Heard from Martin earlier this afternoon, scrub that, looking at the time it is now, yesterday afternoon, and he's told me that it's all done, and he's sending it back post haste. For me that brings about a whole new meaning for man-love! 
Tricked out Almera GTI
- Thread starter Redtop-155
- Start date
As much as I would like to say yes to that Spook, I fear that the answer will probably be no. By the time I get the loom, and ecu back ,and get the rest of the wiring done, I reckon the weekend will be fast approaching. I think time will be against getting any video done this week, however all being well, I should be able to post some possibly on Sunday, or early next week. So I'm afraid at the moment, it's got to be "watch this space."Glad he was able to help mate. So you'll be posting a video up this week then?
Why do I feel like I've been this way before? Last Sunday Martin told me that my loom was done, yipee! Asked for my Paypal email address and told me how much! 
Waited till Tuesday and was still waiting for the invoice, so I phoned. Oops he sent my invoice to the wrong address! 
Got the invoice and paid straight away on Tuesday, and Martin said that he would get it sent back to me. Wednesday I asked for the tracking number and started to chase it. Later on in the day I spoke with someone at Parcel-force and they told me it would be with me on Saturday 
. Okay, but it don't leave me much time to finish the car off, get the loom installed and ready to race on Sunday. 1pm Saturday the post has been delivered, but there's still no sign of the loom, so I phoned Parcel-force, or should I say Parcel-Farce, where someone that sounded like a 14 year old boy, started to explain to me that I was sent on Wednesday 48hr delivery, The 48hrs starts the day after it was collected, and finishes on the day after the 48hrs is up which would be Saturday, but they don't deliver on Saturdays, so it would be with me on Tuesday, so keeping my calm I said no problem, I'll go down the depot and collect it. Apparently I cant do that, cos the fucking Parcel- Farce depot closed at 12:30.
After I had explained to this little boy all about where he came from, his ancestors and had wished upon him, all the worst that the world could bestow, I hung up, then stuck my head in the oven to gas myself. I swear she never told me that the oven was electric, so I'm still here, but my fucking wiring loom isn't! On the bright side, I've only missed a double meeting this weekend, so I think I can kiss the championship goodbye, and now I'm really, really pissed off with the car. So If anyone fancies having a go I have a complete outfit for sale. Race car (running), 1 year old tandem axle 2.7tonne trailer and a Jeep Grand Cherokee to pull it with £15.000 the lot. The Jeep is a 56 plate car, just done 80k miles, new MOT, 2 sets wheels, and tyres (1set of wheels and tyres from a 2012 Jeep wrangler.) and a towbar, with dual electrics, so if anyone's interested let me know. I will chuck some video up, once I get the cowbag running.
Asked for my Paypal email address and told me how much! Waited till Tuesday and was still waiting for the invoice, so I phoned. Oops he sent my invoice to the wrong address! Got the invoice and paid straight away on Tuesday, and Martin said that he would get it sent back to me. Wednesday I asked for the tracking number and started to chase it. Later on in the day I spoke with someone at Parcel-force and they told me it would be with me on Saturday . Okay, but it don't leave me much time to finish the car off, get the loom installed and ready to race on Sunday. 1pm Saturday the post has been delivered, but there's still no sign of the loom, so I phoned Parcel-force, or should I say Parcel-Farce, where someone that sounded like a 14 year old boy, started to explain to me that I was sent on Wednesday 48hr delivery, The 48hrs starts the day after it was collected, and finishes on the day after the 48hrs is up which would be Saturday, but they don't deliver on Saturdays, so it would be with me on Tuesday, so keeping my calm I said no problem, I'll go down the depot and collect it. Apparently I cant do that, cos the fucking Parcel- Farce depot closed at 12:30. After I had explained to this little boy all about where he came from, his ancestors and had wished upon him, all the worst that the world could bestow, I hung up, then stuck my head in the oven to gas myself. I swear she never told me that the oven was electric, so I'm still here, but my fucking wiring loom isn't! On the bright side, I've only missed a double meeting this weekend, so I think I can kiss the championship goodbye, and now I'm really, really pissed off with the car. So If anyone fancies having a go I have a complete outfit for sale. Race car (running), 1 year old tandem axle 2.7tonne trailer and a Jeep Grand Cherokee to pull it with £15.000 the lot. The Jeep is a 56 plate car, just done 80k miles, new MOT, 2 sets wheels, and tyres (1set of wheels and tyres from a 2012 Jeep wrangler.) and a towbar, with dual electrics, so if anyone's interested let me know. I will chuck some video up, once I get the cowbag running.Thanks Spook, but unfortunately that isn't the end to it all. My landlady has decided to sell the house we rent, and my wife wants to buy somewhere, rather than rent again. Which all sounds fine, and well until you realise, that my Jeep, race-car, and trailer are my deposit.
