Now this may seem a bit of a strange tale to all you enthusiastic young things out there, but I have had my car for over 26 years and over the last 7 or so frankly Ijust could not be ar**ed with it.
Oh I put it on the road every year but maintenance amounted to removing the cloth cover and changing the oil. It did 2-3K each year, and some people even said it was a nice example ( it looks alright from the top ). I have even thought that having had the car for that long, rebuilt everything at least once, brought two kids up whilst having it, towed caravans, trailers, camped chauffeured kids ,wives's (not always my own) dogs, and helda numberof positionsin the club, that I was done with that Stag thing, so time to get rid and buy a nice closed top car with air con and auto to make me feel good and pampered.
I mentioned this to my wife who came up with the following quote " I would sell the house before we sell that car "
So I sat down and had a good long look at it and over the course of 3 weeks this is what I did.
So if your car drives you mad
think of all the fun I had
little niggles that make you groan
can all be fixed by you at home
the stuff that really drives you mad
isn't really all that bad
so get out there and fix that thing
when its nice it makes you sing!
Many thanks to Malcolm, Duncan, Ian, Peter
and of course THE MISSUS
( she's still not driving it though )
Oh I put it on the road every year but maintenance amounted to removing the cloth cover and changing the oil. It did 2-3K each year, and some people even said it was a nice example ( it looks alright from the top ). I have even thought that having had the car for that long, rebuilt everything at least once, brought two kids up whilst having it, towed caravans, trailers, camped chauffeured kids ,wives's (not always my own) dogs, and helda numberof positionsin the club, that I was done with that Stag thing, so time to get rid and buy a nice closed top car with air con and auto to make me feel good and pampered.
I mentioned this to my wife who came up with the following quote " I would sell the house before we sell that car "
So I sat down and had a good long look at it and over the course of 3 weeks this is what I did.
- paint looking tired ( been 15 years since total restoration by me ) took it to a member with a paint shop and he spruced it up for me. Then I polished it and cleaned the wheels. This may not be a big thing to you, but I have had a bottle of Mer for over 20 years and its still over half full, so a polish is not a weekly event
- Boot lid springs open if not locked. I had fixed the mechanism with a tiewrap during the rebuild and this was not letting the mechanism fully lock, twisted the tie wrap a quarter turn and its fixed. took me 15 years to work that out.
- Battery going flat. re-wired the radio as it was makinga constant drain and flattening the battery. managed to immobilise the car so drafted in professional help, who came to my house, re-wired the radio and the electric ariel and returned two birds nests of cable and connectors, so now no more flat battery ( I claimed for a new one at Halfrauds so often I laminated the receipt ) cost £ 40.0
- Front suspension knocking. tightened up front subframe bolts " oops!"
- Wont pull/hesitates below 1500 revs cured by giving it the beans. Noticed vac advance pipe not connected fixed that no difference so went into dark and dingy rear of garage pulled out four spare distributors removed vac advance from one gave it the suck test and fitted it to the car, pulls just like I remember it used to.
- Hand brake Bl**dy useless. back to rear of garage found the following, 6 ( yes six !) sets of new rear calipers 2 ( yes two ! ) sets of brake adjusters and arms, 4 ( yes four ! ) sets of brake shoes, 1 ( must have been having an off day ) handbrake cable, rebuilt rear brakes fitted new cable and now all is well. although I suspect the cable is about 2 inches too long and any advise on how to shorten it would be appreciated.
So if your car drives you mad
think of all the fun I had
little niggles that make you groan
can all be fixed by you at home
the stuff that really drives you mad
isn't really all that bad
so get out there and fix that thing
when its nice it makes you sing!
Many thanks to Malcolm, Duncan, Ian, Peter
and of course THE MISSUS
( she's still not driving it though )
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