SPAREZ OR REPAIRZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111111111111

[JayW]

Well, after greasing his palm with a purple piece of paper, said AA man hung around for an hour & half to assist the changing of the strut and ran me to a factors for more LHM.

All repaired and made it home fine under it's own steam.

Thanks to Will, the car's stunning!

More tomorrow, it's late and i'm tired!

[Mickey taker]

glad you made it home safe

[Paul296]

Good call Jay. That is a nice looking car - I LIKE Athenas! And it has a nice new glove box 'cus I just sent him one.

[JayW]

Originally it was only going to be a stop-gap and sell on to another enthusiast to recoup costs, but now it's going nowhere!

I didn't take any tools as I was planning to get the AA to bring me back, I did however luckily bother to get the spares I expected to need from the garage, good job i did!

Took it down the road, rang the AA, an hour later the (actually genuinely very useful for a change) chap turned up. I produce the spare strut from the boot and we spent about 90 minutes rolling around on the floor fitting it, he then gave me a lift to the factors for more LHM & job done. Gave him 20 quid for his effort, he could have easily said "it's a recovery job” at any point, especially after smashing his hand up trying to chisel the nut off the spare strut!

She drove home fine @ 70mph averaging 40mpg! Can’t complain!

A few little bits to do, there’s a couple of very perished water hoses in dire need or replacement, a strong whiff of petrol constantly and I need to trace the air leak in the fuel line. You can see the air bubbles being drawn up through the (clear) fuel line even when using the electric add-on pump so it’s probably letting in at the pick-up in the tank. Shouldn’t be too hard to trace.

Asside from that, the body is 99% unmarked, only a tiny amount of rust in the usual places, the interior is like new and a very nice all-black fabric, everything works, even the heater controls are free & smooth! Nice colour-coded bumpers, headlight protectors, full gen flaps and a tailblazer! And at 78k she’s got plenty of life left!

In all, very VERY happy with it! I have a feeling it might be making its way to a few shows. Will’s done a good job of looking after it & preserving it, I know how hard it can be to keep a car scrape-free up there!

Will be sticking it in for MOT in a couple of weeks, whatever it needs it’ll get. It’s certainly worth throwing a few quid at.

Want to get shot of the Speedlines, don’t like them, gonna put the steelies off the TGD on it and at the same time I have to sell, break, scrap the TGD turbo, need the parking space for the Nissan!

[Caffiend]

- I love happy endings!

[Tim Leech]

The Athena does look great, I saw that car when it was owned by lingeist and a lovely examaple it is too.

[Paul296]

Nice one. I love Athenas and that sounds like a really good one. I still get all maudlin when I think about my old one (RIP boo hoo sniff sniff etc. etc.)

[Willy]

Re things...

Those Speedlines have had something of a chequered past - I've managed to trace them to at least three previous owners! I think it was djoptix who said they were so badly kerbed he had to grind down the rims (hence the somewhat questionable appearance) to make them look acceptable. Shame they're not your taste though, I loved them.

Good luck with the fuelling issues, that managed to perplex me for a good year, can't think of much else that bothered me except that the front HC can be quite disobedient sometimes.

Oh and sorry if it was a bit messy, I tent to eat in the car a lot and the outside hadn't been cleaned in a couple of months, including the OSR bird craps as I often park under trees

I've e-documented all my expenses and ownership has cost me 36p/mile, not bad considering a new Fiesta is 40ppm excluding insurance.

Oo and if anyone's interested this is what the ex-BXer now drives:



Felt a bit guilty handing over Jay just the V5 and few old MOTs when that came with a whole ring-binder of history. 140k miles has featured amongst other things thirty oil changes, six timing belts and three autochoke units - hopefully it'll last a little longer!

[Tim Leech]

A justy! Lordy

[JayW]

Will, this was practically a palace inside compared to the way my cars usually end up!

All the bird craps are long gone... Cleaned & polished it this morning

As ffor the wheels, i'd never have noticed if you hadn't mentioned it! I had a good look at them this morning and didn't notice anything (apart from the one that needs the centre resprayed obviously) Now i'm looking for it i can just see what you mean, but in fairness, if he did that with a grinder he's done a bloody good job!

[Dollywobbler]

Great, heart-warming stuff. Willy - don't think you're due any guilt at the asking price! Well done to Jay for an epic rescue. Roadside repair FTW!