i got this 1990 city off tom mealiff feb march time of 2010, it sat under a cover and i only got bits and pieces done until we built a shed at the end of last summer but easter of this year seen it back on the road for the first time in 9 years!
as i got it:
needing 2 doors and a couple of bits of welding and a respray!
so i taught myself how to weld and do all the work needed, but then came the paintin and after building the shed and keeping my mayfair on the road i didnt have the money for a respray soooo.....i did it myself! considering it was my first go i was very happy with the outcome
i had left 1 of the doors outside the shed door so i could work on it while the primer was drying on the car, just as i was spraying away dad starts knocking on the window.....to tell me he'd just driven over the dam door!!
after a week of 8am starts and 3am finishes i got the car put back together, insured on the saturday, mustard and doofy got it running that evening and it was ready for its first trip on the sunday!
its maiden voyage for tullamore included a short trip to glennons (via a tow rope and their caddy!!) for a head gasket change!! the car was overheating so i came home checked the fan, whoops, it was on back to front!! flipped it round and still only got 6 mile up the road!! got half way between home and glennons, either way i had to be towed so up to mick n paul!! i had set out for tullamore at 2 and eventually got there at 12 that night!!
a week after was test time, on my way up i noticed the dash lights wernt working, only a fuse, which meant the back lights did work, ah well the car only failed on the fuse needing replacing, fit a fog light and tighten a brake union, happy days!
then came the retest, in my wisdom i booked the test for half 8 on a sunday morning, went to leave....wont start, nice hole in the dizzy cap, i did wonder why it was spluttering on the way home from sligo on the friday!! and again it was up to glennons to get a cap and rotor arm off them! after they were fitted it ran, like absolute sh1t but it ran!! got to the test by 4 and it passed!!
then it was time for the last week of college, the car started running like crap(well worse!), attempted to drive into town.....ended badly!! got towed up to the carpark and it started again so after a visit from the guards seeing if mustards caddy was legal(alot of us still doubt it!!) no amount of moaning and shouting at the car fixed it so the mini went off to joe conboy who set the car up properly and its been running perfect since! huge thanks for that joe!
a sick car helping another sick car!!
time for home from sligo for the summer, i got as far as newtown forbes and started hearing a grinding noise, pulled over and it sounded like the fan clipping off the rad so i had a look, shuffled the rad over a bit and continued on through the town. it wasnt the fan, took the wheel off, it was grinding when going forward but not backwards. a bit odd seeing as it was a new cv joint on there. soooo, i rang Neil kilbane who gave the diagnosis of a dodgy bearing, i limped the car back to neils with the grinding getting very very bad. luckily neil had a bearing kit and he changed it over for me, another big thanks for getting me back on the road!!
two or three weeks ago seen the biggest problem with the car to date.....i had a lil crash, my first and, touch wood, only crash!! there was a woman in the volvo in front of me and was braking to turn off left, the road was that slippy she ended up stopping about 20 yards beyond the turn off!!! i was braking and then the road surface changed and i ended up sliding into her, only damage to the volve....a piece of my indicator lense stuck to the bumper!!
more to come tomorrow!!
!! hope you do eventually find who done it
