the williams started blowing badly from the exhuast at engine end last wednesday night, so i limped it back and forth to work for last 2 days of the week and booked it in saturday morning at the garage for them to have a nosey at it, couldnt be arsed doing it myself.

n saturday i'm informed the downpipe has started to split just below the join to manifold, so i raise mr mat brown and get a new mani and d/p to be recieved next week. later that day matt_valver pops down to lay a deposit on the willy wheels he's buying, and at same time a random lass in a fiesta pulls up and asks if the willy is mine. erm yes love, why? turns out her fella has a willy 2 he's breakin, shes pissed off its still on drive and he's not done out with it yet. so quick phonecall to him after she's left and i've sorted a downpipe for 20 quid, awesome! ring mat, cancel post order and leave it all till this morning.

on the way to chesterfield to pick up the downpipe, theres a crack and a clang and then the blow is like savage loud, so limp to this lads place and sort the transaction, limp home and crack on with fitting new pipe

new pipe waiting to go on



undo one sprung bolt to old downpipe, and then try to crack the one nearest the wheel, no socket fits it and its seized solid, so have to hammer a socket on and go for it........



yep u guessed it, snapped the ****in stud in the manifold



so manifold has to come off aswell, same issue with half the bolts on that aswell, seized and have to hammer sockets on etc etc, cue lots of swearing and cups of tea and the loss of my 13mm socket, buggered if i know where that ended up

finally get the bugger off



and call up the lad in chessie again, he has to strip mani of the willy he's breaking and ferry it down to cromford for me, top bloke!

the work area as i was waiting



so a 4 bolt ten minute downpipe swap turned into an all day **** about leaving me thoroughly pissed off and tired! however least i didnt have to pay a garage in the end and now its all runnin fine again fingers crossed! just why is it never simple with these cars?

Coops