Well - it has been an eventful few weeks with cars. I have now bought 10 new tyres and 4 2nd hand winters with 7mm of tread on them for my trips to Germany.

I have also bought a Mondeo ST220, like my son's, as the new daily. bought for it's economy :-) well 35mpg on a cruise! Heated red leather Recaro interior, air con, Xplod Stereo - CD/DVD player, Pearlescent Panther black - apparently a £2000 option when new? Some small jobs to be done, service, oil leak from

crank shaft seal (common problem with these cars), wheel alignment and refurb, front track rods, new front disks/pads. Seems a good car and my son has given it a thorough look over and upgraded it in a number of ways already with his knowledge of the model.

Went on a trip to Germany, but while checking it for the journey discovered three tyres would not be legal in Germany as they were not stamped M&S for winter, hence the 3 new tyres. I arrived in Germany to the smell of excess fuel from under the bonnet!

Roy, who lives in Germany, gave me a hand (well what I mean is he sorted the problem while I looked on - thanks Roy) to sort the leaking injector - just not sited properly? why would it suddenly come out of position.

However, as I got to Dunkirk on the return journey I suddenly had no PAS, reservoir empty? filled it up and got all the way home before I lost PAS again. Looks like the rack is leaking! Merde! This A8 was definitely not a good decision. :-(  

Remedial work on M3

Thought I would use the time off over Xmas to rub down and re-underseal the M3.

So I borrowed a ramp and got the M3 in the air. I started scrapping off the old under seal and dirt and everything was OK until I got to the front offside corner just behind the wheel - it was completely rotten and disintegrated as you can see in the pictures.

 Fortunately, it was the outer skin and the leading edge of the wing - the first job was to cut away the rotten metal.

 
 Taking the metal back to solid and brazing all the remaining metal for welding in new sections.




Here you can see the metal has been cut back and the areas being rubbed back.

 First thing was to weld in a new structural support to add strength to the remaining metal and from which to "hang" the new sections.

 Picture shows the gradual build up of the welded sections

New metal let into the leading edge of the wing and new section attaching the bottom of the wing to the box section. This picture displays the finished article duly rustproofed and painted.

Excellent work by a local welder - the whole job was completed for £130 cash.

Now the whole underside of the M3 is solid and re sealed.