Who knows? It's late, I spent the whole day at the track helping out other drivers, got a few bevvies down my neck and now I'm just feeling really, really pissed off. Tomorrow's another day though, so maybe. Or then again, maybe I'll just get myself another Almera 2.0 GTI and stuff a 5+ litre V8 up it for shits and giggles, then bring it to the club shindigs at Avon Park, cos as they say in race circles, "There's no Replacement for Displacement"
Who the fuck uses parcel force for anything important?
UPS are the only halfway reliable couriers (not perfect but way better than the rest). DHL are OK but Parcel Force, UK-Mail, Yodel and so on are a joke. The courier industry is still in the 80's.. most of them have places the don't deliver to at weekend and holidays and restricted hours at those times.
They haven't quite twigged that the only thing that will keep them going in the next (previous?) decade is Internet sales and people expect Internet sales delivery to be 24/7/365.
How much would it cost to have one dude on the collections desk at 2am? Don't tell me the building is unstaffed at that time.
Rant over (this dopey shit has screwed time after time).
Sorry to hear about how it messed up your plans. Might sound surprising from me but take a break and buy a house. If you can get a mortgage now is the time. Renting is just giving money away. Mortgage payments are (at least partly) storing it for later. Just make sure there is enough left on the mortgage for a decent daily until you can get a race car together again.*
*I'm assuming she's willing to sacrifice as much as you are being asked to. If not then, of course, rent a batchelor flat and keep the cars.
UPS are the only halfway reliable couriers (not perfect but way better than the rest). DHL are OK but Parcel Force, UK-Mail, Yodel and so on are a joke. The courier industry is still in the 80's.. most of them have places the don't deliver to at weekend and holidays and restricted hours at those times.
They haven't quite twigged that the only thing that will keep them going in the next (previous?) decade is Internet sales and people expect Internet sales delivery to be 24/7/365.
How much would it cost to have one dude on the collections desk at 2am? Don't tell me the building is unstaffed at that time.
Rant over (this dopey shit has screwed time after time).
Sorry to hear about how it messed up your plans. Might sound surprising from me but take a break and buy a house. If you can get a mortgage now is the time. Renting is just giving money away. Mortgage payments are (at least partly) storing it for later. Just make sure there is enough left on the mortgage for a decent daily until you can get a race car together again.*
*I'm assuming she's willing to sacrifice as much as you are being asked to. If not then, of course, rent a batchelor flat and keep the cars.
Lol, if I did Chunky, I'd have to get myself the bachelor pad to go with it, cos you can bet that she'd kick my arse out!
Hey Chunky, any chance you could get some pics of the de-natting Martin did to your ECU? I'd really like to get a shot at de-natting 1, cos it really pisses me off spending money, on something I think I could do myself.
Got all my shit back from Martin now, so I'm going to try and run it at Tongham on Sunday the 2nd, so fingers crossed for the video.
Its alive, muhahaha.
Martin played a blinder, and came through just as you guys predicted, so thank you one and all. I was going to race at Tongham today, but unfortunately it didn't happen. A friend who helped me out with the wiring, (cos all I hear when people talk car electrics to me is blah, blah, blah blah) and finally got it running, is also building a special, and we worked from 7am through to 3am 4 days straight on his car, to try to get them both ready in time, but gave up at 5am this morning. We were on the home straight when we realised that we hadn't got the clutch, gear linkage, gear stick, or throttle accounted for.
The final jobs we thought were the wiring, cooling system, and fuel system, until we realised we'd missed the other jobs. Probably due to exhaustion, but we just didn't have the time to get it ready and get to Tongham before scrutaneering ended at 09:30. I also have a stinking cold, and felt like shit, so we took the only course of action we could at that time in the morning, and opened a few cold ones before going to bed (not together).
