Yesterday saw me head down to Kent to pick up my new Shortie! :D I got on the motorway to come back home about 4pm.

 

At 9pm, I was safely tucked away... on the hard shoulder of the A1(M) near York with a grand total of 1 wheelnut holding my rear passenger wheel on!!! The other 4 studs decided to shear off while I was in the outside lane - there was an almighty bang, the back-end of the car went completely loose so I had no choice but to dive for the shoulder! :(

 

The recovery truck arrived at 11pm and I slowly edged my new tripod onto the flatbed, before we headed off back to mine.

 

Spoke to Mr F this morning and he's ordered me 10 new rear studs, so my new car is currently undrivable. Seems it had cheap slot-on spacers on the back, no spigot rings and the end result was 4 wheelstuds missing.

 

Gotta love Zeds, eh...?!

Edited December 4, 201411 yr by Mondo

Side panels finished last night:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And fitted this morning:

 

 

 

 

 

Looks like I'll be redoing the driver's side one as the seam is slightly off from the central trim (unless I can manipulate how it sits a little), but it's back on to paying jobs now. And at least it gets rid of that nasty silver paint from when I bought her!

 

:thumbup1:

The view from my living room window this morning:

 

 

Truly a thing of beauty, in my opinion! :D

Very nice, the spats really set it off.

Very nice! :)

Truly a thing of beauty, in my opinion! :D

 

True!

Thanks guys. I absolutely properly love this car!! :blush: :wub::wub::wub:

It just keeps getting better Si :thumbup1:

Cracking looking machine Mondo [emoji106]

Thank you for all the nice comments, guys :)

 

No pictures with this update, but I think it's worth sharing anyway: Lee Dent and I have finally managed to settle on a date that suits us both so Diesel (for that is her name :) ) will be heading down to Shrewsbury early doors on March 24th to have some work done.

 

This includes:

 

Cambelt, tensioners and waterpump changed

Plenum and balance bar swap and the relevant deletes done (if they haven't already been done when the forged rebuild was done a few years ago)

All pipework replaced

New radiator and waterpipes

Hardpipes fitted

And generally a thorough health check to make sure that everything's as it should be with her. Can't wait!

 

For anyone who's even mildly curious as to why she has been called Diesel... a friend of mine has a little Jackahuahua that sadly has had problems with one of his legs since birth... he's called Diesel... so he's sort of only get three legs... and as my Zed sort of only had three wheels the day I got her... :lol:

Thats a lot of nice engine work getting done Si :thumbup1:Diesel we love you for it.:yes:

I figured that as this car is now my "investment" of sorts and I have precisely zero plans to get rid of her, I'd better make sure she's tip-top mechanically before I start attempting to plan things like full resprays and suchlike. :yes:

 

The forged rebuild was done in 2010 and, according to the original owner (who I tracked down via Twitter), it was done for reliability rather then power. The spec sheet I have from Ashford Motorsport who did the build is pretty impressive... and expensive!... but a couple of things seem to have grown legs and wandered away from the car, namely the Apexi EBC (although all the pipework is still there) and the aftermarket ECU from a firm called KMS.

 

The only ECU I can find is in the usual place and appears to be an ordinary Nissan one bearing a Zedworld sticker. So unless the KMS one is somehow inside that original box (is that even possible...?), then it's departed the car before I bought her :(

 

To be honest, and I've thought about this quite a lot recently, I don't really want to be chasing big horsepower figures or anything like that. If she could be mapped and achieve somewhere in the 400s, I'd be satisfied with that and be happy in the knowledge that I own a beautiful looking machine that can still hold her own today, 23 years after she trundled off the production line.

 

That'd do for me :) So first things first: make sure all the important stuff (timing belt, pumps, cooling, etc) is taken care of so she's as reliable as she can be.

 

:thumbup1:

For anyone who's even mildly curious as to why she has been called Diesel... a friend of mine has a little Jackahuahua that sadly has had problems with one of his legs since birth... he's called Diesel... so he's sort of only get three legs... and as my Zed sort of only had three wheels the day I got her... :lol:

 

In that case I think 'Robin' is a more appropriate name.......lol

Good choice taking her to Lee Dents, he does great work! Should be going down there myself soon so might see your zed there.

Great looking car bud very nice:)

In that case I think 'Robin' is a more appropriate name.......lol

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Someone has too much time on their hands, I reckon... :lol:

 

Today sees us off to Bird's gaff, partly for a catch up... partly to grab a couple of bits... and partly cos he apparently wants to use Diesel as a test-bed for some sort of car/human/mind-meld/computer thingy he's cobbled together...!!

 

I wonder if this means she'll talk to me (a la KITT)...? :lol:

Hopefully that cobbled together bluetooth device of Birds works as I want to make one too!

Hopefully that cobbled together bluetooth device of Birds works as I want to make one too!

 

Am I right to be scared that he wants to test it on mine... instead of his own...? :lol:

Probably!

Am I right to be scared that he wants to test it on mine... instead of his own...? :lol:

 

Take plenty of fuses !!

Make sure Bird has bought plenty of fuses !!

 

Fixed that for you, mate... ;)

Take your RAC card Si............ lol

Zed Looking Great, Love the alcantara sections you have done!

Pmsl. Just read this... ****s haha.

As I'm heading off down to Lee Dent's tomorrow for a big service and some other work, I thought I'd bung an under-bonnet pic (or three) up to show what it currently looks like under there:

 

 

 

 

As I couldn't find any ready-polished throttle bodies, I've given mine a bit of a scrub down (along with the fronts of the rocker covers) and I'm pleasantly surprised by how nicely they've started to come up :)

 

It should look a lot less grimy and a lot more attractive under there when Lee's finished.... :thumbup1:

Oh you going to Lees...you never said :whistling:.

 

Where's your throttle cover ??