Spinney

My GT 410 dampers never rattled or knocked over slow speed bumps and I only changed to something a bit softer to help my elderly creaking frame!

I believe so Paul but maybe Bibs could confirm that.

I have a set of 4 low mileage GT 410 dampers at a good price if you are interested

Well hallelujah, it turns out there is a god and, what’s more, he’s been smiling down on me. The problem rattle proved to be panel No 2 on the above diagram, the one surrounding the starter button, and which hadn’t been properly seated, presumably by the factory. A bit of jiggery pokery with pushing and pulling and it suddenly clicked into its rightful location, et voila, no more rattles! I couldn’t be happier, especially since I don’t now need to pull out the entire dash! I really wasn’t looking forward to that.👌😃

I first saw Christine Perfect, as she was then, with Chicken Shack in ‘69, I think it was. I loved her bluesey style then and was delighted when she subsequently joined Fleetwood Mac whom I’d been a fan of since their early Peter Green days. Coincidentally, a fellow steward at Brooklands Museum told us recently he’d been on a date with her back in the 60’s. He played bass in a local band and was introduced to her one night by another band member. They apparently went out only once and he quickly realised he was punching well above his weight! 😁 His other claim to fame was John McVie was in his class at school.

I’m hoping so. It’s a bit of a departure for me, never having had a Volvo previously. I’ve had MB’s for over 20 years now, prior to that BMW and before that a string of Audis, so maybe a change is due before I’m too old. 😃

I fear it probably isn’t which, I must admit, has surprised me somewhat. Back in April I ordered a new E Class Estate with a projected delivery of the end of this year. I was promised monthly updates in the dealership but no, in July I received an email telling me my car would not now be delivered until Q1/Q2 2023 due to the global situation. Ok, I thought, I can live with that but I then received a further email from MB in September, simply telling me they probably won’t be able to supply my car now for the foreseeable future. They went on to say my order was cancelled and can I telephone them so they can refund the deposit to my card! Said they would contact again when they were able to supply and that was it, no apology and no further explanation! That was early September and I’ve not heard from them since. If they should contact me again, they know where they can stick their car! I’ve now got a Volvo V90 on order with delivery scheduled for mid May ‘23 and I receive monthly updates from the dealer. Customers can accept an awful lot of shit provided they are kept fully informed of what’s going on.

No I’ve not had the chance to delve into this yet. I haven’t used the car for a bit and probably won’t for a good while longer now so at the moment it’s out of sight and out of mind. I’ll most likely leave it until next spring now, I think.

The very fact they are struggling with the concept of taking the money donated speaks volumes about their own moral code. They shouldn’t feel any guilt about taking it though, as some recompense for the appalling way they have been treated by the very system that should be defending and protecting them. If they want to give some to an appropriate charity, good on them, but I imagine every single penny donated was done so with the intention of helping them and restoring some faith in humanity.

I didn’t see this prog but reading the account here has really made my blood boil. I’m sure many of us would have been inclined to do what your SIL did and whilst inadvisable, would expect the British justice system to protect you rather than making you the villain. I’m just speechless at the appalling way this was handled by the judge. Such a verdict gives the scum element of our society encouragement to keep on doing what they’re doing. I felt the need to help your daughter and SIL so have added to the GFM page too.

I was able to clean the car this morning so for no other reason than it still looks great, here are a few gratuitous pics!

I love the Vivid Green colour and saw one on the day I went up to Hethel to choose the final spec for my car. I was torn in two wondering if I should have that or the Estoril Blue, both with tan leather interior. I eventually plumped for the blue but I’m sure I’d have been just as happy with the Vivid Green or maybe the Fire Red or even the Burnt Orange! Jeez it’s so hard to choose when the car just looks so good in so many colours.

I see your chancing your arm with wife story and raise you one very highly pissed off wife who didn’t speak to me for days. My last Caterham didn’t have an ignition key. It had an immobiliser dongle thingie you had to wave around under the dash to turn off the immobiliser. Once that was done, noted by a flashing red LED going out, you then flipped up a red switch guard and switched on the toggle ignition switch before pressing the adjacent big red starter button. Now that’s all well and good until the time you start the car, reverse out of the garage and leave the engine running while you nip back inside to pick up something you’ve forgotten and put the dongle down on the table while you look for it. Then returning to the still idling car, you jump in and after buckling up, drive off to the pub about 10 miles away where you are meeting some mates in their Caterhams. Once at the pub, you turn the engine off, climb out of the car, look for the dongle and immediately realise you haven’t got it about your person! You then run back through your mind, remembering you must have put it down on the hall table when you went back indoors. 🤦 Now of course, without said dongle you can’t start the bloody car, so you pluck up the courage to phone the wife and ask if she could very kindly drive out to the pub with your mislaid dongle. I’ll leave the ensuing bile, invective and stream of swear words (some I didn’t even think she knew) to your imagination! 🤷‍♂️

