Here we go then. On Monday the 16th I went to work in the morning and then discovered I had to leave early as a delivery of young lylandii arrived that needed planting asap. Not ideal having to do gardening just before my test day but I left work at 2pm and got that done and out the way. Next I needed to pick up my wife from work and then the kids from school. We are a one car family so this had to be done before I went off to Bradford to pick up the car transporter. I left at about 3:30pm with my eldest son (11) for company.
The drive was ok it was 80 miles, but most of it was M62. It’s the highest motorway in England so you get a lot of traffic speed variation due to the climbs and descent. I bloody hate it and have driven it lots as I used to go to Leeds Uni and travelled it back and forth a lot by car between there and Liverpool way. Bradford traffic was just gridlock between the M606 and the transporter location, but TomTom got us there at around 5:30pm.
Pali was the owner of the transporter and we quickly did the paperwork and loaded up my car onto the back of it. He showed me the ropes, literally, told me a few do’s and don’ts and we were off back to the motorway. Hire cost was £105 with a £250 excess on the insurance, I also left a deposit of £100 just incase the fuel was low on return.
Return journey was uneventful apart from my son introducing me to KFC at the services. We chatted most the way home in the slow lane doing about 50mph. Everytime we went over a bump my son couldn’t help but keep checking the car was still there. I felt like I was being really badly tailgated by own car. The handbrake on this thing had about 2ft of travel and the gear stick, I noticed, was the perfect replica of horses erect penis!
So home we arrived about 8:00pm I think. Eventually I got it reversed in outside the house on our unusually wide driveway. Unloading went smoothly with an audience of my family out the kitchen window. With the family car now out the way it was time to empty the garage! I had gone through everything I might need or even ,wouldn’t ever possibly need but you never know, and had organised it into boxes. I even took the CO2 fire extinguisher, the original steering wheel from the MX5, my soldering iron, a bottle of butane, literally every tool I had used in building the car apart from the welder. Which I probably would of took too, if I could of. So all of this fitted on the passenger seats and floor and I could still about change gear and use the handbrake.
Now it was time to load up my pride and joy. I asked the missus to help me get it lined up but it was getting close to her bedtime (8:30pm). Loading went smoothly the sump just cleared and it was on. Apply handbrake, drop clutch, put it in first, engine off. Make sure the handbrake is on good and tight. SNAP! WTF I just snapped my handbrake cable. M*****************R!!!!!! To much adrenaline pumping through my system and I’d managed to break the cable that goes from the handbrake to the cables for each of the rear wheels. Now I had a long history with this handbrake setup, I was never happy with it. I’d positioned the handbrake so that I wouldn’t need to shorten any cables, or I thought I had. The plate that positions the two rear caliper cables could of done with being 20mm further back because although the handbrake worked I had no adjustment left at the handbrake end I had to just wind the caliper pistons in very close the the discs. Not ideal! i had a lot of travel in the lever itself and I wasn’t happy with it or the potential for drag in the off position. So I read up and decided to shorten the cable I did this at the HB (handbrake) end as the other end required a lot more work. This was not a good idea I’d cut the cable slotted the thingy and welded the cable into the slot. This is were it had failed due to fatigue, there’s a reason they don’t come from the factory welded, I know that now! So I’m up s***t creek, but I might just have a paddle! Me being me I ordered a brand new HB cable and left it in the bag for resale if I didn’t need it. Even though I was probably, in my mind, now going to now fail on the HB, I needed to get the car there for the test and needed the HB to load it on the transporter! So 9:30pm at night I’m outside in the dark, thank good I sorted out the outside lights, fitting a new cable and adjusting the brakes. 10:30pm I’m reloading on my own this time.
All strapped down and all the kit back in the cab it was time to put the rain cover on, as of course I wasn’t going to get away with a rain free 24hrs. Took ages but by 11:30pm I was all locked up and the family car was guarding the driveway entrance and I was in the house making sandwiches and having a beer to switch off my racing mind. I went to bed at 1:30pm but was going to have to be up early.
To Be Continued ………………….. (just like Top Gear Haha)
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