Mondo

:(

Phutumsch? I appreciate his paintwork's a sore point for him, but it's still a cracking Zed....

I remember chatting about this very car on here when it was on eBay a few months ago. And I'll say again that his sales pitch needs serious work!! "Bottom-feeder" looks... a characterless engine.... Take my money!!

As I've said in the past, last year's retrim was a bit of a rush job and I was never entirely happy with it. I always felt the seats especially could look better and more eye-catching. Version 2.0, however, I'm very happy with so far! I'll be even happier once I get the doorcards and rear sections done in the new design :thumbup1:

Considering how (relatively) inexpensive the rear balljoints are, I wouldn't even contemplate used ones. Never mind the fact that they'll likely get mangled being removed from Ali's subframe.

You have Hicas, Will - that's what the arm attached to the duff rear balljoint is. I watched Lee Dent changing mine earlier this year and it took him a while to do and looked a bit of a pig of a job! No press required as such, but you need at least a socket that's the exact same size as the new balljoint (to use as a drift to tap it into place.

Well, with the best will in the world, there's no way I'm going to get all the relevant parts of the interior trimmed before I have to leave for Birmingham. Which is a shame as I really wanted to have it all (re)done, but events today have devoured a lot of time and I also still need to get the front brakes swapped out. Oh yeah, and thoroughly clean the whole car too! But at least the seats will be done, which is the most important part of the revamp. Everything else is really just me being a bit fussy... As I said, things have happened today that have taken up a lot of time so I'll get the driver's seat done tomorrow :)

Well, that's one done: As you can see, the design is now a little different from Recaro's original. I just wanted them to stand out a little more than they did, without going too far and veering too wildly from the source design. For the centres, I actually took a design cue from Aston Martin and I think the vertical seam (rather than it being a simple pleat) alters the look just enough. The Alcantara inserts on the inner bolsters were a serious labour of love, but they help to expand the centre cushions outwards and (hopefully) make the transition from the Alcantara to the leather a little less blunt. :) And I changed all the topstitching for silver; partly to tie in with the exterior colour and partly to give it a little more punch against the dark red leather. I like it. I like it a lot! :biggrin:

Today is seat day. But I have to do it with the added wrinkle (no pun intended) of having a plasterer here to make the kitchen look presentable again. So juggling his likely need for a gazillion cups of tea and trying to sort my seats out and trying to keep a rein on the two hounds suggests that it's going to be an interesting kind of a day.... :blink:

In other news... I've actually finished building the new covers for the seats!! Hopefully I'll get them fitted tomorrow. Might put some pics up from the NEC or something.... ;)

That's a truly lousy turn of events!! As others have already said though, you walked away from it and that, really, is the most important thing. Proper sad news, man... :(

That car has had a supremely hard life, James - me and Lexx watched her hammering it around the tarmac outside her old unit a couple of years ago! Hopefully it'll serve you well though :) Welcome back!

Thanks, Rich. :) As with the current caliper setup (which is also candy red), the idea was to break up the exterior as it's so very silver and grey. So the splashes of colour from the calipers and the wheel badges help to liven it all up a little. I know there are those who hate and detest coloured calipers but I simply refer back to the fact that it's my Zed :thumbup1:

So today, this happened: Nice to see the old girls looking a bit better in Candy Red, and infinitely better than the tatty gold colour that they were! :biggrin:

Is there anything in the AUP that states that paying a subscription entitles a member to a say in any or all decisions? I mean, what next? Are we going to start demanding a vote on whether to ban people or not...?

The reason I bring up JAE 2015 is because you're very vocal about wanting to be an important part of the club, yet disappeared off the club stand there after one night. As I said, I didn't know why you weren't at the AGM - now I do. You didn't see me at Simply Japanese because I couldn't afford it. Your belief that the Powers That Be deliberately withheld the NEC lineup is fair enough, but I have to ask the question why they would deliberately withhold it...? What difference does it make to the general populace of this forum? Am I to believe that, for example, my inclusion on the stand would change peoples' minds about whether to visit the show or not...? I hope lessons are learned for the future as well. I hope that you accept that some things don't necessarily need to be thrown open to public scrutiny, so we can avoid another rehash of this debacle!

Forum member cars, Jay.....

This should be a fun thread! Here's the deal: you're allowed 4 cars on the NEC stand. List which four you'd choose and, if you so wish, why. Mine would have a representative of every body style so: 2+2: either FunkySi or Ian Greenfield. Si because his is simply a superb example of a family estate, and Ian because it's such a rare variant. 2+0 T-bar: Dougal. His Shortie is just sensational and I think it should have far more recognition than it has. 2+0 Slicktop: either Phutumsch or, for a bit of variety, Jaffa! Convertible: either Johnyboy or Toolboxtrev. I think they're both well sorted examples of Verts, albeit not standard or OEM+. I think that'd be a stand that'd draw some crowds. :biggrin: Anyone else want to add their rosters...?

