January 23rd

Slippery commute to work, emphasised by periods of driving with the handbrake on.

Only when it was very safe to do so and no one else was around officer

Have sourced a cheap drivers seat from a scrap yard to use as an initial donor/test subject for my seat swap.

Collection tomorrow or Saturday.

Then home to play in the garage, read full details in my interior change thread but essentially rears seats are stripped down and the fronts need a new spline bit and serious elbow grease to come apart.

Costs £0

January 24th

Early post today as i stopped for fuel on the way to work.

I kind of accept sub 50 mpg as i do spend most of my time sat in traffic while commuting but given i've done a fair few dual carraigeway and motorway cruising at 70(ish) but i do feel 45 is a bit crap.

Time to get it booked in for a service and some investigation - my money is on MAF.

Whipped across town at lunch time to collect my first donor part.

A driver seat deemed not good enough to sell on at full price but good enough for me as I only ant the subframe. Personally i can't really see why they couldn't sell it at full price

Shall hopefully begin the deconstruction over the weekend when hopefully I'll have some new spline bits

My new second hand aerial wand also arrived today and seemed to solve the poor reception issues I was having even before the scrotes did their thing.

Ahhhh radio 2 again....ah... Um...I mean radio 1 and other cool stations like that

Essential - Aerial wand - £6

Fuel - £51.22 - MPG - 44.8

Extra - £30 - donor drivers seat

January 25th

Commute to and from work all very dull.

January 26th

Car has inched out of the garage only enough to allow me to finish dismantling the rear Recaros.

Decided that it'd be a load easier to put the rear covers in the washing machine than it would to clean them by hand so that's what I did.

Pulled the hog rings apart with a combination of pliers and screwdriver and popped the covers off the back rests (no hog rings on the bases). Then it was a case of sliding the retaining bars out of their material sleeves and job done.

Currently upstairs drying now and they already look a ton better

I did consider doing the same with the fronts but the dismantling is the easy part, I have a horrible fear I'd get the covers off and never back on again!!

January 27th

Motorway jaunt down to Bridgwater to meet up with my parents and my inlaws for a Sunday lunch.

MPG is still of concern though as even with considerable mileage in 50mph roadwork sections and a steady 70-75mph cruise the rest of the time the car still only just managed to come up with 52mpg on the OBC for the round trip :S

I mean ok, it's still good but not exactly setting the world alight for such a sedate journey.

January 28th

Commute to and from work very dull.

Spline bits turned up so dismantled all my spare seats, rounding off 2 bolt heads in the process - bugger!

January 29th

Commute to brightened up my a "lively" acceleration down a slip road - very very smoky on full chat though.

Deffo needs a service.

Commute home without incident.

Borrowed some equipment to get the rounded off bolts out.

Now ready to clean, then reconstruct and get in the car.

All I need is a dry day really!

January 30th

Commute to and from work all very boring

Evening spent cleaning the fabric parts of the Recaro drivers seat ready for hopeful fitment tomorrow!!

Spare set of standard alloys also collected and paid for by a fellow member; clearing out space in the garage (although i replaced 4 wheels with 2 part worn tyres) and adding a little more to the wedding find.

January 31st

5 am start for work so super quick super quiet commute.

Got home at the normal time but decided to crack on and get the Recaro drivers seat reconstructed.

Then once it was back together it made sense to fit it.

Et voila

Much better

February 1st

First drive on the new seat - Feels bloody lovely

So much more supportive across the back, larger bolsters too, and firmer so more support all round.

It has however highlighted just how much damping the soft Fabia foam was doing,

The ride of the car seems so much stiffer in the Recaro

February 2nd

Morning spent at the scrap yard purchasing a donor set of Fabia classic seats ready for more Recaro-ing

Swapped the bases of the rears over - looking good

Also think I solved the mystery of the poor fuel economy.

tyre PSIs were 30 - 19 - 24 - 22

hopefully now they are all back up to the norm things should pick up.

February 3rd

The Recaro-ing is almost complete

The larger rear back rest was just pushed into place for the pictures, hence it looking baggy (cos it is!)

It will need a bit of work to get it to fit properly as the head rest holes are in the wrong place and it is (unsurprisingly) too large.

You could force it to fit if you really weren't bothered but given i want the extra head rest holes patched over anyway (hopefully using the material from the surplus 3rd head rest) i might as well at least get a quote for the work before i start hacking things up!

I also thought i'd need to get the rear headrests retrimmed but upon closer inspection (post picture taking) they actually slot straight into the Fabia metal work after all.

Those of you with beady eyes will have also noticed that i need to reattach the cover on the back of the front passenger seat as the flimsy trim clips (like those which hold the door cards on) were snapped and gone when i picked it up.

Overall though I am already super happy it

February 4th

Quiet day with a couple of half decent commutes traffic wise.

Did nearly write the car off on the way home when a woman in a Range Rover seemingly forgot the "give way to the right" rule on a mini roundabout and I nearly drive in the side of her.

February 5th

Boring commute to work

Lunchtime trip out to the most helpful upholsterers I spoke to with the remaining piece of the Recaro jigsaw.

Left it with him for "about 2 weeks" for him to make the necessary adjustments and then the job'll be finished,

Boring commute home.

Extra - Reupholstery of rear seat back - £TBC

Wow how tardy am i?!

February 6th

commute to and from work

nothing to report

February 7th

commute to and from work

nothing to report

February 8th

commute to and from work

nothing to report

evening trip to local pub for tea

February 9th

parked up for the weekend

nothing to report

February 10th

still parked up for the weekend

nothing to report

I did open the door to remove my mp3 player to update the music collection though

February 11th

Commute to work

Commute home

All very dull bit the "fun" started when I returned home.

Tidied the garage following all the seat activity so that I could once again get the car in the garage.

However I tidied so well that I moved my reference points for reversing in.

That meant I clattered my ladder with the car when backing in.

The worse news was that that ladder was also protecting a washing up bowl full of dirty oil following December's service to the black car!!

Result 4.5 litres of slick black oil all over my garage floor :(

Luckily I had a bag of left over soil so I lumped that in on top to soak up most of it.

Scooped it all up with the shovel and soaked the remainder in some spare (headed for the bin) bedding.

Have left it with a second set of bedding soaking up the remainder before I can get out there and find a bucket of sand somewhere

At least I now know what mechanics never have washing up bowls full of used oil laying about the place.

February 12th

Commute to work.

Commute home from work via petrol station for fuel.

(and into the attached supermarket for some oil soaking material (kitty litter & washing powder!)

£1.40 a litre and just over 37 litres and £52ish later and the dreaded pump light was gone.

Fuelly says a 46.6 mpg for that tank and 48mpg overall.

Fuel - £52.39 - MPG - 46.6

I did however notice this while i was under the harsh flourescent lights of the petrol station forecourt

I thought mine had faired well but maybe not....

Once home I did then sprinkle 20kg of cat litter over my oil stained concrete garage floor and tarmac driveway.

I don't have high hopes but hopefully it'll dry as much as possible up and I can brush the whole lot away.

February 13th

Commute to work and commute home both very dull.

Car reversed into the garage wheere it shall now sit non moving and unloved while we are on a weekend away in Cornwall.

February 14th

Car didn't see the light of day and worst of all received no valentines cards.

February 15th

Me and Mrs Pasty are whizzing around North Cornwall in the black car.

It didn't even get to come along to the (very) mini meet when black car met my mum's blue SE.

Red car sits at home in the dark crying.

February 16th

See February 15th