Everyone have a good weekend?

I finally put some miles on the Mini: http://classicmotorsports.net/project-cars/1971-innocenti-mini-cooper/weekend-getaway/

It was fun.

Well, yes, until I went out for the paper Sunday morning. I look up, and I see a crack on the Grand Prix's windshield. The wife had taken it Saturday night for one of those girls nights outings. That's windshield #4. It's gotta be a curse, the windshield must taunt the rocks.

Saturday I ran the Amazon down to the local C&C thing, even though it still has a good coat of winter patina on it, and that's always fun.

Sunday wife and I ran the 1800S up to the "big city" (Oak Harbor, pop. 20,000) for lunch and minor shopping, which is about 35 scenic miles each way. First time that car's gone any distance since I revived it last fall, and first time wife's ridden in it since I parked it for maintenance in 2007. She makes a show of not being into cars, but when we got back, said how much she enjoyed the ride, how the car sounds, etc.

Good weekend

Saturday I went over and helped the local PCA club set up their auto-x course for the season. After we got everything set up and marked we "had" to try the course, just to see if it would be OK you understand! There were just five of us but the fact it was in the low forties w/ the wind blowing out of the north at about a zillon mph might of had something to do with it. But course is ready and next auto-x in less than three weeks!

Well yes and no.

Saturday was GREAT! I went with a bunch of friends from my vintage race club (VRG) to ~GP-New York~: an indoor kart racing place in Mt. Kisco, NY. Some guys from the Ferrari Owner's Club met up with us and we raised he11 racing around that place. Very cool. It's modeled after the F1 karting place in Boston.

On Sunday, I had to dig up a frozen sewer pipe at my place and fix it.

So overall, I had some fun and some sh|t this weekend.

This weekend? Oh yeah, 2 feet of wet, heavy snow.

We shovelled and plowed.

Actually, prior to the arrival of the white stuff, I tinkered with the TR8 (water pump) as we are taking it to Florida on the Amtrak Autotrain in 3 weeks. Have always wanted to cruise the Keys with the top down and watch the sunset from Duval St.

One thing about winter lasting 9 months is that you have to take a warm weather break from time to time.

Tony

Yarmouth, ME

Tuesday morning / 16 degrees outside

Yes a good weekend. Top down in the 60's. I helped a friend restart his convertible Flaminia so we could move it out of the way of another project. I polished out the scuffs on the Fiat rear window. It is time to replace the fuids in the Spider for the summer driving season.

Cheers Ron

Grumble.

Cold and more snow.

Ditto on the windshield. Spotted a crack chip but the temperature fluctuated and it spread. $300 goes bye bye...

Last weekend I took a bad step and went down the stairs.

THUD

Shoulder has been killing me since.

Puts me behind on my GT6 to do list.

A.

In reply to null:

Maybe your problem is glass manufacture or more likely tweeked windshield frame causing improper stress on the glass. Hard to imagine that many cracks through rocks alone.

Steve

No, it was a good sized rock hit, you know the type you go holy smokes bat man...

Car went from nice warm parking garage to -25C.

A.

My weekend was great by comparison (no broken glass, busted shoulders or headers down the stairs). Got a call Friday from the guy down the road asking me if I wanted some free "junk". Went over Sat. morning and came home with a '73 F-250 (390, 4 speed and 89,xxx actual miles), a '79 RX-7 and a '77 Mazda Cosmo. Now my '72 MGB and '80 Fiat Spider will have some company in the shop. Cheers, Scott

Shez.

Great weekend..............

With the help of my wonderful wife (see very understanding) I spent Saturday, my 45 birthday, wrestling the motor out of the race car.

New cam, head work, carbs. and dyno to follow, happy birthday to me.

Dougie

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It's winter up here in Massachusetts, and the weekends have been such fun lately. I try to wait for days above freezing, but...

Replace Jetta windshield wiper works

Replace Subaru upper hose (33F Tuesday evening because I couldn't get the hose on the weekend)

Replace Jetta Thermostat

Replace Jetta Temp sensor

Replace Jetta MAF

Curse at Jetta because it's still throwing out codes

Explorer burst brake line

Explorer 4wd light flashing, investigate speed sensors, but it was the little motor that works the 4wd engagement.

Buick oil change

Subaru oil change

Our regular cars are eating up all my time and budget, the Tiger sits untouched despite having a few ideas for projects.

Stu

Chassis repair on the Land Rover... damn rust. Few more welding burns to add to the collection.

Nice hike with the wife into the near-by Reserve with the dogs.

Checked oil in the daily drivers. And when to a Mardi Gras celebration.

But that was it.

I had a painful introduction to Lucas electronics. After sitting for a couple years (in a heated garage), almost nothing electrical on my TVR works. Although I've never owned a British car before, I had heard all the horror stories about electrical problems, and this weekend I finally experienced them first hand. Wow, what a screwed up way of doing things! I'm looking forward to putting my other TVR together, because I'm going to rewire it myself!
Still, it was better than many other things I could have been doing!

There's nothing inherently wrong with the way Lucas did things. 99% of all problems with British electrics are due to bad grounds and prior owners.

"If Lucas made guns there'd be no wars"

I owned a Catalina (Calif manufacture) sailboat in the late 90's. It had an electric windlass for raising anchor. One day it stopped working. After finding my way though to access where the motor was and extracting it imagine my surprise at seeing Lucas stamped on the side. It perfectly explained the failure. They had found their way into boating since the British sports car market was not as busy.

Steve

"There's nothing inherently wrong with the way Lucas did things. 99% of all problems with British electrics are due to bad grounds and prior owners. "

Well, bad grounds are an indication of them doing something inherently wrong, IMO. Add in uninsulated and poorly designed wire connectors, poorly designed light sockets, etc.. Can't say I agree with the statement that there's nothing inherently wrong with the way they did things. The circuits (other than the ground circuits) are not all that different than anything else, but the components used are very poorly designed, even for the time period.

Any convertible will eventually wet their interior. This does not help old wiring connections. My Miata has airbag issues and a funky radio after 16 years.

Cheers Ron