collect car tomorrow -

 after the sills have been replaced.. Kinda nervous about how it looks but dont have time to be. MOT booked Monday so it's all fingers crossed and then onwards and upwards. Well, maybe more sideways with the way the weather has been.. snow, ice and general freezing conditions. Oh and rain, did I mention the constant rain :(

er it's been a while..

 and the new layout is shocking! Why change things that don't need changing into something that's a mess! grrr

Anyways, MOT looming so list of things
new windscreen - done
new rear tyres - fitted tomorrow Falken 453's - couldn't afford anything better, see below
new sills - Saturday car goes in to the garage for that one :(

weather is terrible but still made it out -

for a wee hurl in the car. Got up nice and early to get petrol only to discover I still had half a tank in the car, woo hoo result! Drove straight to the hand wash place, got the car done and off for a wee jaunt I went. Not the greatest weather but I still had some fun and it gave the car a run. Did I mention the weather is shocking :(

128k miles -

 still raises a smile to drive it, hopefully get a good summer out of the car and then we'll see what happens MOT time November.

motoring part 2: Ford RS Focus -

so having a wee run this morning and a white RS Focus with a private plate pops out in front of me. At first I thought he was just putt putting about but then he went for it and I thought game on!

So, in a straight line I was able to pull a little back on him and into the braking areas I was really on him, though I suspect he was being more cautious and I was using him as my braking marker so easier maybe for me? He was pretty quick out of the corners and gained a bit which I then pulled back under power and again into the braking. Neither of us were going to overtake the other as that would be silly speeds and so not worth the risk on a road that wasn't suitable.

No idea what his car was running other than a private plate with 300 in the reg, big exhaust and gleaming white. Was a nice car I have to say and it certainly shifted ok. He didn't leave me behind either so I'm happy enough. When I turned off the road I gave him a flash of the lights and a wave :)

vtec.... snigger hehe

 now don't get me wrong, VTEC is a wonderful engineering masterpiece but it's not the silver bullet for every possible motoring situation. Take today, Civic Type R 56 plate and he's motoring along til gets held up by slower traffic. So I'm behind him patiently waiting my turn to overtake the Sunday driver and suddenly Type R goes for it. I follow straight away and keep my foot in it. Type R stays on the other side of the raod and doesn't pull back in, I'm now feathering the throttle as I've caught him up. Type R pulls over after a gear change that frankly I'd be ashamed of and I plant the throttle again. Result - I pull clear of him and fire some VPower at him on my gearshift (one of my better ones!)

Is my car better, clearly not. His is newer and handles way better but no amount of gearing and clever  valve technology is going to make 140ftlb outdrag 250ftlb when the vehicles in question weigh near enough the same.

cambelt replaced -

 so that's one thing less to worry about. Sadly the sill didn't like the weight of the car being rested on it and it er failed :( I suspected it wasn't repaired properly and it's just proven it so ho hum another job required. The joys of older car ownership.

On the plus side I got the handbrake sorted or at least we established why it wasn't working even with the BBK on. Turns out the wrong handbrake cables were fitted, rev1 instead of rev2+ and the rev1 units are shorter and to get them to fit the return spring was moved and clipped on to the edge of the bracket not into it's slot. The adjuster was also at the shortest point..... you'd have thought that would have been noticed at the time of replacement... oh and the fact the handbrake cables have different colours of bands on them... sorted now lol.

that'll be a new windscreen then -

 a fair sized crack just under the wiper arms, which is my excuse for not noticing it before :( I'll see if it survives til nearer the MOT time as I'm oging to try and get a few drives in this year so no point in a brand new windscreen til after then.

so it's that time of (almost) every cars life..

.. when the cambelt / timing belt needs a bit of TLC and that time is now. 5yrs since it was last done and that means I've owned this car for nearly eleven years! That's a long time for anything to stay the same and I have to say while it's not as fresh as the first day I drove it, dammit it still makes me smile and raises the pulse whenever I want it to!

So I'm heading down to SBits in a couple of weeks for it to be done, 4yrs, 11 months and 2wks since it was last done.. at least Peter can't complain about the last person to do the belt change lol