Well What happened in 2010? Let me think about it for a moment. Well I quit my old job as Head of IT and am now a Business Consultant specialising in Transformation, Process and Technology. Inbetween I took 5 months out to spend time with the wife and our new daughter; time well spent :)

I built the car to be a fair weather toy if I'm honest and as we'd had some pretty rubbish summers she'd not been out as much as I'd have liked, but that's what happens when you build a car and don't bother with doors and hood etc!

During my sabbatical I also got around to doing some work on the super spec (well I needed to as the company tin top had gone back when I left!) I gave her a slight "make-over" by painting the wheels black [photo]; they do look a lot better!

I also sorted out the doors and lift off hinges, a job I thought I'd never need to do, but as I knew I'd be driving in cold weather I figured I'd better [photo]. They make so much difference to the wind factor, I now wish I'd done them sooner!

Although I didn't get a lot of driving done over the previous two years I did get some in. Enough to realise that there was too much travel in the clutch pedal. The clutch engaged in about 1 inch of travel and all the rest was not needed. I also knew a few of the other SS builders had had problems with the cable breaking as the effort required was pretty intense to use the clutch! I figured I'd put a stopper in the pedal box, that way the travel would be reduced to what was needed and there would be less strain on the cable, here it is in place [photo].

I think I mentioned in previous diary entries that I created a 4 part tonneau and a half roof (or surrey). The tonneau no longer needed to be in 4 parts now I had the doors on as I couldn't really see myself needing half doors anymore, so that was converted into a 2 part cover. The original surrey was made out of Kite fabric, and originally was a test that I ended up using. So I decided to make a proper one, and use proper hood fabric.

I decided to use an awning channel across the top of the screen for the front edge of the surrey (a lot of the Hoodies seem to do this). This required a length of aluminium channel being bent to fit over the curve of the screen - that was fun! Had to make a temporary forming tool, like a pipe bender; it worked tho' :) [photo]. The surrey also needed to be held slightly higher then the test one, so I fabricated a support for it [photo]. The new half roof is a little more sophisticated than the original test piece and even has detachable rear quarter lights :) [photo].

During 2010 I also got around to redesigning the circuit boards in the mini column switches that I want to use to replace the original column switches. The problem is the originals are heavy duty and do not have relays to the wipers. flashers and so on, but the mini switches are all electronic. So I need simple circuitry and relays to power the equipement. This is the designed circuit for the washer board [photo] and this is the new board I created, just waiting for the final componants to be soldered on [photo]. It's amazing what you can do with Visio, a laser printer and a DIY circuitboard etching kit from Maplin :).

So that was about it in 2010, a lot of driving it through August to December, but it was freezing; the car has no heaters. Maybe thats a 2011 job. Talking of 2011 the things I think I'll be doing, apart from a heater are;

> Getting it through it's first MOT! First official test since the SVA... it'll be alreet tho, wont it?
> Fitting a towball and electrics so I can take a trailer with a tent, food and beer to camp at Silverstone for the Grand Prix
> Fit better suspension componants - the Zeemerides are pants and its about time I changed 'em!
> Finish the circuit boards, redesign the fuse and relay box in the car and fit the mini column switches!

See you in 2011!