In other news...

... My housemate Jason and I are planning on going to the doubles tournament in the new year. That's Warhammer 40,000 of course, not tennis. Except that we've found a loop hole that will allow us instead of taking sensible armies with a mix of troops vehicles and heroes, to take an army composed almost entirely of giant killer death robots. Yes, we are heroes.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Rock

Another trip, another muscle ca... no, wait, even I can't pretend that this car is cool.

This is the Fiat Albea, a car so cheap and so basic, that Fiat don't even sell it in western Europe. It's noisy, there were parts hanging off it and it was distinctly unrefined. However, it did do the 100 mile round trip from the Turkish seaside resort of Altinkum to the ruined Greek city of Ephesus with no problems whatsoever. And you realise that the car is less bad than designed with a market in mind. It's cheap, the poor cornering supsension copes with all the harsh roads Turkey can throw at it and it simply doesn't care what gear you put it in. Driving this with garish Turkish pop on the radio over Turkey's haphazard roads, overtaking toothless old farmers who look like they probably fought the Aussies at Gallipoli kind of added to the charm of the holiday. Which was, incidentally, excellent. Laura and I had a great time, with boat trips, lounging, pursuit by loveable strays and exploring Greco-Roman ruins.

Ephesus was fantastic, really impressive. Second biggest surviving Roman city, fact fans and centre of early Christianity. It has a book of the New Testament named after it and St Paul lived here for three years before being thrown out by the Silversmith's guild.

It also has a very impressive main theatre, seating 25,000. Until recently, still used for performances, until a particularly loud Sting gig hit all the wrong bass notes and started damaging the architecture.

The acoustics are still excellent. Sat in the top row, I could hear Laura from the stage. Here she can be seen performing Aeschylus' The Libation Bearers.

I stand below the Augustan Gate as the sun shines overhead. A propitious sign.

Laura in front of the library of Celsus. This has been rebuilt by the Austrian and German institutes of Archaeology, complete with signs in German. It was all rather Indiana Jones. I kept expecting Nazis to turn up and declare that what was once ours is now theirs.

A quick stop off at Priene on the way back. Another theatre, but this time with seats for grandees and bigwigs. I could get used to marble thrones.

Finally, a shot of the Apollo temple at Didim at sunset. Laura is standing at the base, believe it or not - those pillars are over 70' tall.

And just because it's fun, Laura fends of the advances of mutant Turkish pirates.

We are still MEN

Part two! The previous post was getting a bit unwieldy in the editing stage.

Sigh. Now we had to put everything back together.

Springs go on...



If springs don't go on, use more force...



Need... more... tools...



Once you've assembled your new suspension, make sure all the bolts are carefully torqued up properly using a torque wrench.



The wheels can then be re-attached. You should ensure at this point that your helpers are still playing ball.






Hurrah! Just the boot lining to put back in place now.



Now for the escape.

This is what the underside of my car now looks like - well, until I drive to Bath again. Look at the shiny new components! All in all, a tremendously satisfying day and a real difference to the ride quality of my car. It should even pass an MOT now.

We are MEN

(I apologise for any mistakes whilst typing this, I've had a few pints in celebration of completing our task/the pub quiz being on)

Ben, Dom and I were real men this weekend! We set out to do what we failed to do in July, and fix the suspension on my 3-series BMW (yes, I know it makes me a cock - but I maintain I'm forced into it - society treats me like it, thus I become one - you know, like the Stanford Prison Experiment - Bex knows what I mean, even if you don't). Basically, we found all the broken bits on the back of my car and removed them, then replaced them with new parts. For those who care, the broken parts were my near side rear shock absorber and my offside rear spring.

First off, we started with the fuel for such escapades:



The 'Quote-Unquote-Ultimate-Burger" - which was pretty ultimate. With this and a cup of tea we were ready to start.

Ben and I had previously had a deal - which we called 'our engineering summer', whereby we exchanged help on our various projects. I had previously helped Ben with casting models (http://umbrellagraveyard.blogspot.com/2008/07/rated-g.html) so he had offered to exchange this help for help in fixing my car. Now, we were basically unsuccessful at the first attempt at fixing my car, so I got to call in the help again (the terms of this deal were never really laid out), this time with a slight variance in goons. This time we had Dom!

After detaching the wheels from my car, we proceeded to remove the suspension components, which was easier said than done.

First we had to remove the boot lining.

Then remove the wheels.

