29-03-06 First Donations Received

Many thanks to those who have started the ball rolling with their donations.

Of particular note are the large donations of £100 from Marquis Precision Engineering Ltd www.marquis.dial.pipex.com and £50 from Optima Design Services Ltd www.optima-design.co.uk

Thank you very much for your donations so far.

29-03-06 Does Brookesy look like a chimp or a puppet??

On the theme of looky-likeys, I have another to post...
It also takes me off the top of the blogg looking like a Peep show loser! too close to the truth!?!









So Who does Brooksey REALLY look like?? Bubbles. Close friend of Jacko and forever blowing...












Or tiny mouthed puppet Pob?

Waddya think??

Posted by PeteMate

28-03-06 Does Pete Mate look like Mark from Channel 4's Peep Show

To carry on the theme of look-a-likes do you think Pete Mate looks like David Mitchell who plays Mark in Channel 4's Peep Show - Please leave your comments.

Posted By Sonic

27-03-06 SPI Pledge £400 Donation

Great news, the company we all work for www.spilasers.com has pledged £100 each (£400 total) to our chosen charity 'Cancer Research UK'. This is a matched donation, therefore we need to raise at least £100 each from our friends, families and colleagues. We would therefore ask you to dig deep and donate using the http://www.justgiving.com/teamrado website.

Thank you in advance for your donations.

24-03-06 Does Sonic look like Richard Hammond?

Just been down the pub for a couple of jars, on the way back we were discussing Sonic's driving style. Decided that he drives like captain slow (James May TopGear) but actually looks like Richard Hammond, Shortish, Shiney teeth, what do you think, please leave your comment on whether he looks like Hammond, you will have to wait until september to judge his driving style!!!

23-03-06 New bits

Popped into German Swedish and French www.gsfcarparts.com Southampton today to buy some bits and bobs for the rebuild.

Head Gasket Set (Including Head, Cam Cover, Inlet and Manifold Gaskets)
Set of Head bolts
Ribbed belt
Oil Filter

Thanks very much to the chaps at GSF for giving us a nice big discount on the parts because we are raising money for Cancer Research.

22-03-06 Skimming

Took a trip to Mikina today to get our head skimmed. They took 0.5mm off in all, this still leaves a small area of unmachined head around the areas that caused the leaking head gasket problems. But we are pretty confident that the gasket will seal ok for the amount of miles it needs to do. Will give the bolts plenty of torque! Big thanks to Mikina for machining the head for us today. Also big thanks for the offer of sponsorship.

22-03-06 Clocking up the head

Clocked the head on our small mill at work yesterday. Found a 0.4mm warp in the head. Off to be skimmed today by one of our machinests (www.mikina.co.uk), thank you very much chaps.

20-03-06 Graphics

We have been playing with ideas for the graphics for the car. We are hoping that a friends dad that runs a sign writing business will be able to help us in return for a few beers!

19-03-06 Be-headed

Pete Mate and I spent saturday afternoon removing the head on the Saab. We decided we hate swedish engineers! How inaccessible is all the gubbins below the inlet manifold. We are both left with Saab scars!

In one of the pics below you will see one of the head bolts deep in the chain cover area, a moments lack of concentration allowed the head bolt to drop down, took nearly an hour to retrieve the **** with a coat hanger.

The head bolts were very easy to undo, leading us to believe that the head bolts weren't very well torqued down. Whenever I have removed head bolts before they have been very tight.

Once we got the head off we inspected the damage, it would seem that the head gasket is a replacement (Elring), the gasket was in very good condition with no damage. You can see in the pics below that the failure was between the centre two bores and the front water ways. This again points to the head bolts not being torqued down correctly.

Cleaned the head up a little yesterday and ran a rule across the top of it. First impressions are that the head is warped, but I was using a dodgy old rule that has seen lots of life! Next plan is to take the head to work and run a DTI over it to see how flat or not so flat the head is.

08-03-06 More pics

Here are some more pics and the reciept and MOT's including the current one until Oct.

08-03-06 Pics of the peach.

Here are pics of the Saab now its home. Not bad at all for a ton! Steve (Winkle) came with me to pick it up. Winkle is currently working out how we can provide steaming video of our adventure, he is hoping that we can have at least one webcam on the can linked to laptop with a G3 card that will allow us to provide steaming video for at least an hour a day. We are also planning to keep a picture diary that will be updated as we drive.

08-03-06 Ouch!

Picked the Saab up last night, with the help of the RAC! Good service! But getting the Saab out of the garage it was being stored in nearly broke my ankle. It is very swollen this morning, I'm using my office chair as a wheel chair to get round the house. Foot is currently on top of an upturned waste bin with a bag of frozen peas round it!!!

We were trying to push the car out on the garage and up a curb, kind of bouncing it to get it out. Unfortunately my leg got wedged inbetween the curb and the front bumper meaning that I had 1450kg of Saab pushing down on my ankle though my knee. May pop to the docs later to get it checked out. Hopefully keeping it up and wrapped up in peas will ease the pain and I can get back to work tomorrow.

06-03-06 First pics of the peach

Here it is, not great pics as its in a garage at the mo. More to follow soon.

03-03-06 We have a car

We Have found a car....... Saab 9000 CSE 2.0 Turbo, come on!!

Here's the ad from the adtrader.

I rang up to see how much he wanted for it, he said the magic words of £100!

We pick it up on tuesday evening. Pic's to follow soon.

01-03-06 Euro Tunnel and Flights back booked

Just finished booking the Euro Tunnel and flights.

We are taking the 22.58 train on Thursday the 14th, so leave work at 4.30 ish drive up to my parents house near gatwick in the Scally Rally motor and another car, leave other car at my parents and drive onto Folkstone. Need to be in Folkstone by at least 22.28 for check in. (Cost £49)

Easyjetting it back from Madrid on the Tuesday at 17.20, gives us enough time to recover from the night before, dispose of car, checkin etc etc. Arrive at Gatwick at 18.45. (Cost £22 each) One of my folks will pick us up so that we can get home......Sorted.

Just need to find a car now!!!

01-03-06 New Team Member

We have a new team member. He is a break from tradition in that he is not a Mech Design Engineer and does'nt drive a VW Corrado. But he does work for the same company as the other 3 team members. He does bring technology with him as he is the IT manager here.

Welcome aboard Steve