Misc

What a difference 48hrs makes…

Lovely frosty Sunday morning in Edinburgh before heading up to Knockhill Racing Circuit to help promote some of the SMRC race series…

Tuesday morning, in the driveway, some lovely frost beads just before the snow started…

Snowfoam Sunday

Decided to have a go at giving the car a touchless wash using just Snowfoam, no separate wash.

3 weeks since it’s last wash but the roads here actually haven’t been too filthy.

Also proof that the wing vents must do something on the 4 series, even if it is just accumulate road grime and salt crystals!

Used a bit of G101 diluted 5:1 in water to help out with the wheels. Rest of the car was just foamed, AutoBrite Magifoam diluted 4:1.

Tools:

Video of the whole shebang:

Mid wash pics:

Let it dwell for about 7 minutes whilst I grabbed a coffee, then rinsed it off (and missed a bit on the rear bumper

2019 Countdown

Didn’t foresee quite how many miles I would be covering over the Christmas break so ended up hitting 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 on the 30th not the 31st. Epic fail.

Anyways, eight days of mucky and wet road use now since it got its mini valet before Christmas and I’m impressed with the level of beading the application of Quik Detailer is giving on the paint work.

I’ve heard of a new hydrophobic product for this off a YouTube channel I follow so hopefully doing to get my hands on some of that soon.

Celica GT-Four

Decided 2019 is going to be the year of getting cars back on the road.

First a bit of history, after a period of not being used very much due to doing big miles, I put it back on the road in 2011.

Full service and fresh discs & pads, it passed its MOT in June 2011. I was planning on going back to using the car for weekend runs and track days. As it was overdue a cam belt change, that needed done and that’s where the fun began.

The previous garage who did a cam belt change had managed to over torque the bolts holding the tensioner in to the alloy head. With about 3 inches of clearance, there was no danger of being able to helicoil it in situ so the engine needed stripped and the head pulled.

With lots on, it ended up taking roughly ten months to sort the tensioner issue, so I got a months use out of it at either end of its MOT.

Also managed to create some other problems;

  • There’s also something wrong with the oem boost gauge on the dash, it’s reading inverted, so cruising its reading positive boost and under load it’s reading vacuum or lower
  • My mate’s M5 had the roof bricked and we fixed it in the workshop whilst my Celica was parked up. We didn’t dust sheet it when spraying though assuming it was far enough away. It wasn’t so it has a primer mist coat over most of the car

Now we’re in to mid 2012 and going back to racing removed all free time and free cash so it wound up parked in my flat’s underground car park for a few years. This turned out to be a remarkably dusty place to store it…

It then spent 2015 to early 2018 in a unit me and some mates shared. Still not getting used but at least it was in a place less dusty than the Sahara and not in the middle of a giant puddle.

Then came the Beast from the East, seemed like a good idea to get it back on the road. For 2 days it royally took the Micky out of all the pseudo off-roaders and everything else in my estate having no problems dealing with the 15 inches of snow we had.

Sadly it then started to live up to being an ST205, lovingly known in GT-Four circles as faffs, because the owners are always having to faff with something. In this case, the rear diff is seeping. So it’s been parked up again since the start of March.

Task list:

  • Sort the paintwork and remove growth from driveway life
  • Refurb the diff
  • Refresh whichever suspension arm is clonking up front (it had them done not that long ago so bit annoying that one)
  • Fix the leaky O2 sensor
  • Get a wideband up it’s hoop to confirm the ECU doesn’t take its boost reading from the same sensor as the dash
  • Caliper overhaul and disc skim
  • New radiator (current one is browning on the top tank)
  • Refurb whining charge cooler pump
  • Re-do the ghetto gauge wiring (yeah that was me)