[Jeroen]

I took the Spider to a local MOT station. I have been using their services before, so they were quite happy to put the Spider on the brake test bench. Very small deviations between left and right. The guys tell me I should not even notice that when braking. But there is definitely a small pull to the right.

Not quite sure what to do. I will probably just clean all the brakes and adjust the front brake pistons. They have to be fitted in a special orientation and over time that tends to shift. Next I might have to inspect some of the suspension components. More to come.

I have taken this whole week off from work. We had American friends staying with us for a couple of days. They wanted to see all typical Dutch sights. So we took them everywhere in the W123. One of those typical Dutch sights is the Keukenhof to see the tulips. And boy did they see a lot of tulips:







But we also came across this particular arrangement. Not quite sure how Dutch this is. It is very rare to see old abandoned cars in the Netherlands. But they have their usages as is shown here; you can grow tulips from them,





Next was to see Kinderdijk. The only place in the Netherlands, where you can see 19 (working) traditional windmills within a few kilometers of each other:



Always nice to have friends around. They left yesterday and that meant I could spend the rest of the day blasting around the Netherlands by myself in my Spider.

A few impressions:

With the Spider on one of the many, many little ferries to cross a river/canal:



Parked at one of the many marina’s, coffee stop:



Second coffee stop, some 75 km into my drive; Willemstad, a nice little old town:



Last one, after which I headed back home. Notice how different the new windmills are from the old, traditional, ones!

[Jeroen]

Earlier this week, the various steel bits I ordered arrived. All bundled up. Interestingly, the driver was really struggling to carry it down our drive. He was complaining bitterly. The paperwork said it weighted 30 kg. He told me, that it was much heavier, but the company always put 30 kg on it. Because apparently, anything under 30 kg he is supposed to handle all by himself. Over 30 kg it requires a second guy!



I ordered it all on line. They cut it to the exact dimensions you specify. Very convenient. Now all I have to do is weld it together!



I also paid a visit to my favourite tool shop again. Actually, next door to it, is a huge bicycle store and I needed two new tires for my bike. Done almost 7500 km on the current set. What with the spring really started I thought I better get some new tires fitted. I always carry a leak repair set with me and it isn’t a big job on my bicycle as I can easily remove each wheel in under 30 seconds, but still. My experience is that you always get a puncture when you don’t need it. E.g. your wife has just called and she needs you home urgently, or it has just started pouring. Better safe than sorry.

But of course, whilst at the bicycle store I popped round next door to the tool store! A couple of new wire brushes, as they old ones wear out over time. New little hack saw, (the old one, is a very basic “wire” frame, this is a bit more ergonomic). Some large tie wraps. All of this less than Euro 15, which is a real steal.



I really do not need this “spreader”. So far I have always managed, but it costs less than a cup of coffee, so I bought it.



Still need to get a proper set for rear brakes that need winding in.

Got some nice saw blades for my little Dremel;

[Jeroen]

Easter Sunday and another glorious sunny day. Which is not a given in the Netherlands at this time of the year.

So before the kids arrive for their Easter Brunch a quick blast in the Spider. Which in this part of the country usually means a ferry-ride or two as well. Love it, very relaxing. Always people coming to talk to me about (classic) cars as we are waiting.



I also decided to have a quick look at the left front brake. This was the one that gave some problems last year. As the car pulls ever so slightly to the right, I still suspect this brake. So better check.



The brake pistons need to orientated in a very specific way. I have some special calibers to easily check/verify.



Wheels come off



I checked but all seems ok. When re-installing the brake pads apply heat paste (or similar) to the sides of the pads and the back. This will prevent noises. You can still see the indentation of the brake piston and its special orientation.




I had noticed a bit of oil leaking from the front of the Spider. So I had a good look at it whilst it was up on the jack/axle stand. Decided it must come from the left side of the engine somehow.

Removed the air filter and air mass meter to get better access.



The problem with these oil leaks is that it can be difficult to figure out where the leak actually is. Especially with the leaking having gone on for some time. Everything appears to be oily. So I concentrated on three possible causes. The oil filter (which I could tighten by hand a bit further. The dipstick connection to the engine and the oil pressure sensor.



I also noticed that the wire from the dynamo was damaged. It does appear to be the protective (heat) shield only, but I think the wire feels a bit floppy in places as well.



