From far away!

We've had people from all over England coming to the Playdays....and even Mark has flown over from Ireland twice to join in the fun.

January 30th saw our furthest travelled visitor: Thomas (AKA The Doctor) who travelled all the way from the Netherlands in his Toyota Chaser to take part in the Playday. A 1,200km round trip!

He's quite a camera shy kinda guy but I did manage to get a few snaps of him at the unit.

In the background here, cleaning the 2 post lift (he's not afraid of getting stuck in!)

 

 Here he is checking up on me cleaning some pistons. Quality control is a good attribute of his

Laughing at Mark & Ryan 'pimping' in the Hustler

 

...and overseeing the installation of the chain on the 2 post lift

It was great to have you over Thomas, thank you for coming such a long way to join in...and please come back whenever you can - I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say that you are always welcome at Area 52. :D

We have heat!!!

After a number of very chilly sub-zero Playdays, Alan turned up to the last one with a custom made woodburner.

Made out of an old 47 litre gas bottle, the burner has a really neatly hinged door with a handle fashioned from Alan's old, broken Land Rover steering box. Complete with baffle made out of the centre of a steel wheel, damper made out of more of the steering box and a base from the remnants of the old wheel (used for the baffle)

Seen in a previous post were Ian, Steve and Dave cutting a large hole in the wall - this was for the chimney flue to exit.

After getting the burner alight outside to burn off the exterior paint, it was carried in (still alight and red hot!) where Alan quickly set about welding up the flue...with smoke & heat pouring off the burner. That's hardcore! Ryan lent a helping hand.

Welding on the flue

 

 Nearly there

Enjoying the novelty of warmth - the wood burner seemed to be the source of much congregating all night

 

A bit later some shelves were added to keep cups of tea nice & warm. You can also see the A52 detailing that Alan added as he was making it

 

Huge thanks must go to Alan for the construction of this awesome bit of kit. Also to Ryan for supplying the flue...and everyone else for helping to get it fitted and supplying wood to keep us warm.

If you would like Alan to make you a wood burner, he can make them to order and can be contacted through Retro Rides here: Grunty's PM

Area 52's youngest visitor

So far at Area 52 we have had Lucie (Chris's little girl), Molly (Tim's little girl) and Edward (Phil's little boy) but during Playday 6 we were very lucky to be introduced to William - Si's little boy who was born less than a week earlier!

It's going to take a lot to beat that and I am pretty certain that William's visit will not be a one off? If Si has anything to do with it, the first words out of William's mouth will be "pass me the 10mm ratchet"

Without further ado, here is the little fella enjoying the cosiness of the snug

We're all looking forward to having you back again soon young man.

Playday 6: Sorry for the delay!

Well Playday 6 was a bit of a last minute affair that turned out to be an awesome weekend!

Lots done on the unit which has all gone to make it a much more usable space. Many thanks go to those who came along and mucked in. A great effort from everyone.

Mark & Sean fit the waste pipe for the sink in the snug. At last we can use the sink properly!

 

Ben cuts the feet of the 2 post lift to allow them to swing back properly

Adrian & Phil run the 3-phase electrics to the lift....awesome work chaps!

 

  

Ian, Steve and Dave work on drilling big holes in the wall

 

Morgs, Phil & Mark modify the doors to fit properly

All the time, Tim is outside keeping the troops fed from the Car-B-Q with burgurs and sausages

After all the work is done everyone kicks back for more of a social - chatting & drinking (essential A52 ingredients!)

 

As the evening wore on, lots of this kind of thing started happening

More to come in the next installements...including: Heat, Youngest, Furthest, Lifted, Food etc....

Then & Now

How times have changed!

Here is quick snapshot of how the unit looked within a week of signing the lease:

 

10 months later, it's a different story. SO much has changed and a lot of it is not obvious from this picture:

  

We now have full length, full height racking across the back wall,a two post lift (yet to be wired up), a large sand blasting cabinet, parts washer, full length workbench (20+ ft), large compressor, welder....plus the addition of BBQ and hot running water.

The unit is almost there and the next playday (PlayDay 6) will hopefully see the last few jobs finished to get the unit properly up & running. Fingers crossed.

Thanks must go to all the people that have come along and helped over the past months...and to those who have contributed things to the unit. Without you, this place would still be a plain shell with a few cars in it.

More space for Area 52

With the attendance at playdays growing with each successive one and more kit/equipment arriving all the time, space at Area 52 is getting increasingly tight.

Luckily we have a temporary solution with thanks to one of the other guys who rents a space in the unit.

Pete (a stonemason/sculptor) rents the space at the opposite side to my space. He uses it to produce stone sculptures - here he is making some large stone benches for a civic space up in Liverpool:

 

For the past few months he hasn't used the space and recently he announced that he will be working over in Prague for the next six months. I asked if it would be OK to use his space temporarily while he was away. He was fine with this as long as we cleared his stuff neatly into a corner and tried to pay something towards his rent.

Morgs, Ryan and Jimmy came along to lend a hand moving all his tools, clearing all his stone rubble into a corner and sweeping up all the mounds of stone dust that had built up

This shot was taken half way through after clearing all the tools and equipment into a corner - I should have taken a 'before' shot....it was a real mess!

Thirsty work shifting so much stone, rubble and dust....not to mention how dusty the air got with all the sweeping!

It took the four of us a good few hours to clear the space and get it cleaner (less dusty) but at last, we had some extra space

 

It didn't take long to start filling the space though! The recent aquisition of two Hustlers plus Morgs' MR2 meant we had half filled the space before the evening was through!

It did, however, leave a good amount of space down at the other end ready for the playday on the 30th where we would hopefully get the 2 post lift finally up & running.

The biggest problem to come is when I have to give the space back to Pete - I had better not get too used to having it.

