It’s been a while since my last blog – I wish i could say it’s due to some really important reason, but it largely boils down to a combination of laziness and bugger all to talk about.

However….That's all changed now!

For a looooooong time I’ve wanted to do a car project and each time I’ve changed car, I’ve announced to Ellie that this time I’ll be modifying it and turning her into an automotive widow.  I thought this was all over when I bought the bright orange G4, but alas no – it wasn’t long until I started to feel the itch again.

Many (many many many) years ago my first car was a Rover Metro that was basically shot and I spent all my spare time one summer getting it back up and running, only to find out at (what became) the end that the front sub-frame was totally rotten and it was therefore beyond repair.  The saving grace was that I spent a lot of time learning all about engines/transmissions/brakes etc. and really enjoyed it.

Although it has been quite some time since then, I’ve often harked back to those days and wondered about doing something bigger.

About 2 years ago, my friend Liam (who had also had a similar bug – no, not the sort that needs ointment before anyone suggests it!) bought his kit car project and spent many months putting it together in his garage – have a look at http://www.kitcarbuild.co.uk/ for the full story.

Needless to say, every time I read his blog, or whenever he spoke about it at work I was incredibly envious and desperate to get on with one myself. Due to having two very small children though, the plan has had to wait – not least because Ellie pointed out that I just wouldn’t have the time to do anything with it.

About 4 weeks ago though Ellie came and talked to me and we worked out that now the kids are sleeping quite well in the evenings, and they are now old enough to play quite well for the odd morning or afternoon that the time had come, and we should start the hunt.

At this point, I confessed that I actually already knew exactly which car I wanted to build and promptly bored her senseless with the build manual that I had :-) 

Shortly after that I placed the order with Nick from NCF Motors (www.ncfblitz.co.uk) who makes the actual kits and it’s due to arrive in September!

Down to details:

The actual kit car I’m building is an NCF Sahara - http://www.ncfblitz.co.uk/page10a.html which is a fairly tough off-roader but with very good on-road manners. Because Jarretts can’t do anything normally, we’re actually going for a pretty customised version. For example, the normal Sahara is only a 2 seater, but Ellie and I have been working on a design to make it a 4 seater so we can take our 2 boys out with us as they will absolutely love it – it would be awful if we couldn’t just all jump in and head out on an adventure.  Because I’m the engineer (aka grease monkey!) I’ve been working with Nick on modifications that Ellie and I drew up to the roll-cage and the back body, and we think we’ve got it sussed, so hopefully I’ll be able to show you some previews soon!

The car is based on a Land Rover Discovery I so we also needed to buy a ‘donor’ vehicle so I’ve spent a lot of time scouring e-bay and Autotrader looking for just the right car. I spent ages trying to decide what sort of donor I wanted – diesel or petrol, manual or auto, early or late model and then finally settled on a Diesel Auto – Diesel engines are great for deep water wading, but also the auto-box is becoming more and more popular with off-roaders as it makes it a lot easier to control in tricky situations.

I found a couple of good examples on ebay but they kept either going to silly money, or bidding would finish on a good price but below some unreasonably high reserve prices.  I even “won” an auction but didn’t reach the reserve so obviously didn’t get anywhere with that.

Ellie recently went to America for her brothers wedding, and while she was away I re-watched “A 4x4 is born” and by the end of it had totally changed my mind and decided that instead of a diesel Auto, I was after a Petrol (V8) Manual.  Nothing like changing your mind totally at the last minute is there!

Back to ebay with a new search and almost straight away found the ideal car. I watched it for a few days but the listing wasn’t the best so I think people stayed away as it just wasn’t getting any bids. With 1 hour to go I decided this was the one for me and then a problem cropped up.  I re-read the listing and realised this was a v8 (good) but an auto (not what I was after).  After about 50 minutes I thought “stuff-it, this is the one for me” and bid. Although someone tried to snipe me at the last minute I got the car for pretty much the opening price (which was pretty low it has to be said!)

