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Burt Jones’s Re-Build Diary


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Posted

:) New Year Resolutions

:0 I Will

· Stop smoking.

· Stop engine smoking

· Drink no more than 24 alcohol units a week.

· Work on the car three times a week and not merely sit in the driver's seat to read the newspaper.

· Reduce the car’s corner weight by ten kilos  (i.e. 2.5k at each wheel).

· Improve mechanical mind (e.g. by reading motoring books rather than the Sun).

· Learn to adjust carbs.

:0 I Will Not

· Pretend I’ve kept my 4 speed box because its better for track use.

· Tell my mates a well set up xflow is good for 180bhp

· Sulk about having clam-shells instead of cycle wings

· Envy Catterhams and laugh at Robin Hoods

Sunday, December 1

Car corner weight: broke bath room scales when I lowered the rear wheel onto it. Will have to come up with another solution. Went to the pub to meet a friend of a friend who’s flogging a Burton prepared Xflow for £200. Idiot didn’t show, alcohol units 14 (but effectively covers 2 days as I’ll still have alcohol in my system at midnight), cigarettes 22.

5:30pm - my garage: Ugh. The last thing on earth I feel physically, emotionally or mentally equipped to do is take the head off the engine to see why the b*******’s smoking. Decide make a cup of tea and ask a few questions on the WSCC site. My first attempt elicits the rather rude responses of “use the bl**** search facility” and “don’t ask such broad questions.” Look at Message Board Chat instead and enter a debate about washing machines.

8:30pm - and still have not touched the engine. My mate, Mick the Spanner, calls round to keep out of his wife’s hair while she’s decorating the hall. Spanner offers to help with the engine. Back in the garage he sticks his finger in the end of the exhaust, examines the blackened digit suspiciously before announcing the engine’s smoking because it’s running rich. “You need to back off the idle,” he says, then wipes the finger on his yellow diamond-patterned sweater.

I whip the Westfield’s bonnet off, point to the twin 45’s and ask, “Which screw’s that then, Spanner?”

11.45pm - Spanner thinks it’s safe to go back home and I’m on the WSCC again. I ask the guys ligging around Techie Talk where the idle screw is. 20 minutes later my simple question has developed into an argument about suspension angles on Megablades(?).

11:50pm - decide to give up smoking tomorrow. Go to bed with my Haynes Car Electrics manual and fall asleep trying to decipher the index.  

Have  a dream about the Westfield’s bonnet flying off at speed and decapitating the mother-in-law.

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Posted

Wednesday, February 1

Car corner weight: ring Westfield techie guy to find out what the corner weight of the SE should be. Never really been able to understand nasal Brum so asked him to send me the information via email translated into Southern English.

3:15pm - the wife’s idiot brother, Frankie “Grease Gun” Roach calls to say he’d scored a couple of BRG cycle wings. Arranged to meet him in the pub later. Went on the WSCC site to ask about converting clam shelled SE to cycle wings. As usual the testosterone was flying and they’re busy arguing about the lengths of input shafts?. Cigarettes 28 (but will soon give up for Lent so might as well smoke self into disgusted smoking frenzy).

8:12pm -  meet up with Grease Gun in the Fickle Firkin. He’s swaying at the bar, a pint of Bass in one hand and a pair of cycle wings in the other. They look OK, although neither of us mention the small fact that they’re still connected to the sawn off stumps of their brackets.

10:10pm - back in the garage with 12 units of alcohol sloshing about my empty stomach. I rest the cycle wings on top of the tyres for a trial fit. Sit in the Westfield to see what they look like and agree all four look the business.

11:30pm - wake up cold and hungry in the Westfield’s driver seat.

11:45pm - decide to give up smoking tomorrow. Go to bed with cheese and onion bap and the latest edition of Westfield World. Fall asleep realising the smoking Xflow is God’s way of telling me it will have to go.  

Have  a dream about the Westfield’s fuel tank exploding and vaporising the mother-in-law.

