A new game... Post pics from your cel phone V.1.0

[94touring]

Random pics from the week.

[MiniDave]

You back in Okinawa?

What are they distilling in the "oji" apparatus?

[94touring]

That was a coffee shop and a drip system.

[MiniDave]

Quite the apparatus just for coffee!

[Jims5543]

I was working at the south end of town last week and came up on a neighborhood that had an EF3 Tornado blast through it.

Amazing to see houses trashed and the next house over is fine.





They renamed State Road A-1-A in Florida. Very cool!

[BruceK]

It was our local All British Car Day show here today.  Several of our local Mini owners had other commitments, but we've had a fairly good showing. These are photos early in the day taken before the crowds arrived. 

[BruceK]

A pretty rare Aston Martin Logonda was at the show.  So very 80s and hand built. It was the first car with an electronic digital dash.  This one has had a V8 transplant with a Corvette engine after the Aston engine failed.

[BruceK]

I thought this Bentley was stunning. A 2 door coupe in BRG.

[BruceK]

This later model MG-F had a cool history. Very rare in the US, the guy who owns it bought it brand new in the UK in 1998 and emigrated to the US in 2006. But he kept the MG back in the UK until it was legal to import here.  The interior was definitely nicer than a contemporary Miata.

[94touring]

Cool pics

[BruceK]

There was another British guy there who was convincing himself there was a market to import MG-F models from the UK to the US. I mentioned it was a lot easier to import a rust free MG-F from Japan. He tried to tell me that as long as a UK car had an MOT that meant it wasn't rusty.   Hilarious.  He also tried telling me that the K-series engine was extremely reliable and had no known faults.  Must've been born a used car salesman.

[MiniDave]

I looked at importing an MGF just to have something fun to drive with a drop top, but the one thing holding me back was no A/C.....the other potential failure point on those is the hydragas suspension. I only know of one place (in England) that still fixes those.

That light blue Mini sure is pretty!

Michael's van on the end?

The one thing I would not have expected to fail on the Lagonda was the motor......that's a fairly early Vette motor too, mid 80's?

Nice that they had some shade.....has it cooled off some there now?

[BruceK]

I looked at importing an MGF just to have something fun to drive with a drop top, but the one thing holding me back was no A/C.....the other potential failure point on those is the hydragas suspension. I only know of one place (in England) that still fixes those.

That light blue Mini sure is pretty!

Michael's van on the end?

The one thing I would not have expected to fail on the Lagonda was the motor......that's a fairly early Vette motor too, mid 80's?

Nice that they had some shade.....has it cooled off some there now?

The MGF that the British Expat imported had only 34,000 miles. But it had years of not being used.  So the Hydrogas had failed and soon after it arrived in the US its the K-series failed too.  The owner had to import a used engine from the UK and he could not find any repair shop that would handle the engine swap.  Finally, one of the guys in the local Triumph club Volunteered to take it on and he was successful in installing the new used engine. 

Yes, that's Michael's van on the end. The surf blue Mini was picked up by a local guy for just $2500 at an estate sale.   It's a circa-1995 German spec titled as a 1968 or so from back in the days when that was fashionable to do.

I don't know the full story about the Aston engine failing, but the Vette engine conversion was done in California and it has full CARB approval.

Yes, it's starting to cool down here and we now have about nine months of really nice weather before the hell of summer returns. 
 

[Jims5543]

This is the most 80's thing I have ever seen in ages.  I love and hate it all at the same time.



Looks like a fantastic show.  Thanks for sharing the pics.

[MPlayle]

Here are a few pictures I took at the ABCD (All British Car Day).

I took mine while cars were still arriving, so missed the Bentley Bruce posted above.

[MPlayle]

After the ABCD, I ran off to a CycleKart event at the Harris Hill Raceway in San Marcos, Texas.  The short description of what a cyclekart is: a scaled down "characture" go-kart inspired by a pre-WWII racer.

Here are some pictures of the karts in the paddock at tech inspection Saturday afternoon and prepping for the races (hill climb & 2.4 hour endurance race).  I was manning the start of the hill climb, so no pictures of that.

[MPlayle]

As stated above, I was manning the start of the hill climb event, so did not get any pictures of that.

