will be nice to start from a totally clean base.
I'm sure the neighbours won't mind me chucking shit-loads of sand about the place.....It's like Skeggy beach out there now.
You don't get that just anywhere.

Dismantling the Semi

Time to take the body off the floorpan and see just what I bought.














Another unsuspecting arse-end shot, "Bug, brace yourself for a proper Rogering!"














We soon got it lifted off - EASY



Floorpan exposed














Gutted like a fish














Underbelly