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A tale of two collections, part two. Idly browsing Gumtree at the beginning of last week, I stumbled across a highly desirable piece of Autoshite. "Posted four minutes ago....". The location was sub-optimal. Redhill in Surrey. Two stops from Gatwick though... A deposit was sent and a flight booked, all arranged for Saturday evening. A very excited wait ensued. Set off about 5m on Saturday. Mode of transport one, a little Mercedes Sprinter based bus into Town; Step two, the Glasgow Airport "Express"; I hate this bus. Nine fucking quid for a single journey to the airport from Buchanan Bus station. You can dress it up with nice upholstery all you want but it's £9 for a one way 7 mile bus journey is ridiculous. At least it's a scenic trip; Anyway, it got there. I was on the 19:50 flight to Gatwick which was pretty painless. Toy train to South Terminal at Gatwick and onto a train to Redhill. Met the seller at home in Redhill and picked the car up, lodgings were booked in Milton Keynes to do the M25 portion during night hours. Here we see my purchase outside my salubrious overnight stop for the first time. It's a 2001 Citroen Synergie 2.0 TD in SX trim. It's done 160k. Was purchased off a nice French couple who were really sad to see it go. It's a nice honest car that wears its miles quite well, don't think it's had a stint as a works van at any point! The sills have had a tickle at last MOT and one of the doors has a suspicious tidemark, there are dents here and there. There are plenty receipts though,the interior is in nice order and even the A/C works. Decided to make a bit of a holiday of it. Got a cheap return from MK to London on the Sunday morning and done a tourist. Room with a view; Tourist; Spot of the trip, outside Euston Station; Monday started with a visit to Crich Tramway which I thought was great, three different trams on the go all day. Highly recommended. The editor has gone a bit haywire, so see video at the end. The steed in daylight; It got home no problem. It even had just under 3/4 of a tank in it when collected and made it home absolutely no bother despite having A/C running whole time. Cruising between 62 and 70 variously. Seems to be very decent on fuel. It's a comfy car, the two armrests are well positioned and the driving position pretty conventional. Not a great deal of room for clutch foot resting and no cruise being the only drawbacks. Far more refined than I'd thought. Some all important interior money shots; You'll notice it has fancy seats from the Executive model in the back row. They're really nice and have twin armrests. There are various slots in the floor so you can arrange the seats in a myriad of different ways. I think I'll remove the middle three and bring the rear two forward to create an executive four seater. They can them tumble forward to allow for load lugging. I rarely need to carry more than a couple of passengers. The large load area is more useful. It's not had a timing belt since 2009 from the look of things, so I think I'll put it in for it's MOT and if all OK stump up for that. It does leave me with five on fleet (although MX-5 will almost certainly not be here past the next week). Will have to decide if it can stay as part of a group of four, or if something will need moved on. With this collection trip, I believe that takes my collection mileage for October to approximately 2000 miles. Inverness, Basingstoke and Redhill. Tram as promised; VID20211018124813.mp4

A tale of two collection capers, part one. Not myself buying the car this time but my brother. Found on an owners club forum for ACTUAL MONEY. 8 years old, sub 100k and full main dealer history meant it should be fairly uneventful. These events took place last Thursday and Friday. Basingstoke was the destination. Leg one; On to Waterloo for a train to Basingstoke; It was a hideously muggy day, but we made it to our lodgings at the Premier Inn in Basingstoke around 12:30am. After a Greggs breakfast we met the chap and a distressing amount of reddies were digitally exchanged. We set off North towards the British Motor Museum at Gaydon, where we see the steed for the first time; It's a Lexus GS450H premier. A 3.5 V6 twinned with a Hybrid drive system. It goes like the hammers of fuck and is ridiculously serene and comfortable. Really enjoyed our visit to the museum; \ Venturing North ocne more; The spot of the trip at Warrington Mcdonalds; The rest of the trip was as uneventful as you'd expect. CVT witchcraft seeing 1k RPM @ 80mph on a private test track. Got home about midnight, feeling not too bad for 425 miles in a day.