Here are some pictures of some of the racers during part of the 2.4 hour endurance race.  That race was run 1.2 hours clockwise, then 1.2 hours counter-clockwise.

[MiniDave]

Wow, a real variety of body styles - what engine do they run? Is it a spec chassis/engine etc?

What sort of speeds were they getting?

That looks like a ton o fun!

[MPlayle]

There are indeed a variety of styles.  There is a partial "formula/spec" for the karts.  Frames are allowed to vary some based on approximating the builder's inspiration car.  The biggest specs are related to max size (length & width), size/type of wheels, and drive train.  They all run clones of the older Honda GX200 engine - usually the Predator 212 available from go-cart shops or Harbor Freight.  They also run the "30 series TAV kit" as the spec CVT.  A "stage 1" kit is allowed as the "permitted" engine upgrade.

Here is the page considered the "source" for the basic specifications.  Some flexibility and evolution has taken place, but the spirit of the basic specs remains.

https://www.cyclekarts.com/CycleKartSpecs.html

The speeds range a lot depending on weight of kart, weight of driver, engine mods, track & conditions.  The speeds tend to vary from 30 mph to as much as 60+ mph.

[BruceK]

Hey, if you have a really super exclusive automobile brand and you charge well over $3 million for a hyper car, what is a super way to cheapen your brand?  License it!

[MiniDave]

Looks like it goes 88mph according to the display on the handlebars - should see some serious shit when it does, right?   

[BruceK]

Looks like it goes 88mph according to the display on the handlebars - should see some serious shit when it does, right?   

Depends if the scooter batteries can provide 1.21 gigawatts.

[Jims5543]

After having Dans Mini Professionally ceramic coated and also having Mrs5543's R53 Mini professionally coated as well, I did not want to even see how much the M5 would cost to coat. It is not a cheap process about $1,500 per car including paint correction.  I had purchased a kit and was going to do it myself. Also, excuse the mess in the garage, we are shedless at the moment as we do a complete backyard makeover. Our shed will be here on the 21st. Then I can move all the yard crap out of the garage and into the shed. My life is chaos at the moment.

Before I go any further I will break down some lessons learned if you decide to stupidly go down the same cheapskate path as me.

1. Unlike Waxing, Ceramic coating is exactly what it is, coating, whatever is under it stays there under a nice coat.

2. When instructions say to work in 2 square foot areas start to finish, they are not joking. This shit is very unforgiving.

3. Whatever you ceramic coat over it is locked in. i.e. scratches, blemishes, water marks, water streaks etc.. make sure the car is 100% the way you want it before coating. Think of ceramic coating as a send button with no editing possible.


So my mistake was thinking this is like waxing a car where you can "work out" any blemishes you may encounter while waxing.

I washed the M5 then claybarred it then sprayed this special spray in the ceramic kit that prepares the paint for the coating (probably alcohol).  I had a water streak that must have happened after I did all of the above, in my head I thought, as I work in the coating it will work out or wipe out the streak like wax does. Nope! I just sealed in a blemish! FML#1.

I also ignored the 2 square foot rule, because I can be an impatient moron, and had some of the coating dry on me which is a disaster.  I ended up with some cloudy sections on the car. After a lot of trial and error and being completely bummed out, I discovered using a mild compound by hand, will buff out the clouds. I have a lot of work to do.  FML#2

Overall? The car came out great, it pops and shines like Dans Mini and My wife's R53.

I have the arduous task of now going over the entire car with a mild compound and buffing out all the cloudy areas.

I did half the car a last weekend today I finished it, my second day working on it went much better with lessons learned. No need to go back to those parts of the car, just the 1st days mess. Did I type FML yet?  Yeah 2X make that 3 and probably many more by the time I am finished.




Excuse the dust on the back door, that was from buffing out the front door. I need to wipe that off.



There is some clouding right behind the headlight on the fender, of you look close, after this pic I buffed that out.

[Jims5543]

Hey, if you have a really super exclusive automobile brand and you charge well over $3 million for a hyper car, what is a super way to cheapen your brand?  License it!

As tempting as those are for running around town, too many cases of them exploding for me personally. I would never put one near my house or office.

They can charge in a field. Away from doing damage to structures.

And a big nope on $1500 for a scooter.

[94touring]

I'm in Thailand this week.