BITS AND DETAILS
Hoo boy, it’s been one of those weeks. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times recently, getting parts for cars at the moment is a real issue. Freight costs are at an all time high and the supply is pretty ordinary. I seem to have a workshop full of cars, waiting for things to arrive.
One of the less troublesome is Ed Guido’s Project VK, the Berlina wagon we’re throwing together with a 355 stroker V8.
As is often the case, just as you look like you’re in sight of the end of the project, there’s still a huge list of details to sort, each of which takes time.
A good example is making up a crankcase of PCV system. It’s all terribly simple on the face of it, but it’s time-consuming as you chase down connectors and pipes that will do the job and still look good. Just little stuff, but it’s worth getting right the first time before we sling the engine into its new home.
And now we wait as various bits and pieces trickle in. Today’s big news was the new fuel pump arrived! That’s one more thing to be crossed off the list.
Speaking of parts, it’s worth sharing one recent experience. One of my customers has a 2016 Toyota Yaris, which needed the driver-side window fixed. I was quoted $700 for a winder motor (!) and, after making who knows how many calls, tracked down the last window switch left in the country. We refused to be held to ransom for the motor and found a way to fix it, though it still turned out to be a fairly pricey job at $600.
Still, it could be worse. The owner of a late-model BMW was coming over to see us and along the way accidentally put petrol in his diesel car. Not good. It limped to our workshop, then promptly shut down, locking up everything, including the park brake. That made getting it onto a flatbed a pretty interesting experience!
There was a time that if you put the wrong fuel in your car, so long as you didn’t drive too far, you could clean it out and it wasn’t too catastrophic. These days, it’s a big and expensive issue to rectify.
So, the moral to the story? Treat fuelling your car with as much attention as you would crossing a sixlane highway in your birthday suit – concentrate!