Good stuff going on...

Right guys, gals and anyone who reads this, the JustGiving site is up and running at a current rate of £62 whole British pounds.  Thanks to those select few who have donated, but for the rest of you who have read and smirked at this blog, how about you donate a pound.  A quid.  Go on, it's not for us, it's for children in the UK who are unlikely to become adults due to life shortening illnesses. www.justgiving.com/floppythrottle

Right, thats the begging bit done with, so on to the reason this blog is here, to raise awareness of how hard it is to get a cheap car rally ready with a budget smaller than my attention span.

Probably not going to do in a particular order but in the last few days...

We have found a guy willing to reprint the 1994 Ford Rally team graphics in vinyl for our cabbie for very few shillings indeedy.  There's a few snags in that the original car was white with blue graphics and ours being purple, the blue wouldn't be as striking, but the chap is going to knock it out reversed with the blue graphics being white.  So in theory our car should look like a negative of the rally one ('cept with less power, no roof or bloody great whale tail).

Sort of like that bad boy but in reverse. 

We were looking at placing a large image of a manga girl bursting out of the side of the car in a chrome explosion whilst being restrained by chains and firing weapons (it looked absolutely awesome), but the supplier/printer turned out to be an arse.  It's the guy who supplied the original sunstrip.  We got back in touch with him, explained what we're up to, that the last one failed the MOT, advertising opportunity for him, looking to buy another sunstrip plus girl graphic (total was going to be thick end of £100 plus the original strip) and tight fucker wouldnt even offer free postage.  I asked if he could supply an internal sunstrip with the floppy throttle printed on it to save it destroying the wipers and he pretty much told me to make my own, but he'd supply the materials required (for obscene amounts).  If you fancy dealing with a complete tossbag who values £3 delivery charges over repeat business, take a look at http://www.vipergrafix.com/, but the customer service skills are shite, so be wary.

The door alarm bits have finally turned up, and are sat in the footwell waiting for me to get the enthusiasm to relist them on eBay. 

Another couple of eBay items found their way into my posession this week, a sensible set of Tornado 6x9's for the rear and a set of Torx sockets.  For those of you unaware, the Torx system is those silly bloody star shaped screws that companies use to deter you from taking stuff off.  Well, I've got a set now but no matter how hard I try, I cant get those screws holding the back seat out.

Still trying to improve the rear sounds, I gave up with the recommendation of removing panels to access speakers and gently (honestly, you should have seen my tender caress) removed the grills from the outside.  Once they're off it doesnt matter if you destroy the pods cosmetically as no-one gonna see them.  So grills off, speakers popped out, Power Blasters in, and grills back on.  Up yours Haynes manual, you know nothing about rear speaker replacement :)

I had a moment of rare excitement earlier as the postman plopped an envelope from 5 star printing through the door.  Oh yes, the rear windows naming tags had arrived.  Picture them, a St Georges cross (england flag) with the name Savage next to it, another just below it, with the Welsh flag including their dragon, with the name Davies next to it.  The identities of these 2 great countries thrown as a duo, Wales and England, seperate but united in this chariot for a common cause.  Forsaking the Northern Irish and the sweaty socks (Jocks) for truly this is the time where we shine as the more significant 50% of the United Kingdom.  Can you picture it, two different national flags, two names?  Yes?  well 5 star bloody couldnt.  Tossbags:

A lot of pictures going into this update I know, but it helps make you realise the issues we're stumbling against.

Finally, for this update Im going to mention the graphics again.  As you eagle eyed may have noticed, the rally replica shown doesn't have the trim halfway down the door that protects it from bumps and scrapes in a car park etc, so I have taken these from our own Juliette.  Looks quite nice:

There is no real fading where they were so a quick T-cut job and they looked like they were never there.  Surprisingly, they weren't attached by anything more than glue so just pulled off easily.  This got me thinking how annoyingly in the way the Ford, Escort & 16v badges are so feeling like a trim and badge ripper offererer, I removed these swiftly and easily also.  Bugger:

The 16v badge was just beneath the right hand light cluster and after 8 seperate T-Cut attacks, it now blends into the panel (although that panel is a slightly darker purple than the rest of the car now).  I'm really hoping that I can get the Escort and ford patches to do the same but otherwise, anyone want to sponsor the bits above the clusters?

Pretty sure thats about it for this sitting, I'll update again shortly.

Cheers

Savage