akciddento

not welding....

sunday came and it was bright crisp sunny...
love;y sunday for doing things and getting things done...
ed decided to get loaded up and return londonwards early to get into his shed and work on his fastback....

so we loaded up the wheels i'd collected for him from dubfreeze (or to be more accurate hubbs had collected, i just paid for them and left them in my garden for a week)

they're 5 x 112 pcd (wedge and late bay stud pattern) for eds parents new bay window bus... they've got an oval beetle too... and apparently ed sbrother jimby has got his oval all prepped for the aircooled cup circuit race series...

after ed got on his way i trucked across town and gave the high top wedge a thorough jetwashing, it was encrusted with salt and general motorway gunk after driving back from cardiff in the snow last week. (i even managed to get it fully sideways round a roundabout, but thats another story) one cheap jetwash for the underside to get into all lovely undersealed steel crenelations and the the full works hot wash shampoo and was for the rest. off to halfords for bits. some spare bulbs and welding gas...

then homeagain,
the prospect of lying in the frozen dirt under the panel van measuring up the turbo header suddenly seemed less attractive than sitting in the hightop listeing to radio 4 interspersed with the new wagon christ album while i sorted out why the interior heater controls don't illuminate at night.
not particularly essential but one of those little things that constantly niggle.

so, change the bulb. no luck. check it with a multimeter. no voltage.

doh!

off with the westie dash tray and out with the stereo and i'm up to my elbow in spaghetti protruding from the dashboard.

finally all got sorted and put back together. I even got the cigarette lighter to illuminate! how cool is that ?

shopping with ted rogers...

**ed** came down to visit for the weekend in his newly slammed passat estate...

slammed to the floor on majorly cut springs it looks the bomb! ed had done a deal with chris CSP who lives on the other side of bristol for some moon disks. yes, moon disks on the passat (more on this later).

we trucked over to chris's place, which by rights i should know where it is, bristol isn't a big city, but i really could only guess... so i winged it, doing that thing that shop assistants in dixons do when you ask if they can tell you about this tv or that stereo. they walk over and read out the label on the edge of the shelf to you imagining that this is some supreme feat or that by virtue of shopping in dixons you

• a. won't notice that they are just reading it out to you and will be grateful for their gracious assistance and superior knowledge or
>
• b. will be so grateful that they can read as you were having difficulty with the complicated long words on the label

anyhow, i think either ed didn;t notice or was too polite to mention that i just seemed to be reading out the roadsigns in a knowledgable and familiar sounding voice...

so we got there and chris and geoff and geoff were doing that saturday morning car fiddling that's almost as good as ***** ***** * ****** under a warm duvet on a winters morning. geoff 1 had to leave soon after we got there, he'd just got a new t25 and wandered off down the lane with two large fenceposts and a sledgehammer saying he had to knock a dent out....

so we got on with the customary chatting and ed fell in love with the 14inch aluminium (aluminum for our readers in the US) ones until chris mentioned that he'd got some 15inch chrome ones too...

so while chris ran off to find the chrome ones i checked out his beetle, i'd seen video of it and we'd exchanged some email before. chris does circuit racing and track days in it . he's just got in a new type 4 engine with porsche fan etc. he's looking at moving to megasquirt fuel injection later in the year.

chris has a website here at www.fastbug.net he runs a weblog and there is loads of stuff about racing, his cars, his rather cool t25 van and video, galleries etc...

ed decide to get both sets of moondisks and you can see why!

aftern some shopping it was off for noodles and then supper, ollie came over for a thali and gave us a lift over to see bucky (a must see bristol two piece ska/punk band) with my friend lucy providing guest vocals. his new t25 is kidney rupturingly low. something in the front suspension goes clank intermittently when you drive over large pieces of gravel. it's cut springs (again) and still riding on what's left of standard length shocks. i was sat in the fornt seat just waiting for the plunger rod from the passenger side damper to burst up through the floor and impale me in the thigh.
luckily this didn't happen. here a picture of ed being unable to fit his finger between the wheel and the wheel arch.

chavtastic!

hubbs decided to hang around in bristol for another day or so and the new headlights he had got at dubfreeze were itching to be fitted to something so a test fitting to the race panel van (sat sad and immobile under the trees)* was called for...

and here they are, screwed into the old headlamp mounts from the wedge they seem to work fine. they're designed for a golf but apart from the lens sitting a little further back in the hole they seem fine and don't look half bad. i hear that they actually work better too!

the panel van although nearly ready seem to be slowing in some ways....
..everything is poised for action but for the sake of replacing this bushing....

