New seats ordered!

The seats that came with the car are looking a little tatty and I don’t find them that comfortable. So I’ve decided to replace them with some lightweight unpadded racing style seats. Carbon fibre is the lightest option but can look a little unfinished in basic (cheap) form and generally aren’t widely available. It’s a bit OTT for a road car too. Tillet make some nice looking seats and would be great, but at over £1000 they are a little too much. So, based on the experiences of the guys on the WSCC forums I’ve gone for a set from JK Composites. They have a great reputation amongst the owners for quality and service. The size of the seat is custom made to you spec too. 

In order to get the fittings under the new seats correct I needed to provide the dimensions of my current seat runners. This meant taking a seat out to measure. Sounds easy and to be fair it was. Getting the seat back in however, took ages!  The seats bolt to the runners and then the runners bolt to the floor via a loose bolt, spacer and nut. Getting the bolts into the spacers and then lined up with the floor holes, times 4 took forever. The solution is to welt the bolts into the runners, or replace the spacers with suitably sized threaded nuts or similar. I have 3 to 4 weeks to sort this before the new seats are ready! 

 

the current Cobra seats

 

seat removed. you dan see the 4 spacers in the carpet amongst. 15 years of dirt!

 

   
 

more or less what i have ordered

  

another example. I have the red pipping as above

Drive to Attingham Park

It’s been the best part of two weeks since my last trip out in the car mostly due to a great Holliday in Italy so I can’t complain. However the sun was out this afternoon so the covers came off for a trip to the National Trust property Attingham Park where I was to meet up with Karen to walk the dog.

Below is the edited video of the drive there courtesy of an iPhone and some masking tape! I must look on eBay for a used GoPro at some point. Car started on the first turn of they key which was most pleasing (unlike the lawn mower which is take for another day)

 

click to view video

 

Oily Bits

A spot of routine maintenance this week with and oil & filter change with added new spark plugs. I bought a useful tool tool for the oil change – a specialised catch can which when laid on its side beneath the sump catches the draining oil. It can then be sealed and the old oil stored or in my case poured back out into the empty can from the new oil via a spout. £10 from the local Motorparts.  I had to jack the front of the car up to get it in place which gives you an idea of just how low to the ground the car and in particular the sump is:

The new spark plugs were of the rather more expensive iridium type which are allegedly better.  The old ones were quite sooted up when I removed them so it was probably a worthwhile replacement. 

So what this all means is that I am ready to take the car to have the carburettors balanced at the end of June. And then I’d like some new seats, and a RAC rollbar, and and and…..