Following this, we removed the damaged shock absorbers. They should be the same length - see how they really aren't. Believe it or not, this really reduces the handling of the vehicle. Seriously, shocks are important as they provide damping to the suspension. A car with only springs and no shocks would hit a bump and spring all over the place. Making for a very uncomfortable ride for passengers.

Once we had these out, we had a bit of room to play with. Then we could get the old springs out. The trouble is, they're jammed right in under compression and impossible to just pull out. Ben was tempted to just cut them out, but this is bad idea as so much energy is stored in them that when they break they'll probably explode out going through either a) my car or b) Ben's face. On the basis that I like my car, I vetoed this plan. Fortunately, I had previously purchased from the good people at German, Swedish and French a set of spring compressors. The idea with these is that you fit the grippy bits to the coils of the spring and then tighten them up on the thread. The spring then compresses, hence the name, to a size small enough that you can then just pull them out. You carefully undo the threads, discard the old spring and fit your compressors to the new spring and mount it in the right place. Remove the compressors and you have a new, expanded spring in place, keeping you car on the road. As I say, that's the idea. In reality you've really cramped and you can't get the compressors in properly because the wheel arch, hub and trailing arm all get in the way. And once you've got the bloody thing in place you can't tighten it up because there's no room to get a wrench in place (ok, I admit, the wrenches I had - having the right tools is a wonderful thing).

Anyway, here's the spring we pulled out from the offside:

Yep, it's supposed to be a single component.

Meanwhile, Ben and Dom fit spring compressors to the new spring.



Ben and myself ponder how to insert the new spring whilst Dom lurks under the car like a troll under a bridge. With a camera.

Right Turn on Red

I said it was coming up! Apologies to all those expecting more toy soldiers, but we take a turn for the Automotive today. It's a different kind of geekery today! You did read the title of this blog, right? Anyway, it's the long-awaited Ford Mustang Review!

(Warning - this blog post may contain American English)

Unfortunately I only got to drive this car for a fortnight ("A Fortnight? What's that? A night in a fort?" No, Marissa...) this summer as they seemed to be pretty popular at Avis car rentals. For the first part of my trip to the US this year I had a Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder. Which was fun, but a little small and... well, a bit... OK, it's a girl's car.

Roll on the American muscle.

OK, I should point out here that this isn't a true muscle car - it only has a 4.0 litre V6 engine under the hood. Yes, it's the base model.... Boo, Avis! Boo!

Anyway, it's a different car to drive. It feels heavy, like my normal 3-Series, but unfortunately, the live rear axle and the cheap suspension make it a bit wallowly. There's some exposed bodywork in places that you'd never see in a European car either. It's clearly cheaply built from cheap, old technology. And it doesn't corner all that well. And, jeez, I'm sure I had to fill that thing up twice as much as the Eclipse. However. However. It's a Mustang and I'm in California! San Francisco! This is the car Steve McQueen drove in Bullitt (Well, close)! I challenge anyone to drive this car with the sun streaming down, some old school rock like Steppenwolf playing and not immediately forgive it all its flaws and head off down the highway grinning ear to ear. I certainly did. I started grinning as as I turned the key, the whole car rocking from side to side as the 244 cubic inch engine powers into life. It really does! It has an official rating of 200 bhp (yeah, yeah, BMW and Honda can get 200 bhp out of a 4 cylinder 2 litre, I know) and 0 - 60 in 7.3 seconds. It's a quick car, for not a lot of money. Well, as long as you don't turn any corners. It's not so hot there.

I started grinning even more when I got out of the parking garage and into the sun and put the roof down. As you can see, this one's a convertible. Not the most practical (the handling suffers even more, but it's not too detrimental - I imagine most would argue it couldn't get much worse), but I thought it was cool, especially in the California sun. It also enabled Dukes of Hazard style getaways. One of my abiding memories of this car is at midnight as the staff of GW Stoneridge and myself 'escaped' from the Livermore In-n-Out, burgers clutched close, leaping into the car in unison and flooring it , tyres squealing, avoiding the California Highway Patrol (OK, the last bit about the Highway patrol is a Foxtonism). Ah, happy days. You also feel a million dollars driving this car up the hills of San Francisco, CRUMP-CRUMP, as you hit the intersections and the gradient changes. I just wish there was a black Dodge Charger I could have been chasing.

In short, this car is crude, unrefined, inefficient, not especially good to drive. In fact, the equivalent BMW is better in every single way. Which would I rather have? Take a guess...