THE WOST KEPT SECRET

As the title says.
The background to the story.when katie was 14 i taught her to drive in my MK3 GT6. She loved the little car but always had an eye for the roundtail.With this in mind i promised i'd buy her one for her 21st birthday ...next Febuary.As good ones are few and far i put the word out that i was looking for one ,Tim B alerted me to an advert for one and i arranged to go look at it one tuesday about a month ago. a few days before the viewing katie rang to see if i was free on that day . The conversation went like this
Katie . what are you doing next tuesday
Me .nowt
Katie . do you fancy doing something
Me . nope , going out for the day
Katie . where you going
me . nowhere really , just out
katie . has it got something to do with a promise you made about a date in febuary
me . eerrrr no
that was the end i thought till she rang up on the afore mentioned tuesday and asked if i wanted her to make me a sandwhich to take on my trip to look at the car ..Bugger , i'm rumbled...''do you want to come then '' says i YES came the reply
The long and the short of it is that we went to look at it ,she test drove it and it was such i nice car that i bought it
The above pic is courtesy of andy farmer photography who took it at oulton park where katie did her 1st ever track day in it
The car is pretty much bog standard and will remain that way ..a few minor things will be done ,
But now she has joined the elite 6pot club.
I must say ,as much as i like the little herald , it is nice to drive a GT6 again

hole in my herald

there's a hole in my herald...after the PCT i took the engine out

A , so i could look at the clutch..which was on it's way

out and B to make way for a new engine.

new engine is going to be made up of bits i have, i took the block in last monday ..to be bored out

to match some pistons i have..On a 4 day turn round ,they said, funnily enough i haven't got the

block back.so today ,that was going to be spent putting engine together again has been taken up

with fitting poly steering rack bushes and a thicker anti roll bar .Plus i have been stripping bits

off the engine i took out , ready to put on the new one. Only thing is the car is entered in an

event next sunday, so it's going to be a bit tight for time..we can always do the event in the

modern , but not quite the same...but the engine needs to be in and ready for the 11th oct as

i'm entered into the oxford MC autosolo in it.Katie's driving Tim Bs GT6 again

Stiff my ride and bounce Berrick bounce

Finally got round to trying to stiffen the front end of the herald up , using some 480lb springs and some spax shocks, that i've had for a while. certainly has sharpened the cornering up ,not such a comfy ride but hey ho
Also did a production car trial today...the aim of which is to drive up a course ,set on a hill, the futher you get up the course the fewer penalties you get.There was a total of 12 test with 2 runs at each .The person with the fewest penalties wins. If you manage to drive the whole course you get a 0 penalty..Simple? no...You get to take a passenger who can bounce up and down in the car to increase traction.Enter Mr berrick , who did a grand job in the back of the herald, even if it did look like something you'd see in a pub car park after closing.. But it did give the herald the extra grip to clear several hills.Some we failed to clear because the herald beached itself on a mound .But we did manage to get 1st in class..beating the other triumph ...not sure of our overall place but we certainly didn't disgrace ourselves..managed to seperate the exhaust at one point but that was fixed..so not a bad day really

This weekend i are mainly fettling

Been doing a few little jobs this weekend.The other day the ignition switch decided to be female and only do what it's supposed to when it felt like it.so a trip to winns and a new one was bought , fitted ,that jobs a goodun. Also had to pick up a replacemant horn center for my mota lita steering wheel as the old one had self destructed.A connecting wire had to be added but that works a treat as well.Then a bit of re-angling of the spot lights, so they point down the road

Yesterday morning i picked [or should i say had to wake ] katie up at 8am to pop to a local boot sale ,to look for an electric lawn mower ,as the house she and her boyfriend have moved into has a tiny lawn in need of attention.We found a nearly new one for a tenner, it works a treat too. On the way back from there we popped into the local festival of transport for a nose.On one of the autojumble stands was an old ladies bike ..not bad nick ,so we bought that ..a tenner.tyres were flat so we borroweed a pump from a chap with some bikes on display and katie rode it homeWith a bit of research , turns out the bike is from 1938 .So for a tenner and a quick clean she's got a 71 year old useable bike with gears. On another stand was a motorbike called a Douglas Dragonfly ...not really into bikes, but this was nice , but already sold so not meant to be
There were lots of shiny cars there but not my style...i think the best thing i've seen recently is an old chevy from the 20's proper gangster stuff..on it's number plate it reads ''insured by the mafia, you hit me we hit you''

mmm

blog disapeared from c t listing ,something i did or just eletrickery at work see if this one works

