Long way for a cream tea

 My mum and sister live right down in the heel of Cornwall, 270 miles and a 5 hour drive from my house, so I only go down once or twice a year. It can, however, be a fun trip if the traffic is OK, which it was this weekend.

However, on the run down, I started getting some vibration in the steering wheel and through my seat above 75 mph (I'm not going to lie to you, I don't really follow speed limits and I tend to cruise at 90 or so, with various forays into 3 figures when I get too bored - sue me).

With dire thoughts of expensive suspension work needed, I decided to do the cheap stuff first and took Barry to a tyre place to get the wheels balanced. Lucky I did - all 4 tyres were out, the front left the worst. After that, normal smoothness was restored.

It seems that Boxsters are very sensitive to tyre wear...I also discovered that my rears are only just legal, which hopefully explains the waywardness I felt on the way back. The Alps and the ring took more out of them than I thought...

Garage Time

 My brake pad warning light lit up and although I knew the pads had a decent life left in them, I'd already bought the new ones a few months ago when I got the rears, so no reason not to do them. I thought it was also time I sorted out the mesh behind the front grilles, to stop the leaves getting in.

My jack is just too small (it was designed for my very low kit car) to lift the Boxster, so I had to borrow one from Cearth. Once the car was up on axle stands, I thought I'd just whip out the pads - all the YT videos showed it being very quick. But no, oh no...not for me.

The main pin holding the spring and pads in just would not shift, no matter how hard I whacked it - and on both sides!! Unbelievable...

After an hour or so of trying, I thought I'd make a start on taking the bumper off instead and that went much better:

Took the radiator shrouds off and found a fair amount of crap in there:

Cleaned all out and then used the mesh I still had from when I did the nose cone on my kit car, just cable tied inside the bumper:

I didn't make it quite the right size but not many people are going to look that closely and it will stop all the usual crud getting in there:

I left the brakes overnight and had another go - lots of WD40 and really hammering the shit out of the rods FINALLY got them out - Holy cow! I can only assume they haven't been done for years and there was a bit of rust I sandpapered off.

Once the pins were out, it took no time to put the pads in, using a new brake piston spreader tool I bought. However, I couldn't re-use the brake wear indicators as I'd bought non-OEM pads and the EBC yellows did not have the right size of hole to fit the wear sensors in.

I made sure to use copper slip on the pin to hopefully make this less of a nightmare if/when I have to do it again. I also cleaned the calipers off a little, so it looks a bit better and cable-tied the wear sensors out the way:

Went out for a short run and all feels OK, although there was a little squeal just as I got back and there is some dust on the wheels - hopefully, this will go away with a few more miles.

Wings and Wheels

 A beautiful month of weather (this global warming is awesome) has meant some great runs and a nice holiday. Last weekend was a short run to Tulleys farm with 4 of us and today, a slightly longer run out to Headcorn aerodrome with pretty much the same people:

We had a great drive with some traffic but enough clear roads to make it enjoyable. Tim is a local biker, knows all the roads and drives at the same level of nuttiness that I do, so great fun.

The aerodrome was very busy as there are loads of people doing parachute jumps and a wing-walker company:

An enjoyable bacon and egg bap, coffee, natter and then an almost reverse run home - made for a great half day out.

Our Porkster group is slowly melting away, with at least 6 or 7 regulars who have recently sold their Boxsters, hence the small numbers we get on these runs. Even Dave (the blue 718 today) is considering an upgrade to a 911. Might just be me and Tim in a few more weeks 😀

I'm trying to wring as much as possible out of this glorious summer, so I'm going down to Cornwall to visit my mum in 2 weeks, then a big meet at the Haynes museum in Somerset the week after that. I'm also playing with the idea of a long weekend to Wales in September but only 50/50 on that - see how it goes.