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Sigmund Fraud

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  1. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to Bren in The new news 24 thread   
    The definition of insanity? Buying genuine filters for a ten year old 184k insignia.
  2. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to Tommyboy12 in Tommy's A-series Misery - Collection caper!   
    Slow drive down. The M25 was horrendous. However, a collection has occurred. I'm in love already!
     

  3. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to Oi_Oi_Savaloy in 1987 Lotus Excel SE   
    I've copied and pasted these initial updates from another forum.   
     
    This goes back to 2021/early 2022. First two posts will cover the back story and then I'll add what I've been doing to it this last month.  There's been quite a delay on this because my wife became very ill in mid-2022 and all life turned to making sure she came through her illness (which she has, all-clear been given etc etc).  Life is sort of back to normal (although i'd argue that something like that changes life and perspectives across the entire family.  Not sure what normal is now tbh).  
    So back to 2021..............I've wanted to have a build thread of my own for years but I've never had a car that I felt had sufficient interest (or age) to warrant a thread.  But Covid changed my attitude - felt that life can be so precarious that I really had to step up my search for something.  I live in West Wales and alot of my local friends are electricians or carpenters or plumbers.  They go to a lot of houses and farms.  I told them all to look out for anything under a cover or tarpaulin or looked a bit forgotten that to give me a ring.  In 2022  I got a call about this car from one of the lads.  He didn't know what he was looking at, just that he knew it needed saving and 'it looks quick'!  

    I met the owner (whom used to use it quite often but then his life took a turn for the worse and it had to be set aside to prioritise other things going on - totally understandable) before xmas 2021 and agreed a deal and paid a 10% deposit....then  xmas and life got in the way and it was only today that I was able to go and pick it up.  The plan is to ignore the exterior for the moment.....and just get the interior dry and all fitted out (I've got all the parts but he did the headlining and then life got in the way and some of the interior needs putting back). 
     
    I've got a couple of dehumidifiers coming to help with the drying out too.  I then am going to get the car mechanically fettled and then MOT'd.  Once it's MOT'd then I'm going to use it for business meetings, day trips with the kids, charity runs, going up to North Wales to see my Dad and Devon to see my mum etc etc..  

    Some initial pictures - bear in mind it was under a tarp(for 3 years, with the passenger window open..........) right up until the point you see these pictures. 
     
    We got it into my shed and onto the ramp to see what we had.  The interior needs a lot of fettling.  On to the next instalment.  




  4. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to rainagain in Weird Car’s weird cars *now with added bus* Rolls Royce joins the fleet   
    I had a T reg 206 ‘L’ that didn’t have central locking, it had a boot lock. One of the first things I did to it was fit an eBay special central locking kit. It did have a bsi though as I had problems with the indicators and found there was no indicator relay to check, it was all in the body computer. 
  5. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to barefoot in The new news 24 thread   
    This is not entirely true.  I took it to him and asked if he'd be able to sort it. I said that he needn't worry if he couldn't because I knew where there was a nice Citroën C6 that I'd replace it with and he could work on that instead. 
  6. Haha
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to Conrad D. Conelrad in eBay tat volume 3.   
    He bought a red one because he likes Rovers of blood
  7. Agree
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to HMC in HMC- AUTOSHITE 2.0   
    Got to say i’m really glad @Weird Car bought it as having younger people prepared to get stuck in with old cars is fantastic. And this isnt, say, an allegro, its a rolls royce silver shad! Looking forward to fun road trip / general updates!
    For me this is what enjoying older cars is all about, id happily put a flamethrower to all carcoon / dehumidified air chambers. Driving is living imo.
  8. Agree
    Sigmund Fraud got a reaction from warch in Unpopular Motoring Opinion Thread   
    EFA
  9. Agree
    Sigmund Fraud got a reaction from eddyramrod in Unpopular Motoring Opinion Thread   
    EFA
  10. Agree
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to Sham in Unpopular Motoring Opinion Thread   
    You don't need cross climates.
  11. Agree
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to twosmoke300 in Unpopular Motoring Opinion Thread   
    Japanese cars aren’t maintenance free !
  12. Agree
    Sigmund Fraud got a reaction from twosmoke300 in Unpopular Motoring Opinion Thread   
    EFA
  13. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to Andyrew in Andy's awful autos: PLAS!   
    Today see a smidge of tinkering, 2 out of three jobs went well. 

