If it's not one thing...
In the spring of 1991, flush with the enthusiasm of youth and a pocketful of ill-deserved cash, I bought a wreck of an Alfa Romeo Duetto with a view to restoring it to a usable condition. I've always had a soft spot for Alfa Romeos - my first ever car was a rust-bucket Bertone GTV which I would never have been able to insure in my own name. Even on my father's policy it cost more than the purchase price each year. I ran that one for three years before the tin worm and Aberdeen's salty air dissolved it beyond repair.
The Duetto was to be my toy - something I could fix up quickly and then enjoy driving around in, showing off. Fourteen years on, the only road miles it has covered have been on the back of a trailer bringing it down to Wales. I've lost count of the horrendous amounts of money it has absorbed. So what went wrong?
Well, for starters I was naive to the point of idiocy in thinking I could restore a car for a few thousand quid. Then I got taken to the cleaners by a garage in St Andrews that tried to charge four times the agreed quote (that one ended up with Lawyers at dawn). And over the years my circumstances have changed. I either have the money to work on the car, or the time. Never both at once.
And so it has become my albatross, but not in a necessarily bad way. I know that I can't recoup my outlay by selling it - even in concourse condition it would only be worth about half what I've spent. So I tinker with it at the weekends and dream of a time when I might actually drive it on the road.
Before Christmas, the big job I had been putting off for years finally could be avoided no longer. Off came the engine head, out came the knackered valves, in went knew ones, with hardened seals to allow for the use of unleaded petrol. After much jiggery and a little pokery, the timing was reset. Last weekend I almost finished putting everything back together again. Yesterday I finally turned the ignition key.
Then acrid black smoke started to waft up from the direction of the starter motor. Click, click, nothing.
Bollocks
Those of you who know these things will know that removing and replacing the head of a 1600 twin cam Alfa Romeo engine should have no impact on the starter motor at all. It hadn't been touched, but like the cussed thing that it is, it had decided to take its opportunity to break. Today I removed it, only to find that the solenoid casing had melted itself into a bubbly Bakelite goo. I did my best to bodge a repair, but basically it's fucked.
A new starter motor's going to cost £100. Without it, the whole car project will be in another stalled, going nowhere stage. I'm trying to save as much money as possible to build a house. Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger.
The Duetto was to be my toy - something I could fix up quickly and then enjoy driving around in, showing off. Fourteen years on, the only road miles it has covered have been on the back of a trailer bringing it down to Wales. I've lost count of the horrendous amounts of money it has absorbed. So what went wrong?
Well, for starters I was naive to the point of idiocy in thinking I could restore a car for a few thousand quid. Then I got taken to the cleaners by a garage in St Andrews that tried to charge four times the agreed quote (that one ended up with Lawyers at dawn). And over the years my circumstances have changed. I either have the money to work on the car, or the time. Never both at once.
And so it has become my albatross, but not in a necessarily bad way. I know that I can't recoup my outlay by selling it - even in concourse condition it would only be worth about half what I've spent. So I tinker with it at the weekends and dream of a time when I might actually drive it on the road.
Before Christmas, the big job I had been putting off for years finally could be avoided no longer. Off came the engine head, out came the knackered valves, in went knew ones, with hardened seals to allow for the use of unleaded petrol. After much jiggery and a little pokery, the timing was reset. Last weekend I almost finished putting everything back together again. Yesterday I finally turned the ignition key.
Then acrid black smoke started to waft up from the direction of the starter motor. Click, click, nothing.
Bollocks
Those of you who know these things will know that removing and replacing the head of a 1600 twin cam Alfa Romeo engine should have no impact on the starter motor at all. It hadn't been touched, but like the cussed thing that it is, it had decided to take its opportunity to break. Today I removed it, only to find that the solenoid casing had melted itself into a bubbly Bakelite goo. I did my best to bodge a repair, but basically it's fucked.
A new starter motor's going to cost £100. Without it, the whole car project will be in another stalled, going nowhere stage. I'm trying to save as much money as possible to build a house. Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger.
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