Well of course

This place in particular was called P Tuckwell's, they've got a few different locations around the place.

However all the bolts and bits they had because they're a John Deere place - there are hundreds of such places around the country, it's just that no-one knows about them unless they're a farmer. What's considered "special order" for normal places is your bread and butter when it comes to 30-tonne machines.

They did say that pretty much any bolt they didn't have they could order in next day.

I got three of the M12's, three of the big M10's, three flange nuts, four pinch bolts and four nyloc's for £21 all in. All 10.9 grade.

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Erm, if you don't mind Matt it's actually "Project Oooo arrrr, with John Deere". I've got endorsements now.

In other news... Coming soon!

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im in the agricultral industry and these bolts ain't hard to come buy. we stock them at work

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309 3dr K20 Type R

Think you will probably find the standard bolts are only 8.8 anyway, only thing is you needed a bolt rather than a set screw.

The wishbone ones are 10.9 yes, pinch bolts are 8.8

Not any more though

Marco - seriously, you haven't even finished watching Top Model yet? I think I've sat through every series start to finish when Living TV decided that was a good idea. Actually that's when most of the car planning was done

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Brakes are awesome, can't see me needing anything better any time soon. Obviously they're heavy, but I'm not paying thousands just for a lighter setup.

I'm using EBC yellows I think, have been pretty impressed with them. I thought about using the CL pads but having just paid about £250 for some Tarox G88's to save my ears I didn't fancy chewing them up in an afternoon

They still squeal a bit under moderate braking, so I just consider that a "you're not braking late or hard enough" alarm and man up

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Right, been a while since I've done anything with the car, Woodbridge was spot on and yet again the car was a right hoot. Good day had by all, including my mate with the MX5 who overheard being referred to as "that dick in the Mazda" by one of the stewards. Mankee...?

So, much as they deny any involvement my front wheels were knocking once I'd had the tracking done at the F1 Autocentre place in Chelmo. Extremely annoying, but it's not like they're going to do anything about it, so managed to source myself a Xsara VTS quick rack. As I'm not 100% sure it's the rack that's broken (although I don't see what else it can be) I thought I might as well get myself a cheeky upgrade while I'm at it

Obvious "nice rack" gag, post cleanup:



And what's wrong with this picture? Oh, the joys of buying second-hand parts:



Quick trip to Unipart and £7 later, got me a replacement. Don't have the silly tool to get the weird clips on, to cable ties for the win. Jacked the car up, and inadvertently found the exact balancing spot of the car when trying to raise up the front.

Wobbly:



Turns out removing the subframe wasn't quite as simple as I'd expected. I don't have any pictures of the process as I tend to take them on the refit once I know what everything is, but due to this little bugger, that never happened:



One big ol' M10 bolt, sheared straight off. Brilliant. Annoyingly if I'd have known at the time that the whole bracket would've come off with the two 13mm bolts I wouldn't have needed to remove it, but it was so badly rusted on it seemed as if the bolt was going into the chassis as well as the bracket. It was not. Annoying.

I'll get some pictures up once I've refitted it all, but eventually off came the subframe and ARB. Might as well get myself some new ARB bushes while I'm at it I guess.



Then it's simply a case of carefully removing the hydraulic pipes from the ram without rounding them off, and transferring the ram to the new rack. I am assured that using the Xsara ram will result in some serious gearbox rubbage

Ram moved across:



Now, not that there was anything wrong with the old protective bin bag or anything...



But I decided to replace that while I was here. You can get kits for this, or you can find some old green crap that Ollie wrapped the dashboard in and use that. More cable tie goodness:



Yet again, there'll be a big pile of bolts to replace, so I'll be back to John Deere during the week. Thought they were open today, but apparently they only open weekends during harvest. Bugger.

Anyway I can't put it back together until I can get a new bracket thing, tried heat and force to get that old bolt out, and it's just not having it. Plus it's the girlfriend's mum's birthday, so have to go scrub the power steering fluid off my face and the black crap from my arms.

Wouldn't normally bother, but it's quite a posh restaurant we're going to. Nice little place in Writtle, just off the main road. They do nice steak. Think I'll have a steak.

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Yeah, annoyingly it does seem that the posher the restaurant the smaller the steaks, so I'm sure I'll have no problem demolishing whatever's put in front of me.

And what you described is exactly what happens when we get 10oz fillet steaks from Tescos for a mere £7 each. You think you won't make it, but you're damn well not giving it to the dog.

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Barely sounds worth the effort to be honest. Should've just enjoyed the steak for what it was.

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Figured as I'm waiting on getting a new bracket thing and bolts, might as well make some bits shiny. I was going to clean up the subframe but there was far too much grease and stonechip to be worth it, so sacked that off for now.

Not bad for a 12-hour soaking in some Deox C:



Dry them off, primer them up, and bake on gas mark 1 for a couple of hours to get all the primer nice and solid.



Will get those painted up tonight with a bit of luck, new bolts tomorrow morning and hopefully the bracket thing asap if I still can't get the old bolt out.

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Well I thought I might as well get in one more update before the admins forget to take a backup before the Upgrade Of Doom, all goes wrong and we lose everything.

I chose a random spray can from the shelf, and ended up with red. The brackets are drying now, didn't get a picture but imagine them as they are above - only red.

I really felt obliged to tidy up the old ARB while it was off as it was a bit shanty:



However in reality no-one's ever going to see it and it'd be a pointless waste of time and money. So, grinder and a paint removal disc:



Bling.

Now I'm really not sure how this'll end up, as obviously there's a fair amount of flex in the ARB by its very nature. In fact no, I know exactly how it'll end up - it'll end up with a rusty ARB and a pile of flaked off paint on my garage floor.

In an effort to counter this, I've gone for acid etch primer onto the bare metal, so that should stick fairly well. I've then ordered up some flexible rubbery paint, which should hopefully not crack under movement. Primered:



Just time for one last coat before settling down for a night in front of the telly. It's been nice knowing you all, I'll see you on the other side.

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Get the subframe seam welded whilst its off too. Worth the pain i'd have thought

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Nothing to see here

It's been pretty much 4 weeks, there had best be a heroic update soon or soon after the next few bank holiday weekends !!

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