(seen here with some new exhaust gaskets)

it would all be hunky dory. the theory is that the starter motor bush in the gerahox has cracked/worn oval and this prevents the starter spinning fast enough to get the engine to fire up...
all seems good but the bus is out there covered in frozen pigeon droppings and i'm in here in front of a warm keyboard looking forward to the next cup of tea...

at least all the gear stashed inside it is neat and tidy !

dubfrozen!

after a pleasant saturday night in the swan hotel bar in stafford i woke early...
... to a very frosty morning in the hightop westie wedgebus. i'd parked up behind the main hall at stafford county showground after unloading and setting up the stall on saturday. given that the temperature outside was someway below zero it had been a toast night...
a cup of tea and some breakfast and off to finish setting up the stall. Hubbs had come across from the east the night before and between us we got it all set up with very little hassle....

dubfreeze is the first show of the year and i've been going for years. often i ask myself why i went when i return home in the cold february greyness but i've come to really like it over the last few years. it's a social more than anything. a chance to catch up with friends i've not seen since the autumn. a chance to do a little bit of window shopping for parts or even to buy a few (although there is often very little that can't be got via mailorder)

although this year there is a whole list of things i need/want for the buses the budget is tight and i need to maintain my self control! The total budget for the wedge racebus is £1,000, all in, for everything...
So i need to be counting the pennies on everylittle bit....

I did make one impulse buy though.... wandering round to get more cups of tea from the cafe during the afternoon i called past the club 80-90 stall. (i've never been too sure about club 80-90 - not that i'd ever admit that in public- they all seem a really nice friendly bunch but it seems a little too harry and hilda - if that makes sense... then again i used to think that about the split screen van club and they all turned out alright....
SO! sorry if you're from club80-90 and i've upset you...
... ;)

anyhow, they had a wedge bus quickshift kit on the stall so i grabbed one....
...the kits is very simple (pictures soon) - a diamond shaped plastic spacer about 20mm thick, two bolt extenders and the destructions showing how to fit it...

i'll try it in the 5speed high top and let you know how i get on...

there were all sorts of other bits but none to take home - though i was sorely tempted to relieve mick from kinky micks happy wheel shack of a nice set of porsche 928 wheels that he had...
...this man is passionate about his wheels,

hubbs got some shopping done too and seemed very happy with his new crosshair style crystal headlamps for his wedge of beigeness... good price on them too - thanks to the young guys at gwent VW...

the day was great, clearing old clothing stock (all the money is allocated to the Nitrous kit for the panel van....) and chatting to all the faces i havent seen since it was warm last year...

so much news and so much to write.... i'll write more later... pictures too...

:)

d

twas the night before dub freeze...

and all through the pub
not a word could be heard properly,
not even a shout...

so to do the day backwards hubbs and i ended up in the swan hotel in stafford having a rather pleasant social with mick from kinky micks wheel shack, wayne from volksheaven, folksy and jane from bluebird, retro steve and emma and a load of others. I think lee from LA performance was there with some friends too...

loveley evening, very agreeable though i think i should have shelled out and bought some champagne. they had chilled veuve cliquot and it's my favourite....
and it was going to be my birthday the next day...

anyhow, earlier in the day i got all the gear and stuff loaded into the hightop and set off for stafford. I stopped in at raceshack as it's on the way to say hi...

conor and kevo proudly shoed me the progress on kevos rail... it's all been stripped, powder coated and it being refitted and looks fantastic...

captain botch was finishing off bits of the new double cab split....

which has a very cool new hatch in the rear load bed... access to what plans to be something very special!

kelster was there with his dad (called Jim if i remember rightly, if not then sorry kelsters dad who is not called Jim...) working on his 356 speedster bodied car... it is another amazing piece of work.. i promised not to say too much so i won't post the pictures i took...

then off to get set up for dubfreeze.
dude from cardiff was helping stateside tuning out and then helped me set up the stall for the next day. chatting over a cup of tea later i found out what he does during the week...!
...what a cool/unusual/meaningful job, completely not what i would have expected. i like it when things like that happen...

top bloke.

dubfreeze!

first meet of the year...

shopping for greasy parts (or shiny bits..) standing round clutching styrofoam cubs of tea for warmth...

must be dubfreeze!

we'll be there trading, chatting, drinking tea and assembling greasy car parts...

see you all in stafford !

oops, named and shamed ?!

had some mail this morning from mr XXXXX who works for XXXXXXXX ltd (the ones who sell XXXXXX XXXXXX) requesting not to be named and shamed (in case his/her sees how much company time has been spent at akciddento....)

sorry,

all incriminating evidence removed....

;)

ok, who works for Xxxxxxx co ?

having a quick look through the stats and stuuf from the website server logs it turns out that akciddento has had nearly 10 million hits in the last year

looking through the referrers it appears that someone at xxxxxx ltd, a company makes xxxxxxx xxxxxxxx hit the website nearly 97 thousand times !...

hello, who ever you are !

more wheels !

arrived by courier, another cheap ebay win...

