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I need to cut down on my screen time, I seem to spend far too much time on Facebook and AS. Yesterday was one of those times and I spotted a little Visa for sale very locally. It had been left semi abandoned in a yard and had disappeared under a row of conifer trees. The yard was being extended and the overgrown area cleared and out popped this little Citroen. All 652cc of it (2CV engine!) I was expecting a right rot box but amazingly I can’t find any real grot anywhere, the odd patch of sill has surface* rust which should clean up OK, the flange on the bulkhead where the spare wheel goes also looks a bit flakey and might need repair. It was last on the road in 2010 and drove to where it was parked, I’m unsure whether the engine has seized and the brakes are very stiff but fingers crossed it won’t be that bad. I left a deposit and I’m A framing the thing back home tomorrow. The keys are missing so I’ll have to remove the steering lock, I’ll then have to replace the locks or order a key, if that’s possible. Anyway, some photos..

What a treat it was to see this today. You see some right old rammel out in Fenland Cambridgeshire. Not being driven in an ironic fashion, it was owned by the typical fen farmer type with a stupid hat and about 5 teeth. A van! It does about 200 miles a year by the looks of things, so it was a stroke of luck that I even saw it! I’d love something like this - good clear coat over the body and just use.

No it's a diesel, the money shot

the parts to fix my broken mx5 arrived this morning and as it wasn't chucking it down I got stuck in took about three hours but fired up on the first turn of the key - making me very happy indeed

has it got the umbrellas in the door or was that just an older model? does sort of look like you're wanking off a rhino... Top bombing!

@paulplom Thanks for the offer man but I've just bought something worse from another shitter who's much further away.

This is Superb.

Yesterday I was in hospital having surgery on my ankle so rather than rest like the surgeon said I have arranged to go and collect my new car. I have been awake all night in pain so what could possibly go wrong! Luckily it's only a couple of hours round trip so I reckon I can do it, if I get really tired on the way back the accommodation in my new car is positively palatial and I can rest up on the heated rear seats. Can't wait!

Hooray, the rotten old windows are out! Workmen will be sticking the new windows in when they get back from lunch.

Moar Beige! 1980 Talbot Horizon https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1208055136250172/ Sent from my Moto G (5) using Tapatalk

Spend £1100 on it and you’ll have a sorted car that you like. Weigh it in for £100 and spend £1200 on something else and you might be lucky, but more likely you’ll be in the same place you are now in a year’s time, except you’ll have already spent the £1100. Lovely looking car, by the way.

You hope ?

I quite like Tomica models, it's always a bit exciting to find one in a box of tat. The pictured one is a Toyota Corolla ke35 coupè. If any of you chaps out there find one(in any condition)I'd be very interested in it. I have the full size one you see

