Miss January

[Johnnyboy]

Have been losing some clutch fluid for a while so I ordered a Master and a Slave cyinder from "Clutch City Online" in Florida - found them on Ebay.com.
(and not as cheap as your guys Ian......)

With a "combined order" they only charged me one lot of postage, but then sent the cylinders as two separate parcels! The tracking showed them both as taking 4 days to get to UK customs and I got the Master cylinder a couple of days later. However I was still waiting for the slave 2 weeks later!

Clutch City had just given up and had obtained another one (they were out of stock...) and were in the process of packing it when the card finally arrived to say the slave was ready for collection (and VAT payment...) at the local sorting office. 2 weeks apart! - Royal Mail at their worst.

Very helpful people, I recommend them.

Here they are:



Put them on last weekend but had a bit of a problem bleeding them. Basically no matter how much I bleed, the clutch pedal is still not right - It still "pumps up" a bit.

Any helpful hints anybody?

John

[ian65]

sounds like there's still air in there John.....
did you use the traditional method or a 1 man bleeding kit?..... I always use a 1 man kit and have great results ( I did both of my 1st gens this week and the pedals are solid) but some of the lads have had problems with some bleeding kits

[Johnnyboy]

Should have mentioned earlier...

Had another go the weekend after (with she-who-must-be-obeyed in the drivers seat as ever...) (just read a "Rumpole" book for the first time in 20 years,,, I recommend them to you all,,,,).

Instant success. A big bubble and a spit and everything is now fine. I can only think the bubble was lodged somewhere (but where???) and leaving it for a few days let it find its way to the top.

All now OK.

[Johnnyboy]

Some of you will remember that I got a set of 5 refurbed Elford alloys off Ebay a few months ago, with nice new Nankang Tyres:



These have done good service, but don't seem to like the cold so I have decided to put a couple of Winter tyres on the back. Rather than pay to have the Nankangs removed, I have refurbed one of my old Elford wheels and a rather manky gold rim I got separately of Ebay a while ago as a spare:




I stripped them with paint stripper, removing the sludge with a wire wheel on a drill. Used the same wheel to polish out the corrosion - which fortunately was not bad so no "need" for filler. Followed up with 500ml cans of Halfords white primer, Simonize wheel silver and Simonize clear lacquer - ie. over £20 of paint for two wheels! Slow going though, must have taken at least 6 hours over two weekends... (it was actualy far too cold for good spraying, so I have got some mottling, but who cares...)




Plus a pair of Vredestein Snowtrak 3's:



Voila!



and as discussed elsewhere on here, significant improvements in grip were achieved...

[RX7SA]

Great job with the wheels John, they look great.

[Johnnyboy]

Came to put the Polybushes on a couple of weeks ago.

Started at the back because the anti roll bar drop arms were in a very bad shape. Mostly easy except for offside lower suspension link to the body, which did NOT want to come off. Crush tube was rusted onto the bolt. Tried heat etc. and after several hours across several days eventually cut off the one side of the suspension mount - and then had to weld it back on again.






Gave up in exhaustion after that so have not done the fronts yet, but just doing the rear has had some noticable benefits. The car feels more firmly planted on the road somehow. Particularly when you are trying to balance power carefully, coming on and off the power doesn't seem to unsettle it as much. Likewise camber changes and bumps and potholes under power don't seem to matter as much.

Fortunately there doesn't seem to be much (if any) corresponding increase in vibration or ride harshness as a downside either.

[Steve-A]

Nice one John.

Good to see you stepping up to the plate and getting Miss January some good old TLC. Unless you decide to paint the underside, than most jobs are more pleasant than fitting poly bushes, so once you've done the front (much easier than the back btw) you'll be on easy street!

[Johnnyboy]

Thanks for that Steve. I look forward to doing the nice easy front ones.....

As a point of interest you get an awful lot of bushes in the kit:

[ian65]

what was the landed price for these bushes John? I'm thinking of getting some of these for my silver series 3.
Does the rear end feel much tighter? The rear axle / suspension on my Elford feels like it's held on with rubber bands. I've got my Respeed poly kit all fitted to my suspension arms and ready to put on the car but the silver car is over the pit at the moment with the back axle off it.

[chc]

Excellent job with the alloys - look just like bought ones. Are you sure you don't fancy doing some more cause I've got a set to do next year I hope - if I can get them to look half as good as these I'll be well chuffed.

Good job with the polybushes, I was fortunate to have the use of 'fly presses' at my last company so it made the major bushes a real doddle.

Merry Christmas