    Mates mondeo returned for some new boots, the two year old toyos where at about 2mm all round.  This time hes opted to go for some Kumhos, which may be what i go for next so i await his review of them!  Again, who doesnt love new tyres? 

    With the Astra past my usual change interval and rapidly approaching 180k some of the finest 10w40 and a new filter went on. I said to my friend id drop the oil and while thats dripping every last drop out ill change the engine mounts on the VP1300, well. . .

    It had at least 3 hours to drip, because though (still not finished) mounts were just a pain in the arse.  And the concerning crusty rad now leaks, bumhats. 

    Tuesday a mate pops over and we will try again to wrestle the engine into place, ill drop the rad out and take it to my radiator guy. Its an expense i could have done without but the rad was very very crusty, as was the engine mounts 
     
  14. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to wesacosa in The new news 24 thread   
    Not sure how I drove this to Monaco and back, could hardly sleep with the nerves of driving it to the  MOT station today. That said as soon as I hit the road I felt ok, knew the car would be fine and really enjoyed driving it again for first time in about 8 months 
    Thanks to @Rust Collectorfor the tip on running a wire from the tailgate earth to a body earth, it's solved all the dashboard light gremlins
    Car passed the MOT,  I think a couple of the crusty bits around the turrets might need attention before the next MOT but for now they are deemed acceptable
     

  15. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to andyberg in Kolectshun (was) LIVE. Now possible owners thread.   
    Arrived home. What a supremely cosseted waft. Yes the seats are as comfortable as they look! Not packed with horsepower but for a relaxing way to get about it's going to take something  special to beat it for a car in every day use.


  16. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to andyberg in Kolectshun (was) LIVE. Now possible owners thread.   
    Collection complete. Arrived at Exeter 12 mins late, not bad for the UK🙄
    Compulsory wollard below.
    Looking forward to the drive home.
    An absolute pleasure to meet petrolblog, a thoroughly nice man .



  17. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to KruJoe in '96 Galaxy (Shrew) A closer look   
    Winner!

  18. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to andyberg in Kolectshun (was) LIVE. Now possible owners thread.   
    And we have 2 winners! Congrats to @SEATMad for being first.
    This is the baby. It's an executive auto, pampered by the original owner and the current owner. Really looking forward to getting her. Various forms of transport will be involved including a fellow shiter starting proceedings.
    Collection starts at 8.40am tomorrow.

  19. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to stevek in A pair of decrepit 309’s   
    Let’s complete the catchup session on the blue one.
     
    To make it less grim to work on I jet washed the engine bay and undercarriage to remove the cobwebs and greasy rusty detritus. Controversially I’ve also done the outside too, removing the moss and green slime. I was particularly impressed with the lichen growing on the windscreen and bonnet. Anyway it’s all gone now but don’t worry it still looks like shite, the paint is rough as.
     
    I’ve jiggled/cleaned various contacts to wake things up. The lights were horribly dim but there is now a full compliment of adequately bright lights after swapping out a few dead bulbs. I know this was off task but it was easy and pleased me so yeah whatever.


    Back to the important stuff… mobility. Starting with the front end, so far I have:
     
    Put the front end on axel stands. Selected 1st and made the wheels grind round somewhat. Pulled the discs off, tickled them with the grinder knot wheel. Crowbarred the caliber pistons back in. That was a fight! Dropped new £5 pads in. Pumped up the tyres. Yay go me! So the front is hopefully good and ready but due to the dismantled rear drums I haven’t been able to test the brakes so who knows if the callipers will drag or stick but I’m hopeful that the front is all good.


    The quest for motion is slightly inconvenienced at the back end as it was left up on axel stands with the drums removed and the fuel tank off for the last 14 yrs! All because the inner sill by the tank needed welding (along with all 4 sill corners) and I didn’t feel confident to tackle it back then. Interestingly a previous ‘repair’ here turned out to be a slip of metal posted up the side of the tank and only welded along the bottom edge where an MOT tester would see, just flapping in the breeze everywhere else!
     
    At the back end, so far:
     
    Found the drums in the garage, de-rusted then with the knot wheel. Pulled the remains of the rusty brake shoes with no friction material off. Cleaned the rust off stub axle. Walloped the wheel cylinders to unstick them. Tried to un-seize the hand brake cable Bought some £7.50 shoes but found the hand brake mech couldn’t transfer. Bought some £9 shoes with handbrake mech already attached.  
    So first I reassembled the right hand drum but the hub nut didn’t feel like it was going on right. After a few attempts backing it off and trying again I thought I’d got it to thread ok but unfortunately it stripped when torqued up. Annoying but doubly so because I’m now struggling to get the drum off again to check the thread so I don’t just chew up the next nut. At £4.98 a piece (ECP) that could get real expensive quickly.
     