Posted

Saturday, March 4

Car corner weight: have decided to dismantle each side of the car and weigh the parts separately on a set of butchers scales – realise that I need aluminium uprights. Went of the WSCC site to ask about diff ratios. I got one semi-sensible reply before they started arguing about which is the best curry house in somewhere called Bradford.

12:30pm – wife comes home and starts complaining about all the over-time she has to work. I sit and listen indulgently as she rants about the amount of our income that’s going on the Westfield’s rebuild. I try to calm her by saying that £3750 for a 250bhp 4age engine really is good value. Finally, I manage to convince her that this will be the last money I’ll need to spend and we really can still go to Florida this year – if I win the lottery.

14:10pm – back in the garage. Have a close look at the cycle wings I’ve fitted and realise they’re from a Catterham. Start to worry in case the Westfield rejects them like a transplanted liver.

14:30pm – after telling the Kingwinford boys never to phone me at home, the wife takes a call from the part shop saying my 4 alloy uprights are ready for collection. She asks them the price and faints.

4:30pm – pop down the chip shop. While I’m out the 5 Blades and Yoko’s I ordered a month ago arrive. Find them neatly stacked in the hall and the wife in the back garden dancing around a flaming pile of my parts catalogues. I give her 20mgs of Valium and put the poor woman to bed.

8:30am - Grease Gun and Spanner came around to help lift off the Westfield’s body tub. For reasons unknown we ended up watching a video of Ground Force. Make a mental note: 2 cases of Bud do not assist car rebuilding.

11:40pm – decide to give up smoking tomorrow.  Go to bed and fall asleep reading a Demon Thieves catalogue I found under the sofa.

Have a dream about the mother-in-law bleeding to death after the Westfield’s screen shatters and a shard of glass slits her jugular.

Posted

Could we have some extracts for the magazine - would be a funny read over the winter months  ;)  :D  :)  :D  :p  :xmas:

Posted

Monday, April 4

Car corner weight: According to the calculations I’ve scribbled on my Rothmans packet, each corner of the Westfield weights 60k; which would give a total of 240k for the whole car. Is this good or bad? Log onto to the WSCC to ask and get side-tracked by a thread comparing Pamela Anderson’s “Bay Watch” breasts to those of Gwyneth Paltrow in “Shakespeare In Love”. I wasn’t in the mood to enter into such frivolous, puerile speculation, besides pre-sag Shirley Bassey would have out-perted the lot of them.

10:15am - collect the wife from the weekly appointment with her counsellor. She slides into the Golf, glances at the tangled spaghetti that is the Westfield’s new loom on the rear seat and pretends it isn’t there. Counselling must be working, but I still decide now’s not the right time to tell her I’ve cancelled our Florida holiday because it clashes with Donington. I’ll explain after she’s taken her afternoon Seroxat.

11.05am - In the garage. Drape new loom over the Westfield and try to decipher the single sheet of A4 masquerading as a wiring diagram. Spanner will be around soon so I temporarily hide the loom in the tumble drier in case he mistakenly thinks I don’t know a fuse from a futon.  

11:30am – the wife finds me in sitting on the toilet pouring over a Burton Performance Catalogue. Blushing furiously I protest my innocence and say the paperboy mistakenly delivered it instead of my usual Fiesta, she just whimpers and walks out.  

12:10am – meet up with Spanner and Grease Gun in the Bishop’s Finger for a quick aperitif before we drive to Vulcan Engineering in London to collect my spanking, rebuilt Xflow. I’ve been assured the engine will now produce 160bhp. Spanner reckons that’s 160 at the wheel and Grease Gun argues for it being a crank measurement. Me? I just wish I knew what the #### they were talking about. I measure engine performance by how much it costs, and for what Vulcan are charging me the bl**** thing ought to give Michael Schumacher wet dreams.  

3:45pm – we stagger out of the Bishop’s and drive to London only to discover the Vulcan is on its half day closing. b*******! Nothing for it, so we retire to the nearest pub for a pow-wow.

