Essex V6

Picked up a 900 tonight, quite possibly a keeper but who knows?

They were pedalling it at an indecent pace - joyful to watch!

Wow.   8 years ..

Harrison’s History #61 - Ford Focus Ghia
Hmmm. I appear to have accidentally bought myself another Focus. 

Great TG video! I clearly recall many years ago making fairly decent progress in my Capri 2.8i when out of the blue a red stock looking Polonez blasted past me. Gawd knows what had been done to it!

My second Caro as it looked when I sold it....and how it looked after restoration in Poland.

That video is ace!
Light alignment checked with a (bio) robot.
Man with clipboard checks car has an engine... CHECK, piece of paper put on dashboard.
Another man checks the lights, again, and the horn, then opens the bonnet. Again. Another piece of paper.
Test drive on the test track, driver twats door mirror on overgrowth. A load of beige Ladas in the factory car park.
Goes underneath the car to 'check' none of the suspension has fallen off.
Then the brand new car goes into a dirty workshop for a man with a drill to fit an aerial.
Headlamp wipers with a washer that drizzles fluid onto the bumper.
Shit sunroof fitted.
Clean car gets washed in a car wash.
 
Mind you, none of that was too different to Longbridge/Cowley back in the day, so maybe I'm being unfair. 
 
Apart from Yugo, did any other Eastern Bloc manufacturers export to USA?
EDIT: Those 'Ladas' are FSOs. But still also old Fiats. 

Have a different Lancia Polonez... 

Yespls

I worked in a dealership, a Caro "Osprey" was £4995, and a "Phoenix" was £5995. The "Phoenix" had "wood" trim, electric windows,central locking, and electric sunroof and stripes.... all fitted by me..  

There was a dealer in our town and quite a few of these around at the time.
My dad went there to test drive a 2nd hand 125p but to my delight it wouldn't start and he walked away.
Being picked up from school in his Maxi was embarrassing enough.

I don't think this is here.
 

A Princess has come up for sale here in Norway. As far as I know, they didn't sell many of these here, so this could possibly be Norway's only survivor.
This is a 1980 1800 HL with 122,000 km

There are more pictures in the ad and the price is 1434 pounds
https://www.finn.no/car/used/ad.html?finnkode=319741607

But ultimately, the Maxi diesel was considered sufficient by BL senior management to satisfy all sectors of the market, as evidenced by its considerable sales success.
 
 
#autoshite1.0
#beenheretoolong

Oh, excellent - that was the one from High Wycombe up for sale on Facebook last week.

Apparently a one owner from new car, garaged all its life and with only 47k on the clock.
Fingers crossed it's off for some light recommissioning and life with a happy new owner!

Having another go at uploading pics 

I just realised where that is! 🤣
I`ve seen you go by in the Bluey a couple of times, but I don't recall ever seeing the Capri.. I did see one in the same colour outside a garage not far away a few years back (but not yours):

It's for the benefit for enthusiasts really. We don't have any surviving build records etc for Marinas as they were all lost in a fire at Gaydon. Therefore it has only been because of my efforts to track down cars, talk to the owners, and build up a database that we have been able to discover the history of the car, it's development etc so can then answer the questions we get from owners (when was my car built, when will it be tax exempt, how rare is the colour, have you got any old photos of my car, do you know what happened to my old car- by far the biggest query etc etc). It has also proved useful when putting cars back on the road that have lost their paperwork, or reg plate and has been essential when the DVLA contact the Club asking for proof when somebody is asking them for their car to be made tax exempt. Most clubs have a register of cars and it is done for the benefit of the owners. Generally those who own an old car become interested in the history of that particular car. At least that's how I try and justify the work I have been doing for the last few years. My background and profession is heritage and and unless we share it and our studies of it then it's pointless preserving anything.

I'm supposed to be preparing for a very important meeting at work, and all I have open on my PC is this screen, and 8 tabs of Maestro-related stuff. 