Having decided that I'd had utterly enough of the outside world by about midday and having a complete failure to summon enthusiasm regarding doing anything actually useful...I spent a couple more hours fiddling around with the Sun. Task number one was dealing with the vacuum hoses in the machine. I knew these had taken on the consistency of dried pasta and would disintegrate the moment I touched them. I wanted them changed before I started poking around as they were mostly still where they were meant to be...and I'd rather not play guessing games as to where they go. By the time I was done, this is what was left. Plus a bunch of bits buried in the bottom of the case I'll need tonget out with the vacuum cleaner. Much better. I discovered the hard way that that solenoid valve on the water purge line has mains on the (unsleeved) terminals even when the machine is off when it gave me a good old belt. Bloody stupid not having the plug pulled before I did that. Fiddly bit under the gas analyser done too. I'd missed the line heading off to the pressure transducer (far right out of frame) when taking this photo, it was sorted later. With that sorted out I felt I could turn my attention to sorting the stuff which wasn't working. Two nuts removed allowed the whole front bezel to be removed...this vastly improved access. This solves the problem of not being able to get to the computer. This let me take a closer look at things. Not least figuring out what CPU the thing was running. I was expecting something 8-bit, maybe Z80 (half hoping actually as I've messed with them before and might have some hope of making heads or tails of the software) or 6000 series...this however was rather a surprise. That's a National INS8900D. For those not familiar with it, that's a 2MHz 16-bit processor... really wasn't expecting this to be a 16-bit machine... especially given it has its roots back in 1979...overkill? The memory board. Yes, getting these EPROMs read and backed up is high on the priority list. Not totally sure how, but I managed to forget to get photos of the MUX and I/O boards. I'll fix that later. The board I was most interested in today however was this one. The edge connectors actually looked pretty clean, though I gave it a scrub up anyhow. Based on prior experience though I figured the most sensible thing to do was to remove (carefully, using the right tool) each of the socketed chips and reseat them. Somewhat surprised to see a humble 555 timer in a socket. Have to wonder if they've had reliability issues with that IC. With that done, slotted the card back in, powered on, and... Rock steady display... I'll take that as a win. Having a display which would stay running for more than five seconds at a time I could let it complete the warm up process and run through the self test (having taken the opportunity to clean the CRT faces while it was in warm up as they were filthy). Still surprised how sharp this display is... especially now there's not 1/8" of grime on it. The faceplate was similarly filthy. I wasn't surprised by the "service required" messages at the calibration screen. If I'd been abandoned in a cold damp shed since 2005 I'd be in need of a bit of TLC just the same. I did a quick check on the gas analyser first to see if it would respond to a clean. First check though was of course to make sure that the IR source was "lit" correctly. The source here takes the form of a carbon rod, heated to the point where it just about glowing a really dim red (camera makes it look a little brighter than it is). This is then focused via two parabolic mirrors onto a pair of sensors at the far end. It was given a really good clean (carefully...the mirrors are surface silvered) as the whole lot were filthy. Sadly it didn't just miraculously come back to life...so further digging will be needed. Despite the errors,it was quite happy to continue into running mode. First page you get is to enter the vehicle details - Number of cylinders, 2/4 stroke, and the timing offset. Once that is entered it presents you with the following screen. The *** entries show where readings are missing due to the calibration issues. It will blank things out rather than potentially showing erroneous data. This allows you to check things like the starter motor current, battery voltage during cranking. It also allows you to compare the current draw during each cylinder compression stroke to give a rough relative compression test to show if one pot is far lower than the rest. Once that is completed, the engine running test page is presented. I like the "bar graphs" drawn using the text...sneaky ways to do stuff like this without the overheads of bitmap graphics is half the fun of old kit from this sort of age. Looks really the part with the front panel back in place. So issues we need to look into: [] Gas analyser inoperative. [] Volt/ohm meter inoperative. [] Temperature probe reading nonsense (see 160C reading above). [] Suspicious of the vacuum reading. [] Possible cap issues in the power supply as it shows a low line voltage warning at the calibration screen despite our line voltage being anything but low. First port of call is going to be going over the machine end to end and reseating every socketed chip as I did on the CRT board, then see where we are. Will also make a point of checking for any signs of damage to the wiring where it enters the boom as it could be prone to chafing there. Oh...and sort the dent in the power supply fan grill so it stops rattling before it drives me mad. Interesting to see that the fans are actually 115V units...have to assume they're running from a step down transformer buried in that brick of a power supply. Definitely making progress though. Last random photo for the old tech enthusiasts...old computer equipment like this often displays interesting or odd artefacts on screen when rebooted. This is what the display shows on this for about a second when powered up. Thought it might just be random nonsense in the RAM, but it seems to show the same every time.

Imagine his face when he looks out and sees no scooter, just paulplom's neighbour's wheelie bin outside his house, on fire.

Ignore it's £85k, it's fucking fabulous. https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1178655

My own collection is a bit excessive,I live on my own so can have what I want.Miss_155 understands though as she collects various things too,we both like wooden animals & she has a few cars & trucks too. I have no real theme to mine,but do prefer older models & don't really spend too much on individual cars.Some of the sub-sections are Majorette,Corgi Juniors,Siku,Matchbox 1-75,Tomica(quite a few from Datsuncog?),1/64 VW's,1/36 Corgi & Matchbox,1/43 '60s & '70s cars,Hearses,1/87 cars,cars I've had in real life,& NASCAR models from a few years ago from when I had literally hundreds of them. Here's a few pictures of what I've got on display in my 1 bedroom flat ? These last two show some of the stuff that's not on display,the boxes in the 2nd picture are those truck carry cases that you always see at car boots ?

