Topic

A company that I used to work for had a major tobacco company as a client, I did quite a lot of work there.
You’d be surprised what went into them, things like propylene glycol, chocolate, liquorice, raspberry, honey and shitloads of sugar….always shitloads of sugar!
They slowly change the recipe with fluctuations in price of the ingredients.
So the brand x you’re smoking today is a totally different blend to the same brand you were smoking 3 months ago, as they make the changes gradually you don’t notice.
All the bits of beak and twig get steamed, rolled and ground before going back in with the leaf, and the whole lot gets stuffed in to a pressure vessel and pressurised with CO2, this process causes the tobacco to expand when the pressure is released.
And the tobacco that goes into the more expensive brands is exactly the same as what goes into the el cheapo brands, only the additive package is different.
There is one more unintended ingredient…. The tobacco beatle, tiny little bugs that actually eat tobacco, although they try to eliminate them eating into their profits, it’s a loosing battle, the beatles explode with a small spark and a pfisst sound when they get burned in the ciggy.

Don’t get me started on menthol…..that shit is really nasty!

If the integrity of your lungs were not an incentive enough to pack up the fag, then that would make me think more than twice, mind you I gave up smoking my pipe many years ago when quality & consistent tobacco all but disappeared. But that conversation drifts into the politics of an African country where the finest tobaccos were grown or groan, depending on your take on the politics of that country.
M

I've finally started driving Gynevieve the black 135 TF.

The Blue Gnu was picked up last week so I emailed the insurers,Lancasters on Sunday to get the policy changed to the other TF so they could process it on Monday when they opened.
Despite chasing them on Monday and Tuesday it took their trained snails until Wednesday for them to request the information they needed (most of which id already given them). That took me all of 5 mins to reply but it then took them until late Thursday afternoon to confirm they had changed the vehicle on the policy so was finally covered.
How i laughed when they charged a £ 35 'service' fee. They must have a hell of a sense of irony to call that service.

Scheduled for next weekend, with any luck, will be to whip the bumper off, pull the offside headlight, replace some wiring and a plug and then properly reseal it so it doesn't get wetter on the inside than the outside anymore. Got myself some of those solder sticks to do the wiring with so we'll see how they work out.

Solder sticks? Is this a recent introduction that’s nipped in behind my back without me noticing?
I’m interested to see how modern times have improved on a soldering iron & solder wire. I’ve tried gas irons & nicad (nmh) battery, preferring to cart my 24v TCP & power supply out to the garage when needed.

The things I'm referring to are linked below. Self-contained heat-shrink and solder connector that you activate with a heat gun, gives a waterproof connection between wires. Saw them being used on a few car related Youtube vids and got myself some the other day.

Solder Sticks

We’ll ! Thank you very much, that shows how sheltered a life I lead. I can see how useful these might be for higher current applications & where there’s nothing in the vicinity to get reheated by the heat gun, for more delicate & crowded installations they might be problematic. You would require a proper heat gun, a hairdryer might do but I doubt it.
I’ve just been mounting circuits inside the nonstandard heater knobs & an ultra fine soldering iron tip is the only way, short of having a surface mount PCB designed to accommodate.
Thanks for bringing these to my (our) attention they certainly have a place in a tool kit.
M

Ive applied some Fabsil waterproofing to the soft top today as i had the rare coincidence of a day off plus reasonable weather.
I was surprised how much soaked in compared to when i did my last TF so I suspect it hadn't been treated for a long time. Theres no doubt it needed it as Id noticed quite a bit of dampness on the inside of the hood after the heavy rain weve been having. Much more than could be put down to condensation.
I'l do a second coat sometime but this first coat should make the most difference

We had the Festival of hardtop fitting this morning.
We play November Rain by Guns n Roses as we, with all due solemnity, unclip the safety wires & lower it majestically into position.
We then had to lift it up again as I forgot the HRW connector & as the first thing that happens on fitting is it mists up. Well that still works.
M

I've just treated my TF's hood to a second coat of Fabsil as weve had a couple of days without rain. The first coat made a massive difference so the 2nd is to make sure it stays that way. Now to decide whether to adjust the side windows with the soft top or to get the hardtop on for the winter.

No photos of today's job.

I had the chance to work from home today and had a free hour for lunch. What I thought I would do to de-stress from work and a weekend of toddler childcare was stand outside in the cold pulling mud out of the lip between the front wheelarch liner and front wing.

I undid the bottom liner screw so I could pull the arch away a bit. It didn't seem too bad behind but there was still some mud.

I didn't have much time so after pulling out as much mud as possible, I sprayed a big old dose of GT85 in the gap to displace any remaining water water.

Come the spring with warmer weather and longer evenings, I can hopefully get the whole liner out for a clean behind.

Been busy snagging for the last couple of weeks..
The colder weather made the throttle cable stiff so replacing it was my 1st job 😒 🙄
-4deg when I started but all good until I snapped off the wiper stalk when getting out from under the dash..
I needed to move the steering wheel over a notch so replacing the switches wasn't such a big deal and I had a spare..... unfortunately she's now a non runner