Category Archives: Cars - Page 2

Forgive me Father for I have sinned…

Posted by on 27/02/2014 No comments

Just to set the scene….I am NOT what we call here in the UK a Boy Racer, I don’t tear-ass around racing people and ripping my tyres up like a testosterone filled kid but every once in a while I seem to screw up just a bit and get caught going ever so slightly faster than I should.
So in the UK we can have up to 12 Penalty Points on our Drivers License and after you hit the magic 12 you get banned from driving for 12 months (usually). There’s a bunch of different stuff you can do to accumulate these points, the more serious, the more points and if you want to see the full gamut then take a look here

So I managed to collect two of these guys over the last five years on something called an SP30 (Exceeding statutory speed limit on a public road) and each time they fined me £60 ($99 in February 2014) and presented me with 3 points – So I had 6.

The points stay on your license for 4 years after which they get removed so my current two are in an overlap kind of situation and the oldest of the them is due to come off in September, but here’s the kicker…

01:01 AM a week or two ago I am driving back from a Monster Magnet gig and fail to spot an Average Speed Check Zone….I cruise through 95% of it at the required legal speed of 30mph but hit the gas in the last 100ft and boost the car to 44mph, blissfully unaware I had just triggered one of those new Siemens SafeZone Camera’s that are starting to spring up around the UK.

A week later the letter dropped through my letterbox and guess what, I had got another SP30 but this time the fine was £100 ($166) and I now had 9 points on my license, scarily close to 12 and Game Over.

I now have to drive like an old lady for at least the next six months until 3 points come off my license and make NO MISTAKES and to make sure I splashed for a Road Angel Gem+

This gizmo is connected by GPRS permanently and gets live updates every few minutes about EVERY single camera location in the UK and for total backup has a built in Laser Detector (not that you can survive such things really…) and this guy will squawk, holler and flash at me when I’m within 500ft of any camera, just in case I am not paying attention. So its a bunch of money to save my bacon for being such an asshole in the first place.

I may post up some further stuff about the device later in the year if its worthy of mention…

Road Angel Gem+

Ken Block Gymkhana GRID Ride

Posted by on 15/08/2013 No comments

I love Ken Block video’s and this one just made me smile. Actor Nick Swardson is taken along for the ride, 100% of the video shot on a GoPro HD Hero3

For Kevin

Posted by on 13/08/2013 No comments

Kevis is a work colleague, not based at our site but he drops in every once in a while. Months and months and months ago he started asking me about the GSi Turbo steering wheel I had behind my desk.
I said “Oh, that’s going in the Astra soon”

Weeks would pass, Kevin would drop in again and joke about the steering wheel still being there. Then months passed and although he called in he stopped asking about the GSi wheel.

I’ve been called a Sloth with bike builds, in fact someone once said glaciers move faster than me and now I come to think of it even my niece calls me Gary The Snail.

So this is for you Kevin…..IT’S DONE 🙂

Old one off…

‘New’ one on

Gaitor Aid

Posted by on 03/08/2013 No comments

My leather gear gaitor (which turned out to be fake leather halfway thru this task) has been with me for 168,000 miles so I guess owes me nothing. He was starting to get very tatty around the top though so 10 minutes on FleaBay later and I’d scored a new, real leather, replacement.

In fact it was a twofer deal and I got a handbrake gaitor thrown in the bundle too. Not in a big rush to change him though as there’s lots of aggro involved and my current one is still fine.

I found a neat ‘How To’ online that helped this task immensely and it was all done in a little over half hour (20 minutes spent trying to stretch the new gaitor over the gear knob…)

Before & After shots 🙂


More Leather!!

Posted by on 28/06/2013 No comments

Been on the hunt for one of these for a while, an Irmscher Leather Armrest. Neat for stashing various items in to keep the cockpit clean and uber cool for that relaxed driving posture when out on the open road.

As with all Irmscher products its very well made and very well designed, you don’t lose access to the rear passenger ashtray (even though I don’t smoke) and it doesn’t screw up access to the handbrake, unless you are into doing handbrake turns (I’m getting too old for that shit now).

Piece of cake to fit, set some pilot holes with the Makita Cordless and used a quarter inch drive ratchet with Torx bits to drive the fixings home 🙂

 


‘Before’

‘After’

Stop The Pigeon

Posted by on 12/06/2013 No comments

I’m not a violent person and these days I go out of my way to avoid killing anything that walks, crawls, flies or slithers but every now and again there is an unavoidable situation….and this was one.