Not much to add at the moment other that the very annoying discovery that I'd made the nearside door 1/4" too narrow so I'll have to make another one and the other annoying realisation that I have used the wrong thickness of hinge which has thrown a number of other things out but short of building a completely new cab we'll just have to live with that. However, on the slightly more progress side I've pretty much got the O/S cheek plate finished. This is the first thing I've made which I've had to summon up some vaguely artistic ability to come up with a shape. This is it mostly dressed out and the butt welds dressed out. I am quite pleased with this but more aware than ever that there is a lot to learn. Gas welding these things is a bit of a problem for me because I don't have the steadiest hands. On top of that keeping butts tight when you are dealing with flat sheet isn't very hard, however, when curves start to get involved things can get a little too wide in parts which needs a little filler wire. The upshot is that there are some areas of weld that I can't dress right out. I'm kind of looking forward to working in lighter gauge aluminium rather that having to put the effort in to moving steel around. And just to show that it doesn't look a complete mess on the inside... Now to finish the nearside one.

This should probably be in the grin thread... I decided to have a look at the hungover purchase Megane tonight. As bought the clutch was on the floor. I decided to check the pipework to see if there was anything obvious. Battery off and, with a not insignificant amount of fucking about including removing the ECU and airbox, the battery tray was removed revealing the gearbox. This uses plastic pipework to the slave cylinder inside the box. There should be 3 R clips holding the little plastic bleed nipple holder thingy which is located at the gearbox end-1 on the gearbox end and 2 at the other end. The idea is you pull up the inner one of the 2 R clips and pull the pipe out. It gets stopped by the other R clip and opens up the bleed port. Except, I was missing the R clip from the gearbox end which had allowed all the fluid to piss out. I ended up using one of my 2 R clips on the gearbox end and the other initially on the outer slot so I could bleed it. This didn't take too long and bugger me if I didn't have a working clutch pedal now! I then pushed the pipe back in and moved the R clip to the inside slot, sealing off the bleed nipple. Here it is ready to go I reassembled the battery tray/ECU/airbox I'd removed and stuck the battery back on it. Here goes... VID_20211019_195953.mp4 Shite video buy yes, we have a working clutch now. A quick test drive ensued and all gears engaged fine👍 I think I'll put the lottery on this week...

Boom. Mantas engine has arrived. Under the bonnet of this is a 2.5 Duratec which will mate up to the mx5 gearbox and other bits I've got Last big piece of the puzzle has arrived, I'm having a whisky to celebrate

It had to happen !

The Polonez on what's probably one of its last outings of the year. Still as crap as ever. ;D

This looks great, nice colours too: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115053840718?hash=item1ac9be494e:g:HL4AAOSw5JJhbqgd Bodywork Its very beige! Surprisingly there is very little rust to speak of, It gets better: Interior Dashboard is a lovely shade of brown! These colour choices are infinitely better than black or even grey which are all too common now.

A large box I've been waiting for a good few months actually turned up today Very happy with the contents Managed to grab a Prowler kit at a cheap price too

https://www.gumtree.com/p/cars-vans-motorbikes/renault-15-gtl-1977/1417454966

It is now on ebay finishing this evening, minimum price has been reached so assuming the winning bid collects it, it will be sold. I had the A Team doing the presales preparation. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115037479768

Picked up this rather natty Siku Mercedes truck and trailer at the weekend, the 505 is from my parts bin.

