cort1977

hi there, thanks for having me.
This is my exploit yellow Punto 75elx that I have owned for 10 years, and have restored.
I love this car, enjoy the photos.
simon

I’m having a lovely long weekend away.

I’m in Mittenwald, Bavaria, almost on the border with Austria.
Colin is also here making his usual demands.

„Gib mir Vögel und Kastanien, Frau.“
 

Battery charger and battery arrived.

Battery duly inserted in the hole, lubricated the mounting bolts and put the thing on charge because it's spent a lot of time in the box. 

Connected up, the dash provides a litany of faults. It all seems to work though. Climate control screen is half working, but the segments that are broken only show up at a temperature not normally set so that's good. 

Sunroof and windows all work, which is surprising.  Someone's been in there before, it's all nicely greased up.

Most of the other electrical things also work. Oddly this car has side repeater indicator lights, rear fog lights and the dash says BOOT OPEN when you pop the trunk. 
Driver's side seat has two movements that don't work, the front of the seat just whirs and doesn't move up or down, and the headrest just goes click. 
Radio also needs investigation.
 
Overall quite surprising how much of it still works. 
 
Phil

Just been taken out for a spin in this. 

Fucking gorgeous interior. 

Mate has paid £2.5k for it which seems fair.
The electrics survived the drive to the pub. 

bring back @Junkman

Mrs ODM phoned today with a screw in her tyre on the way home.
Compressor managed to get it home and is booked for a new one and mot tomorrow.
Espace needs a service and wheel bearing and it also gave me this today after too many short tip runs.

if anybody needs me I’ll be out having a regenerative fap.
 

Thank you so much, I really feel it's important to tell it as it happens, warts and all. It certainly almost never goes according to plan but I'm not one to hide the fuckups and failures as it makes for a pretty dull thread otherwise.
Thankfully @twosmoke300has been absolutely phenomenal with his advice and obscure knowledge, otherwise I'd still be curled up in a corner of the room sobbing 😅
 

I won't get bored of saying it if you won't get bored of writing it up:  great work.

He is - he's no more than 10 mins away.  I'm not sure if he'd want to see it again - not sure whether there's a certain amount of guilt attached to it - it's all wrapped up with what he went through looking after his wife too (that must have been awful).  
It's a bit sentimental I know and I have no allegiance to the PO - he wasn't someone I knew or know now (have his number and i know where he lives of course) but in some ways he's at the back of my mind when working on the car - I do want to get it back on the road, to do the car proud and to give the PO the chance to see it too (and of course I'm being selfish - I want it on the road so I've got it to drive it - I literally can't wait in all honesty).  
It's taken me ages............literally ages, to realise that it's not going to fix it itself/herself and my friend isn't going to do the majority of the work either.  It's all down to me. So.  It's also a fact that there are other needs that take priority (family/house/garden/trying to get a job.............!) so I've got to make the time really count if I get a chance to work on the car.  I can't tell you how obvious that sounds to everyone else but took me a looooooong time to really get my head around (and accept the consequences of that acceptance - that it's down to me, no one else.  I can get help from the kids etc, but it's for me to direct operations etc etc).  
I fixed the mower on saturday and took the starter motor off our Toro (ride on beast, has a daihatsu 3 cylinder diesel engine making 27hp, it's a 523dxi if anyone's interested, v popular in the US, bearing in mind it was made in in chicago in 1999)  that we use a little bit on the small holding.  Also have a renault 106 54 which deserves it's own thread if I'm honest.  French tractor, american engine, brilliant piece of kit, thoroughly recommended.  Bought it in Oxford and had it HGV'd down.  a friend of mine serviced it before it came down - turns out he did his apprenticeship on renaults back in the day - in fact at the same dealership 'my' renault was sold from in 1995.  Small world.
I'd never have touched the mower (or the toro) if it hadn't been for the lotus.  usually I'd just chuck it at my (tractor) man whom works 10 mins away.  But I'm all in on the Lotus so that equally applies to anything else in my possession.  Fixed the mower. Toro not quite - just need the part. 
I've got the space, I've got the car lift, I've got (er, some) tools, I've got the time too (enforced, but still, might as well use it).  Now to act upon it basically.  
 

