Belt and braces

 Been a busy few weeks - first of was an American car cruise in my local town which turned into a surprisingly fun evening. 100s of people turned out, some cool old cars and lots of yoofs also gatecrashed the event (including my son):

Also popped out at lunch one day to Torque Motors and, amazingly, the only cars there were all Porsches:

Had a week holiday and came back to a busy weekend - in one day, went on a run with the Surrey Porkers to Lasham airfield for breakfast:

...and made a detour to Caffeine and Machine - not very busy and mostly Porsches:

Finally went back to Torque Motors to meet my son - Focus RS club there and a few nice Dodge Challengers, Audi R8 etc.

While I was away, the new fan belt and coolant sensor arrived, so I had an excuse to remove the front bulkhead panel and see my engine AGAIN, from a different angle:

Changing the belt took minutes - the old one looked fine, so I doubt I'll be changing this again - in fact, the old one on the left looked better than the new one:

The coolant sensor was also pretty simple and after a short test drive, the 'fault indicator' message has gone - result!

Cranleigh Classic Car Show

 A sweltering hot, cloudless day made this huge show a little uncomfortable but more later...

I had a fun drive to the show to meet up with the rest of the Surrey Porksters at about 8.30am:

The place soon filled up with great cars - a Troop of Tigers:

Cohort of Cobras:

Herd of Stags:

Maul of Morgans:

Scourge of S2000s:

How did any car that looked this amazing not sell better? So what if it wasn't reliable - look at it!

My star of the show was this stunning TVR Chimera - never seen one in such good nick:

...and left a cheeky note on this very dusty Mustang:

At 30 degC, it was damn hot and I would have liked to stay a bit longer but the other half (she had come a little later with my son) was flagging, so we left around 2pm. Driving a convertible on a hot day with the aircon blowing on your feet is a bucket-list ticker.

It was such a nice evening that I went out later for a night drive - a little too late to get decent pics but this came out nicely:

I think I will need to change my coolant sensor - while cold, it keeps beeping at me and I get a message saying 'failure of instrument' or something like that. Looks to be a simple job and I may change my fan belt at the same time - no obvious mention in the service history of it ever being done before. Will also be an excuse to see the FRONT of my engine, to go with the top view.

Airy-fairy

 It exists!! It's real!! I DO have an engine:

Yup, the first time I've seen my engine, 10 months into my ownership. Getting into service mode was actually very easy and I was doing this just to replace my air filter. It was last done, I assume, at its last service in June 22, so seemed like a worth while thing to do and very easy. The old one didn't look too bad:

In preparation for the Cranleigh show tomorrow, gave Barry a wash - he does clean up well.

Goodwood Breakfast club

 Amazingly, summer is still going on and so a great day was had at the Goodwood Breakfast club meet. If you've not been, really worth a trip - it's free and there are such a great range of cars on display. Just the public car park is amazing with loads of supercars, a surprising number of kitcars (where were they when I was looking for people to come out with me?) and many, many Porsches.

I had a great drive down there using some side roads that are empty and twisty fun. Had a little play with a 997 Carrera S and while he accelerated away slightly faster than me, hardly anything in it - Boxsters rule!

So many great cars on the circuit itself:

This is the view down part of the track, to give you an idea of the numbers of people and cars:

That is less than half of the show....amazing!

On the trip back, I was behind a beautiful AM Vantage from the 70s, one of my favourite cars. A beautiful roar from it's V8 and more petrol coming out the exhaust that went into the engine. A little later, a slow convoy with a Ferrari (458?) and a crackling 308:

Great day out...

Exhausted

 Just a short update - went to the local exhaust place (my son has used them numerous times as he always gets exhaust work done on every new car of his) and they found several leaks; 2 in the joins where the manifold meets the cats and several in the rear silencers.

I just cannot afford to replace the full system, so I asked them to initially just repair the holes in the front section and I will look to buy a new rear catback section.

Now, I feel that I have been ripped off a bit - £400 to weld up the holes on the front section?! I wish I had shopped around first...

I think I have decided on a Top Gear catback exhaust, which is £700. There is a cheap one on eBay for £300 (Toyo sport) but there are lots of stories of them only lasting a couple of years. Lots of option for much more than this as well but I'm not spending that much. The TGs aren't in stock at the moment but should be available in a couple of weeks - gives me time to get over the £400 front repair...