The Rear Brakes (or, lack of...)

So, Tim finally managed to remove the screws holding the rear brake drums together (just realised i talk about myself in the 3rd person quite a lot on this blog, so from hereon in i shall refer to the party(s) in question as 'we', to reform to the more autonomous virtue of this project, although Paul's buggered off to Spain for a week, so in this case, it was all me.)
Apparently, applying loads of grease spray and simply battering it with a hammer for 5 minutes appears to have done the trick. We (I) digress, and will now show you what we (I) first saw upon entry into the (new) world of rear brake drums...


Apart from the obvious amount of rust and carbon (we (I) hope it's carbon - there's a slim possibility those mental French used asbestos in the brake shoes), they appeared to be OK. However, the bible gives indications of minimum thicknesses of brake shoes of 6mm. Shall we (I) show you what it actually is?



Yes, i hear you say, "bloody hell" - it appears they are 1mm on one side and about 1/2mm on the other - that would explain the slight grinding noise we were hearing then! They'll need to be changed then...

Terminal Espacity

Yeah, so, i made a word up - Espacity = the ability to make a fibreglass automobile go forward without having to bodge the spade connectors onto the battery terminals with a g-clamp.

















Tidy and neat, neat and tidy....

Let the modifications begin...

Now we have a 'working platform' our attentions are already turning to potential mod's we can make. Before we get carried away we still need to shell out £60 on four new tyres and possibly fit a new front drivers side wheel bearing, not to mention getting it through an MOT ASAP. Anyway with the luck we've had so far that all should just be a formality... (who the fcuk am I kidding!)

Anyway number one on my list of modifications is to fit one of these:

It would almost be considered rude to not install the above carbon-fibre ignition system into the eSpace. You wouldn't start a Ferrari or  F1 car with a poxy key, so why should the eSpace be any different ;)

Picture the scene, you've completed your pre-flight checks, there's just one thing left.... You flip the red 'doomsday' switch cover up to reveal the on/off switch. With a reassuring metallic 'click' you select the 'On' position, the 'system ready' light now glows red. All that's left is to push and hold the red 'Engine Start' button and the mighty 2,068cc engine roars into life... Lewis Hamilton eat your heart out!

New battery arrives!

The day we've all been waiting for: the new battery for the eSpace has arrived! With bated breath Tim connected it up via the jump leads (we're still trying to find cheap battery terminals as the current ones are the wrong type) and with his heart pounding turned the key.... and nothing happened! NO!!!!!!!!!!

With a stroke of what can now only be described as 'genius', Tim temporarily fitted the new battery directly into the eSpace as he couldn't comprehend why a brand new battery was dead.... Again with a mixture of anticipation and blind panic he turned the key one more time..... and bingo she started up like a dream!

After phoning me to give the good news I suggested we give the scrap yard battery another go, using Tim's new installation setup. And what do you know - started first time!

So many swear words later I decided (with the benefit of hindsight its obvious) that the jump leads must be faulty (despite them being brand new and still wrapped when I was given them).

In a call to our 'technical consultant' (my uncle Danny) he explained that the leads probably aren't faulty at all, but they're just not rated high enough - then the penny dropped and it dawned on me why the jump leads were getting so hot yet the car wouldn't start - they're not letting enough current through! So given time, they'd have probably melded like fuse wire - oops!

So we're now £50 out of pocket, with 2 working batteries! We're torn between selling it on eBay or sending it back to the seller (which minus the postage should give us £40ish back). But that £40 would go a long way to covering the MOT cost (if not all of it if we find a deal).

Why is life this cruel!

Electrickery

Spurred on by the fact the engine and mechanicals are untouchable at present due to the fact we have not received our new heart (battery), the thought of making the rear of the Espace an extraordinary place to live for 4 days is paramount in our minds.
Tim sets about creating an ambience through the medium of light. Now, bear in mind the only electrical/ electronic training i've received was at college during my apprenticeship (as a welder), and it was a half module during his ill-fated first year doing BTEC national in engineering, which i bollocksed up (rather majestically, i might add - failed the year by Easter half term...) and you will see he's effectively a novice.
I want to utulise LEDs, as they're low power, and i've seen the parts i need at Maplin. Please note, the following photos are basically me trying out lots and lots of LED types, and does in no way reflect the final design...

Lights off:















Lights on:
















So, picture me, sitting at my workbench fiddling with LEDs and stuff. I needed a 12v power supply, so i soldered together 8 x 1.5v C Cell batteries. I know this is probably a stupid idea, as you're not supposed to subject the bateries to heat, etc, etc, blah, blah. Anyway. There i am soldering away when there was the most enourmous BANG! I checked myself instantly to make sure i hadn't put a battery-shaped hole anywhere in my gut. Hannah came rushing down from the house because she heard the explosion from up there! Turns out, the car battery that i'd reworked and had on charge at the back of my workbench had had enough and the result was this (Note the hole in the top...):

MOT Prices

As you may or may not know, the eSpace's MOT runs out the DAY BEFORE the rally starts... so we need an MOT for as cheap as possible!

