Manky's Pop.

[the coppersmith]

If you have time?? my time pie chart

[Manky Monkey]

  Mine's the same, but with less sleeping & more eating.
I've spent Christmas at my brother's house in Wiltshire, so no festive fettling to report. Unfortunately my daily commuter, a super high mileage Ford Fiesta, decided to die on the way home late last night. The electronic, "fly by wire" accelerator pedal's packed up. Managed to limp it home, but had to walk a couple of miles to work at 5.0.clock this morning. Hopefully not a big problem to fix, but I try not to tinker with the daily driver & it might take a while to get booked in at a garage over Christmas/New Year. So in the meantime I'm walking. Mr Loon's garage is about 5 miles away so I'm working out a cross town route to get there & will give it a go tomorrow. At least it'll work off some of the Christmas calories. 

[BikerGran]

Damn cars, they just don't try!  Why don't you get a horse? 

[Manky Monkey]

  Having lived with Tazet, who ran a stable yard, I'd say 'orses are more trouble than cars & even more expensive to mend.
My day off today so I was able to take the Fester to the garage where forum member PD works. His boss said he'd plug it into the diagnostic thingamabob & get back to me. Haven't heard anything so I'm not sure if that's a good sign or not. Walking to work's no problem but getting to the workshop will have to wait for weekends & days off for now.
I trekked across town to the 'shop after I'd dropped the Fiesta off this morning. A 1 1/2 hour walk but I definitely need the exercise. Scrubbed the surface rust off the Pop roof yet again then blew it over in grey primer & clear lacquer to weatherproof it. Next time I'm there I'll spray some black over it. Running over that with the long surform will show up the low spots that still need filling.
Also fitted the header tank & screen washer bottle on the bulkhead & added a couple of nuts & bolts to the engine. My laptop's down at the moment so posting this from my phone & haven't figured out how to re-size phone photos yet.

[Manky Monkey]

Fuzzy phone pics. The temperature was dropping rapidly when I took them so I think the mistiness is on the lens, not in the air.

Grey primered & lacquered roof. Not as smooth as it looks but not bad. It's getting there. Still need to do some work on the swage line to bring it into line with the swage on the doors.

[Manky Monkey]

Radiator header tank & screen washer bottle container painted gloss black & re-fitted to the bulkhead. Held with the same stainless steel straps as before.

[Manky Monkey]

Bought this little "Moon Eyes" water temperature gauge a couple of weeks ago. It screws directly into the inlet manifold with an adapter. Pointless? Yeah, probably, but I didn't want extra gauges on the dashboard & I just like it, (had one on my last trike too).
Vintage race cars often had a set of gauges mounted on the bulkhead to help with setting the engine up & I did actually make a panel to fit some when we first built the Pop but didn't use it. I've ordered a matching oil pressure gauge.
The Discovery rocker covers will be swapped for my R & R Imports finned ones before the motor's fired up again.

[Manky Monkey]

Just don't seem to be getting anywhere with this at the moment. A combination of long hours at work over Christmas, the disruption of that & New Year, plus weeks of rain mean I haven't got much done, but I want to be driving the Manky Mobile again in the Spring.

[kapri]

It's getting there mate

[Manky Monkey]

  Yeah, but if it could just get there a bit quicker that'd be nice!

[scannerzer]

i lose all momentum do go to the shed over christmas ,rather sit by the fire and eat turkey sandwiches 

[Manky Monkey]

So would I if I could. The Pop lives outside, under a tarpaulin & the last thing I want to do after a day trudging the streets delivering the Mail is work outside for another couple of hours, but if I don't do it now, I won't be cruising in it when the sun reappears.

[spanners]

9 days without an update    wondering if everything is ok ??

[Manky Monkey]

  Yeah, fine Mike.
I was away over Christmas & Loon had a couple of days off over New year. A couple of days of bad weather, a couple of afternoons of working on another little metal sculpture project, (if it works out O.K I'll post some photos soon) -just other things taking up the available time.
Looks like a nice dry day out there today, but it's Mr Loon's birthday so not sure when/if he'll be there. He's got a rush paint repair job on, on a 30,000 quid Infinity, (posh 4 wheel drive Nissan thingy), for the next few days, so I can't throw too many sparks or filler dust about. Hopefully I can get the wrinkly chassis paint rubbed down again & re-painted, so I can continue fitting engine parts.

[Manky Monkey]

A couple of snaps from this afternoon.
The roof's been dusted over with a black aerosol, just as a guide coat for the final filling/rubbing down. I'd really like to get it green before it hits the road again.