Was undecided where to put this , grin or grump, but this ties on with mr wimpy So here it goes. Is there an internation salad shortage, especially in the lettuce market ?. Has someone famous written a book on how to make a business profitable by keeping a keen eye on material costs. Are Cowboys taking over the fast food market. These and many other theories went round my head at lunchtime today. I had the misfortune of having no choice but an Old Wild West restaurant in torino today. My first visit and my last. I give you my plate as it arrived. And they say the Mediterranean diet is healthy. Just why bother. I feel an email to top sheriff is in order. I am going to write a best seller. Working title so far. Feeding the 5000 on one lettuce, your profits will go sky high. Or Green on the plate gives healthy image and healthy profits, all it takes is a postage stamp sized portion. The chips were shit also.

Could this be a Vauxhall that is too shit even for @Cavcraft?

https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sale/citroen-c6-c5-twin-turbo-jaguar-landrover-engine/22177241 Anyone for a cheap(!) C6? UK reg example in Ireland, €1750 / £1500ish Livery included...

Good to hear it! Here's some potatocam pics of the two before they departed for pastures new: The Levin. I agree that the plastic base does make this one feel much more flimsy than most of the others, plus the shape is all wrong - really low and flat, which is not how I remember the E70 Series Corolla liftback. The pic on the box is ace, however. The Canter was pleasingly chunky, although all the rivets necessary to facilitate the tipping action meant that some detail was lost. As much as I tried to like this one, I just really couldn't get that passionate about it either. I bought all of these boxed '80s Tomica in a massive hurry one afternoon, from a model shop in Queen St, Brighton. I'd quickly nipped in while making my way from the bus stop in Churchill Square to the railway station at the top of Queen St, to see if they had any new Cararama 1/72 in - only to be unexpectedly confronted with a shelf of about 60 boxed Tomica models. At that time, I was permanently skint and also on my way to Gatwick airport. I'd no time to go and find a cashpoint - and wasn't even sure I had any money in there, anyway - so I quickly grabbed as many as I could, using all the cash I had on me (intended to buy me lunch and dinner) and just about scraped together enough for nine of them. I didn't even have time to open the boxes in the shop and see exactly what was in there - that had to wait until I'd huffed and puffed up the street and jumped on the train. Of course, by the time I returned to Brighton the following week, all the others were gone. I still wonder what else I left behind on the shelf... Nice as the Tomica models are - and I can understand why they have such a huge following - I never quite gelled with them the way I expected to, so I'm delighted they've finally found appreciative homes. The unboxed 1990s models at the front of the pic mostly came from the model shop I worked in, when we bought in some cases of Tomica because our Matchbox rep went AWOL and we had no carded stock for the 99p spinners. These four (plus the silver Datsun Cherry at the front of the previous pic) are reproduction Chinese Tomicas, bought unboxed from a Hong Kong seller on eBay c.2007. Again, I tried very hard to love them - but I guess I just wasn't in a good place at that point with my diecasts. Way too much random stuff, mostly boxed up for decades and scattered over multiple locations, meant I had no real focus for my collection and simply didn't know what to do with them. I ended up feeling this acute and pointless embarrassment at having so many models but nowhere to display them, and no time to appreciate them. But! Slimming down the collection massively was a good start for me; and while I've had one or two pangs since at having let certain stuff go, there's no way I'd be in a position to browse my collection and appreciate individual items from the way it was... ( ^^^ this isn't even half the collection, as it was) More Tales from the Toybox later, kids!

Can we make a miniature clamp and put that on the bin, together with a realistic looking PCN which when opened contains a note saying “we all think you’re a twat”?

Will be going an extremely long distance* collection tonight. Expect action to get underway after 7pm. Delivery will take place on Saturday, but to who?

No relief for your eyeballs inside either https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201910183440408

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/425557941449775/ £3.5k

About to get underway from home. I'm used to collection capers involving trains, planes, car and bus. My only transport to this vendors house is...