Had a lovely day yesterday. Xsara took me to Birmingham to pick up a friend, then Wakefield to a vacuum cleaner collectors mini-meet at a place some of the northern lads rent out and use above a gym (literally the first time in my life I've ever 'been to a gym') 

Someone bought their early 1910's Hoover 103/5 (I can't remember), that was cool to see! 

Xsara smashed the lot at either 30, 50 or 80. Bar a couple of times the turbo didn't kick in occasionally it took the drive and the hellish journey back into brum at 7pm to drop my mate back off. 

Not really the point I was making. Gambling costs literally mortgage’s. You can gamble 100’s,  1000’s or millions in the blink of an eye. Don’t recall anyone smoking a grands worth of fags in a week let alone a few seconds 

It’s a fuckin joke, virtually EVERY kind of sport is sponsored by gambling companies. They banned tobacco companies, coz it’s bad for health, yeh I get it, but do you know anyone who lost their house, business & maybe everything they own, coz they smoked a few fags? 
 

Oh, come on!
You know it makes sense.
It also needs an absolutely filthy lumpy cam, with a hidden but very free flowing exhaust system.

There is, and a full electric adapter setup to get the computers talking to the GM hardware.

Thanks for the advice, I'm still hoping to get a call back from the agent eventually because the sale did end up falling through (way too early for that at the moment though). The property was rare enough with the combination of price, seller's motivation, location and curb appeal that I can't imagine anything similar coming up anytime soon. We've been looking for over a year by now after all and our set of requirements are quite specific. But we'll see.
Quick update on the Celsior today. The new driver seat triggered a seatbelt warning after putting it in the car. Turns out even the seatbelt buckle is slightly different on the Celsior, it has 4 wires coming from it while the UK LS400 one only has two (which are used for the nighttime illumation of the buckle on both cars). The wiring loom of the seat is identical, it's really only the loom of the buckle thats different, very odd but an easy fix.

I finished (for now) polishing the bonnet as well. I could keep going forever to get it all perfect but a) I got enough after like 5 hours and b) my Halfords polisher died once and for all. That means it might be time soon to finally get a better polisher with more power that should hopefully speed things up significantly.
600 grid wetsanding to get the worst scratches out first:

1500 and 3000 grid discs next (thats where you really need to be careful to not burn through the clearcoat. In hindsight I didn't have to be nearly as careful as I was, the super close-up results probably would have been better.

Done. These photos were actually before I spent another 2 hours today polishing the paint further, daylight wont show all the fine scratches that would become very visible under streetlights.

It's probably still not perfect but the difference is like night and day. The before photo below was after me cleaning the hell out of the bonnet, including using the claybar that normally removes everything. I ended up having to sand the dirt off of it.


So yeah, there's the proof that you can polish a turd as long as there's some clearcoat left on it. The problem really is that damage over such a large area takes absolute ages to remove. A better polisher might make a difference but as of right now it would take days to really cover the entire car. It might save you a respray though.

Depending on when I get a replacement polisher I might have a go at saving the paint on the front bumper. Its mainly scuffs that should mostly come out. The rear bumper received such a piss poor respray at some point that there's little hope in rectifying that though. Next update is hopefully me figuring out what O2 sensors I need to order and finally doing a brake flush. I might even change the ancient pads and/or hoses.

I bought a new car.


It's nice but also broken, because Jaguar.
 
New engine required. 
 
Phil

There used to be a Citroen specialist round the back of Chillingham Road metro station, maybe connected to that. (If it's still there, I left in 2000 - now I feel old)

Rewire complete. 

Have made a few changes. The switched fusebox is fed from a master 100A relay which is triggered from the ignition key. This takes the heavy load off the ignition barrel which could get extremely hot with all of the current for all systems passing through it.
The coil is fed straight off the barrel and is unfused, as it should be, so even if the relay fails the engine won't stop.
Apart from that I made sure all cable ends had good quality spade connectors and heat shrink wrap with adhesive. This way they're pretty tough and reliable and eliminates some of the nasty and corroded original connectors.
The engine bay is much cleaner now without the fusebox, relays, and associated wiring nests.