It’s been a while since the last update so a bit to catch up on. Let’s start with a pile of shiny black. These are all four mudguards plus the various brackets and spacers. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it already but they are sitting on a pile of plywood for the cladding for the body. The only things to do for the front wings is to get some canvas mudflaps stitched up. And these are the start of the windscreens. These were optional extras in the day and I’m sure if you were pootling round town you could live without but on the open road you really need them. Sadly they are an absolute nightmare to make and soak up an ridiculous number of manhours. These are the hinges and side frames. The funny T shaped handles are locking screws which are used to clamp the top light of the windscreens open. Although you need the windscreens unless it is lashing down you need to have them open otherwise you bake. One of the reasons we are short of lorry drivers is we have only recently started treated them like shit. Apparently. While we are on the subject of making drivers suffer he is a picture of my knee next to the throttle valve. This is where your knee sits when you are driving and you will see there isn’t much room. To make matters worse the throttle valve sits at about 550F which means that even with as much ceramic blanket as you can get in your knee starts blistering after a few hours. It’s not just the drivers that got the rough end of it. This is where the stoker sits. There was no real restrictions to where on the waggon the feedheater (black box close to the bottom of the picture with the white, natural fibre insulation on it) was sited but they chose to put it where the stoker would have put their feet. Gee, thanks. The chain oiler cases got finished and fitted a while ago but we were waiting for the castings for the valve and dripper to come back from the foundry. They arrived the other day so the oilers now have their valves in. The drippers (little brass casting that lets oil fall onto the side plates (if you are lucky) are elsewhere and sit on the end of a long copper pipe which fits to the spout coming out the side of the valve. You just need to remember to turn the off when you are finished or you’ll end up with even more oil on the floor than normal. You need to be careful that the chains are kept in adjustment of the lash in the chain causes them to swipe the drippers off. Now the cladding is on it get its data plate as required under PSSR. We had these acid etched ones made which look a bit more heritage until you notice the SI units. Note also the uber close fitting trim plates around the gauge glass and feed clack valve. We managed to find someone selling some elderly flat head self-tappers which got gun blued so they look quite nice. I can’t make my mind up about the brass set screws holding the cladding together. If we find some suitably old looking steel ones I think they would look less acned. This is the boiler top looking neater than it’s ever done. The nut guard hides to top ring of nuts as well as hold the boiler top (inner bit) and the cladding top tries in vain to keep the heat in. The brass band hides the joins. The closing plates around the superheater tails was a pain in the arse to make. The eagle eyed will notice a Beetle door mirror sitting on the rear seat. We were just messing about trying to find the best place to put a mirror (not a Beetle one) so the drive can see the water level. And from the driver’s seat. There is a stoking chute and lid to make yet to keep the smoke going up the chimney rather than filling the cab (which it does if you aren’t tuned into what the driver is up to) Speaking of the driver’s seat you can see that what started as a nice, roomy perch has become more than a little congested. There is a little more to go in yet. And looking the other way you can see that there is plenty* of room for your feet. And now onto what I’ve been occupied with for a few weeks. I’ve touched on these before and had already done some work on them but it has now got to the point where I need to make the cheek plates. These plates fill in that empty space between the front panel and the bottom of the windscreens and are a shape called “a shape”. My first effort ended up n the scrap because the works drawing wasn’t even remotely right so what we see here is the start of effort three (you may notice some tacks have been cut out. The plan is to make it in three sections butted together with gas weld then dressed. The section you see there is fairly painless because the side of the front plate is straight. However, further round the front plate gets a 12’ radius in it which makes flanging it really hard. You can possible make out the curve here. You can possibly also deduce that I needed to hit the 18gauge sheet quite hard to stretch it. So once they are made you need to beat out a dished section to fill in the gap. And it is that curve which is problematic. There is some stuff on Youtube made by a tin basher in the states about flexible patterns. You make these with low masking tape and and glass reinforced tape. Ratherthan go on about it here take a look at this vid here: https://youtu.be/y-JQgPm4_7s So this was my first attempt The things is that the curve on the panel is absolutely critical. You would think “that should be it” then when you bolted it in place you stood back and then started crying because it looked utterly wrong. With a bit of trial and error you determined that you were actually putting too much shape in it rather than too little. So this is the off side one tacked together with the original (which is bollocksed even though it doesn’t look it – we filled it up to make the pattern). This is still not right but the metal is at least in about the right place. Rather than carrying on with this now I had the shape about right I decided to do the nearside one next. So you hit and hit and hit things until it looks like this And the other bit looks like this (the front plate is bowing out here rather than my tin bashing being complete shite) Then once the middle bit is bashed it looks like this. I was using those rather handy butt weld clamps to hold things together which let me tack things up in place. The issue here is getting both sides the same which I’m still not convinced I am there yet. The problem is that there are shiny bits and hit bits and mill finished bits which make it difficult to see what is wrong and what is just a reflection. Note also the boiler cladding and ash pan in place. So once I had welded the nearside one up I daubed some undercoat on it to stop it reflecting so much. Yes, I know it looks like it has been kicked down the road and back – I am more bothered at the moment to get the shape right before I start dressing out welds and dents. So that is where we are now. A lot more hitting in prospect to make things look right. Oh, and he tyre fitting machine got mended. It turned out that the capacitor was knackered.

