January 2000

1st January 2000

oday dawned with a clear blue sky and sunshine. Although the roads were still wet I decided to take the car out for a little run. Well that was the plan anyway. I hadn't started the car for a while so when I came to turn it over it would not fire up straight away. I'm still not used to the best starting method for this car although I do know that it easy to flood the car. Well that's exactly what I did, so I took out the plugs to dry them off one by one. I got to the 6th plug and it was a bit stiff and as I strained I snapped the porcelain body of the plug, thankfully no other damage done. Well I didn't have any spare plugs so I put the dust cover back on the car and locked it away in the garage and vowed to get some essential spares as soon as the stores open again.

4th January

Today I received a phone call from a lady from the Department of Transport in Luton. She said that she wanted to come and see the car. As the car had already been registered back in November I asked what she wanted to come and see. She said that she wanted to get my paperwork completed and the registration mark issued. I explained that I'd already been issued a registration mark and a tax disc too. This seemed to cause confusion at her end. To cut a long story short, the lady visited me and checked the details of the car like the engine and chassis numbers and confirmed which bits I'd kept from my donor car. I received a new tax disc and registration mark which is now makes my car a historic car because of the age of the donor that I took the bits from.

5th January

I phoned up the secretary of the UK Cobra Replica Club today to put myself forward for the Treasurer's position. This position had been vacant for sometime and I felt that I had the necessary skills and time to do the job. I also wanted to meet with more kit car people and obviously cobra owners so this was an idea opportunity to press the flesh. I'm pleased to say that I was warmly greeted by the current committee members, and I look forward to serving and fulfilling the role of Treasurer on behalf of the club and its members.

7th January

Managed to do 80 miles or so in the car today, she now stands at 287 miles. It was very cold (about 10 degrees) but clear and sunny, had the heater on full blast for most of the journey. I've developed a couple of annoying squeaks that I need to investigate can't quite figure out exactly where they are coming from.

9th January

Fabricated some spacers from aluminium to increase the height of the bonnet from the hinges. There is a small lip where the bonnet is sitting just a little too low, it's been annoying me for a while, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to make the spacers today.

The weather was bright and crisp although the roads were too wet to take the car out today, plus the temperature never really got much above 3 degrees.

I managed to track down the source of the squeaks. As I jacked up the car the front suspension started to squeak and similarly when I lowered it. With a couple of sessions of jacking up and down I managed to narrow down the squeaks to the upper wishbones. I checked the bolts to make sure they weren't too tights and pinching the pivot action of the arms. No they were fine, however the noise was coming from the bushes themselves, so I took out each side and make sure they didn't squeak by applying the smallest pinch of grease on the bushes. After reassembly and a quick road test around the block I could confirm that the squeaks had gone away. This is one time when I thank the traffic calming measures they have put in our road as it gave the suspension a good work out and now it is as quiet as anything again.

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