His & Hers’ -Diary of a Renovation

Part 3

see part 2

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What can I say, in my opinion little or no progress has been made.  Well that’s not quite true, about half of the bulkhead has been rubbed down, primed and painted using the new colour, BMW Montreal Blue.  It’s very nice, bright, shiny and stylish, much like myself really.  Other than that I’m not really sure what’s been going on.   Mike has definitely been out and purchased more ‘bits’ but I’m not sure they have actually made it onto the car yet!  I certainly can’t see a noticeable change but perhaps I’m being a bit mean, I am, as you know, not that mechanically minded.

I think that Mike might be following in Dad’s footsteps, and his statement that the Vitesse would be ‘at Kimbolton this year’ is in actual fact referring to ‘this year’ as in ‘2023’.  I think it’s safe to say that it won’t be putting in an appearance ‘this year’, and I won’t be going topless this summer.   (I am hoping that this may make Mike feel just a tiny bit guilty, but probably not!)

Lesley

So ok, admission time - the Vitesse is not likely to make Kimbolton this year (well, not without the help of a trailer!).  Unfortunately a period of heavy work, coupled with planning an extension to the house, etc has rather delayed things.

Also the time remaining between now and 20th July is limited with no spare weekends in July (a wedding, a trip to Le Mans Classic and Kimbolton itself) rather hindering future progress.

Progress has included continuing preparation of the bulkhead, including paint - at least that seems to have gone down reasonably well with the household authority!

There has also been the need to purchase additional parts which will be needed in the next couple of months to join the master cylinders to the brakes and clutch - apparently the MoT man casts a dim light on corrosion through the brake pipes - why were steel ones fitted to cars - did no one understand the principle of corrosion? (ok, not at BL anyway!)

This months hen’s teeth parts for a Vitesse includes;

? original style choke control knobs

? air filters to fit the original housing (which is ram fed with pressurised cold air unlike the alternative available ‘pancake’ filters)

? pipe from clutch master cylinder to slave cylinder

? time!

Oh, and in case you were wondering from the last Bear Facts, nail varnish remover is good to remove 20 year old rust killer that has been daubed on paintwork where there is a chip in the paint.  The only other substance that works is neat acetone, but this is only available in small bottles that evaporate faster than you can use it (and the acetone does seem to soften the paint to the extent a finger nail will take the paint off the panel!)

Anyway, onwards and upwards!

Mike