St Tropez has passed her MOT

[Des Smith]

H122WAM passed her MOT last week. I gave her a good polish (long overdue) and checked all the moving/wiping/flashing bits were doing what they should and then took a roundabout route to my friendly garage to make sure the engine was nice and warm.

I'm on such good terms with the garage (read as "I've paid them so much money over the last two years that I should be a shareholder") that I got a guided tour in the pit.

This was an early warning process, and the MOT tester showed me some important pointers. The front sub-frame is going to need replacing soon, along with some new inner sills due to developing corrosion in front of the rear wheel arches.

Strangely, I was expecting more corrosion beneath the rear quarter panels which are looking decidedly dodgy.

On the plus side, the rest of the underside looks pretty solid.

Judging by the positive comments about Chevronics, I am thinking about getting the whole job done as a one-er - I was impressed with the idea of getting the underside completely de-rusted and treated with their rubberised underseal, along with the replacement of the rusty rear quarter panels with the new ones, followed by a paint job.

If anyone's got any ideas about sourcing the front sub-frame, I'd be interested to hear them.

In the meantime, I have a ticket to ride...

[citsncycles]

There are a couple of cars being scrapped at the moment, so I'd advise looking to locate a good 2nd hand subframe - I believe that the late ones are pretty much interchangeable. It may even be repairable, but as it would possibly need removing to do so it may not be cost effective.

The rear of the inner sills is fairly straight forward but depending on how bad it is gaining access may involve a fair bit of dismantling, and possibly cutting part of the outer sill away.

[Tim Leech]

Ive got a spare front subframe removed from the car.

[Caffiend]

If you do take it to Rob's let me know and swing by for a cuppa on your way home to avoid North Circular in rush hour

I am also very interested in the wax injection thingy once I've had some welding done to the inner wings next spring - if you're on Facebook, think they have some pix on their page.

[Des Smith]

If you do take it to Rob's let me know and swing by for a cuppa on your way home to avoid North Circular in rush hour

If I take it to Rob's, I may be Hitchin' a lift home (Sorry - gratuitous punning ) Actually, it'll be the train home. However, I may well want to show off the end result and you can have a look then. Sounds a fair exchange for a brew?

Tim, thanks for the offer - I'll PM you about the sub-frame.