Maybe it's because I've already done the Caterham thing (twice) but in terms of overall driving pleasure, I found a Lotus knocks the Seven into a cocked hat. Yes they are great driving cars at certain times of the year and in good weather, or unless you are a masochist, but they are just too flawed and impractical for much use on todays roads. This used to be my regular procedure whenever I fancied driving the Caterham:- 1) Disconnect the battery conditioner which was necessary since the car was so rarely used. 2) Climb in and slide into the seat. 3) Climb back out again having realised I'd left the steering wheel on the bench in the garage. 4) Climb back into the car, sliding into the seat and fit the steering wheel on its splines. 5) Try doing up the 4 point harness, only to realise you are sitting on one of the webs and can't pull it out. 6) Remove steering wheel and lift yourself up in the seat whilst trying to retrieve the errant harness web. 7) Drop back into the seat and refit the steering wheel. 8)Pull the harness webs into position, plug into buckle and pull the webs tight so you feel snuggly held in place. 9) Look around for the ignition key, only to realise the sodding thing is in your trouser pocket and can't be reached whilst strapped in the car. 10) Repeat steps 6, 7 and 8 before finally putting the key in the ignition to start the car. 11) Reverse out of the garage, only to find it starting to rain By this point, having almost lost the will to live, I would usually put it back in the garage and take the daily instead! Anybody who has ever owned a Caterham will recognise the above palaver. Trust me, a Lotus, especially an Evora, is better and more pleasurable in every way you can imagine.

As this is the Evora picture thread! 😁 It’s on a wall inside a train ticket office in Lisbon that we were in earlier this week, so obviously had to be snapped.

Just be aware the latch is locked and don’t forget when you unplug the conditioner to go out for a drive. Not done this myself but a pal did on his Evora and broke the latch!🤦 For that reason, I do mine slightly differently and don’t lock the car whilst it’s in my very secure garage. I simply either leave the hatch open or just rest it on the cable. I have fitted a small circular rocker switch in the boot which turns the light on or off. That way I don’t have to leave it on whilst the car is in the garage with the hatch open.

No I haven’t had the front access panel nor roof or hatch PPF’d. The carbon vanes etc in the front air vents and the internal surfaces of the rear exit ducts behind the wheels have been done though. The entire front up to just above the headlights, the lower sides, doors, door mirrors and lower rear wings have all been done too. Soon after getting the car, we went on a club tour through Wales and one of the other drivers mentioned to me when following he could see that the rear tyres were often flicking small stones and grit back through the ducts on to his car. He wasn’t annoyed, fortunately, and was aware it wasn’t my fault as such. Nevertheless, I could see he was right as the PPF was already getting damaged and so I carried out a mod of fitting a piece of black painted 18g stainless mesh over the front of each duct. This has worked perfectly, still allows air through as intended and isn’t causing any further damage to the duct or following cars.

Yes I’ve tried to pinpoint a location, pushed and pulled everything within my reach as I drive but it’s definitely coming from behind the dash.

Well there’s the irony. Because all my previous Lotus were rather more raw or, dare I say, even basic, I was probably more ready to accept the odd rattle. The Evora, however, is supposed to be more refined and I really can’t live with it rattling so badly.

Ye gods that doesn’t look like a 5 minute job does it?🤦 Hmmm, as expected I might be knocking on Back on Track’s door sometime soon I think.

I probably already know the answer to this and suspect it will be something like "Don't even think about it"! Over the last few months, pretty much since my track day at Hethel back in July, I have noticed a rattle from behind the dash to the right of the instrument cluster that has been getting steadily worse. At first it was only noticeable when travelling over very rough surfaces and wasn't bad enough to annoy me but now it is almost constant and really starting to get on my nerves. With all my previous Lotus cars you could get up under the dash quite easily and feel around until finding the source of any rattles but, of course, this isn't so easy on the Evora. I am quite handy with tools but no longer possessing the physique of a racing snake nor the patience of a saint, I'm now thinking this might be a task too much for me. Anybody carried this out on a 4** series car and can give me a prognosis on degree of difficulty please?

And here’s mine in Estoril Blue (BMW colour) with tan interior. Only departure from standard are 400 dampers from the Touring spec and that I recently had fitted. It has Xpel covering on all the important little places and a ceramic finish from new. There was a problem with the aircon from new but that was soon fixed under warranty and been ok since.

So now the Kremlin has found a reason to stop allowing the export of much needed Ukrainian grain, feigning outrage that Ukraine has the audacity to attack their Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol. What’s more they are claiming, without a shred of evidence, that British forces helped in the attack and furthermore were responsible for blowing up Nordstream 1 & 2 pipelines last month! If it wasn’t all so sad and serious, you could spend all day laughing at their claims. I think a suitable response would be to say listen, if British forces had been part responsible for the attacks on the fleet, you’d have more to complain about than just one mine sweeper receiving minor damage!

Kept her promise then. That’s my girl! 😁

Did Agnetha mention me at all? I think we hit it off as she was often smiling at me during the performance! I tried to give her my card but she was obviously a bit busy on stage. 😃