Beetle Report – More Wheels

A brief easing of the relentless rain and a spare hour or two gave me the opportunity to pay some attention to the Beetle. First job was to inflate the two front tyres which had been deflated for repainting and torque the studs, duly completed with my trusty torque wrench. There followed a brief test drive around the estate during which nothing fell off.

Giddy with excitement I went to loosen the rear wheel studs which had apparently been put on by an ape. Hmmm. I was using my old wheel nut wrench with its useful extension which usually has the upper hand, but after loosening each nut by standing on it (approx 98kg) and breaking the bond with a rifle like crack the poor old wrench was split. Damn. As was my 17mm socket which was pretty stretched. Damn. Fortunately not my best 17mm socket.

Anyway the rear wheels are off and ready to refurbishment in the garage, then I will have a matching set!

The 150k mile club

My old Honda Accord 2.2 diesel rolled over its 150,000th mile this week. I had kept my eye on the mileage readout since my last fill up when it was clear it was coming up. As I planned a trip to Cambridge for work I had a rough idea the magic 150k would occur on my return journey.

As the readout ticked to 149995 I turned off the radio and counted it down to 149,999 where I pulled into a lay-by to take a photo. I then drove tentatively along the A4 in Wiltshire with my eye fixed on the mileage. When it finally flickered up at 150,000 I frantically looked for somewhere to pull in. Fortunately there was a long empty pedestrian pavement, an odd feature on a rural A-road but I was able to gently bump up the kerb and make a photographic record.

I’ve had the car for three years (nearly to the month) and have done about 55,000 miles. Average fuel consumption is around 50 mpg. I get services done at my local independent garage and have recently closed up the interval to 10,000 from the factory 12,000 miles.

Wear and tear in this period has included a new battery because it had been stood for a long time when I bought it. new disks and pads front and rear, one rear wheel bearing, wipers and 2 x front pair of tyres and 1 x rear pair. I now have Michelin Cross Climate 2 tyres all round and they are excellent. The rear pair did 15,000 miles on the front first before being swapped to the rear.

Failures are limited to a seized brake calliper which was patched up by Green Flag and got me home (arguably wear and tear) and a non- start which was caused by a loose battery terminal.

So a reliable motor and apparently (according to other posts on Facebook) is good for another 100,000.

Alloy Wheel Refurbishment

Here’s a record of my first experience of refurbishing an alloy wheel. The alloys on Lou’s VW Beetle were pretty beaten up, despite having been professionally refurbished three years ago. A combination of factors – a low profile (40 section) tyre and difficult visibility of the car’s extremities meant that they had extensive scuffs. There are lots of companies offering wheel refurbishment (I have had previous cars done in this way) but something made me want to have a go at these wheels myself and see what sort of standard could be achieved using hand tools and spray cans.

The photographs below first show the wheel in-situ. The rim is scuffed as well as some of the spokes so the initial rubbing down had to be quite extensive, although it was interesting how thin the previous finish was and I wondered how good a job that had been. I masked off the tyre with tape and then covered the rest with an old bed sheet with a round hole cut out of it. I mounted the wheel on a black and decker workmate so it was a good height to work on.

I used some alloy wheel filler to fill in the deeper scuffs and then used grades of sandpaper to rub them smooth. This was the most time consuming part of the exercise as the filler cures extremely hard – there is a careful balance to strike between rubbing the filler down to nothing with course paper and seemingly having no effect with the finer stuff. This is really not my forte and I regretted those areas where ‘put plenty in’ had been my approach, creating me a lot of avoidable work. Further, it is very hard to accurately replicate the profile of the alloy wheel which has subtle curves and radiuses. Also, I had decided to keep the tyre in place and just deflate it and this caused a problem trying to get a good edge to the rim. For a wheel in bad condition I think it would be better to remove the tyre.

After several evenings sanding the filler I got to the point of just wanting to get some paint on it. I applied about four coats each of primer, colour and lacquer. I used a heat gun to gently warm the wheel as the ambient temperature in the garage was in single figures and after each coat I used the gun again to encourage the drying process. I was reasonably happy with the overall result which is less sparkly metallic than the professional finish from a paint gun, but not bad from a rattle can.

I wonder now whether I should have started with the ‘best’ wheel and aimed to improve technique as I move through the set, but I chose the worst instead. The next wheel I have lined up is a partial respray so I will need to learn how to blend the new with the old or just commit to a complete respray. Watch this space…

Wish me luck!

Beetle Report – Charge

I had put the flat battery on to charge for a few hours and had tested it at 12v so I chose to clean up the battery tray while the battery was out.

The battery box splintered on removal. I wasn’t that careful to be honest as it was already held together with gaffer tape and was brittle with age. However the tray (also plastic) was in good shape, although grubby. I removed it (four screws, one bolt ed bracket), and gave it a thorough wash before treating it liberally with plastic cleaner.

I used some Dirt Devil Muck Shifter to clean up the area under the battery tray, rinsed it, wiped it and sprayed it with WD40, then refitted the tray and battery. I wiped the battery over first and applied grease to the terminals.

