Rebuilding Kate

June 6th 2005 - 300 Miles...

Murphy's law always kicks in at the most in-oppourtune moments. No sooner is Kate back from her MOT than she gets a puncture in her rear tyre. The rear wheels still have the locking nuts, and the key went missing at some point over the last 12months. To cut a long story very short, I made a mess of trying to get the locking nut off, and ended up shearing the top portion of the nut away. It had to be taken to the garage and the mechanic there used a bit of heat and an air chisel to split the nut. Thankfully the wheel was undamaged by the process, which saves me having to buy a new pair. The puncture repaired and the spare which was causing vibrations on the front steering a couple of months back is rebalanced.

North Dorset and back via. Somerset. A 300 mile round trip, completed without problems. I'm somewhat paranoid that every bump, creak or rattle is something big going wrong, but they are all probably nothing. There is a little vibration in the steering, but I'm fairly convinced that it's road vibration rather an imbalance in the

Everything that is left to do is cleaning or routine maintenance.

Exhausts
these have been on the list of things to fix for over 18months now. Replacing the mounting bushes has helped a lot and should mean that I won't have to do anything until the end of the year.
Oil
I need to do a full oil change and replace the filter. I also need to bleed the oil through to the oil pressure guage properly.
Headlights
Fresh lamp needed on the offside. Ideally Iwouldd source reflector and lamp as separate entities rather than the current sealed unit.
Bumper
I need to remove one of the washers on the offside to straighten it up a little and then several hours worth of polishing will be required to get it back into a shiny state.
Number Plate
For saftey I should replace the nylon nuts and bolts rather than relying on the strip of double sided tape.





Rebuilding Kate
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