Having bought the car it was then a case of taxing and insuring it, not cheap; and then living with it a bit to work out where it rattled, squeaked or leaked.
In my research prior to buying the car I came across the Chris Pleass YouTube channel in which he mentions his liking for Trello, a work flow planner app. I tried it, liked it and use it for my project work flows. Prior to this I sat down with a notebook and planned it all out old-school. A Trello page from my current work stream is included above
Item 1 – Join the AA and get the car examined by them.
Item 2 – Use this to develop a workflow to address any critical issues and plan track-day upgrades.
The AA assessment revealed the car was in good shape, the rubber covers on the Bilstein Shocks had perished and were splitting or falling off but would not be a MoT failure.
The car drove well, did not pull to one side or another and was shod with excellent tyres (Dunlop Sportsmax 205/45 on 17×7 inch rims) with plenty of life in them. The brakes were in good condition.
One of the Fog lights had a cracked lens.
The car had some surface rust spots but these were not critical.
With everything in satisfactory I booked a Track-day at Castle Combe and sat down to plan my upgrades.
- Purchase Haynes manual.
- Repair/ replace broken fog light.
- Upgrade sound system.
- Buy a Fullface Crash Helmet (as its a drop-top).
- Replace all discs – so I have a known start point.
- Replace all Pads with EBC Yellow Stuff.
- Paint all Callipers yellow (vanity).
- Think about braided hoses all round.
- Replace suspension bushes.
- Refurbish rear subframe and deal with surface rust.
- Lanogard underside of car.
- Track-day wheel alignment.
- Service vehicle: Engine Oil, Filter, Gearbox, Diff Oil, Brake Fluids & Air Filter.
- Book shakedown test track-day to see what else needs to be addressed.
The idea was that the surest thing about a track-day would be the need to be confident about slowing down as the basic handling of the car was satisfactory and the tyres were good.