Talking to Ellie about it we devised a plan. If the car was actually in really good nick, then she would have it as her car because her PT-Cruiser is getting a bit expensive to maintain. If it was in really good nick, we would actually re-list it with a much better listing and hopefully turn a small profit to put towards the build costs.  If it was shot then we would obviously walk away.

Liam and I went and collected the car the other day, and I have to say it’s a pretty good car. In fact, I really enjoyed the drive back and it sounds amazing. Not good enough for Ellie as her day car as it has got some body problems etc. but fine as a donor car as we only need the chassis, engine, running gear and bulkhead. We had a really good look over it before we handed over the rather slim envelope of cash and there wasn’t anything hugely obvious so I’m hoping that's a good start.

Being honest, the listing on ebay wasn’t actually that accurate as it turned out – but close enough that we should be ok. 

During the drive back I noticed a few issues, but I think none of these are huge (even though some of them sound it!):

1. Engine idling is a bit poor and it did stall a few times – I had to practice some left-foot braking on the way back when stopping to keep the revs up. Liam and I tweaked the idle speed a little, but this is only a workaround, not a fix.
2. At speed, the car is generally very good – stable and swift, but there is a bit of rough running between 1800 and 2500 revs.
3. The brakes are spongy – you have to press them right the way down before they kick in, but they do come on strong when you get there.
4. The gearbox seems to be getting very hot and you can feel this through the gear stick. We checked transmission fluid level on the way home and it looked like it had been massively over filled so that might be it (but see below!)
5. It has a funny smell, and the interior is filthy! Annoyingly the seats are in really good condition but the dashboard is filthy. The reason this is annoying is because the seats will be removed and flogged but the dashboard is staying. I’m hoping to get out there tomorrow with a cloth and give the interior a good clean. 
6. A couple of bits of plastic trim are broken, but these will all be removed during the build process so no problem there.
7. In one of the rear light clusters, one of the bulbs has blown so I’m off to Halfords tomorrow to get a new one.
8. The light bulb that illuminates the Clock is also shot :-)
9. Finally, in true red-dwarf style, the drivers seat doesn’t go up and down anymore!

The two biggish ones are the 1) and 3) and these could be either huge, or pretty simple. In fact, one chapter of a workshop manual I’ve read notes that if the brake master is shot then this will actually affect the engine running as it is connected via the vacuum system – no, nothing to do with dyson! This should be a fairly simple fix as it just needs a new master cylinder, so I’m hoping its that one.

This evening I’ve spent a couple of hours checking the car over and overall it’s pretty good. The spark plugs are a little sooty which suggests running rich, but it hasn’t drunk any water on the long drive back so that's a good thing.  It looks like the Distributor cap and HT Leads have both been changed recently, but at least one of the HT leads wasn’t inserted properly as it’s covered in carbon, and another fell apart (poor quality) as I checked it. Those will need to be replaced by the time the car is finished, but that’s something I want to do in terms of refreshing all the wiring and plumbing anyway.

I read the manual on how to check the Transmission Fluid level and you actually have to do it in a pretty specific way:

• The gearbox and engine needs to be cold.
• Start the engine, and check the brakes are all on.
• Move the gear lever from Park to 1 and back to Park.
• Leave the engine running.
• Check the fluid level using the dipstick (withdraw,wipe, insert, withdraw and then check)

Once i did it this way it was pretty clear that the level was actually very low not high so I put in half a litre of fluid to top it up to halfway between min and max.  I think the previous owner had checked the level, but did it with the engine off and the gearbox cold because when I checked it that way it did show a seemingly good level , but this is not the correct way to check it and you end up with the wrong level, so that might well explain why it was running so hot on the journey back.

Its booked in to my favourite independent Land Rover garage (Maltings Land Rover) on Friday, and hopefully they won’t suggest that they take it out the back and quietly have it shot.  On the run over there I’ll keep an eye on the gearbox temp and see if that one is fixed.

I’ll report back more after the Garage gets back to me!