You called? 
My late Dad had a 1985 EFi in red, must've been quite an early one on a B plate. 
Been on the lookout for a project and found this last year, sadly not red. Got the heap delivered and started discovering how bad/good it was. 
Tbh I knew it needed arches. The sills could have been patched but I sourced a pair and got them done with the roof which had a mystery rust hole too. 
Mrs Grogee bought me a NOS head for my birthday and that is now with a porting company for some light breathing work and (if needed) some hardened exhaust inserts. It also has a rather fruity zorst but it's too loud so I think I will slice n dice in a centre silencer. 
I have Spax adjustable dampers on the back with standard springs & ride height. 
Next up is a front end refresh: Leda struts and all new rubber everything & new BJs plus a new clutch. 
PS I bought your book @motorpunk, it was adequately funny. 



 

Great news! Contrary to the "rebuilt" unit, the 23 year old used alternator actually works! I spent 2 hours today trying to get the alternator back in the car, a crowbar and hammer were necessary so you can probably imagine how fun* that was with minimum accessibility. My heart sunk for a moment after starting the car and still seeing the dreaded battery light. Fortunately it went off after a few seconds, the alternator charges with around 14V at idle now. Thank fuck...
That means that it should be pretty much ready for an MOT now! I'll probably see in 3 weeks when I get the chance to book it in again. I drove it up and down the estate today to check if everything is functioning correctly, it actually feels great to drive and sounds glorious banging through the gears so definitely something to look forward to coming back.
A few small items I didnt want to leave out in this thread. You can still buy new OEM center armrest lids for 35 quid so the old one went straight in the bin, no clue what happened to it.

Much better, small things like this instantly elevate the interior:

I've also had to replace one of the taillight bulbs. Not really hard at all, pop out a few clips and its right there:

It would have been even easier had I noticed the access hatch before...

And that shall be it for now. I also wanna use the upcoming trip to get a few parts for the various fleet members I wouldn't easily be able to get from the UK. I might even give the local junkyard a visit to hunt for some treasure. Stay tuned!

Auctions - Morris Leslie
 

OK, update time. 
911
Being deceased spec I have the interesting problem of not knowing what has and hasn't been done to it. I went on a wee explore.
 
Racy shifter-it does feel really good to be fair


Coilovers. Might have a play with the damping but need to drive it a bit more first.
The ashtray looked a bit past its best. 

Handily in the rear I found a new replacement cubby the PO had bought so I fitted that.

Then went for a drive.

This will take a bit of getting used to, being in the wrong place and all...
It was on 1/4 of a tank but only took 30 litres. It has a 64 litre tank🤔 It turns out the 4wd models have such a convoluted fuel tank shape that the sender can only read the upper half of the tank. Once it drops below half a tank it accurately* guesses where the gauge should be based on the trip computer. No need to worry about that then...
I went for a drive after this. On Saturday I'd noticed the brakes didn't feel great. I thought at first that the EBC Red Stuff pads on the front maybe needed some heat in them or that it might have a sticky caliper from sitting for a while. After some gentle* driving the pedal went VERY long. Something clearly wasn't right. A look underneath showed a leak from above the gearbox. From my limited 911 knowledge I guessed exactly what this was-there's a brake line routed over the engine to the RHS rear wheel which is an arse to replace allegedly. Porsche will charge you the price of engine removal to change the pipe😮
I limped it to a services and was relieved of a comical amount of money for a litre of brake fluid. Itdidn;t take that much to fill the reservoir though. More limping got it home. 
On Wednesday I got a chance to give it a prod. I'd checked the brake lines when it was up on the ramp and saw that they had all been replaced by copper lines. Or so I thought.
What had actually happened was that the line going over the engine had been cut as far up as it could go and copper line joined to the original steel line which was still there. It had failed at one of the unions.
 
Luckily the copper lines from the junction block under the sill and at the caliper end came undone easily and I could chop up and drag out the remainder of the old line. I'm not a fan of adding any more unions that absolutely necessary to a brake system and this is the perfect example why. 
So, guess I'd better drop the engine then?
Don't be silly. 
 