I do a LOT of miles in my car, most weeks 500+ and on this occasion a 1000+ miles in one week and I never engage in any acts of roadkill, in fact wild things rarely even try and sacrifice themselves so I should consider myself lucky. This is a good thing as the front of my car has now been rebuilt several times..

Anyway’s I was on the home commute, doing round 80mph when this Wood Pigeon (Brainus Smallus) tries to take my Astra on, suffice to say it was all over rather quickly and the view in my rear view mirror looked like someone had just put a King Size duvet through a garden shredder…!!

When I got home I discovered the full extent….pieces of skull wedged in small crevices with pieces of flesh still attached…..brains all over my bumper, bird crap on the splitter and feathers?….well EVERYWHERE in the engine bay, in my AC radiator, my coolant radiator.

Two hours of hot water, Chemical Guys Maxi Suds II and Dodo Juice Tropical Red Mist later and you would never know I played Stop The Pigeon

I’m on the Lamb But I Ain’t No Sheep

Posted by on 07/05/2013 No comments

Personally I would say 10 months sucks for the lifespan of a Lambswool Wash Mitt, especially when it doesn’t get used every weekend due to the crappy UK weather we have. This guy below is (or was) a Meguiars Lambswool Wash Mitt so should be good quality with Megs being generally a good detailing brand.

All he has been used with is Chemical Guys Maxi-Suds II and hot water, no nasty chemicals or other detailing products. I then use him for the rinse too, then he gets put on a hot wash with Persil Non-Bio and hung out to dry until the following week.

So, I’m not too impressed with Meguiars, or did I kill him with the 95 degree Persil Non-Bio wash….?

Now I’m looking for a Dodo Juice – Supernatural Wash Mitt AKA the Wookie Fist but they are mysteriously out of stock everywhere….

 

Dodo Juice - Supernatural Wash Mitt wookie Fist

Pimp My Ride – Astra interior upgrade

Posted by on 28/10/2012 5 comments

Amongst (many) other vehicles I have owned seven Land Rovers over the years but have also had a Vauxhall Astra obsession for a very long time and have owned several: Mk1 estate, 2 x Mk4 LS estates, a 1.7 CDTi ECO4 Mk4 and my current baby a Mk4 1.6 SXi Dual Fuel.

Duel Fuel is working out kinda neat with this whole Global Recesssion thing as I can fill the LPG tank for £30 and get around 360 miles out of it (not to be sniffed at!!). Of course I would really like a 200BHP GSi Turbo but I have a long commute for work and the petrol bill would suck so I have the SXi Dual Fuel to be ‘sensible’.

I’m very attached to this one and have done over 150,000 miles in it, we’ve been through all sorts together and now and again I show it some love, this time with switching the cloth interior for a set of Full Leather from a Bertone Turbo Coupe, complete with heated front seats 🙂

Switching Astra interiors is relatively easy if you have the right tools – a good quality Torx set (T40 and T50), flat blade screwdrivers, phillips screwdrivers and a wrench for the battery terminal.

First and foremost disconnect the negative terminal on the battery, this is required as the front seats have electronic Pre-Tensioners linked to the Airbag system (that need taking apart) and this will freak out the ECU, lighting up your dashboard and requiring a visit to your local GM/Vauxhall garage to have them reset stuff with their OpCom…

Disconnect your negative terminal

Now you can start ripping stuff out.

Rear seats ‘before’ shot 🙂

Detach ‘hidden’ brackets for seat back on both sides…leave the spring tensioned bracket attached.

Seat belt mountings, left and center (T50 Torx)

Check out all the detritus under the seats from years of having Mountain Bikes in the back…

Rear mounts for seat back (T40 Torx)…stuck under the chassis for the LPG tank!

So that’s the rear seat back and bench out, plus the seat belt mounts

Time for the new leather seat backs to be fitted to the old brackets….then the new bench

Front seats. Remove the two rear T40 Torx, lift the seat from the back and tip. Disconnect the Pre-tensioner (pull out the orange lock pin and squeeze the black tongue) under the seat and slide it out from it’s housing.

Remove the lower front seat belt mount (T40 Torx) and out come the front seats

Reverse the sequence and re-connect the pre-tensioner into the new seats, in go the new fronts…nice eh?


Just need a good clean and some leather restorer to detail them now 🙂