I did have one laugh at about 2am on the morning we finally got mine going though. My mate Gareth wired the loom in as per Martin's instructions, while I worked on the fabrication of his class 8 (Fireblade engined grass tracker (photos and vids to come soon)). At 2am Gareth called me over to my car, and told me we were ready to give it a try. Bearing in mind the engine has not showed even the remotest signs of life in about 6 months (since I accidentally stuck a crowbar through the immobiliser ecu, as I was gently persuading the dash to come out of the Almera.
).
He had number 1 out to see if we got a spark, but it was still over the hole. Contact he said, so with fingers crossed, I hit the starter.
What happened next is a memory that I will treasure to my dying day. Martin was as good as his word and you guys predictions. Not only did we have a spark, but also a 4 foot flame out of number 1 as petrol residue was forced out of the cylinder and directly into the beautiful blue spark. Gareth lost his eyebrows and I laughed so much, I was in danger of expiring with a heart attack, before I even got to race it.
Pissed that I missed another race meeting, and we're almost halfway through the season before I even get to race my class 9, but I'm so fucking pleased it's finally running. We have access to a small test track so all being well I should be able to get some video later this week of the 2 cars and then we are going to race Borne, this coming weekend.
Thanks for all the interest you guys have shown in my project, and for all the advice you given, and If I decide to build another one you can rest assured, that I will build something slightly less complicated next time out. I wonder how easy it would be to get a Ferrari engined one going?
Thank you all and goodnight, though if any of you play Call of Duty Black Ops 2 on the pc, look me up, cos it looks as if I'm going to have the time to get a bit of gaming in now. DW>Tommo
Martin played a blinder, and came through just as you guys predicted, so thank you one and all. I was going to race at Tongham today, but unfortunately it didn't happen. A friend who helped me out with the wiring, (cos all I hear when people talk car electrics to me is blah, blah, blah blah
) and finally got it running, is also building a special, and we worked from 7am through to 3am 4 days straight on his car, to try to get them both ready in time, but gave up at 5am this morning. We were on the home straight when we realised that we hadn't got the clutch, gear linkage, gear stick, or throttle accounted for.The final jobs we thought were the wiring, cooling system, and fuel system, until we realised we'd missed the other jobs. Probably due to exhaustion, but we just didn't have the time to get it ready and get to Tongham before scrutaneering ended at 09:30. I also have a stinking cold, and felt like shit, so we took the only course of action we could at that time in the morning, and opened a few cold ones before going to bed (not together
). I did have one laugh at about 2am on the morning we finally got mine going though. My mate Gareth wired the loom in as per Martin's instructions, while I worked on the fabrication of his class 8 (Fireblade engined grass tracker (photos and vids to come soon)). At 2am Gareth called me over to my car, and told me we were ready to give it a try. Bearing in mind the engine has not showed even the remotest signs of life in about 6 months (since I accidentally stuck a crowbar through the immobiliser ecu, as I was gently persuading the dash to come out of the Almera.
).He had number 1 out to see if we got a spark, but it was still over the hole. Contact he said, so with fingers crossed, I hit the starter.
What happened next is a memory that I will treasure to my dying day. Martin was as good as his word and you guys predictions. Not only did we have a spark, but also a 4 foot flame out of number 1 as petrol residue was forced out of the cylinder and directly into the beautiful blue spark. Gareth lost his eyebrows and I laughed so much, I was in danger of expiring with a heart attack, before I even got to race it.
Pissed that I missed another race meeting, and we're almost halfway through the season before I even get to race my class 9, but I'm so fucking pleased it's finally running
. We have access to a small test track so all being well I should be able to get some video later this week of the 2 cars and then we are going to race Borne, this coming weekend.Thanks for all the interest you guys have shown in my project, and for all the advice you given, and If I decide to build another one you can rest assured, that I will build something slightly less complicated next time out. I wonder how easy it would be to get a Ferrari engined one going
?Thank you all and goodnight, though if any of you play Call of Duty Black Ops 2 on the pc, look me up, cos it looks as if I'm going to have the time to get a bit of gaming in now. DW>Tommo
Yeah I was CoV, but that was probably something to do with the beer goggles view of life at the time. Its a whole different ball game now though, and you're right, fuck its as quick as I'd hopedExcellent news! And you were ready to throw in the towel.
Can't wait to see this thing moving. Bet it will go like stink!
Cheer Spook, I can't wait for this weekend at Borne, and then if it's still in 1 piece, the following Sunday at Tongham