Just need a couple of tyres...

V5 located! Hooray! On the road testing and pictures coming semi soonish

There's something satisfying about simple cars. How a non starter can be fixed with nothing more than a battery meter, a probe on a wire and a jump lead. After 15 minutes of dismantling the starter solenoid, we decided that it was the battery to blame - and that broken earth cable certainly looked like a potential candidate. I ordered up a £6.50 battery earth strap from a Mini specialist on eBay and it arrived 24 hours later. Phenomenal. It's braided as well which means that it looks fancy and will hopefully withstand another 40 years of earthing duties. As you can see, the old one was just push fit which wasn't very secure. Also, the battery terminals seem to be smaller on this too - so it was never tight. I think this battery is actually for a Peugeot 306, but fits the hole beautifully with the terminals the right way around. It also has a lot more grunt than something like this will ever require. The new cable went on really easily. For a moment I didn't think it would tighten sufficiently, but that red ring in the middle sort of squashes - so after I turned it a lot more than I thought I ought to, it's on tight. Bingo Slightly soiled battery cover back on, securing strap down and boom. I might try and smarten this and the rest of the boot up at some time. Nothing OTT - just a bit of paint by brush. Here's the old cable. 7 of the strands broken, so I think it'd done its shift. One more thing. I forgot to put the incorrectly branded earth plug on. There's something wonderfully charming about a Freight Rover part being on a Mini. You could say that they didn't care, but - actually - VAG are still doing the same thing all these years later really. Anyway. Done. Calling the welder tomorrow, hoping to go up Thursday or Friday to form a plan.

Way back in the mists of time (2nd of December 2019), I posted the 1985 Corgi catalogue, which included something I hadn't seen before - the Surfrider version of the Mazda B1600, or Mazda 4X4 as they were calling it at the time Despite nearly two years of searching, I'd not found one for sale, and was starting to convince myself it was never released, despite seeing the odd picture of boxed ones. Well it does exist, I have one Some little tinker has been at it with the red Humbrol, emulating daddy's red wheel centre Corgis that he keeps in the loft, but I can live with that. I think I now have them all, rocking horse poo-level Playart variations aside.