The thing is, Chris' only contribution to any thread regarding this show is to whinge about the selection criteria. There's nothing constructive there - it's just criticism. I personally don't understand why it's such an issue for him. He doesn't want to be left out of the club's proceedings, yet abandoned the club stand at JAE last year and also spectacularly failed to make any appearance at the AGM in Coventry this year. I don't know the ins and outs regarding either of those decisions by him and, to be honest, it's of surprisingly little importance to me. Had he been at the AGM, he could've had "his say" on the winners that were chosen out of the Zeds present that weekend. Hell, he may even have been a winner himself! But he wasn't there so therefore had no input on Joel's or (arguably) my own "appointment" for the NEC show. I'm still waiting to hear which cars he'd have chosen out the 8 that were offered. Joel, FunkySi, AndrewG, Phoenix, IanL, Phutumsch, Aly and myself. If I'm completely honest, I have no idea what Aly's car looks like so I can't comment on whether we've missed a golden opportunity with him or not. As I said yesterday, I was debating pulling out and letting Phutumsch have my spot as I thought his Slicktop would be a cleaner example than my T-Top, so I'm not getting involved in this because I believe my car to be absolutely deserving of a spot or anything like that. In fact, I stated in this very thread that I wanted to see either Dougal's or Gaz's SWBs on display as they're both superb cars. Phoenix removed his blue Slicktop from the running once a few other people stated their availability, so that left 7 cars available (including Aly's unknown quantity). Joel got his spot due to winning two awards at the AGM and IanL was picked as he was the only Vert owner to step forward. So that left two slots and 5 cars. Now, one of those slots was for a SWB so, as Ash took his car out of the running, that just left Phutumsch and myself. I was chosen, by all accounts, because I won an award at Coventry and also because Andy couldn't be 100% sure that his Slicktop would be ready in time. That left 3 cars for the final slot: AndrewG, FunkySi and Aly. As I've said ad nauseum, I don't know what Aly's car is like - I only know that he classed it as a modified example. How modified is anyone's guess. I'm assuming that the Committee viewed the situation the same way so that left 2 cars to choose from. And Si was only chosen because his car is white. How could a public poll really have turned out any differently? The only change I can really imagine would've been to swap Si out for Andrew and, as far as I'm aware, Andrew doesn't feel that there's been some huge miscarriage of justice here. All of the growling and snarling last night served no purpose other than to make my phone go crazy but, if someone can tell me how they believe a public vote would've netted a substantially different result, please do!

I'm of the opinion that this show is rather prestigious. Given that the Z32 is not a "recognised classic" yet (to the best of my knowledge, anyway), I think it's a pretty sizeable coup that we have a stand there. Why can't we all just be happy for that...? I find it almost incomprehensible that someone is whinging about not having a say in which cars represent our club, rather than just saying "Yep, four good choices there." Maybe if Chris had put his car forward but been passed over, he'd have a vaguely valid point. But he didn't. So I really don't get the bone of contention here... :blink: And yes, I'd be saying exactly what I'm saying now if I'd been passed over for a place on the stand. In fact, as Richard will be able to confirm, I was halfway towards letting Phutumsch have my place anyway as I felt his Zed would be the cleaner example!

And yet your only contribution to threads regarding the NEC show is to DEMAND that you have a say in which cars are present. Even though I'm fairly certain that, at JAE 2015, you didn't even display your car on the club stand! Mint "Club Spirit" there, sunshine... :thumbup1:

The January thread proved to be largely irrelevant as one of the posters sold his award-winning car! So the thread was revived and volunteers asked for again. Which netted 6 possible cars. 6. Six. Not quite the deluge that January's thread brought in. What's your point in all of this? You feel hard done by because you didn't have a say on which cars go on the stand? Worse things happen at sea, and all that...

The bolded part would be ideal, in my opinion. I appreciate that we might not necessarily know how big a stand we'll be allocated until quite close to the event, but it can't hurt to get a shortlist of dedicated and willing participants in readiness?

As has been said, Joel is arguably the single most obvious choice to be on the stand. No poll needed there, I don't think. A SWB was requested. Myself and Phutumsch stood up for that one. As lousy luck would have it, Andy's respray hasn't gone to plan whatsoever which means (despite his best efforts and considerable expense) that his Slicktop isn't "show ready" sadly. So that leaves me. A Vert was requested. IanL was the only owner to offer his car so, again, no vote required. Then it's left to a shoot-out between AndrewG and FunkySi. That battle was decided by colour alone. So there were only ever really two spots that could've had a vote attached to them, and one of those spots sadly lost a runner due to terrible workmanship.

Don't go all shy now. I'm getting the impression that you're not completely happy with the line-up so, again, who would you have chosen?