Mal Du Nav

Last night i naved for Michael Helm [in his TR6] on the ERMC 20-20 rally ,so called as it had a max 20 entries and there would be 20 time controls.It was what i call a DLC [drive like crazy] rally as it was plot and bash. You didn't get your route in advance but as you started each section and you would have to average 30mph , so if it was a 5 mile section this would give you ten minutes to drive and plot it.We started off Ok , the only prob being that i found it very difficult to plot on the move as the TR6 was a very lively ride, especialy on the bumpy roads of the romney marsh. Before we started the rally ,Michael had asked me if i suffered from car sickness or ''mal du nav'' , ''ive never been carsick'' replied i. That was untill last night .between the combination of the lively ride the bumpy roads and the speed of the event i ended up hurling up my dinner by the 3rd check point.. not a pretty sight.So we lost a bit of time due to that and Michael then slowed down to help me not repeat it .The nav clues weren't too bad but due to that and me having to get Michael to read them out to me so i could plot faster we lost time here and there, but we did manage to finish Ok and the final result was we came 15th overall with only 2 fails and our lost time. There were 3 winning crews who ''cleaned'' the course with no fails and no minutes late. And we were the highest placed classic with the only other retiring . So apart from a revisit from my dinner it was quite a fun night

spots

Bought some spots for the herald ages ago but

always struggled to decide what bracket to fit,

till i found a pair on ebay at a good price .Made for a herald as well.Had a trial fit this morning to decide how they would go. i like the lower one better, so prob will do them that way. Just got to wire them up then [via relay] .and adjust to best angle.

Also fitted a couple of new horns the other day..only prob is couldn't get both to work ...either one or the other would..Started looking at earths and noticed the steering column

joint was missing it's earth.so after a bit of fiddling one was fitted ...still no joy.Then i went with a new bit of wire trying to earth out various bits and still no joy.Than i decided to take the steering wheel off and look there.The contacts on the wheel were filthy , after a good clean .hey presto ...a pair of new horns

Went to the TSSC show at stafford last weekend ...took some autojumble up and sold quite a few bits , also bought a few as well....a pair of uprated front springs for the herald....see if i can stiffen the front end up and stop Katie lifting a rear wheel a foot of the ground on tests. and a spares gearbox for a tenner,plus a couple of original workshop manuals.but still came home with cash in pocket

Been doing some gym work in a attempt to get fit again after recent events ..going well apart from falling off one of the machines...muppit

been a while

It's been a while since i updated my blog.For a number of reasons...busy with life , driving the car etc.That took a bit of a turn in Feb when someone [talking on his phone] took me out on the M25 .After leaving hospital at the end of april ,it was a massive effort to even walk let alone anything else.But with the help of the ''essex boys'' less than 48hrs after leaving hospital i'd bought a herald [unseen] on ebay

Michael Helm then brought the new car and the crashed one home and work began to strip the crashed one and put the new one back on the road after a 3 year absence.

It was clear early on that i was in worse shape than i'd thought, and whilst enjoyable, i was struggling to do some of the physical stuff. The lads from the Gatwick group came to the rescue and came down one sat morning to swop engine and gearbox over.In 3 1/2 hrs the engine/box was in, prop shaft and exhaust fitted and the car was running .Thanks lads..all i did was make the tea and bacon sarnies

Then followed the change of the interior for the nice tan one and ,with the help of Clive, well he did all the welding, the boot floor and rear outriggers were mended.he even drove the car to the MOT station for me and the thing passed

The car passed it's MOT on the wednesday and then Katie and me went to Norfolk on the friday for the eastanglian classic on the sat.We were doing not bad, the car was flying in the tests and my nav wasn't too bad for a bloke with a bang on the head. Then ,whilst in the queue for one test, the bloody wiring loom caught fire ,that was us out and a trip home on a tow truck

i fitted the loom from the other car...took a few days to sort out the wiring that didn't match any diagram or burnt loom but it's fine now and has done two events since.I even drove my first one [an autogynkhana] and was 5th overall

i have fitted a fuse box , so hopefully no more loom fires.still a few jobs left to do to get the car where the other one was but now i've resurected this i can keep tabs on what i've done and what's left to do