In my last update, I said I’d write something about the installment of the ECU etc, but I have absolutely no idea what happened between the winter and having it tuned, so I’m not going to elaborate on that.
In the mean time I went on holiday (or should I say: Holidave) with my faded yellow hero and drove all around the Netherlands to see a lot of why-do-you-live-so-far-away-friends. Of course, the Aussies will laugh when I say 2,5 hours is considered ‘far away’, but, you know, The Netherlands. It was nice to literally and figuratively take some distance from life at home, and I really enjoyed all the activities and seeing my friends. I think I drove about 1300 km’s and when I got home, Dave’s odometer read 122.000 km’s. As we speak it’s just passed 123.000, which means I’ve owned Dave for over 20k+ km’s since July last year.
Now back to the Blyatsu: in my last post, I talked about getting it fixed properly and not rush things. I also wanted to do some other things “while I’m added”, and I started to make a list, which is pretty substantial by now. Pretty much all of it isn’t a ‘must’, but a ‘would like to’, so maybe a few things won’t actually make this round.
The list, in random order:
- Modified doorcards
- Coolant hoses (new)
- Rust fixed (obvs)
- Exhaust (needs proper alignement)
- Redo headlights
- Tidy up wiring harness
- Replace washer fluid reservoir
- Fit Copen steering rack power steering
- Make a nice flat floor in the back
- Fix reverse lights
- Fix and mount ECU (one pin came loose)
- Fit new rear brakes + freshen up rear axle
- Fix intake
- Fit the new-ish carpet
- Freshen up the steering knuckles (bit of paint, new bearings)
- Fit new brake lines, maybe ABS (most of it is there already)
- Fit towbar
- Fix the audio and speaker placement
- Fit insulaton
That’s the list up until now, but it’ll probably grow. The goal is to get the car to (mechanically) look like OEM+, so I can get it reregistered (and to my fellow Dutchmen: yes, I will do that, you don’t have to understand why). Things like aesthetics or the towbar or the insulation aren’t really recessary to get the cat to that state, so maybe those things can wait.
At the moment I’m working on my workspace to create a good environment for when I do start on the car, and I have to say I’m pretty pleased with the way things are going:
I made a new workbench with space for storage up top. The ‘old’ workbench (in front of the wall) will get a storage floor as well, and the idea is to create some sort of system which allows the workbenches to be connected by metal shelves (on both levels) which I had laying around, to create more storage space or a large workbench if necessary, but since the shelves will just slide on the side of the benches, it’ll be super flexible. I’ll take some pictures when I’m done. This picture was taken last week, but I’ve already done a lot more in the mean time.
Recently I’ve decided to move out of my parents’ house and go back to the place I grew up. Because I’m still looking for a job, I’m financially unstable because I need to be able to pay rent, even if I don’t find a job in time. That’s why I’m currently saving all of my money, and none will be spent on the Blyatsu. Because of that, I don’t think it’ll be back on the road before 2024, but that depends on the way things go.
Question
I’d like to know what you guys think of “the list” and how you’d handle this. Although it’s a shame I don’t get to drive the car, there are a lot of things I’d like to get fixed because it makes driving less fun, so I’m not really bothered. Also, I could just get the rust issue fixed properly and then get it back on the road and fix all the other issues as we go, but at some point, the engine will come out (for example) so I wouldn’t be able to drive it anyways, you know. Let me know what you think!