£1100? That's less than a full service at a main dealer on a Citroen xantia in 1998. Ref: one of my brother in laws I have gradually reached the conclusion that value of the car you are fixing is irrelevant. If it were worth £20k you'd think NOTHING of spending £1100 on it. It's the environmentally sensible thing to do. Google Durable car ownership.

https://www.custojusto.pt/braga/ligeiros-passageiros/daihatsu-01-29857910

Some serious want for this, big money though. https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1178473

Heh, still a long way away from that, I have to say... Still, feeling in a somewhat reflective mood, I had a good poke through my personal 'reserve selection' box of tiny tat last night. This is the box. Bit smaller than my previous receptacle for Matchbox/Corgi/Majorette/Hot Wheels, which was a 10 gallon fermentation bucket. And here's what's inside, at the moment anyway... Most of the vehicles in this box have a story of some description - though not so much the ones on top, which tend to be more recent market finds. The other box containing previous 50p market finds, now earmarked for rehoming, are nearly as numerous. There's also these two carry-cases.... ...and that's where some of the old gold lies... And some newer stuff, too - many from Matchbox's last purple patch for realistic depictions of 60s and 70s stuff, c.2007. And some boxless Cararama, from when I had a massive interest in them. It'll take me a while, but hopefully there'll be stuff of interest in here.

That didn't take long! More pics to follow later, it's a quite rare 100 Edition with every conceivable extra fitted.

Ooh, did Princess Anne have a Scimitar? I never knew that!

Ace, well rescued. Nothing says AS quite like the words "I left a deposit and I'm A framing the thing back home tomorrow". Winnah.

Last lot of pics now from the sellers page as by the time I'd finished pissing around with it it was dark. There is not a single parking ding or scratch on it which is amazing, it looks like I have a faulty air flap motor or stuck flap according to vcds so I'll have a look at that tomorrow, then I'm going to have a go at remapping it as it's just a bit pedestrian, nothing daft just to around 160bhp, other jobs are to get the cam belt done and have a poke around in the egr and probably blank it off, I've ordered some new style badges for the front and rear and wheel centre caps which will smarten it up then I'm just waft to work and back feeling superior.

I agree that price is nonsensical - cambelt service would cost you 150 via MG Rover Mobile Mechanics (book now as they are mega busy) or 275 with a full service (+ mileage) : http://www.mg-rovermobilemechanics.com/pricelist - highly recommended in MG-R circles as they are dead mad MG-R fans. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MGRoverMobileMechanics/ - Kayleigh and Dave Allkins run the show and they're both dead friendly - based in Derby but will travel literally anywhere to help out owners (petrol costs, obv.) Brake overhaul is probably DIY-able or at worse a couple of hours labour and parts Welding - find a back street mechanic cash tonite m8 Tyres, order off Black Circles, get your local tyre place to fit (recommend F1 Autocentres) In no conceivable way is the work needed a four figure sum - you're being diddled. Shop around and keep it. I'd even suggest Craig at Rover Revivals, he charges low labour rates to 200/400 OC members (includes 25/45/Streetwise) - see http://www.rover200.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=11930 When I get time he's gonna see my 214 and 420 for me. Sadly Rover 45s are not a classic - they weren't particularly loved when they came out. But agree on 'better the devil you know'

Oh, be careful some of us twin pots have 60 bhp brothers! Challenge little brother and the big brothers will come out!

And just to follow up on this one, and all - do these sets ring any bells with anyone? These are from the 1988 Corgi trade catalogue, and seem to pre-date the Auto City range. (Not sure how legible these scans are, but here goes.) So... much marketing waffle, promising 'more than just a garage' and 'offering real play value'. Using the Bank of England's inflation calculator, a 1988 price bracket of £10-£50 equals £26.34 - £131.71 in today's money. These weren't cheap! So what did you get for your money? These... Then expanding a little more... You may be noticing by now that these sets are essentially the same damn thing, just with different stickers and different Juniors vehicles each time. Set against a doomy grey background, to my eyes these sets appear weirdly unfinished - with various sections where vehicles can just drop off the edge. And then they get bigger again... I never remember seeing these in the shops, and I was a fairly avid toy aisle lurker c.1988. The boxes would have had to be huge, too. Compared to the much brighter and more 'integrated' Matchbox and Hot Wheels sets (with playmats and accessories) these Corgi offerings come across as strangely austere. Just some plastic catacombs, a lift or two to nowhere, and a few ramps. It's like Blade Runner, but not in a good way. I'm really baffled by these. But stay! There's more! These were presumably the cheaper parts of the range - which commit the cardinal sin of mixing their scales. Is this range for Corgi Juniors, or 1/35 scale Corgis? We just don't know. While the vehicles here are good, there is the unavoidable fact that we're really only looking at two separate sets among this six - either a four-post ramp, or a filling station - with only the stickers to differentiate (and not even that in the Pitstop Service Bay/Race Team Service Bay, which appear identical - and also to be made out of cardboard). Matchbox Motor City, by contrast, offered a number of quite different playsets, as I recall. So what's the story, AS hivemind? Were these an unsuccessful sales flop for Corgi, but which ultimately paved the way for the Auto City range? Or did they never even make it past the prototype stage, crashing out amid retailer apathy? I've never seen any of these, either at the time or since (even as broken bits at a car boot sale). Over to you!

