A little quiet job on the Abarth whilst off work...

 I have been off work since last Tuesday, after having to come home following not feeling at all well. In fact, I haven't quiet felt myself for going on 3 weeks now. It all started with a migraine, which persisted and eventually turned into a headache. The following day I felt the same, and as the weeks went on I just didn't feel great with this constant bad head.

Anyhoo I was taking prescribed medication to try and combat the migraines, a drug named Naproxen. I was taking the recommended dose each day and as the first week went on I was starting to have weird dizzy spells, where I felt a bit disassociated and like I was having a panic attack.

As I work in a hospital, my colleagues got an obs machine and took my blood pressure, and it was something like 177/110. One of the friendly doctors upon our ward checked me out and recommended I go home, so that is where I have been.

I have managed to get in and see a friendly GP, and she has prescribed some blood pressure tablets and I have to go for an ECG and bloods, just to try and get to the bottom of why I have been feeling so off. Turns out, Naproxen is really bad at raising your Blood pressure, as is Ibuprofen.

So this week I have pretty much been taking it easy, even cutting down on my daily cycling, only doing around 5 miles per day on the turbo trainer.

On to my Abarth. I ordered some sound deadening, some stuff called Dodo Mat. I got it from Amazon, ordering it one day and it arriving the next. It was lashing down yesterday, well I think it was, that is another thing that is affecting me my concentration and memory.

Dodo Mat sound deadening

Dodo Mat

 Well today, as it was sunny, my dad and I removed the door cards from the Abarth, and we fitted the sound deadening. We had already had the driver's door card off, last week as the wee car has an annoying rattle coming from somewhere, I actually think it's the driver's window.

The door cards come off relatively easy, there are a couple of covers to remove, one chrome one that goes on the interior door handle and another that is like a small rectangle shape, and this is in the door grab handle, where the arm rest is positioned. Once you get these off, there are 3 Allen head bolts to remove, and then you have to try and use something to pry the door card from their plastic retainers. My dad had a proper type of tool, so the cards came off fairly easy.

Door handle cover

Other cover in handle

Once the door card is away from the clips, you have to remove the cable that operates the door handle and on the driver's side the power window switch connection. From there I used a hairdryer to heat the soft door membrane, you need to keep this intact as much as possible. We got it off so far then just peeled it back, just needed enough to be able to get access to the inside of the door skins.

Door Card  Removed

Door catch cable and power window cable at bottom

Heating up membrane, just watch you don't stretch it too much

The first sheet of Dodo I heated with the hairdryer, however, soon discovered that it became so sticky that I couldn't get it in place correctly without it sticking to something. The best method was to just measure the sheet of deadening with the backing on, trim it if necessary, then only peel about an inch of the paper backing off and sticking that inch in place, then remove the rest of the backing as you work the sheet onto the door skin. As it was a relatively warm day, the sheets stuck no problem. We used a combination of a roller where we could roll the sheets and where we couldn't just a firm bit of pressure, until the deadening was in place and secure.

Became way too sticky

 

Oh! By the way, I bought a pack of 12 sheets of Dodo and I think I had about one sheet left over after doing the doors. I have ordered another pack of 12 so that I can do the boot. One pack comes in at £25 from Amazon.  

 


As you can hear in the video, it doesn't half make a difference to the sound of the car when tapping on the door.

Steering lock

Oh! And I also ordered a steering lock from Halford's so popped down to pick that up yesterday. It's a sturdy bit of kit I have one for my VW Beetle GSR, it won't stop a serious thief, however it is a good deterrent for the opportunist, every little helps in this day and age.

I Don't Believe It !!!

Well, I have owned my wee Abarth 595 roughly a month now. There are things I love about her and things which are slightly getting right on my tits if I am honest. Let me explain. The little Abarth drives great, sounds great and in my opinion looks great. Even better now that I have visited Mark over at Dent-Tek in Chester-le-Street to get a small dent removed out of her passenger door. I am not sure if the little dent was in when I bought the car. I only noticed it whilst parked in Morrisons, covered car park, at Birtley and the light just hit the door, showing up the small dent. So, not sure if it happened whilst I was parked down there.

