2024 drawing to a close! The little car looks just as good as ever. There have been a few small issues since my last post 4 years ago. The left front wing weld has broken four or five times. It's now held in place by a bungee cord which is actually a very good damper against vibration. I need to find a solution that consists of a thick rubber washer between the ball joint and the wing bracket, but I believe the ball joint bolt is not long enough. Will have to look into it. But this is how it looks at the moment.
I made the big mistake of not checking the water level in the radiator and had a hose cap fail due to over heating while out driving. I first checked the oil and there were no signs of water so that was a big relief. The outlet pipe which is connected to the water pump feeds water to the heater and the air conditioning system. In the GKD the air conditioning outlet has to be blocked off with a cap.
It's happened once before but I only used a rubber cap. This time I replaced the cap with an aluminium plug and a new cap. Filled up with water, checked oil etc. But the engine ran really rough. Slight panic set in but then I noticed that the coil-over bracket (holds all four spark plug coils and cables in place) was loose at one end! Just to check I took the coil over bracket away and noticed that two spark plugs were covered in water (radiator water that had splashed up during the boil over)
Cleaned out the water, cleaned the plugs and put everything back. Thank goodness the issue was solved.
Out today 29th September for Coffee at Rosenhill - Must have been cold as all the cyclists and bikers were inside and me - outside!
To do list:
Winter Service
1) Oil/Filter change
2) New injectors
3) New plugs
4) Fix wing(?)
5) Brake check.
I need to remember to put the car up on blocks to stop the tyres going flat!
