Grotty?

Got a comment on this blog via the TVR forum (the one I was harsh about below) that the wheel shots on here (in my last post) had the (and I quote) 'Grotty old wheel nuts on there'. It's a fair cop, they do look gash. There are some perfectly good steel ones on ebay, look really nice, but I didn't go for those, oh no. I decided to make the most ridiculous purchase of a car accessory I think I have ever done:



yep, aluminium alloy wheel nuts. They weigh virtually nothing, and they look the bizzo. However, they are stupid expensive, and proves that I am nuts (excuse lame pun) beyond a shadow of a doubt. Now I'll have to be really careful about letting bodgers with air wrenches anywhere near them!

Had to mod my press that I posted about below. Doing a job (not car related), I bent my adaptor. I suppose this was expected really - the bender is designed to bend pipes of heavier gauge than the metal that I made the adaptor out of. Not very brainy. So added more steel:



squished the living daylights out of that Red Bull can!

Pressing matters

In the garage today for a couple of hours. Took this shot of the engine bay with spangly new radiator and leads:



Doesn't look too bad in there on the whole.

Took this picture of the new back wheel. Bit of a contrast to the OE Estoril wheel below (which is a front wheel to be totally fair):



The wheels are Compomotive MO6's. They are a lightweight racing wheel, which I've had shod in Toyo Proxes TR1S. Size on the rear is 17x9 with 255/17/40, and front is 16x8 with 225/16/45.

As per my last post, I have bought the Steve Heath polybush kit. Now you need a press to press the old metalastic bushes out, which I don't have. I do have a pipe bender though, which has a 12 ton ram in it. So I had some old box section lying about that got give to me as scrap to mess about with my welder on and I chopped it up and made something of an adaptor to turn my pipe bender into a press:



Those pins hold the bits of bodged up box section into the bender and just give a flat surface to press against. Just need to get time to get those wishbones off, refurbish them and rebush.