Correct. Well, especially if you tag me! It's worth mentioning that the 123/124/210 series of cars are essentially an evolution, with very obvious improvements and refinements moving from one to the next, but keeping the basic layout, style and driving characteristics. The 211 is then a completely new car, which shares very little from the 210, other than a couple of engines. I've had 3 210s now, and I've liked all of them. They definitely represent the "last of the line" of a style and type of Mercedes E-class. The estate version is absolutely cavernous (if not very tall) and I have used and abused two E300TD (OM606) S210s now for most of 100k miles, coping with pretty much anything I've thrown at them, which is a lot. Actually it's an awful lot. When you ask what was an executive class car to haul over half a tonne of steelwork in the back plus a 2.5 tonne trailer, or a car transporter trailer with car on up the air-baloon roundabout hill, or to barrell down a country lane at a rather absurd speed because you cannot be late, or indeed to eat up 500+ miles in a single sitting.... well, it just does it. In comfort. With A/C working, cruise control taking care of the monotony, radio 2 on through surprisingly good quality speakers and zero stress. Yes, some models rusted badly. This was mainly due to bacteria in the new water based paint. There appears to be some anecdotal evidence that the less popular colours (and hence less frequently used) had more bacteria growth, and hence rusted out faster. More popular colours (eg, silver) had far less growth, so the paint lasts longer. It's why pretty much all of them left are silver. All the other colours have rotted away. My previous dark blue/deep purple one was really quite rotten. Current silver one needs some work, but then what car doesn't when it's 24 years old? It's also a car I fit in comfortably... I actually look through the centre of the windscreen rather than with many other vehicles where I'm looking through the top 2"-3" of screen. I do also like the amount of toys it has on board. Mine isn't even that well equipped (the 430 and E55 models had a lot of kit on them) but it still comes with Driver and passenger power memory seats, including power head restraints, memory mirror positions, power memory steering column. Heated, auto-dipping and auto-drop door mirrors Cruise control with limit drive, linked to the gearbox to attempt to maintain the limit set. (I use that a lot on long journeys, it's brilliant) Digital split-side climate control, which also doubles as a code reader and data analysis tool Brake assist, traction control, yadda yadda Full vehicle closure/opening from remote. and a whole host of other niceties. Which is a fairly good equipment level for a car now, never mind one that is 24 years old. It's also got relatively soft compliant suspension and tyres with big sidewalls, making it a very comfortable car over distance. I've had a few people comment as to just how comfy it is. Nothing new comes near really. One of the things I really like about it is the intelligent use of information. EG: when you hit "resume" on the Cruise control, it looks at your current accelerator position and vehicle acceleration. If you were accelerating gently, it will continue to accelerate gently to the set speed. If, however, you give it a bit of boot and then hit resume, it will continue to give it the beans until the set speed is achieved. Also, if you knock the cruise off and select limit drive, you can then drive to that set limit. When you then click limit drive off, it still remembers the cruise speed you had selected before, so can still resume to it. Brilliant for roadworks on the motorway: Cruise set at 70*mph. Get to the roadworks, set a limit of 50. Once roadworks are over, click to cruise and hit resume. Very relaxing. Once you learn about all the little details like that, it's a remarkably clever car for something developed in the late 80s and released in the mid- 90s. It's a prime autoshite car too. Utterly bland styling, completely overlooked, bad reputation for rot (not undeserved) and not the cheapest thing in the world to run. I'm keeping mine for the forseeable. I just wish it was manual.

Am I allowed to say that my 205 is for sale?

ERF C SERIES 8X4 CUMMINS L10 1985 | eBay

Fake news. I don't believe for one second that anyone has ever driven a TT for 750k miles without dying of embarrassment.

This evening I fired it up for the first time since driving it home and it all seems OK, took a couple of pictures then went to car wash followed by £40 of Superplus and a bottle of Redex- ready for service.

I kept getting a sharp stabbing pain in my heel every now and then. Really bad, but I’ve got osteoporosis in that ankle from a bike accident, so I assumed the time was finally upon me that the bone was becoming seriously damaged. Went to the doctor, physio etc. This went on for about 7/8 months. It turned out to be a fucking nail in my boot. Just long enough to poke through at the right angle. Not even a difficult to spot nail either, the head was about 5mm in diameter! If I’d only thought to look earlier!

Phoned up and they've definitely got it. I've described the fault to them in detail. They're rammed, like, 62 projects rammed with work so my car might not be travelling home with me for a while. Nevertheless, they're going to try get a boroscope down the spark plug holes either today or tomorrow to see if the nozzle thingie is dancing around the cylinders. Considering the clattering is occasional and in the top end of the engine, I have a hunch it's stuck in an intake valve. This is supported with the car misfiring when the clattering happens, so I'm quietly confident extraction will be an easy one.

Time to update the group shot...

I've been helping a friend out with a project just lately. The OM606 is hard to beat standard if you upgrade the turbo and pump slightly* The car rides remarkably well and seems very solidly made for the most part, pretty sure I'll be called in to weld it at some point but I can cope with that.

Just seen this on the news???

