I built my car in an absolute amateurish manner 6 years ago and in the main have been very happy with it. It will always be the car I built in my 3/4 garage with few tools and even less knowledge.

Over the years circumstances have changed and i have gone from being a time rich cash poor shift worker with lots of garage tinkering time too 2 growing kids, office hours job, no spare time and a "little" more cash. This has meant that the little jobs on the car never got done and having driven some nice cars recently mainly Jaguar F type and Porsche Panamera I came to the conclusion my car needed some engineering magic sprinkling on it.

In recent years i have had the misfortune to breakdown roadside twice and not be dressed or equipped to fix or diagnose the car. My office is 6 miles from home along country B roads and I have no quarms in driving the kit to work in my suit.. Get a few funny looks as I have no windscreen on my Indy.

On both these occasions I have had the car recovered to AdiThorp ( member on here ) where he has taken it in and fixed it.

It was here that I decided to get the engineering magic dust sprinkled on my home made mish mash of a car.

I wont go into the specifics of what he did but I wrote him a list of essential items and desirable items and a guide price of what I could afford to pay. I left the car with him whilst we went on a family holiday.

Now, he doesn't need his ego or credentials inflating, other LCB's have vouched for him recently publicly and all of it true IMHO. However I have to say that once I swallowed my pride and allowed someone else to work on the "car I built" it has been well worth it. The car is transformed.

In summary he did all the "essentials", all the "desirables" and more things he saw as he worked on it. He purchased and fitted all the parts with in the budget I had and in the end had it 3 weeks as he wouldn't be beaten on probably one of, what seemed one of the simplest jobs, and in the end was one of the most persistent problems. He did electrical, welding, steering and suspension, exhaust and engine bay work. I even bought a widget to make the fuel sender align with my gauge, Adi got around it and made it work without it as he just kept adjusting the sender until it was accurate.

I am not putting this on here to generate him any business, this kind may not be the type he likes and judging by how often the phone and door go whilst I am there he may not even need the business. But I am putting it on here to say, sometimes, as an amateur builder, which many of us are it is worth getting someone to periodically to look over our cars and tweak them. Take it in and say here is £xxx, look at this and spend it on what you think is the most important.

Adi did talk me into putting some wadding into my silencer, I had very little to non in and quite liked it that way. But I dont think the dibble and neighbours liked it that way. Any way he did it and it is like driving a hybrid, I have had to recalibrate my driving as I surprised how dependant I was on the noise as guide to everything.

Pif

Great post

ATB

Simon

Agreed . It's nice to give someone a pat-on-the-back now and then, there's too much negative in the world sometimes.

Well done Adi, and what's your calendar like for this year?

Good post Pif.

Whilst sorting through your list Adi found time to sort an electrical fault with my indicators, got my electric reverse to work for the first time ever since build and improved my handbrake operation.

I find I have to rely on a knowledgeable source like Adi as I am completely inept at anything mechanical/electrical. Without this type of local back up I simply could not own and run a kit car.

Another benefit of using someone like Adi is that I am able to learn a little bit about my car each time a fix is done.

It's not so much that pif's car is quiet now... more he's deaf from how it was. Not really load, more painful than that.

I think it needed more wadding than this...

Nice post PiF!