The Weather Improves

At long last the weather was suitable to go out for a spin and do some small jobs on the car.  Still cold but compared with previous days, quite balmy.  

So a short blast through the country lanes.  Had to take it a bit carefully as some of the roads are still a bit damp.  In fact accelerating away from corner a bit too aggressively and I had a very disconcerting 'wiggle' from the back end.   With the car not having moved in 2 weeks, the expected petrol smell was there, but nowhere near as bad as I expected.  If my supposition is correct that the pipe between the transmission tunnel and the filter is absorbing petrol then evaporating off then that would be logical.  I shall see tomorrow if the smell has disappeared.

Checked all the wheel nuts and suspension bolts were still tight.   I never do that on the Volvo, just seems a good idea on a home-built car.   Gave the stainless steel a good clean.  After all the experiments it seems that Windolene is the best thing to use.  And also put Rainex on the windscreen.  The wipers are pretty pathetic so maybe that will improve the situation if I am forced to drive in the rain.

Only major job undertaken was fitting a new mudflap on the offside front wheel.   Back in September (See here) I had fitted a longer mudflap but I was a bit worried it was too flexible.

Turned out I was right, and at speed the flap lifted and even more muck was flicked back along the body and rear mudguard.

So I bought a new 6mm piece of rubber (the previous one was 2mm) and fitted a new stiffer flap.

Unlike a normal car, the wing and mudflap actually move up and down with the wheel, so in theory I could extend the mudflap down till it was almost on the road and that would really guarantee a clean body.  Unfortunately that requires a piece of rubber 230cms long, and it is normally sold in 200mm lengths.  If this still doesn't protect the body I might have to bite the bullet and buy some oversize pieces. 
  
Next day:   Nice long trip for a walk, and lunch, round Rutland Water.  And this was what the rear splash protector looked like when I got back.

Back to the drawing board.

And to add insult to injury the right indicators stopped working properly.   Narrowed it down to the front right flasher but the bulb is fine so must be a wiring problem.    What fun !