Wiring for the reverse lights and overdrive now run inside, and I've packed the gap around the gearstick with insulation to cut down on road noise.

Important upgrade done to the brake lights. The original brake light switch is a fluid pressure switch which tends to only activate when you're standing on the pedal. 
I've changed it for an electrical pedal switch, which needed a bracket made up.

A real pain to drill the bolt holes for this in the pedal box so the top hole is in at an awkward angle.

Still it does the trick and is a massive upgrade. The lights now come on as soon as you touch the pedal.
While the steering wheel was off I swapped the steering column coupling bush as it was really sloppy.


The steering column shroud also got a coat of paint after I did some repairs to the cracking brittle plastic with some epoxy.


Last few bits done inside. A new hazard switch.

I then remembered I bought a set of instrument panel stickers off Demon Tweeks.

So I then did what I originally meant to and sorted the dash light graphics.
Before.

After.

For aslong as I can remember I've wanted to be directing my own path in business but never had the actual confidence to overcome huge self doubt and fears of failure, in 2021 when I nearly met with my mortality thanks to covid I remember hating that I'd played things safe as houses like a boring nobody and literally despite continued health maladies I feel that I've got a second run up at life , so I'm starting from nothing at 35 and want to get pushing forward with what is abit of a dream for me .
So basically my sister and I have teamed up to create a new garage/engineering works of which provides the usual bread and butter garage services and also more specialised work less commonly found like large manual machining capability and welding.
We're looking to stock up on a range of common classic parts too so that we can take on most project work without waiting on parts turning up in ebay etc albeit limited space prevents stocking a vast amount.
So far over the last 8 months !

Obligatory huge lathe brought back somewhat inappropriately 


Company car brought down , inappropriately 

Lathe electrical rebuild done because it was dangerous as hell, 415 through the soaked push buttons etc ,,horrible ! Once cleaned and generally setup it's been put to work straight away!

 
this s100 k series swap was quite aquite to drive, getting one to fit the earlier car isn't bolt in like with the estelle and rapid !

Cambelt snappage job on an iveco 2.3, lots of new valves and lapping required!

loads of work done, and loads more hopefully to come ! 

Nah it's fuggin' filthy, it just doesn't show up too well in the pics

Old military overcoat (surprisingly water-resistant) and a woolly hat, no North Face rubbish here!

Last weekend was the VSCC Light Car Section Welsh weekend. this year marked 100 years since the RAC Small Car Trials, which inspired the event, and in which a Palladium did exceedingly well over 1000 miles of hard test driving at the hands of its designer H F Smallwood. Since the aim has always been to take my Palladium on this event it was absolutely essential that it was back up and running in time. Sadly it hasn't been driven for about 4 years, since it suffered some mechanical problems (on the way home from Wales, funnily enough) which resulted in a load of water in Number 4 cylinder and a couple of bent valves. Anyway, we rallied some troops and had a mad week of putting it all back together (absolutely minimal input from myself, obviously) and a few days before the trip it was running for the first time and sounding nice and healthy. I did a quick trip round the block and all seemed well, so all that was left was to keep a positive attitude and pack lots of tools. Here's how things looked after about 100 miles.

And approaching the border

Noo hood or weather equipment wasn't great considering we were in the grip of Storm Kathleen, but the weather was pretty kind on the way up and I did 200 miles behind the wheel with no problems whatsoever. Made it to Wales and spent two days fannying about, actually much more challenging than the drive up, driving on small roads with lots of hills etc. Here it is in the middle of a section through normally-closed Forestry Commission roads

It shed a sidelamp lens going over a nasty bump annoyingly. Here it is resting at the summit of Bwlch-Y-Groes, 'the Welsh Terror', a absolutely nasty very long climb which saw off a few competitors back in 1924, but which the Pall sailed up without any problems (in first gear)

And here it is going down the other side

After all that, we set off quite early on Sunday. The first leg was quite tough going with awful rain and wind, but the last 100 miles were pretty great going.