I have long espoused the opinion that the 1995 -2003 Mercedes E Class is better than the 1986 - 1995 one. This is based on my experiences when new and is seen as heresy by fans of the three pointed star. Rampant rust from when they were 4 or 5 years old set the tone for later years. Mercedes spent thousands replacing panels and painting complete cars under warranty, I personally know of one 98 estate that had both front wings, a tailgate plus a full respray at 8 years old. But now the survivors represent amazing value for money, as cars they have all the safety and convenience features that we expect and still have a hint of the granite reputation. Last year I bought a lovely e430 with all the AMG kit on it and had to sell it because I had no job and I trebled what I paid for it. Last night I bought an e240 saloon with 1 owner and 110k miles and a full* service history ( Merc up to 2016 , Specialist since) last service Feb21. It’s got one little scab on the o/s frontwing , but apart from that seems rust free, jacking points rear panel etc seem good. tThe interior is like new a puts my 2014 E Class to shame for quality of materials , little things like real leather seats help. It’s also roomier, more legroom and a rear seat that’s 4” wider. The first owner paid 72,000 DM for it according to the receipt , he’s now dead and his house in Virginia Water sold for £1.6 million in January, so safe to say he could afford to maintain it well. I came by it from a dodgy Indian guy in acarpark that hadn’t changed the logbook or seemed to know anything about it, oh I also bought it in the dark and rain, all the things you shouldn’t do. I called the DVLA this afternoon and it’s been put in my name and showing as taxed ( I did it before driving home, but not showing online) so it seems kosher, we’ll see. Price ? £950 , which is either a shitload of money for a very undesirable car or a wise investment in a coming Youngtimer, again time will tell. But, I needed a family hack after selling the Cooper D last month and it’ll save ‘er indoors Boxster from the salt and shitty roads until I find her an Evoque I can afford, also means I can sell my modern Merc to pay for that Evoque I can’t afford. Details and maybe even some pics to follow.

v8 powered Lotus https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115052502207

750000 miles in a Maxus must be the ultimate in cruel and unusual punishment.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/371099554759878

This is a real car meet for real people! We'll have no internet here!

Good idea. Could it be extended to distances between towns which would suddenly be 5/8ths nearer? Thus reducing travel time and fuel consumption. Convert back to miles and suddenly Sheffield is only 20 miles away and Leeds 37. Job done, climate change solved.

Have we had this yet? https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/214233957468242 EllPeeGees! Super subtle install, you barely know it's th.... oh.

I still haven’t taken any pics of my latest acquisition, but to give some context to my Mercedes e Class ramblings and opinions , here’s a little gallery from the last 7 or 8 years. My experiences of driving them go back almost 40 years , the first time I drove one ( a 1981 280e ) I hadn’t even passed my test and categorically didn’t do 100 mph through the Euston Underpass in it. I’ve owned half a dozen W123s , including a 250 Limo, a similar number or W124s sadly never a cab. although one of my brothers had a lovely Carat Duchalet kitted from new 320e convertible I coveted but it increased in value so much in his ownership I missed out on it. A few W211’s and W212’s , one of which I still own even a brief spell of CLS leaseship, which to misquote the GBU verdict of the Capri is “ Just an e Class in a party frock” But this is only my second actual ownership of a W210, although I’ve driven many miles in other peoples over the years. last years e430 with my e220cdi. one of the pictures that helped sell it, when I was skint. Parked in a clients garage whilst I was in France with him. I paid £1200 for that, the crests on the Ferrari wing were twice that as an option!! The best car I’ve ever owned ( w211 e280cdi ) next to the one I replaced it with ( w212 e250cdi) one of the worse. This worked harder than any car I’ve had before or since, I only had it 8 months but did more than a few 1000+ mile days in it. Dodgy swap a lease deal that worked perfect for me at the time . The mega mile e220cdi manual I had as back up to my Chrysler 300, which has a lot of w210 in it so almost counts as one but with a w211 engine . Thatll do for now.

Because the window won't open.

Decent looking Tempra - pretty sure this did the rounds on eBay earlier this year? https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202110188620459 Also what the hell happened to its dash binnacle?!