2:05am – wake up in the back seat of Spanner’s Allegro with a crick in my neck and the sound of loud snoring from my 2 mates in the front. Try to remember who I am and where I am. Give up and fall back to sleep.

Dream of the Westfield’s fan belt breaking, flying off, and garrotting the mother-in-law.

Posted

Believe me, every time I read the "diary", I actually laugh out loud.

Sadly this causes Yvonne to think I am flicking (bad turn of phrase) through some gay mags (found them at work, honest) in the knowledge I truly believe that most pictures have been touched up (bad turn of phrase again) to titillate the avid reader.

Posted
???  ??? wouldnt look at gay mags myself i prefer tits big ones as well!! :(  :)  :t-up:
Posted

Tuesday, April 5

8:30am – woken up by tapping on window, look up to see a rat faced youngster masquerading as a traffic warden. He orders us to  move out of the bus lane within 30 seconds or he’ll book and tow our car before we can say, Hitler youth. As it happens, Grease Gun manages to name most of the Germany war cabinet before Spanner finally coaxes the asthmatic Allegro into spluttering life.

9:15 – Ye Olde Balti Café. Our full-English breakfast looks like it’s having a cultural crisis. The black-pudding is burnt Argentinean Spam and the “fried-bread” is an American waffle spread thick with Irish lard. Nevertheless we tuck in and a few moments later sit back and belch loudly just so the effeminate Londoners remember we’re real ferret-loving Northerners. Outside, we pass round the Rennie and go in search of my engine.

10:20 – double-parking in front of the Vulcan shop, which looks uncannily like a newsagents, we saunter inside like men who know their mechanical onions. Picking Spam out of his teeth with a feeler gauge, Spanner giggles and asks the bored looking counter man if we can speak to Mr. Spock. To his credit, the guy pretends it’s the first time he’s heard that particularly witticism today. Grease Gun saunters over to a display engine and expresses his amazement at how small Chevy engines are these days. Before the Mr. Vulcan can point out it’s a Pinto I shove my receipt in his face and demand my Xflow. He grunts once and disappears into the bowels of the shop to reappear a  few moments later with my achingly gorgeous engine on a hoist. Forgetting I’m a hard Northerner, I scream like a teeny-bopper and throw myself on the Xflow, smothering its beautiful acid-dipped block in kisses and hugs. Once the wife sees this she’ll be glad I didn’t waste our savings on that conservatory she’s always wanted. Ignoring my histrionics Mr. Vulcan asks where we’ve parked the van. Blushing, we point to the Allegro.

11:45 – after much huffing, puffing and fluent cussing we finally manage to shoe-horn the gleaming Xflow into the Allegro’s boot, tie the lid down as best we can and head for Oxford. I now feel like a man on a mission and vow to have the Westfield back on the road by the weekend.

12:35 – somewhere on the M40. A flashing blue light brings us to a halt on the hard shoulder. Spanner tucks his half-pint whiskey bottle under the seat and waits for the inevitable. The traffic cop, looking unnervingly like Danny LaRue and talking like Elma Fudd, taps the off-side window. To give myself a possible plea bargaining position I’m just about to blurt out that Spanner’s p******** when the cop’s face lights up. He’s an enthusiastic Robin Hood owner and tells us he’s seen many Volkswagen’s rebodied as beach-buggies but this is the first one he’s seen rebodied as an Allegro. Eventually he lets us on our way, but not before he’s whipped out a disposable camera and whacked off a few pictures of our rear-engined car for his mates in the Hood.

2:15pm – creep in the house to find a note written in the wife’s now familiar shaky hand sitting on the kitchen table:

Burt, I’ve gone to my mothers for a few days before I do something silly. There’s food in the fridge and if you want clean clothes you’ll find them stuck to the inside of the tumble drier

Mary XXX

Ps. The man from Westfield called to say your bonnet is ready for collection.

2:30pm – call Westfield to re-order loom then call wife. In-between sobs she asks me why I can’t be like other husbands who build rockeries and mow the lawn. Not an easy question to answer so I ignore it and ask if she by chance came across the alternator I’d been storing in the airing cupboard.  