VOSA sets the max price at £53, however garages can charge less, the best i've found so far is a 33% discount when booking online with "Nationwide AutoCentres" (there's one in Swindon that we'd use). Clicking the following link will get you an MOT for £35.58:

http://www.nationwideautocentres.co.uk/bookOnline/04_CampaignEstimatedPrice.aspx?affiliate=mot33offer

Next best is Kwikfit at £39.95 when booked online.

If anyone can beat this... please let us know!

I might contact Nationwide AutoCentres and see if they're interested in a sponsorship deal ;)

MOT & Tyres

Does anyone know the deal with Tyre specifications and MOT tests? I'm not talking about the tread and ware etc, I'm more concerned with the type of tyres on a vehicle.

According to the manual (and various tyre web sites) our eSpace should have '195/65 R14' tyres. Note the 195 bit... However these RRP at £70ish EACH!

As I've mentioned in previous posts I've managed to source 4x '185/65 R14's for £60 all in. Note the 185 bit.

Here's the question...

Does an MOT test check that the tyres match the vehicle or just that they're safe/legal etc?

I've phoned two MOT test centres (one in Reading who do MOT's for £32, one in Carterton who do them for the standard £53) and they've both told me that they must all be the SAME and legal, but it doesn't matter what spec they are.

Now having bought a battery from a scrappy that turned out to be duff, I don't want to have my fingers burnt again by buying four tyres that then cause the MOT to fail, to then have to find four more expensive replacements! Call me skeptical, but rightly or wrongly i have a tendency to take what a garage tells me with a pinch of salt...

However KwikFit contradicts this:

"The nominated MOT tester will check the vehicle's wheels and tyres for a number of key points: the condition, security, tyre size and type and tread depth."

So answers on a postcard please... if any of you know a mechanic please ask and help us out!

UPDATE:

Here's the MOT Testers manual which doesn't seem to state that the tyre's size is an issue - providing they're the same on each axle. There is no 'reason for rejection' for having tyre size that doesn't match the recommendation:

http://www.motuk.co.uk/manual_410.htm

So does this mean we're ok to get the 185's?

New Battery on its way

Good news - a brand spanking new 096 Car Battery is on it's way to Tim's workplace, courtesy of ALPHA BATTERIES in Rochdale, Lancs.

I spotted their advert on eBay the other day (which had a very good price to begin with) and sent them a 'best offer', explaining our mission to Rome and our somewhat limited budget.  Chris at ALPHA BATTERIES took pity on us and agreed to accept our 'ridiculous' offer in exchange for a bit of free advertising, providing I don't mention the price and put him out of business (suffice to say it beat's Halford's price by a country mile and includes delivery!).

So just to ram home the message, and thank Chris one more time - if you ever need a new battery, use ALPHA BATTERIES ;)

Day 11: eSpace arrives at new home

Ok here's the latest - despite being on charge for 72 hours the battery we got from the scrap yard still failed to start the eSpace. So with much reluctance it looks like it'll be get getting ditched and put 'down to experience' as they say... :(

The 'potential good news' I spoke about in a previous post never fully materialised (there was a slim chance of getting a free battery via a sponsorship deal) but a VW dealer my uncle (Danny) knows could do it for cost at £45 + VAT (£53 all in) which is still a saving of £40 on the RRP and marginally better than www.batman.co.uk which was our previous best. Danny's also got another 'iron in the fire' with another of his mates so we hope to hear by the end of today if he can source one any cheaper.

So back to the eSpace, we push started her last night after work (we're both still amazed how easy it is!) and got her running ok(minus a battery). Then we took her to her new home round the back of Tim's house.

Hannah (my sister and Tim's girlfriend - which is how we met) was less than impressed at the site of it parked outside her house and presumably the thought it won't move till the end of September ;) Sadly I wasn't quick enough with the camera to get a shot of her expression - suffice to say it was picture! Her main comments were 'er' (x10), 'it's minging' followed by 'its huge' and finally 'I don't like it'.

As you can probably tell she's not entirely 'on board' with our 'buying a banger, doing it up and driving it to Rome on a jolly' plan yet.

Here's a quick video showing the eSpace in her new home, along with the exterior paint/trim quality inspection...

Plan for the days ahead...

We still need to get the battery obviously, but in the meantime Tim's going to get his pressure washer underneath and clean off all the grime and mud from the underside of the engine bay so we can actually see what we're looking at.

Unfortunately I'm at Cornbury music festival over the weekend so we can't start our 'bible' inspired pre-pre-MOT check (as its a two-man job) but that will begin in earnest next week.

Locking passenger door

All old cars have a bit of what their proud owners describe as 'character', and our eSpace is no different. To begin with we thought that the passenger door's lock was broken, until we discovered we were 'doing it all wrong'. The video below shows how we have to lock the passenger door...

See it's simple really, you just lock it, try and open it, push it shut and try again... easy when you know how ;)