In some ways a good day today, in others, fairly frustrating. By the end of a long day, a friend and I had managed to change of all the main ignition components on my car. We did the Distributor Cap, Rotor Arm, Spark Plugs and Ignition Leads.

We had also planned to do the Thermostat and Fuel Filter, but wasted a lot of time fiddling with the thermostat housing (how hard to get at?!) and searching for the screw from the rotor arm that I lost somewhere in the engine bay. I visited Halfrauds, B&Q and Focus but to no avail and ended up hacksawing the end off a similar threaded one.

The faults I had been having with the car recently have unfortunately become intermittent over the last week or so whether these new parts have solved the problems remains to be seen. Despite this, the car definitely feels better to drive and top-end performance has certainly improved.

Overall I’m pleased that I did manage to change four important parts of the car's ignition system (despite taking a lot longer than it should!), gaining confidence and knowledge as I did so.

I might get some help one weekend soon to do the Thermostat and the Fuel Filter and until then, I won't know for 100% whether my problems with the car have been solved.

At least I got my new tools dirty!