...not really sure that i needed them... and there's only two of them....

hmmm... maybe i've started to devcelop an ebay habit...

but then again it's costing me less that my smoking used to....

tata stuff and dodgy starters

dave in suffolk asked me to pick up a load of parts for a TATA pickup that he'd bought.
i'd already done a deal with dave for the 1.9 wasserboxer and a pair of chrome bumpers from a van dave was breaking to all we need to do now is meet up and swap piples of scrap...
here's the parts in the (increasingly grubby) westie high top. all being well we can swap parts at dub freeze in stafford next week.

the started motor in the racebus seemed to have given up the ghost and was cranking at about 20rpm so i mentioned this to dave to see if he had a spare. Dave recognised the problem and suggested a cracked bushing on the end of the starter spindle where it goes into the case...

makes sense, maybe this wil be cheaper that i thought...

preseason scrutibeering

with ollie 'twobuses' in the pipe and slippers pub..

setting the world to rigths and talking bus nonsense...

unforyunately ollies suggestion of a sneaky pint at 10pm would have worked if they called last orders at 11pm rather than 1 am...

set the world to rights,

job done!

bling bling ish....

finally got up to see colin in banbury to collect the wheels i won on ebay at christmas...

4 new unused alloys and a pair of centrelines. all in 112pcd for the wedges..
peanuts...
:)

weld i up me babber!

jimby and nicole came up to vist for supper and HEY PRESTO! jimby has loaned me his old welder. so i can get the exhaust manifold done at home...
bargain :)

they also brought lots of beer.

a lovely evening and far too much talk about cars n stuff

line it all up and see if it ACTUALLY fits

after getting the kids to be i decided that rather than spending another evening in the anaesthetic arms of the one eyed lodger i'd go through all the stuff in bags and boxes in the junk room downstairs...

i got on with a few jobs i knew needed doing, sorting out which of the garret turbos to use...

although i think one is stighly better than the other, after getting half way through changing over the exhaust manifold from one to the other and then realising that i also had to change the studs over too (the better turbo has studs that are too short for the manifold from the other one...) i also realised that the alignment of the exhaust input flange and the oil in and return were 180 degrees out for what i wanted so rather than go through the whole palaver i decided to stick with what was ok in the first place....
(i hear you miles, i hear you! it aint broke yet so i'm not going to bother fixing it...)

so after that i got on with the Kjet injection system. I have one and a half or nearly two complete systems, one saab 900 and one golf. i want parts from both...

i'm taking the guts of the injection from the saab, it was a turbo model so maybe this is good. it is a good omen on my planet anyhow... the huge mechanical airflow meter is like a big paddle on a pivot in the base of the airbox, this changes the fuel pressure in the fuel distributor head on top of the airflow meter (i'm probably using all the wrong names and descriptions but i haven't finished reading all the kjet manuals i found on the web...
i never read manual for software or computers until something won't do what i tell it so i reckon why start now (actually there's loads of reasons... 1. if software crashes you just reboot. i found out last year that you can't reboot a spun bearing 2. software very rarely causes fuel fires )
so anyhow what i want is the saab airflow meter on the rectangular golf style airbox...
so here we go...

remove (or drill out the rusted ones) all the bolts and separate the unwanted airflow head from the top of the box...

get the new airflow head, twiddle with some replacement bolts etc and hey presto, another job done...

i still have to fabricate up the stuff on t he ends of the intake manifolds for the kjet injectors (completely mechanical, unlike the last injection setup on the bus... no fancy solenoids here, basically the injectors just dribble all the time and the airflow head changes the fuel pressure to increase or decrease the dribble, hrmph.. technically speaking)

i also found a larger throttle body that i'd forgotten about, from a rover i think, its about 6 or 7 mm larger diameter than the 2,1 wasserboxer one i was going to use, cleaned up ok, we'll see what fits... i could always modify the wasser boxer one and put in a bigger butterfly (yeah right...)
there are a few more bits i need but it's pretty much there...

so i layed it end to end for the first time and i felt much better, a kind of 'this might actually work' feeling.

here's all the gear....
starting at one end of the system..going anticlockwise from the right of the picture

• the garret turbo,(hot side and cold side)
• recirculating dump valve (ebay special)
• the saab 900 kjet injection head on the golf airbox
• ford rs turbo intercooler (ebay special)
• rover throttle body
• injection manifolds and plenum chanber from 2.1l injection wasserboxer

i still need hoses and some other stuff like... erm, i forget...
ah yes, boost gauge and boost sensor, bits of exhaust manifold pipework from the baja header to the inlet flange on the turbo and some other stuff,

the only thing not shown is the fuel pump and pressure acculumator assembly that i have, thats form a golf but i'll swap bits (like the high flow filter from the saab (in the picture)) before bolting all together...

more later!

d

more bits

got more bits!

got a 4 point TRS harness from neil HAB of the HAB ELiminators race bug, neil got a new harness from a motor show somewhere and he needed the old barrels and pistons from the 2332cc race motor form the samba. as far as i know he bought the racemotor from jason aldreds Pro-buggy (minus the barrels & pistons for some reason that was too complicated for me to remember - despite neil explaining it very slowly over the phone...) anyhow,
we did a trade for the harnesses and bit of cash and a dontation to the DEC Tsunami appeal.
so, one more thing crossed off the list...
but with the new urgency for a fitting exhaust i have added one to the list so nil nil score draw i guess...