Been busy again
Today came with a visit from the post man (lady) with a thermostat, cam cover gasket, and a stereo
I got outside and it had stopped drizzling, so started to make progress with cleaning the interior, it was filthy
Looking like this in most places -
A clean toothbrush, cloth, lemon cleaner, and a vacuum were all utilised to free the velour and carpet from crumbs, tobacco, and other assorted detritus. The result is rather pleasing
I have yet to fit the stereo as the adaptor and link cable to connect the steering wheel control has not arrived, it should not be long.
The cambox gasket looked like a relatively straight forward job, just the inlet manifold off, socks in the inlet pipes, cam cover off etc. The bolts came out fine, it was clear that the gasket was at fault, can you tell which bolts came from the back!
Cover off -
The original gasket was heavily compression set, it was not proud of the surface at any point, rubber gaskets require 10-15% compression to seal effectively.
Everything was then cleaned and put back together, the new gasket was around 2-3mm proud of the surface, with a total depth of 6mm, the compression limiting bolts leave around 1mm between cover and head.
Next up was the thermostat, easy I thought, I pull off the hose undo the three bolts and, oh, no thermostat? I come on here and do a quick search, hmmmmmm looks like it is at the BACK of the engine not the front. And so the swearing started, that is a vile vile job, I have no photographs due to being filthly, cold and generally very bad tempered! After one and half hours of bending myself into more and more impossible shapes to reach bolts, the job was done.
I started the car back up,
No oil leak
No water leak
And temperature now rising up well past 60 degrees
Winner!
Hopefully tomorrow will bring the connector and I will be able to fit the stereo.
One more picture, I have only done half the paint on the car, but you can tell which side has been done
More soon
Must get that sorted when the weather decides to stop SNOWING. 
