The blog has been fairly quiet online over Christmas but I’ve been paddling away hard unseen. Despite the freezing weather, I took the opportunity of the wonderful few days off to get stuck into the Varmint SC. All these days later, I fell like very little has been accomplished but the pains in my body say otherwise! I’m sure I’ve managed to do quite a bit.

The first jobs were to change the gas rams on the bonnet and engine cover, and strip out the redundant alarm that had gone off in a car park in the States, only silenced by Jamie stamping on the passenger’s footwell. We still have no idea what that was about! The ‘Ungo’ alarm module was in the right rear corner of the lugage compartment, so it was time to take some vent tubes out.

The wiring to the alarm was really shoddy, with wires wound together: no solder, no crimps and no tape. It was good to start undoing the disaster. I kept going with the stereo wiring, which was similarly rough:

I took a lot of useless wiring out and was very satisfied. So satisfied, I decided to keep going and change the broken aerial. Easiest way to do that was to drop the door off:

The aerial went well: a new Hella replacement slotted straight in. I refitted the door, and fancied a drive so connected up the heat on the driver’s side and took the car out to get some fuel. On the way back, I ran it over to meet the Orange.

Next morning, it was time to get stuck into something else. I began removing the ever-dampening trim, to find the source of the leaks that were letting in the weather. The front screen seal was one problem area, rather amusingly leaking into the glovebox. Saves it leaking on to the carpet:

I changed the seal and took lots of pics. They’re on another computer so more of that anon. With the front done, it was time to look in the back. I started pulling out the rear trim, hoovering out the old dog hair as I went along. It was the first time I really took to appreciate the colour of the blue carpets. I have to say, I am now a big fan of this colour and think it would go pretty well with Orange. After a few hours, the car looked like this:

I found small leaks in the corners of the rear screen and the rearmost corner of the nearside rear quarter window. I’ll tell you what I did about those tomorrow.