Got back by 6pm which was alright. The best part of 700 miles covered in four days, which might not sound like much but it takes a huge amount of concentration and energy to drive this thing at speed. Apart from a blocked slow runnning jet there were zero mechanical issues for the whole weekend. The number plate bolts came loose, one of the wing valances sheered the rivets holding it in and was rattling around, I think the gearbox is possibly even nosier than it was before but otherwise it was smooth sailing! So glad to actually get this heap to Wales and re-enact the 1924 event, which was the marque's most notable achievement, particularly on this anniversary year. Next stop: get a hood made.
 

Gosh, not much has happened since then has it? In fact, not much happened at all in 2023, motoring wise, for me. No silly car-buying adventures, and most vehicles off the road for longer than they were on the road meant fewer road trips. Also money is just really tight now innit, which makes everything less fun, and I'm definitely feeling my age these days and am less willing to jump into untested cars and drive a million miles without stopping. I've also somehow avoided doing much article-writing which meant fewer cool cars to drive. Anyway, here's my very brief 2023 in review (comprised entirely of quick phone snaps with very little thought, sorry):
January started on a high note. On a bitterly cold day I ventured into deepest Surrey to get up close and personal with one of my dream cars, this Flaminia Sport Zagato. It was everything I expected, but I think I'd still rather have a PF coupé (which is lucky for my bank manager)

In February I went to Rétromobile, which was back at almost-full-size and filled with cars I desperately wanted to bring home with me. Plus, food, wine, friends etc, so it's always a good trip. I particularly fell for this little Simca

and also this outrageous Buick Woodie

But for some reason I couldn't ignore this dreamboat P6, a V8 in avocado on French plates just looked so cool

March (it was only on the last page of this thread!) saw another journey for the Riley from Sussex to mid-Wales for the VSCC Light Car weekend. As ever with this car, it ate up the miles and performed perfectly. Always a calendar highlight, this.


In April nothing happened, apparently. In May a friend organised a little drive in the country and lunch but selfishly had a heart attack in the morning. He insisted the rest of us carry on regardless, but it was a bit of a muted affair (don't worry, he's fine!)

the same month I bombed up to the Field of Dreams for the first time, with the sole aim of lovingly rubbing a sponge over this absolute beauty

June was the epic drive, to the centre of France in the Quadrilette

a lovely run down, followed by an incredible weekend surrounded by cyclecars, cheese, bread, wine, friends, wine, cheese and wine

Slightly scuppered by the exhaust falling off on the way back, but we got home eventually and the car followed soon after (thank you, European breakdown cover!) although it's still not fixed.
In July, more cyclecars! I got the opportunity to drive a Seal, which I doubt anyone else here can say. It was... mental, but fun

Although I got a bit sophisticated and really fell for this Ceirano S 150 instead. To the point that I was quite seriously working out how I could buy it, but thankfully the moment passed. It was very nice, though (full story in the February issue of The Automobile, etc)

In August I drove the Peugeot 202 solo to Prescott

were it rained, horrendously, briefly clearing up enough on Sunday to take two photographs


Must get an SM1500 at some point.
In September I finally got my Rover back from its six-month spell away from home, not actually fixed but at least vaguely functional, so I drove round in that for a bit

I also went to Beaulieu Autojumble, where apparently the only photo I took was of this food stall. I had the prawn noodles with surry sauce, it was good (not many options for a non-meat eater at car events)

Also September, Goodwood Revival. Track porridge:

and car-park chod:

In October I thought I was going to die, and then went to look at a car for sale whilst in the grip of a sustained panic attack. I did not buy it because it looked like this underneath, but I'm I sort of think I should've done it anyway

In November the R16 was dragged out of its barn storage and cleaned up

And in December it sold, and that was all that happened.
Car resolutions for 2024: Buy more cars, sell some cars, more wine, more France, more events generally, more road trips. Drive the Palladium?!?!?!