Hot water....at last!!

Finally, the unit has hot water. HOORAH!!

It may seem such a stupid thing to make such a song & dance over, but anyone who has ever tried to wash dirty, oily hands in the Area 52 'washroom' during the winter months will no doubt remember the ice cold water which makes the simple job of cleaning such a torturous ordeal!

As we all know, hot water helps shift oil better, but it also makes it such a more pleasant experience after a long day playing on cars.

The new water heating half way through fitting:

Fitted and wired up

WORKING! Such a small step, such a massive benefit!

This also coincides with getting the sink in the 'snug' fitted & plumbed in with a water heater and proper drainage (thanks to Mark & Sean for running the waste pipe) so we now also have somewhere to wash all the tea cups etc...

Even more hot water!

These two modifications to the unit make spending any time down there so much more comfortable. Clean tea cups, clean hands.....BLISS!

'General' Stickers

Since designing the original Area 52 stickers, I have had many requests from people to sell them so that they could put one on their car. The original idea was that anyone visiting Area 52 got an 'Authorized Personel' sticker (one black, one white) as a token of being part of the whole A52 thing.

This will not change, the 'Authorized' stickers will remain a free item given to visitors to the unit.

To try and meet the requests of people who have not yet had the opportunity to visit the unit, but would like to have an Area 52 sticker, I have just designed a 'General' sticker that can now be bought. The aim for this is twofold: 1) So that people can have a sticker without having to have been to the unit (although anyone is always welcome) 2) To raise more money for the A52 fund.

Here is the new 'General' Area 52 sticker:

As with the mugs, 100% of the money raised from sticker sales will go towards the ongoing costs of the unit (electricity, BBQ gas, tea/coffee etc...) as well as building a fund to buy more kit & equipment.

The stickers are only available in matt black or matt white (just like the 'Authorized' versions) and are 155x55mm in size.

The cost of each sticker is £2.00 and postage is free on any order of two or more stickers (50p p&p for single sticker). There is no limit to the number of stickers ordered in either colour.

The outer border can be removed easily if you want to make your sticker look a little bit different, or want to make it a little bit smaller.

If you would like to order any stickers, please PM me details on Retro Rides and I will get back to you with payment details etc....

I have done these in time for people to be able to order along with any mugs they wish to buy.

Project car mock-up: 14" - whaddya think??

Down at the unit this evening with Morgs and Ryan, we decided to take a few minutes to itch a scratch I've had about how the Huslter 'group build' project carwould look on some 14 inch 70's style rims.

 

With a jack holding up the rear and some blocks of wood under the front (health & safety meh!) the wheels were offered up. Due to a PCD way off that of the Mini hubs, the wheels had some good poke going on where they were resting against the protruding studs....but the look certainly seemed to suit the little buggy...

7" wide but on the end of the already extended studs, this little car could easily pull off 8" wide at the front and 9" at the rear. Good times.

The biggest problem will be the clearance of the rear wheels against the subframe/trailing arm mounts. Nothing that can't be sorted though.

This project is going to be a very exciting one and the end result should be a very interesting and original vehicle. I can't wait until the weekend!!!!

AX Authentique

Area 52 currently has a new car tucked up behind the big blue steel doors....my little Citroen AX GT Mk1.

It's only there for a short period of time because I am selling it.

So why the blog entry? Because any cool car (large or small from any country) that makes it into the unit will get a mention one way or another.

Also because it has been an amazing little parts collector for the unit....travelling all over the UK gathering bits like the parts washer, welder, welding gas and even most of the hand tools, so in many ways Area 52 owes a lot to this little French pocket rocket.

The full advert for the car can be found HERE on Retro Rides. It is for sale for £650 which is a very good price for one of these (backed up by comments on RR)

I will certainly miss the little thing, it has been a great, fun car to own. They are getting very rare now in original, unmodified form so this car will hopefully appeal to an enthusiast who won't go sticking a Saxo VTS engine in there....

 

Playday dates: Get your diaries ready!

You heard it here first, these are the dates for the next few months Playdays:

January - 30th: Preparing the unit
February - 20th: Fibreglassing workshop
March - 20th: Intro to welding workshop
April - 10th: 'Special' welding workshop (* see below)
April -29th ('the' tour): Details to be confirmed (**see below)
May 15th - Project Car

These are now set and have been posted up so that you can book them in your diaries.
All future playdays will involve work on the project car on the Sundays (if you're up for it....you're more than welcome to tinker on your own car if you need?). This is so that we can have the focus on a specific activity on the Saturday daytime.

* This 'Special' welding workshop is limited to 20 people. Details of how to put your name down will be posted in February.

** This is the 'Area 52 on Tour' weekend and will mean taking Friday 30th April off work. Leaving Bristol on Thursday 29th in the evening approx 8pm giving you time to get to A52 from work. If travelling from afar, you might need to leave work early on the Thursday? We will be returning on Monday 3rd May which is the Bank Holiday Monday. Details of this event will be posted up in February.

BBQ @ Area 52

Some of the banter about food on the Areas 52 thread on Retro Rides has got me all hungry and dying to get my teeth into a juicy fat BBQ'd steak.

The playday next Saturday will see the arrival of the CarBQ, built by Ian (BiAS) and now owned by Tim (Brat Man), to aid with the cooking duties. To accompany this, Matt (Stealthstylz) is bringing along a copious amount of steak. Good times.

It seemed like the perfect opportunity to reflect on some shots of BBQ'ing at previous playdays:

 

 

The BBQ is at the very heart of everything we do down at Area 52. It keeps us all going, all day...late into the night and first thing the next morning. It warms our hands on those bitter winter days (no heating at the unit) and it is as much a part of the whole playday experience as the people themselves.

Burger anyone??