Wee Abarth 595 Competizione

Anyhoo! On to the tiniest things that are getting on my nerves. I have noticed a few annoying rattles. I think one is coming from the passenger seat, and the other which is doing my head in is coming from the driver's side, I think it is from the driver's side window. It's a barely perceptible rattle, however for those of you who know what tinnitus is like, well I can only imagine or describe it like that. When I hear it, I can't get it out of my head.... well ear!

 

Naughty Wee Abarth

Oh! And another quirk of the Abarth I have discovered is that sometimes when I press the driver's side electric window switch, for some reason the stereo will switch from whatever it is playing via media and jump to a radio station, then jump back.

Looks Tiny

Now to the "I don't believe it" part of my post. Yesterday, as I got in, there was some mail waiting for me. As I opened one of the letters, I wasn't best pleased to discover I have been caught speeding, apparently doing 38mph in a 30mph zone. It was on Shield Row Bank. I am proper gutted as normally I don't go over the limit, well not that much, I mean if we are all honest everyone goes over the speed limit at some point.

Looking back at my dash cam footage, I can see where I was caught. Very annoying as I was actually only doing 20mph to 25mph when I passed the sneaky van, which I am sure was illegally parked right up on the footpath. A car in front then turned in to  a street and I accelerated in preparation for the bank at Shield Row. No excuse, caught bang to rights, the Wee Abarth is nippier than I thought, and I just didn't feel I was going all that fast.

My last points were on my licence way back when I was around 21, so I guess I haven't done too bad. In the letter, I think I come under a category A, so I may be able to go on one of those speed awareness courses, at a cost of £75 and avoid 3 points on my licence. I guess I will just have to wait and see. I was only 3mph over being allowed off according to the letter.

Had a little blast out today in the Wee Abarth and I must have learnt my lesson as I was back to driving like Miss Daisy, saying which I was still abiding by the rules of the road and not dawdling, so it kind of pissed me off when I had some numpty overtake me down Lanchester Bank crossing the two solid white lines, then cutting back in, in front of me, Why is there never a Copper when people do this? LoL

A Wee adventure in Myrtle to Druridge Bay.

 John and I had thought about heading out for an overnighter, taking Myrtle on a kind of road trip, just for a few days. Thing was that we had left planning a little late, and as I explained to John, Myrtle hadn't really been on any far-flung road trips since having her fuel starvation issues sorted. I am pleased to say, that this does appear to have been remedied by the fitting of a fuel regulator and a Facet electric fuel pump, which my dad very kindly installed and plumbed in. In mentioning the Facet fuel pump, I do also have to say "Man it's loud". I can hear the bloody thing "Tick, Tick, Ticking" away, hopefully when I get around to fitting the sound deadening and rugs this will quieten things down a fair bit.

  

Myrtle looking all shiny

Oh! And as John and I, had talked about wild camping, which isn't so bad when taking the bikes, as you can go covertly, when thinking of taking a small car, it's a little bit harder to be inconspicuous, so Scotland would have been the best option as you can wild camp, within the law. I did a little research, and you need to apply for a permit for Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, however if we were to go over to the Forests of Galloway there is no permit required, it's a canny old trek, especially in an old car, and we would need a lot more planning.


I know I have posted a lot in the past about all the problems my dad and I had with Myrtle's suspension. I lost count of the amount of times Myrtle was up on stands with her wheels off and both my dad and I removing, and then replacing, her various suspension components and then measuring stuff. Anyhoo you know what I think was the cause of all her suspension problems? In fact, I now know. It was a faulty Air Lift manifold. I bought the complete setup from Limebug, brand new and had it fitted by professionals, however the car never felt right from day one. It always rode, how can I put it, "Wonky". It wasn't until a few months ago, upon having to use Myrtle for work as Tango, my beloved Wee Smart car was off the road for repairs, that I started getting an error with the driver's side, rear bag not fully deflating, when using the remote control. A long story short I contacted Air Lift, sent a few videos and within about a week I had a brand-new manifold. Now that the manifold has been installed by my dad and I, Myrtle has been spot on, and I am no longer stressing about every time I come to a speed bump, or in having to worry about her looking and feeling "Wonky". Now when I get in Myrtle and I check in her glove box, looking at the Air lift controller her pressures all remain where they should be, and she goes up and down, on the touch of a button.