Some kunifer line was purchased along with new unions. Instead of routing it over the engine (which would have been done purely for assembly reasons I'm sure) I routed it over the gearbox crossmember and then followed the line of the original as much as possible. 

Can we ignore the sills? They are solid but need tidied. Remember the bill for the respray form 2 years ago?😑
The other lines are copper believe it or not, they have been painted though. Fuck knows why.

Maybe a wee bit too much brake line there...

Can we ignore the scotch block on the brake pad sensor? We're all friends here. I think we can.
Handily the thing pretty much bled itself and now has working brakes. I'll maybe give the full thing a bleed at some point though just because I like creating work for myself sometimes....
Road trip tomorrow so fingers crossed I can get some miles on it and get some confidence in it, as is always the way with a new car. 
BMW
This is currently with my tame mechanic Craig to do a transmission fluid change and change a couple of front arms. Both jobs that would be frankly a collosal pain in the ass without a lift.

 


That doesn't look bad for its first change in 160k miles!
There's seals on the mechatronics gubbins that need changed too, this involved dropping the trans mount.



He's got that back together and just needs to check the level when it's at a certain temp and then it's done.
Manta
@GingerNuttzhas been working his magic on this. The Duratec is in and mounts are made up.

I dropped off some Land Rover V8 engine mounts to Davey today. The may or may not fit so I may need some advice on other mounts-I'll post up if that's the case to wrack the collective brains.
Other than that the rust is  pretty much gone and he's nearly ready to fit the bodykit. Amazingly for a 40 year old car things seem to fit not too badly so far.

Needs MOAR WHEELZ

Looks good!

@gingernutz says we won't need to attach this, he can run REALLY fast
 
And that is that for now. It's pishing down here so I can't be arsed doing anytihng, I really need to tidy the garage though...
 

It's a manual(of course it fucking is) Carrera 4 from 2000 on 141k miles
So, a few things happened recently to remind me that life is short. Follow your dreams and all that.
After carefully looking at 6 of these over the last week I did the right thing and bought the cheapest one.
Shouldn't have any engine problems

Or bodywork problems

So as soon as I fix the engine and bodywork problems she'll be reet🤦‍♂️
It's deceased spec (not on a recent North Atlantic trip you'll be glad to hear) having been a chaps pride and joy for the past 8 years before he passed away.
This means service history is sparse but so far I've found.
So far I've found:
An exhaust and intake combo that's frankly orgasmic.
Coilovers
GT2 rear wing and wiper delete.
Air con delete
Correct Porsche rated Michelins all round which is frankly a miracle at the more exciting end of the market. 
Recent brakes and coffin arms(well known suspension component that fails)
 

Smaller than you'd think. Blue. Fast. Noisy. Epic. And that's just the van

I thoroughly enjoyed that, even though it was only a few minutes of driving it! 
But, the important thing is, it can be driven. It has been driven. It’s finally complete enough to do that!
It has however already shown a few issues that need addressing.
Something is thumping around in the back! If you hit a bump in the road something is making a bid for freedom. I think it might be the spare wheel as it’s not secured yet.
Tracking! It’s comical. As soon as I turned onto the road everything must have settled and the steering is out!
Fuel gauge - still not playing ball. More investigation needed.
Clutch - works fine but it definitely needs adjusting as the pedal is higher than the brake pedal by a fair bit.
Brakes - I’m not sure if it’s just the fact they haven’t seen much use for a long time and they’re cleaning themselves up of all the surface rust etc from being stored or there’s still a bit of air in the system somewhere. They just feel a bit spongy and weak. I’ll bleed them through again I think.
Other than that it went well I think! 
Some bits to attend to first but I’m confident once it gets more use it’ll improve no end.
Oh, and it’s desperately in need of a wash! 
I’ve cleaned the glass off but the paint is incredibly dusty, loads of cobwebs and now yellow pollen dust all over it.