    Moving on to the left side I had to fight the drum back on over the new shoes and it’s all just binding up massively. Not really sure why as yet and I just know it’s going to be a real fight to get it off again to look.
     
    I have decided to replace the handbrake cables when I manage to get back into the drums, they were ordered today. £5.50 left side, £8.99 for the right, (eBay inc. delivery) this car is going to bankrupt me! (I struggled to get one side for the 924 a couple of years ago and ended up forking out something like £160 for that one cable! Typically the side I didn’t need was only £15 and widely available)
     
    Right your all up to date on the blue one.
     
    -Steve-
     
    ps. Who else loves old school packaging designs? 

     
  20. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to stevek in A pair of decrepit 309’s   
    Hi there morrisoxide, yes I still have the 924. I had to take it off the road at the end of last summer to save some pennies but it’s ready to roll when I sort my finances out. Actually that’s a small fib, it needs tyres desperately and a bonnet catch return spring but that’s all. It’s still as rough and ready as ever but it’s a blast.

     

    -Steve-
  21. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to stevek in A pair of decrepit 309’s   
    Ok some interest then, great. I’ll answer some comments soon but first up another round of catch up…
    The blue one.
    About a year ago I tickled the engine back into life after it’s 13 yr slumber. This mainly involved chucking a fresh battery on it and sticking the send and return fuel lines into a pop bottle of fuel. First startup video:
    https://youtu.be/R-tsokrxPUQ?si=ADZhWxv9PShV9AaS
    It started pretty easily considering, mind it sounded dire without an exhaust and the accelerator linkage was stuck so I could only hold it running on the choke, oh and it was pissing fuel from every hose at an alarming rate.
    Since then I have:
    rigged up a temporary fuel tank, just a 5ltr fuel can with two barbs added on.  replaced the fuel hoses unstuck the carb accelerator linkage stuck the exhaust back on cleaned up the rotor and cap contacts.  …it now starts ok, sounds ok, idles reasonably well, the fan kicks in when it gets hot and it responds to poking the accelerator. Nice.
    Next is to set about making it move, I’ve done some work on this front too but have not achieved motion yet. I’ll cover this in another post shortly.
    -Steve-
  22. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to stevek in A pair of decrepit 309’s   
    Hi,
    I’ve been aware of the brown forum for many years, but generally hung around on another well known blue hued forum, sort of on and off anyway. Most of my ‘fleet’ (if you can call a collection of long term broken cars that) is probably more at home on here but my most recent car tinkering finally pushed me over the line to sign up on here.
    Ya see I’ve been spending a bit of time recently poking and tinkering with the longest standing, many years abandoned, heaps in my collection and I suspect this is the only place I might scrape some interest in what is basically a hopeless cause. Said heaps have been abandoned rotting on my drive for 17 and 19yrs respectively, but the house where they languish is going on the market soon so their existence hangs precariously in the ballence. Friends and family have been telling me to scrap them for about a decade now so their calls are almost deafeningly loud now. It would certainly be the sensible thing to do.
    For reasons beyond common sense I want to move them to my current house which means making them mobile again. I mean ‘mobile’ as in I can load them onto a trailer and preferably drive them up my short but annoyingly steep driveway, not as in make them ready for the road. 
    Anyway, so what do you make of these two beauties?