My dad and I have been out for a few short trips in Myrtle now, mainly going shopping or to pop to Costco for fuel, over at the Metro Centre, and she has driven spot on. So I was quite confident taking her for a drive up as far as Druridge Bay yesterday
 

I awoke relatively early with the plan of giving Myrtle a wash and trying out this new Meguiar's Hybrid Ceramic Wax that I had looked at on YouTube and then bought from Costco. I quickly read the instructions which are pretty straight forward, wash the car, rinse the car, apply the wax whilst the car is still wet, turn the hose on again, and allow the wax to spread over the car, then using a micro-fibre duster dry the car and buff up the paint work. I am actually quite impressed with the stuff, it's so easy to use and Myrtle was all washed and polished and gleaming in under an hour. Apparently the first application is the most difficult, and then you can just use a liberal amount of the wax as a top-up. Any water on Myrtle no just beads off her, and she feels slick, and looks glossy.

 

Meguiar's Hybrid Ceramic Wax Good Stuff This

Myrtle done, I popped up to Stanley for a quick haircut, then came back home and got sorted ready to go and pick John up. I popped my cooler box into myrtle and the vintage boom box Ern and I made which was connected to my Mp3 player which had loads of songs on for the day.


Once I had picked John up we headed to Stanley and Home Bargains and bought a few bits and bobs for the day then we were off, following directions using Google Maps on John's phone.


The A1 North bound was as frustrating as ever. Even though it was stop start for a while and a very hot day, Myrtle never flickered, she just kept plodding away. She did stall on two or three occasions, however that was more to do with me and still not having the semi-auto clutch control down.


The drive on the lonelier country roads with the windows down was awesome. It can be really pleasurable just to drive an old classic car with no mod cons, you know a simple dash, with one clock, no air con, no electric windows and the sound of a little 1200 cc air cooled motor plodding away, yeah not for everyone I know, but for me, now that Myrtle is running sweet, it's a relaxing experience. John and I also noticed just how many people smile as they see Myrtle, well most, I mean you can get the odd irate driver who has to be somewhere that is really important, and you know getting that one car space ahead of you will make all the difference.


Once at Druridge Bay, we discovered it was really busy. I had to park Myrtle on the grass and there wasn't any great opportunities for photo's, hence not many here. We took the cooler box and headed down to the beach.

  

Druridge Bay Beach sea fret coming in

John and Me

Me on the beach

 

It started out really hot and then a weird sea fret blew in. We decided to have a walk along the beach, and before long you couldn't see more than about 20 to 30 meters in front of you. 

It was like walking through a cloud. In fact, that was what it was, as we soon discovered we were quite wet. I am not sure how far we walked, however it must have been canny far, as it felt like it took ages to get back to the trail where the steps took us off the beach and past the Highland Cows, which we had seen in the field as we approached the beach. I was thinking to myself, "poor things, they must be so hot", what with their long fury coats.

Poor cows must get so hot

 

We then had a walk right around the lake at Druridge Bay, it was a lovely stroll. 

 

Druridge Bay Lake

At one point, two robins came within about 3 feet of us and sat perched in a tree nearby. They appeared unfazed and sat as if waiting to be hand fed. I have never actually seen a wild bird this used to people. One of them actually sat whilst he/she had their picture taken, which John captured, such a pretty, happy looking little bird. We continued our walk around the lake and then headed back to Myrtle.

  

Pretty little Robin

 

   

Walking around the lake trail

Myrtle started first click, and we were soon on our way back home, again with no dramas. Myrtle plodding away, showing between 50 mph and 60 mph on her clock, which I think was more like 40 mph to maybe 50 mph, lol. She is what she is, not a supped up race car. Now she is more like a reliable tortoise that will get you from one point to another. And so goes another mini adventure.

Ooh! I did have one little problem. I think when we have fitted Myrtle’s steering wheel on, or the steering column, that the indicator stalk mechanism is getting stuck as I put weight on the steering wheel, like say turning a corner, Myrtles indicator tends to come on unexpectedly. My dad was on the case upon my return when I told him, he loves working on the old girl LoL