10:45pm – in the garage. For 6 hours we have been trying to coax the Xflow out of the Allegro’s boot. It’s stuck fast and no amount of persuasion will alter that fact. I refuse to let Spanner take his car away and he refuses to leave it in case I tear it apart to get at my engine. b******d could always read me like a book. Eventually we compromise. He takes the Allegro home and I go with him to keep an eye on the engine until the morning when we can hire a proper hoist.

11:45pm – for the second night I find myself sleeping in the back of the Allegro reading an MPS catalogue by the dash board light. Decide to give up smoking tomorrow.

Dream the Westfield falls off it’s axle stands and crushes both of  mother-in-law’s legs.

Posted

...sounds suspiciously like life in the Westy household...

Have you been out this morning to buy my present, dear  ???  :p  :love:  :xmas:

Posted

no but the sidescreens are now on, off to local in a minute for lunch time beers with yorston :0  :)

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Friday, June 24

Car corner weight: Finally, I reckon if I’m ever going to suss this bl**** corner weight conundrum I’m going to have to get along to Local Area Meet (LAM). Email A/O and find there’s a gathering of Westicles tonight at the insalubriously sounding, Quiff and Salami, public house.

9:15am – the cycle wing attachment is proving to be a major pain. So far I’ve tried bolts, fibre glass, Silkoflex, Ducktape and harsh language to connect the pilfered wings to the Westfield supplied stays. But nothing works and the bl**** things keep twisting on their mounts with a regularity that seems almost malevolent. I’m seriously starting to think the cycle wings are possessed and somewhere out there is a demonic, disembodied Catterham hunting down its stolen body parts.  

10:20am – go in doors and look up “Car Exorcists” in the Yellow Pages. Decided to throw away my old copy of Stephen King’s, “Christine”; just in case.

11:20am – no luck finding an Exorcist so, in desperation, go onto Blatchat for some suggestions. All I get for my trouble is the usual abuse and p***-taking (mainly from lurking Westfield owners pretending to be Catterham owners), although one kindly soul did take the trouble to email me with some suggestions that, although inventive, weren’t anatomically feasible even with advanced yoga and generous dollops of KY jelly.

3:30pm – some of the 5 work-mates and their spouses I’ve invited around to partake in the “engine insertion” ceremony arrive. Surprisingly only one of the wives attends, and she spends the entire time slumped Westfield’s passenger seat hugging a plate of sausage rolls and a box of Tesco’s Riesling to her ample bosom. Nevertheless a good time is had by all and the gleaming Xflow’s now sits in the newly panelled engine bay. I give an alcohol inspired speech and vow to have the Westfield on the road by the end of the month.  

6:15pm - visited the wife in our local psychiatric hospital. Her admissions now into the second week and the doctor’s say she’s responding positively to the ECT and Chlorpromazine. All going well she should be OK for discharge soon. To cheer the wife up I show her the photo’s from the “engine insertion” ceremony I had developed specially. All seemed to be going well until I happened to mention the bespoke stainless exhaust system I’ve ordered. Luckily the nurses were quick and managed get her hands off my throat before I lapsed into unconsciousness. Good thing I didn’t show her colour charts for the 2-tone, metallic paint job I’m considering.

7:30pm - being a LAM virgin I wasn’t sure what or who to expect at these meetings and initially thought I’d accidentally wandered into the winners enclosure of a gurning competition. Still, what they lacked in looks they made up for in enthusiasm. Drink, I thought I could knock back the beer, but these Westfield boys drank me under the table, over the bar and into the car park. Luckily they were all driving otherwise they’d have stood a very real risk of being run over if they’d tried to walk (stagger) back to their respective homes.

11:40pm – decide to give up smoking tomorrow. Go to bed and fall asleep reading the pages I downloaded from the Play’s Kool site.

Dream about the mother-in-law falling into the rolling-road rollers while I’m having the Westfield’s carbs set-up.

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