    Artefact 1 - The gold one - 1989 1.3 XL special equipment
    This was my first car, bought by a much younger self circa 1999. I saved up the £600 by working weekends in Burger King while doing my A levels. It was well used and abused until 2005, but it’s been parked up ever since. It was retired as a fully functional car on 109k miles, I just replaced it (with a 34k miles 1.3 mk6 Escort I bought as Cat D salvage and returned to the roads). It donated its windscreen to the blue one around 2009 after vandalism so it’s been open to the elements for a while too, it’s become home to some ferns growing in the carpet.
    Artefact 2 - The blue one - 1987 1.3 GR Profile
    This was my mates car for a year but he donated it to me when the MOT ran out, in 2007 according to the MOT history. The original idea was to fix the this one up using the gold one for spares. After a couple of years ignoring it I did drag it to an MOT test in 2010 which it failed due to much more rampant rust than I had given it credit for, it’s sat ever since.
    So what ya thinking of doing with them I hear you say! Well, the gold one has probably (though not certainly) had it’s day as a regular 309, but I’m sentimental about it and have a very harebrained idea for it in the back of my mind. It might never happen but I want to hold on to the possibility, so the goal is to just move it and sling a car cover over it. The blue one however is calling out to live once more, I want to get it back on the road. I’m better skilled to weld it back up now than I was back then, and once the old house is gone I should be blessed with more time and lower outgoings which should help progress along. I kinda just fancy fixing it up a bit, I want to feel the mighty power of the Simca rattle box engine and savour the rolly polly handling on skinny tyres once more. But firstly I just need to move it so I can achieve priority no1 which is to get the old house up for sale.
    There you go lots of waffle, I’ll post about where I’m up to and what I’ve got stuck on soon, if anyone cares.
    -Steve-
  23. Haha
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to Conrad D. Conelrad in AI worded ads   
  24. Like
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to Saabnut in LightBulbFun's Invacar & general ramble thread, index on page 1, survivors lists on Pages 24/134 & AdgeCutler's Invacar Mk12 Restoration from Page 186 onwards, still harping on...   
    As some of you may have seen in my thread, I spent the last couple of days nipping down to Worcester and as a result REV is now parked on my trailer outside my house in the North East of Scotland. How the hell did that happen? Pull up a chair to the fire, help yourself to a dram, and I will tell you  
    Over the years on AS I got to know Dez on here, then on the winter zoom meets during Covid and I have met him once at the FOD. During this time (Dez, you might want to look away here, I will tell you when it is safe to return) I found Dez to be young and enthusiastic, especially about Invercars which it became obvious is his passion, to the extent he can become a pain in the arse about them, but that is Dez (you can look back now). When Dez got the chance to buy REV, I was one of the ones who advised against it due to his physical limitations. He ignored me  and I was wrong. Whilst owning REV has done nothing much for him physically, mentally it is the best thing he could have done. It has given him something to focus on, and I would go as far as to say Dez is now probably the leading authority on these things, and a by product he has become profficient in dealing with DVLA, and he has helped me out several times over the years.
    Once Dez had got REV running and completed his chip run, it became obvious REV was far from in good health and fortunately he listened to advice and the true hero of all this @red5 stepped in and offered to sort it. I met Sam today, a true gentleman, and he told me what he had done to REV and believe me it is far more than I could have done! Sam did all this inbetween teaching and having a life and whilst having to wait 5 months for carb bits etc. All that is left is the kingpin on the technical front and a few other jobs which whilst relatively simple will take a great deal of time, which understandably Sam no longer has as life has moved on.
    Around Christmas time, Dez became a bit frustrated, after all he passed his driving test 2 years ago and has not driven since. In his usual enthusiastic all in manner he asked about a car he was thinking of buying. A lot of good advice was given, and frankly, a whole heap of nasty comments were made at Dez. I was surprised by some people, and several of the worst offenders have posted on AS how they sometimes struggle with their own mental health yet fealt it was perfectly acceptable to pile in on Dez. I will not name names, nor say anymore on the subject, but  some of the people involved should be ashamed of themselves. Enough of that, at least some good came out of it.
    A few days later during a zoom call, Dez MAY have mentioned Invercars once or twice and in discussion agreed with the good advice given that he did not need another car, he just wanted REV back. The piss taking I think annoyed me more than Dez, I am old and realise we need to encourage youngsters into the classic car game if it is going to continue. I told Dez that when I retired at the beginning of March, if it was OK with him and Sam, I would bring it up here and finish it off, probably not to such a high standard but with the quiet roads up here, a few miles could be covered before he got it back in a hope of improving reliability.
    Whilst this was being organised, my ace mechanic Duncan, one of only 2 people I trust to work on my Cobra, approached with a problem he was having with a car he has owned since 1982 not showing on DVLA despite him having a V5. I contacted Dez, he said it was because it has been archived and it should be possible to wake it up. Dunc asked if Dez would do it for him, which he readily agreed to. There then followed a long argument between Dunc and Dez over how much it would cost, with Dez refusing payment and Dunc insisting! To cut a long story short (much too late, I know) Dunc is going to sort the Invercar, Dez is going to sort his registration and I have managed to help 2 friends. I think that is worth doing!
    Anyway, some more pictures from today:





  25. Confused
    Sigmund Fraud reacted to SiC in The new news 24 thread   
    Door handles have ECUs now and can have firmware updates. 
     

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