Fettling and tinkering

Much fettling and tinkering today on PMW. First off, the repeater lamp on the driver's side was missing a lens but thanks to Mike W I was able to fit a new one which was a very nice easy way to start the day's proceedings.
Then I moved on to emptying the boot completely to get at the rusty boot floor in the spare wheel well (actually this was after getting a new spare tyre this morning). Thankfully it was all surface rust so I gave it a wire brushing followed by blue smoothrite and you'll see the result further down the page (along with the new spare tyre).

The spare wheel well wasn't the only place with some rust issues though. Under the rear seat there were a couple of areas - this one was metal wleded in from the outside in the past but not treated in any way! So it got a covering of dynatrol and other places not seen in this photo also got the blue smoothrite treatment.
Whilst all the paint was drying out though I switched attention to a service and a chance to use this bit of kit for the first time. This is a syphon pump thingy which sucks the oil up through the dipstick pipe and it works really well, as long as you don't believe the instructions that it only takes one lot of pumping!

Also changed the plugs, cleaned and painted the battery tray as well as fashioning a rubber insulation for the battery fastener from an old inner tube ( it came too close to the battery terminals for my liking).

At the same time my thoughts are turning to the trip to Italy and carrying spare fuel just in case. I was really pleased to remember a spare fuel can which is very shallow and fits in under the boot "floor boarding".
This final picture shows the spare wheel back in with the fresh blue smoothrite visible below it. At the same time I have started packing spares which will all sit below the boot floor boarding still leaving the carpeted boot available for tents, sleeping bags, luggage and tools. What great cars these 2000s are!

One last thing, I have refitted the original licence plate which is very faded but somehow I felt the black and white plates were actually too "new" for the look of the car. I might change my mind on that one yet though.