Bumper off Three bolts for the water tank to come off. The tank mounting lugs were snapped and this is almost certainly where the water was leaking out. Almost certain had a whack on the front bumper and hit the tank. For 36 quid the tank even came with a new pump. Would be rude not to fit it too Old New. Pipes were a fancy push fitting rather than trying to get a pipe over a ribbed area Gave me a chance to check PAS level. Despite it not showing on the dipstick, the fluid was between the min and max marks. This is good as it doesn't need topping up nor has any leaked. Tank went it. The front mounting lug was in the wrong place. Again suggesting the tank has been hit. Bent that in place and bolted up Bumper back on. Under the tank, the bumper fitting is broken off. I bet either someone came off a kerb a bit fast and bounced the corner or hit a low pillar/bollard or similar. No scratches on the bumper though. Nearside fog light was manky inside. I think its had water get through it and leak inside. The bulb had blown up too. Probably water on the bulb envelope that caused it to shatter when the fog light was turned on. I opened up the back to gave a quick clean and wipe through. I'll look out for a new bulb. A HB4 on eBay is a fiver which is a fair bit for something I'll never use. Pretty sure I have a spare kicking around somewhere. Filled the tank, checked for leaks and tested the pump. In doing so I moved the seat and put my hand on another handle. Turns out there is a storage bin under the seat! Bet it's never been used. The passenger side has a CD Changer! Unfortunately the head unit isn't connected to it anymore either. I bet this has never been used either. Did anyone ever use a CD Changer? Bonus picture of the Dealer sticker on the back. I believe this is somewhere near Lymington, Southampton area. Nice little easy job changing this tank. Kept me amused this evening at least.

My left elbow has been giving me grief for nearly a year, when I rested it on a desk or something I got a stabbing pain like I was resting on a spike. I was sure there was a splinter or something but no amount of digging around could find it, but there was definitely a lump. I'd have gone to the GP but obviously "the event" made that impractical. Today I finally caved in, glugged a mouthful of gin and got my wife to properly dig at it with a needle and scalpel. Much swearing and blood later: Fucking knot wheels!

Good God, yes Classic Ex-Vauxhall Motors Bedford TM Recovery Truck | eBay Owned by Vauxhall Detroit diesel Used at the E. Port plant. There's just nothing not to like.

no just no

Old man's heap of a Rover now had ABS light on permanently. Primitive diagnostics (bridge terminal near passenger footwell with paperclip and count flashes on dash) flagged pressure in ABS unit which I'm sure has had it. New Honda unit seems to be nearly £2k. Car's worth £400 at most. Given the heap's doing almost no miles & won't end up anywhere other than the scrappie or here with all faults disclosed, it was dash cluster out time and you can guess the rest. Whilst I was at it I got the handbrake working for first time in ages - springs removed from the self adjusting mechanisms, followed by most of a can of WD-40 and vigorous freeing up with a 17mm spanner. Brakes got a mini-bleed as well and a job well done to compensate for the necessary bodgery to keep Rover on the roads.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/3061466064086341/

https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1394094 Wow I can actually buy all of 1972? price is lower than I would have expected, but I guess the market for Gregorian calendar years is limited

Just been gifted a DeWalt tool box on wheels. Beauty.

A tiny update. The Mx5 finally sold and I did not intend to replace it. I spent a few days with my sister who is disabled and we were chatting about if you want to do it do it while you can (she was competing in a para class with her horse) I have always fancied a Morris Minor Traveller so had a look around to see what was available. I ended up buying this. i It was dropped off today, it is far too nice for me, I will probably ruin it. I can't bear the thought of leaving it out over the winter so have booked storage for it at a place in Cardiff. Had a play with it this afternoon and got some of the non working electrics working (dirty fuses). So it's not quite a Minor Traveller but I'm happy.