So tomorrow I will see what parts I can get new. Definitely replacing the oil filter, I will have to do something with the wiring, the dipstick has a special seal too. Not sure if that is still available. I cleaned the oil sensor, teflon tape and a copper O-ring sees it good!

To be continued

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Various parts arrived in the past couple of days.



Time to put the Spider back together again.

First things first. I wanted to replace the protective sleeve on the battery wiring. Took quite a bit of googling and some messages on various Facebook forum to find somebody who could supply it. Initially I found a shop in the next village. I bought a meter of the stuff. When I got back home, somebody had posted a reply to my message on Facebook with a suggestion. They had the exact stuff I was looking for. Woven heat resisted protective sleeve.

Here you see the black (that is dirt, original it is white/creme), the grey one I bought initially and the white one, which I actually used



Cut it to the correct length. Put the battery wires through and put a piece of heat shrink on each end to ensure I nice finish. Also, as this stuff is woven it tends to unravel, unless you put something around it.

This looks quite neat!



Next installed it all:



As I mentioned I also decided to replace the oil filter. Here is the new one, nicely with a cellophane wrap around the top, to keep the seal in place and prevent anything from falling into it. When you take off an oil filter, always double check the seal has come off as well.



Made sure the dipstick tube was mounted with some additional sealing too. Everything back together again.



With everything back in place I took the Spider for a quick test drive. Also, I wanted to change the oil as well and it’s better to have the oil and normal operating temperature. On a Spider that means driving around for at least 15 minutes or so. More than 7 liters!

Spider in the oil change position:



Special oil canister underneath to catch all of the old oil



So far everything looks good. No sign of oil leaks!

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Today was Kingsday in the Netherlands. Birthday of our Kings. Always lots to see and do in all towns and villages. Big celebrations all over the country. It’s not that I do not like our Royals, but the weather was foul and I had better things to do.

Like putting my workbench extension together.

The design was done some time ago and based on this I had ordered the steel all pre cut.



My next door neighbour Robert was kind enough to lend me his welding kit. I did try with my little acetylene torch first, but that was not powerful enough. These tubes have walls 3 mm thick. That is a lot of steel that needs heating up.

Robert had a very simple electric welder and some 3.2mm welding rods. An old package that had been left open for several years. That is never good for the quality of the rods. But I managed fine in the end.



I havent welded electrically for at least 27 years or thereabouts. I did do a welding course last year, with my son, but that was MIG welding. Even so, I thought I managed sort of ok-ish.



I moved the Mercedes and the Jaguar out of the garage and I had a thick cover on the Alfa Spider. Welding sparks will make a mess of the paint!

I put some sheets of thin plywood on the floor as well. Electric welding means putting a lot of heat into steel and I was not so sure if my nice epoxy floor would take that. Fire extinguisher on stand by just in case! Windows open to keep fresh air going through the garage.



Took me only 2,5 hours of welding and a bit of grinding to put the frame together



When you are welding, make sure you wear good protective clothing. I always wear a turtle neck and I put my old boiler suit on. A couple of hours electric welding will leave any exposed skin badly burned!!



First fitting:



By about 16.30 I was all done with the welding. Grinded down some welds and put a bit of paint of the welds. Went to our local DIY centre to buy some wood. Some old fashioned sawing to get it to fit exactly



Perfect fit, I have the wooden top fastened with 20 screws from underneath the frame. It ain’t gonna move anymore.

I am quite pleased with how it looks so far:





What is left is to order the steel plate that will go on top, similar to the original work bench.

And of course, I will have to get some machinery to be bolted onto this new workbench addition.

Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

Great work!

Is the burning of exposed skin due to direct heat or to UV?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Is the burning of exposed skin due to direct heat or to UV?

It is typically UV. If you weld with an open shirt or an open boiler suit that leaves a typical V of exposed skin, you are likely to get burned. That's why I wear a turtle neck. My face is behind a mask, hands in heavy duty welding gloves.

Of course, everything gets very hot and by touching the weld or anywhere near it too soon you will get burns due to heat.

It s also the UV that can cause welding eyes if no mask is worn.

Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

I knew about the eyes, I didn't know that the UV even burnt skin! Wow. I also knew that the ard temperature is fantastic: 11,000 degrees. C or F, I forget: does it even matter in the tens of thousands!

(Probably F: most of the videos I watch are made in America.)

