Eunos Chump

I don't like this change in the weather, and neither does the 5. The battery is as weak as a kitten and didn't have enough juice to start the car one morning this week. I had to get the charger/starter out to bring it back to life, but it only made me 7 minutes late which is not enough of an inconvenience to persuade me to buy a new battery. No doubt I will regret this shortly. The rear anti-roll bar bushes are shot, I think they're another casualty of the track day. Feels quite loose at the back now. I've put the EBC Greenstuff pads on, but I've had no chance to use them in anger so can't say if they're an improvement yet. Lots of vibration from the frontpipe heat shield. Oil leak from the rear of the engine, possibly the CAS again. I'm only keeping the 5 on the road until the end of October (purely for the MX5Mad track event), then it's hibernation and hopefully, transformation. Got a favourable insurance quote from AON for the car modded to 170...

Our new sofa was delivered today. The old sofas are now hogging the garage, so I have my own private lounge, complete with grubby rugs and a tray of old motor oil in the corner! This can't last though, I came close to buying an XR2 yesterday and I think it's only a matter of time before some daft car purchase is made. Quite fancy a Hillman Imp... and I know Adrian has at least 8 of these in various states of disrepair.

1994 was the last time I visited the Heritage Museum at Gaydon, when it was still firmly Rover territory. It seems to have much less display space since re-opening, and appears to be more geared as a venue for owner-club meetings like this, or conferences. Great day out though, and MX5 Parts had 20% off everything so I had a major spend. I've already put the gear lever boot and leather gaiter on, the reduction in interior noise is astonishing.

Brakes working again now. I replaced the fluid with help from my beautiful assistant (who complained throughout), and filed around 3mm of compacted ash off the brake pads. Definitely going to replace them with EBC Greenstuff though. The engine has felt as fit as a butcher's dog since Abingdon, clearly it loves a really hard thrashing!

Finally, my first track day. My preperation had consisted of chucking a bit more air in the tyres and cleaning the windscreen, but as soon as I arrived it was clear a lot of folk take it much, much more seriously. Trailers, slick tyres, 500bhp race car replicas, hugely powerful Caterham 7s, and a Ferrari F40 combined to make me feel a little out of my depth, but it was great fun and unlike most I was able to rag it around the track all day (for 120 miles), then drive it home listening to Radio 4. The track had 3 narrow chicanes which were great fun, and handed the advantage to the small and the light (the F40 never looked quick). There were also a number of high speed turns, and I struggled with understeer all day on these. I had 20 minutes with an instructor (until his demands for F1-style braking cooked the brakes), that was useful and stressed the importance of more speed, less haste. Haste is fun though, and the 5 is easy to handle even way past the limit. I enjoyed getting it ve...

For the past couple of days I've been struggling to change the cam belt on the 5. This should be simple because access couldn't be better, but I couldn't get the crank pulley bolt to loosen because the crank kept turning. Even in 5th gear, handbrake on, Mrs B and Russ in the car with the brakes hard on, it would still move. Even the breaker bar on floor/starter motor trick wouldn't shift it. I got bored after a bit and went off and had a barbeque instead. Did the same again the following day, now thinking about putting it back together and taking it to the garage. That night, Winston Churchill came to me in a dream and reminded me to never give up, and that evil crank bolts would prevail when good men did nothing. He gave me this solution... and it worked immediately! Obtain some rope, washing line or thin electrical flex (about 3 feet) Turn the engine clockwise until No1 piston has gone a little past TDC (he told me to stick the dipstick in the spark plug hole to view...