Return of Django – sorry, Cuore

After a year off the road the Cuore is – ta da! – back.

It’s been a long haul and one we thought might never be resolved the right way, but engineering excellence triumphed courtesy of a some proper fabrication.

But anyway, here’s a bit of background. The Cuore failed to proceed early last June. Not through any mechanical failure mind, but rather a corroded fuel neck. The guv’nor attempted to fill the Cuore up in Llanelli but just as he was unscrewing the fuel cap the  filler neck collapsed and ended up almost resting on the tyre.

Clearly this was no minor, ‘a cable tie’ll do it’ fault but having paid 75p or so for the petrol he’d put in, the guv’nor headed home for a kitchen table discussion about what to do.

The Special’s kitchen table has seen many debates about our fleet but this one was more serious. In the 12 months up to the fuel neck failure the entire floor had been replaced, a bespoke quad tailpipe stainless exhaust system fitted (thanks again to ProFab) and the wheels re-furbished by local boys WheelWorkz.

Being a small Daihatsu automatic it’s immensely reliable and immensely useful. It just works, and goes about any journey with a level of cheerfulness cars like this always seem to have. Around town it’s easy to guide thanks to its power steering, and the central locking can be useful too. It’s good on long journeys too and has made a few trips up North over the years.

It was that outlay on the floorpan, exhaust system and wheels that secured the Cuore’s future. It was just too good to give up on so the hunt for a replacement fuel neck began.

We tried some breakers: no joy. A friend of ours spoke to a Dutch specialist. No joy. Steve at our local garage gave it got too. We didn’t bother with a ‘specialist’ fabricator out West as he’d already messed us around with Mrs Special’s C15. No, we certainly wouldn’t be offering him our business.

Then in a chance conversation with our mate Matthew there was a lightbulb moment. An epiphany. Yes, a lightning bolt of fabricating direction pointed us towards Swansea and the exhaust genius James at Swansea-based ProFab.

Why didn’t we think of that before? After all, James had already made the Cuore’s (and the Mentor’s) exhaust systems. So off the Cuore went on Mark the Mover’s flatbed to ProFab. We’d already bought a new stainless steel cap which James could then connect to the tank with his pipe-working expertise.

And despite finding the right diameter pipe proving to be tricky, we got there in the end, and a matter of days later it was back at the local garage for Steve to give it a full-on service and an MoT-test pass.

Now it’s back and it’s running like a dream. Welcome back Cuore – you’ve been missed!