[Nempuguru]

Also, good coat of paint, if not painted already.

Neat finish. DIY creations are always special than buying one from market.

Also, if possible cover the open areas using similar sealer/rubber bush, so that insect entry can be blocked. It will enhance the look too. Just my thought.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

And of course, I will have to get some machinery to be bolted onto this new workbench addition.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Nempuguru

Also, good coat of paint, if not painted already.

.

Actually, the old one was not painted and is fine. This garage is bone dry, the metal doesn’t rust. So I am leaving the new extension identical. The only difference is I did spray a bit of paint on the welds. Some of my welds are not that great and the welding rods were pretty poor. So the likely hood of the welds rusting is a bit bigger.

thanks for the suggestion of insect-proofing it. We do not have much problems with insects here, but it’s worth checking

Just ordered the metal top this morning. Should arrive before the weekend.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Here in Europe a few weeks ago, the clocks went to summertime. Although apparently not everybody is in favour of winter/summertime, I love it.

It means that after work I still have several hours of light to go for a ride on my bicycle, work in the garden etc. I am typing this at 21.15 and it is only just turning dusk. Spectacular views from our house;




So an ideal evening, after work/dinner to fiddle a bit with my cars and work in my garage. Put a few more sign up that arrived today by mail.

I had put the Jaguar through the car wash last Sunday. It had gotten very dirty and I did not want to wait until I had time to hose it down myself.

so tonight I took it out to polish a few things. Clean the windows really well, special degreaser. Did a good polish of the interior.



One little job on the Alfa Spider. One of the wind screen washer nozzles was not working properly. Annoying, and in fact also an MOT failure. I noticed some droplets coming out of it, whereas a proper jet of screen washer fluid came out of the other one. Which usually means there is a bit of a block.

So a little trick is to insert a pin into the nozzles and move it about. It is also the way you actually adjust the way and direction it sprays!



Moved it about and sure enough it works fine again! The little pump on this thing is not particularly powerful. Which means that at a standstill you have to aim the spray quite at the top of the windscreen. That will ensure that whilst driving it sort of hits the windscreen more or less in the middled depending on your speed.

The Spider has got quite a few black rubber/plastic parts. Although it looks reasonable ok in images, some of it has gone quite dull, almost grey. I have tried all sorts of stuff on it, to get a nice black shine back. Some products are better than others. But nothing seems to last particularly long.

Even so, I have noticed that cleaning all the rubber/plastic bits really thoroughly with a good decrease or something similar will improve the results. In the sense that the black shine lasts longer.



Tomorrow I will most likely do a proper wash of the Mercedes W123. It really needs a proper wash. Then in the weeks to come I will detail the Spider meticulously. Our trip to France starts on 18th of May. But I will be away, travelling abroad for most of that time. So I need to get in a few hours here and there to be ready in time.



Love to spend just a few hours fiddling with my cars and my stuff in my garage. Very relaxing

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Weather had changed. Cloudy and a bit colder. Still, ideal for washing cars. You do not want to be washing and waxing your cars in bright sunlight.



When it comes to washing/detailling my car, I like to think I do a reasonable job. I have joined a few car wash / detailing groups on Facebook. Since, I have realised I do not even begin to understand the finer points of how to properly wash and detail a car.

As stated before I run my cars through car washes occasionally. This will get you banned immediately from any serious car detailing group. The horror!

I only use one bucket and one sponge. This got me several reprimands.

I thought I had lots of stuff for washing and detailing. But my little collection of bottles and tubes do not match up to the simplest of detailing kit the average car detailer guru has.

I am a sucker for trying out anything new on my car. So I saw the new shampoo;



Although the gurus tell me I might as well rub cow dong on my car, rather than using this stuff, I must admit it worked really well. It really helped preserve the wax layer. Looks at those beads!



End result, good enough for me. Less than an hour and a half. But then I did not have to re-apply wax, so that does help.



The next couple of weeks I will be washing and detailing the Spider prior to our trip to France.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Earlier this week when I was fiddling with my Jaguar I noticed a small chip in the front window. It was not very big but you could see that the layers in the window were beginning to split as well.

Over the years I have had countless of these chips and I have lost count how often I have had them repaired. Last year I had one on the company car too.