Newcastle under Lyme 1978 Birkenhead 1982 @Spottedlaurel

Ok Boomer

Watching The Crown on Netflix. Princess Anne is barely in it but at one point is seen driving up to Buckingham Palace. Thats right, it was a Scimitar.

The OMGHGF 206 departed via CarTakeBack today. It ended up owing me £33 for which I got a good battery, 3 good tyres, an almost new exhaust, an aux belt which has stopped the dark blue one chirruping on start up and a number of other bits and pieces. So well worth it in the end. As covered in other threads, the Rio has sold to Eavp, and is shitelying it's way down the country later in the week. I'm taking it to Six-cylinders and he's completing the task on Saturday. Hopefully it will prove to be a reliable, low-cost, new car! With the Rio out of the way attention will turn to the Savvy, although I've made a snap decision to try and get the Maestro van back on the road for next month, so that will happen first. A potential house move (I've had an offer accepted, but haven't managed to sell mine yet) means it will be useful for tip runs, as the LDV isn't allowed in on account of size. And finally the Antique Gold Allegro returned last night, ready for me to start putting it back together: Before... After...

What a lovely car! IMHO £900-1100 seems a lot for a cambelt service, brake overhaul and a tad of welding for the MOT. Sounds like whoever it was just didn't want the job. May I suggest you go for a few more quotes from sensible independent garages and/or mobile mechanics in your area? Tyres are consumables and you can shop around for those. If you feel you can't cope with that and really don't want it, offer it up on here and I'm sure it will find a new home very quickly.

I’m down in Spain at the moment and have come to the conclusion that we have a lot to learn from the Spanish and their attitude to car spending. Based on my experience, the personal value of a car in Spain is directly proportional to its ability to perform its required task regardless of how unfashionable or otherwise knackered it looks. Hence you’ll see absolutely battered 10+ year old Renault Scenics with sweet running DCI engines and a full set of new Michelin’s. So on that basis, if you need it or love it and/or it could continue to serve its purpose then its worth investing the money. If it doesn’t fulfil those criteria, it needs to be recycled into your next washing machine.

Are diesel cold starts a competitive Autoshite thing.? MOV_0618.mp4 Beat that. (spot the annoyed neighbour at the end!)

Parts delivery! We're getting the windows done today so I was glad of the pipes arriving so I had something to do. Stealing a bit of time while workmen are on lunch, then I have to turn the computer off because noise, mess, etc. in the same room as the computer. I digress. With all the lovely new pipes I could set to installing. For the thermostat, I'm sticking it as close to the head as I can, temperature pick up in pretty much the same place as it was on the original waxstat. Soak the end of the hose in a bit of hot water in a mug so it goes over that rolled edge of the thermostat and then push it into place by pushing down against that custom pipe that was installed in place of the old waxstat housing. Then remove it and trim the elbow down shorter because it was too tall. You also have to put the jubilee in before the hose because there isn't enough clearance to thread the clamp on after the hose because of the casing around one of the cambox bolts. It is a very tight fit. After that, go through and install the various bits of pipe and clamps in the relevant places and you're looking somewhat close to sorted. The filler cap *just* clears the bonnet, and on the first fit I had a kink in the long straight I didn't like. Moving the metal elbow out a bit solved that. It's not quite as elegant as I'd hope for a solution. It should work satisfactorily and doesn't look really any worse than the factory arrangement. Now I'm just waiting on the sump plug washers and another temperature sender to arrive so I can get fluids in and try and start the car.

After those chrome arches have been pulled off...

I genuinely didn't see this in the Tat thread, it appeared on Facebook- it's almost like FB knows what i'm in to and targets ads at me knowing I'm a bit weak for crunchy old tat.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1989-Toyota-Celica-2-0/303371883101?hash=item46a25f925d:g:jekAAOSwX-Zd1ZBa

Other than the chrome arches looks nice for the money https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/554797682006700/