Evening on the Fiddle

The ups and downs of Elise ownership. Decided to take the car out so checked the battery which was flat so got it on charge, but not before I discovered the front hatch is only just still hanging on – looks like a clam off job to fix too. Then open the boot to discover it was full of water as the drain hole had blocked, so boot bag emptied and hung up to dry. Not the best start.

Pic taken off my phone.

Roll on a few hours and the children are finally in bed so burble out of Sale and up to Alderly Edge to start an interrupted run out to Macc then up the cat and fiddle then over axe edge to Longner, then Hartington, then back to Buxton. Back up the C&F as far as the A54 then all the way till the lights, quick u-turn then back up the A54 and down the Cat and Fiddle and home. 100 miles all told. The last hour after Buxton was the best hardly another car in sight and once beyond the cameras the A54 is as good as it has ever been. Finished the evening up by charging through the Manchester Airport tunnels with a V8 sunbeam.

Sunshine in Lochgilphead!!

Juast had a week on up near the Crinen canal south of Oban.
Invarery to Lochgilphead then up to Oben are two great roads to try out. Both stretches about 35 miles. Did both a fair few times each. Tried not to make the family too sick. Sadly not in the Elise but the Leon did a good job.

Love this pic I got of an Otter.

Surf, Lambos, and a Puncture

Thusday morning, chuck my shortboard in the car and set off for two days of surf and driving on a dodgy weather forecast knowing I cannot put the roof up untill I get home.

Head over the M62 to Runswick and the waves look small but walked around anyway and went in, one SUPer out. Caught a few little uns and decided to head round to saltburn for high tide.

Checked phone and John was getting in at Saltburn so figured I would see him in there - sure did, he ran me over as I was paddling out! All in all a couple of decent surfs, waves in Salty were ok if a little lumby and disorganised. Not been out on the 6.4 for about a year forgotten and had forgotten just how responsive it is under your feet - going start using it as my main board again.

Got out and called Ash, who was driving up to meet me in his Elise for a track day in Middlesdborough the next day. Decided to meet him just north of York so had a fantastic drive down Blakely ridge which had snow piled 10 foot high either side of the road in places. Parked up in Hovingham to wait for him and had a sit in the sun.

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Ash rolled up and we had a blat up the Helmsley to Stokesley road and to our hotel where we met up with the Sporting Bears gang and had a good northern dinner - £10 with a starter of Melon or Prawn Cocktail - and Ash unbelieving that you could buy two pints for a fiver!

Next day off to Teeside Autodrome to the charity track day. My first passenger, a young lad of 10 stated he loved the elise so I made sure the car was sideways everywhere I could manage on the little kart track. Then after 8 laps I pull in and discover this little beauty in my back tyre.



After a couple of hours of frantic phoning around (good friday) I had  sourced two used tyres for free (thanks Moggy, Kev and Mark) if needed but as it turned out the tyre was repairable and I had the car back at the track by 1pm.
Now for what most people have logged on here to look at....Lambos - well offering kids a ride in your lotus is pretty pointless when you have these cars behind you waiting to take them out.

  

Wanting to be home at a reasonable hour Ash and I left a little early finished up with a brilliant drive over the Yorkshire Dales from Hawes to Settle then over to Longbridge in appalling weather conditions. Concentration was required at times but both cars Elises performed without a single scare and their owner still cant get bored of driving them. I set Ash off earlier today with his tomtom set for the Cat and Fiddle and beyond.

Final mention goes to the little lad who kept me company whilst we queued for ten minutes to exit the track in the rain, not only did he clean the inside of my car with the towel he fished out from behind the drivers seat but he made me laugh so much I could have happily taken him home.

Fitting Harness Grommets

Ok, here are some instructions on putting grommets in your seats for harnesses.

Before starting it is worth mentioning that there is a lot of discussion on the various forums about the safety aspects of 4 point harnesses, in particular with reference to the size of the driver and the route from the harness mounting to the shoulder via the seat back. I would recommend anyone considering harnesses and grommets to search the archives and read up for a fully informed opinion.

Luckily I am a short arse so this solution works better than the solution of passing the harnesses over the seats. And the fixings line up perfect.

This is a set of early s2 seats and an S1 Eliseparts harness bar - circa 2002

Tools required

Dremmel and cutting disks and sanding fitting (attached in the picture below)

Some card

A good blade and some decent fabric scissors (stolen from my wife)

Nerves of steel

Tape measure

Pencil

Baby wipes (needed for every Elise job)

Hoover - this job creates a lot of dust

Eye protection

1 set of new grommets

Instructions.

Measure the width of your harness fixings so you can get the position of your grommets right.

Cut the card into the shape of the grommet. this allows you to use the card as a stencil and as a guide when you are cutting the seat and testing the size of the hole.

Measure up the seat to match the width of the harness mounts to get the grommets in the right places. Stick the card template onto the seat in the place of best fit. Note on my s2 seat there is not much room anyway - the grommets have to be a bit more angled than I would like but the belts slot fine.

 

Use the pencil to draw around the stemcil so you have a guide for the Dremmel.



Time to start hacking up your chair - gulp.

Don your eye protection. Use the cutting disk to cut out the section. Cut well within the lines as the sanding tool can be made to expand the hole and goes through the fibreglass like a hot knife through butter.



Get a screwdriver in the slot and prise out the section. Note that the foam of the seat will be stuck to the section at this point so take it easy. Once the section is out use the mini barrel shaped sanding fixing (I love this thing) to extend the hole to the size of the grommit. Use the card template to check and double check and expand the hole nice and slow. Note at this point the leather is undamaged.

Remember that one side of the grommet has a larger circumfrence than the other. This makes each side slightly different. On one side the wide bit comes through from the front, the other from the back.

Once the grommet is a tight fit into the hole it is time to cut the leather........

Cut the leather from the front right in the centre of the hole. Then using fabric scissors cut four snips, one out to each corner, so you get four triangular flaps against each side that will push through the hole. Take this bit real slow.

Trim a bit off each triangle to make the job a bit easier.

Push the grommet through from the front - driving the leather through with it - take it nice and slow and extend the cuts to the leather to get this bit right.

Once through push the other grommet in from behind, making sure they cleanly click together. You might need to get your fingers in from behind and remove a bit of padding from inside the seat to let the grommtes get flush.

Note the contours of the back of the seat can hinder the grommets from pushing together. I used my lovely dremmel to remove some thickness from some sections around the hole to get a better fit.

Now stop what you are doing and hoover all the dust up, and give the grommets and the seats a good clean.

Then finally fit the grommets.

Go for a coffee and then fit the other side. Remember all that measuring to begin with is important - mine are just about straight!

Tidy little slide at Brands

Was digging around for some photos today and found this little gem of me at Brands, taken by guy thatcher at hireacamera.com back in 2002 on a easytrack day at brands.

Full video with 3 or 4 laps included.







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Yorkshire Gold

Great day in on Yorkshire's reefs. Good couple of hours in the morning on the carpet before the tide got too high follwed by a dream surf in the afternoon on the log. Cross stepped onto the nose on the first wave..wtf...from there it went paddle out - 200 yard wave- paddle out - 200 yard wave- paddle out - 200 yard wave- paddle out etc.. magic - last wave a big clear out set, took the last one, late drop, off the bottom, parked it in the pocket and was fired down the feathering line, big cutty, down the line, pull out..that'll do....

Outer reef

 Line

 Big unridden Yorkshire barrel - see bird for size reference

Small waves in North Wales

Went down to Hells Mouth but it was blown out and very uninviting so had a look at the north shore of the Lynn. Tiny waves but a good enough laugh.