The battery looks perfectly alright without the box am the cleaned up area looks much better. Unfortunately the remote control is still not working which was the whole idea of recharging the battery so I am still loving manually.

Think I will need to replace the remote battery or look up how to repeat the pairing process.

Under the car I tried and failed to remove the engine tray. On the face of it, a simple job. There are four large bolts and 9 small Torx screws. Two of the large bolts came out nice and easy. The other two at the back just spun around. An internet tip showed how you could grip the shank with long nosed pliers but this didn’t work for me. Four of the Torx screws came out easily but the remaining ones wouldn’t budge at all, they were rock solid. As I attempted to turn each one there was that unmistakable ‘give’ of a rusty screw head rounding off. Damn! I squirted some WD40 but I’m going to have to use every trick in the book to get these off, including freeze spray which was effective on the MG.

Beetle job list

Engine – investigate oil leak, investigate coolant loss, sort out battery box, replace missing engine cover bolt, check timing belt condition

Paintwork – wash, clay bar, polish, repair paint chip on drivers A-post, repaint n/s sills in crackle finish

Hood – clean and treat, repair stitching, re-fix head lining to rear window

Badges – replace front and rear

Wheels – rub down and re-paint

Tyres – replace any that are worn or damaged. One has a gouge in the sidewall.

Suspension – replace suspension gaiter on both front mounts

Brakes – replace front disks due to corrosion, replace missing retaining screws

Interior – clean down

Heater – strip out to resolve only one face vent working

Remove front seats and check for any fault in air bag wiring

Under bonnet needs a good clean

Prescott Rallye

The most understated Ferrari

Tucked around the back of the Pistonhead’s Annual Service event was a beautiful example of the most understated Ferrari, the exquisite 365 GTC/4. I got to know of this model in a copy of Sportscar and Classic magazine where the writer waxed lyrical of this often overlooked Ferrari via a road test in Wales.

This real life example was no disappointment, the perfect bodywork was painted a subtle maroon and the trim was in black (or should I say Nero…). The styling is extremely neat, the front end a little generic, leads to a long bonnet and an airy glasshouse with thin pillars possible in the period before crash testing got to define critical dimensions. The roof slopes down to a neat booted tail with triple tail lights and quad exhausts as befits the marque.

I wasn’t lucky enough to hear it start up but will remind myself that under the elegant bonnet is an aristocratic V12 with four cams fed by carburettors which would have made an incredibly evocative sound as it burbled up the road.

Someone is very lucky indeed.

Haynes Museum Sparkford

A really enjoyable visit to the Haynes Museum with my friend John. The collection is very well laid out and it is easy to get close to the exhibits. I did break the rule of no touching once as I tweaked the throttle linkage of a V12 Ferrari and it was mesmerising to see all the rods moving in unison. If you don’t do that, are you really a petrolhead? (I blame my Dad as he would have done the same, although he would probably have adjusted them to work better!). Friendly staff, a good café and a well stocked shop, I am not sure how it could be improved.

Difficult to identify a take home car. If we had a rule that the monetary value was irrelevant and it was just the driving pleasure, I’d take the Austin Allegro…only joking, it would be the Jaguar D-Type

6 September 2024 Morgan Motors, Malvern

A selection of Morgan Cars at their factory at the foot of the Malvern hills.

First lot of images are of cars in and around the showroom. The ones under the canopy are we think ones allocated to the driving experience. The showroom cars are a mix of new and used – the challenge with Morgans is to spot the difference! A few were limited editions.

The next batch are from Morgan’s archive representing those with historical significance.

The earliest Morgan, a simple yet elegant device

We enjoyed a pleasant lunch in the cafe

That’s all folks!

Two happy boys surrounded by lovely cars!

31 Aug 2024 Army Flying Museum

A few photos from today’s visit to the excellent Army Flying Museum. I heartily recommend this museum which contains an excellent collection of aircraft, but also well presented displays. The volunteers were knowledgeable and enthusiastic.

Beginning with a selection of rotary winged aircraft

An array of fixed wing aircraft

other forms of transport!

…and for something a little different

I recently met the pilot of the aircraft this panel came from and his now wife!

RIAT Friday 19 July 2024

15 March 23 – Under bonnet tidy

A brief bit of work tonight, simply giving the under bonnet a light wipe over to get rid of some of the marks which have accumulated over time. I find that the marks came off with a little T-cut on a cloth. Afterwards I gave the area a spray with some detailer and wiped it off.

I discovered that I’d neglected to put the fuse cover on the fuse box so I located it in a likely looking pile of bits and popped it on after a wipe over.

Looking across the other side of the engine bay the bonnet release cable was looking a bit floppy and there was a blank bracket which must have held a clip at one point. So it was now just a matter of finding a clip to fit and popping it on. I found one that looked right but it needed a clean up so I spent 30 not very interesting minutes with some sand paper making it more presentable. Fitted that and called it a night.

Classic car events and fettling

Restoration of my MGB GT with occasional other stuff