Spent this afternoon servicing the little Yaris. Whilst it’d had an oil service annually, there was little evidence of anything more than that. The plugs were fucking welded in, and the air filter was completed. It’s always more satisfying doing a service like this, rather than the maintenance stuff that’s kept the Avensis going at 268k. I had to spunk out on a can of PlusGas as the plugs really were stuck, and borrowed a proper deep socket from my neighbour as my plug tool just wasn’t man enough. Toyota sump plugs seem to be infinitely reusable, so I just bought two filters, four plugs and 5 litres of oil for £50. Value. Unusually, the oil filter hadn’t been put on by a gorilla and there’s a handy gap through where the grille would be to unwind it. Even for a knob like me it took an hour and nothing went horribly wrong. On first start up there was an incredible cloud of blue smoke which I can only imagine was all the oil that went down the spark plug holes or something. It cleared immediately and runs like a little sewing machine. Underneath is absurdly good for one of these, not a thing currently to worry about on the corrosion front. It will be treated to some UB wax as there’s some left over in stock, but it’s a belter. Currently outlay is £430 now we have new brakes up front, new MOT and a good service.

And here it is with the... bloody hell. Someone's nicked it. Ah, there it is. The pools of water underneath should be a clue as to why it has been dragged outside. Do you like the relief valve vent pipe that runs up the chimney? There are very few that are as right as that one and I am very pleased with it. I think you can just about make out a heat haze at the top of the flue (it's only burning wood) but just to prove it. It is having the hot test done this week so we thought we had give it a quick check before the inspector turned up. There you go. Nought to 200 psi in only five years. One of the big unknowns was whether the injector would work - they are a bit difficult to test off the boiler - but fortunately it worked well enough to get water in the boiler. A little more fiddling required to get it working spot on but it was moving in the right direction. (The injector, by the way, is some black magic device which takes steam at boiler pressure and uses it to force feed water into the boiler at slightly more than boiler pressure.) When I say I was pleased with the R/V vent pipe I was until I stood in front of it square on and saw the brass band had pulled it slightly off. A tweak needed to make it sit properly but everything was red hot by then so it will have to wait until later. Most of the copper pipe you see will be insulated with a very rare asbestos substitute that looks exactly like asbestos. There is also no cladding on the boiler at the moment for insection so it is pretty much unbearable standing next to it let alone sit in the cab. One of the reasons I am pleased about this is it is very thin wall pipe which is a nightmare to bend without it collapsing. I'll do some better pictures of what is going on with the body later but here is a large amount of oak held in place with lots of clamps. I could not get oak side rails the full length so had to make them in two pieces with a lap joint glued and beefed up with a metal backing plate. I know the coach bolts are too long, the right ones haven't arrived yet. Fortunately the body design means that the coachbolt heads are covered up by the plywood cladding. R/V tested and set, brakes working and the fire out driven back inside the shed. You start to get a feel for how many very hot things there are to burn you on these things. The temperature is one of the main features of driving these things. Things don't look very tidy with the cladding off. There is a shaped ring that hides the top flange bolts and doubles as a clamp for the chimney top. We are also going toinsulate the full boiler top on this one. Originally they weren't and that was handy for making excellent cheese toasties but you get a lot (in bold and double underlined) of heat off it so an inch of ceramic blanket should helpto cool things down. The two pairs of pipes poking out of the boiler top are the superheater tails. Output from the superheater is about 550F so plenty of tape needed on them. More load deck - the plywood comes to the bottom of the oak side rails sothe coachbolts are all covered up. This is bit of a shame because almost none of the nice wood that wasn't exactly cheap is visible. The coachbolts in the rear bearer are visible which is why we used old looking bolts. With the metric coachbolts (whit ones cost a fortune now) we use square nuts and keep the exposed thread as short as possible so they look as right as they are going to look when you peer underneath. You can just about make out that the water tank is painted and fitted and it still doesn't leak so that is nice. An obstable course to get in. So after that the insurance inspector comes this week to witness the R/V being floated and then it all gets stripped down again to get the boiler cladding fitted. Bit depressing to do it all again but there you go. Once the cladding is on it all gets buttoned up again and the new apron plate gets made and the cheekplates finished and the windscreens made and the body gets finished and that'spretty much it. Only another year or so to go.