I checked with my insurance company first. And as expected, as it is fully comprehensive insured as an old/youngtimer, chips are fully covered. It is very easy. You just make an appointment with the nearest CarGlass location, rock up at the agreed date/time, the fix it and invoice your insurance company directly. Completely hassle free.

So I called Carglass this afternoon to make an appointment. As luck would have it , their local service station had a cancellation and I could come around straight away.

Not sure to what extent window repairs are carried out like this in India. Companies like Carglass specialise in window repair. Either chip repair or replacing your whole window. They even have mobile units that will come to you. My company car in the past suffered several badly chipped front windows that needed replacing. CarGlass uses their mobile unit and changes out the window at my employer parking lot. Great service.

But this time, I went to them. I was seen to by Pascal, a very nice and highly competent lady.

Here you see the chip, Pascal has already put a mirror on the dashboard.



Next she cleans the chip edges and puts a vacuum cup on it. This draws out any moisture. Notice the vertical strip she put on the windscreen. That is a thermometer. Is shows the temperature of the window, which needs to be within a certain band width for the repair to be effective





Everything she needs and uses comes in this handy box, including the little compressor.



It takes a few minutes to draw out the moisture and the system gives a ping, indicating you can move onto the next step.

Next another device is fitted to the windscreen. It is held in place with vacuum, but it also uses pressure to push special repair gel into the crack/chip.



Here you see this device from the bottom. The large hole is for drawing the vacuum. The small hole is where the repair gel will exit from and is positioned right smack in the centre of the chip area.



Here you see Pascal getting it in place. She uses the mirror on the dashboard to check the exact position.



It takes 7 minutes for the repair gel to be injected in 7 steps. You can actually see it in the mirror. It was quite fascinating because I just saw the cracks sort of disappear as the gel was pushed in.

Then Pascal get an UV lamp to harden the gel.



Here she is positioning the UV lamp



Takes a couple of minutes to harden. Again the machine will bleep at you when it is done!



Last step, Pascal uses a knife to scrape away any excess repair gel



A quick polish and cleaning of all the windows of the car and we’re ready to go. All in under 30 minutes. No paperwork. Just my signature on an electronic device that the work has been carried out satisfactorily.



As it so happens, Pascal was quite interested in my Jaguar. She has a 1972 VW Beetle. She loved the Jaguar, but did notice that the interior, especially the driver seat really needs some work.

When we were still in Kansas City, USA, I had the leather of both front seat repainted by ColorGlo. They did a really good job but that is almost ten years ago.

So I had been looking for somebody who could redo them. Colorglo went bust here in the Netherlands some years ago. You can still buy their products for DIY work, but they don’t do services anymore.

As luck would have it; Pascal’s partner, Joost, used to work for Colorglo. When they went bankrupt he started for himself and is very successful. Pascal showed me some of his work on his website. I gave him a call right away and he is coming round this weekend to look at the Jaguar. I will let him have a look at the dashboard of the Spider too. That has some typical sun/heat damage and apparently he can repair that too.

So all in all, a very good and productive/constructive visit to my local CarGlass.

Next, cleaning, waxing the Spider for our tour de France!

Jeroen

[sagarpadaki]

Sir, All i can say is you are living the dream (with the car,weather,garage,tools and nature) that is a dream for most here!

I will admit that i envy your garage!

[Jeroen]

Tidied up the Spider. All washed, polished, waxed, cleaned etc.

All ready for the big tour to France in a couple of weeks.

Took me just under four hours. It is a small car and it also has fewer square meters of horizontal surface (no roof!). Those are the parts that typically need a lot of work as they collect most of the dust.

It also takes time to get all the tools out, the pressure washer, hoses, extension cords etc. Gave my garage floor a quick run down with a mop as well.





The steel top for my workbench extension has arrived as well. All packed up on a nice pallet, just like last time. Borrow an angle grinder from my neighbour Robert to cut it into final shape. Just one corner needs cutting off.



Also, whilst I’m cutting still, I also need to cut of the top of a steel head board for one of our beds. We have a very nice home, but several of the bedrooms are under the slanting roof, which means we had to adjust some of our furniture to fit underneath. This is the last one.

I hope to do the cutting of the steel top and the head board tomorrow late afternoon. I am out all weekend for a photography weekend and on Monday I will leave very early for a business trip to Romania. So it is tomorrow or it will slip by a week and a half.

We will see!

Jeroen