On The Driveway To Recovery!

Velma has been in our lives now for over a week and what a week it's been!  The work has started and we are making some headway (we hope) in getting her on the road.  Meantime she has her only special spot on the front driveway where she can feel free to leak and puff as much as she likes to get it out of her system!

So what have we been doing?  I hear you all cry!!! Well, first job was to change that darn thermostat....

Job number 1 completed!!  The temperature sender thingymajig whatjamacallit (please be patient - I am a girl, with very limited girly type knowledge of engines) was also replaced.  Unfortunately we were still not out of the woods.  That water pipe (the one that spectacularly bust and let all the water out on the way home last week) still needed changing.  We ordered one in (which incidentally coincided with my steel (11th) wedding anniversary....happy anniversary darling - look what I got you!!!!) and so came the task of completely removing the old one, but it didn't want to budge! The screws holding it were knackered and there was no way to get them out.  We discovered a groovy little tool at Screwfix (yes I actually went inside the shop!!!!) - a screw extractor...it failed!  So in the end with a lot of brute force and a little pursuasion (with the use of a drill, big hammer and an angle grinder) the hubs and my dad together managed to get it off!  Bravo we cheered! Then the whole system was drained and flushed out to clear any pipe blockages. 

The new pipe went on today and Velma was filled up and tested.....she started up, she was revved, she was chugged and chugged.........and she didn't overheat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay, woohoo, whopeeeeeeeee!! 

The clean looking black pipe on the left is the new water pipe

This is real progress but now we need to move onto the next job - electrics. The temperature guage still isn't working and the heater/blower is blowing the fuse everytime it's switched on and most importantly - the radio doesn't work - this is way up on my list of priorities!

On to more exciting matters...from a girly perspective....the interior has started to change.  The midle seats have now been removed and new flooring has been cut ready for securing.  The cupboards in the picture just give an idea of where we'll be fitting the kitchen/storage area.

How the interior used to look....

Start of the changes.

I've also got some curtain swatches and something exciting to for Velma's aging bodywork....watch this space to find out what! I can't wait to cheer her up with a splash of colour and a taste of Hawaii!!