cort1977

Can confirm that despite mixing up my user name Phil is a lovely guy who has actual Forrest Gump shrimp boats parked at the end of his road.  I rudely arrived empty handed at dinner time and he fed me, made tea and spent an enjoyable hour chatting about Pontiacs.

I'm sure there is a grown up reason for not doing this but my attitude would be 'I will pay it when you can tell me what it's for' rather than chasing around on their behalf.  Not that unreasonable is it?

Had a very pleasant visit from Cort1977* of this parish, who stopped in on his way (slightly dog-leg) through the area. Tea consumed, vehicles admired, shop spoken.
 
Nice to have met you, stop in any time!
 
Phil
 
 
*Oops. Lack of sleep.

I've said this before, I am not convinced that you are a bona fide minister of the church.

Well that's a reason to run away all on its own! You might as well lick a cow for all the satisfaction you'll get from a cuppa with skimmed milk.

The TL:DR sounds like it's a case of "just do as you're told."  The frequency of your posts on the matter and the distress it seems to be causing you are hallmarks of an abusive relationship, which is a concern.  However, this is balanced by us only hearing your side, her's may be different, or not.  Fundamentally, a bunch of randoms on the internet is not the best source of advice in this situation, it sounds developed enough an issue that, as others have suggested, professional assistance should be involved, if for nothing else than your own health.
 
I do hope you find a resolution to the root cause of the unpleasantness and can move on in a better direction.

Best Subaru gearbox action is to calmly let them know they need to sort it or you will go straight to small claims court; research the exact process so you are knowledgeable during the discussion.

Profit's made when you buy, anyone can sell...If he can clear £1200 on a £1500 car he has a talent.

Why does everyone get so cross when they see someone trying to make a profit? - By Clayt's own admission the Rover's selling price of £1500 was fair enough, and even if it wasn't it's nobody's problem but the seller's when he doesn't sell it.

This year, the traditional Hallowe'en bulwark seems to have been comprehensively breached - we had stores with twinkly trees up and aisles of green and red tat running alongside the purple and orange tat from mid-October.
 
M&S and Home Bargains - looking in your general direction.
 
Mind you, the supermarkets have been piling metric fucktons of Celebrations and Quality Street up by the front doors since late August, like some kind of confectionery-derived seawall defences. Sainsburys had stacks of Mr Kipling mince pies ready to go by the first week of September (with a best-before date of 22 October). Eurospar was advertising their 'Twelve Deals Of Christmas' on advertising hoardings from the last week of September - and now all retailers have gone flat-out batshit in punting out their cringeworthy, twee declarations about family values and togetherness and all that old shit, and that sodding Elf on the Bastarding Shelf seems to be so rampant that I'm giving serious thought about calling in Rentokil as it's clearly now reached infestation levels.
 
I actually wouldn't mind it all so much if the same places didn't rip the whole fucking lot down at 3.59pm on Christmas Eve - the exact second that the corporate accountants have calculated that they can no longer wring more a few more pennies out of you through their total surround-sound onslaught of crude emotional manipulation involving cutesy-cute kids and smiley wrinkly grandparents, intimating that you too could bask in such slack-jawed bliss and harmony if only you'd just spend a little more...
 
Then BANG, it's all gone - and instead it's wall-to-wall ads for fucking summer holidays blasting your eyes and ears from 4.00pm on. And carpet sales. And kitchens.
 
Once Christmas Eve comes, the whole thing might as well not be happening so far as retailers and advertisers are concerned - and the whole shitshow won't get another mention until the day after August Bank Holiday 2019. Cynical, cynical, cynical. It would cost them nothing to leave all the tinsel up for even a week. But no. All gone. Fuck off. If there's no money to be made, it won't be allowed to live. Immediately, it's Easter eggs and hot cross buns shoved in your face before you've even made your mind up what you're doing for New Year's Eve.
 
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Christmas-hater. I really do love it. But let the seasons be the seasons in their own time. It's still autumn, FFS; we went out for a smashing walk yesterday round the Woodburn reservoir, still lined with vivid orange and yellow leaves. It's not winter, yet (though we've had the odd heavy frost) and I like it being not-yet-winter.
 
I don't want to see synthetic snowflakes in every shop window. I don't want 30-second faux-idyllic depictions of other people's Christmases acted out every time I walk past a television. I don't want to hear sleighbells over fucking everything on the radio, especially when it involves a mumsy voiceover confidentially intoning "Christmas is stressful enough...", followed by shilling whatever pointless wasteful product the advertiser wants you to buy, finely tuned to inflict maximum emotional damage.
 
No. It isn't. You're making it stressful, by plucking at our coatsleeves every two fucking minutes. Do you not love your family? How will they know if you don't get yourself into crippling debt buying endless plastic shit, and frozen prawn rings that taste of nothing at all? On and on it goes, for weeks and months. Late stage capitalism eating itself, and causing untold mental damage in its death throes. No-one will love you if you don't buy our products! Spend money you don't have with us, or you're letting down everyone dear to you! It's inescapable.
 
Even if I manage to keep the TV and radio off, and avoid shops as much as possible (I charged straight past They_All_Do_That_Sir in Tesco without even noticing only yesterday, so intent was I to get some bananas and leave without being dragged into the emotional quagmire), then I can't help but have my eyeballs snagged by the billboards every time I'm out in the car... turkey, sprouts, Santa, elves, snowmen, penguins... IT'S FUCKING NOVEMBER, PEOPLE. STOP IT.
 
It all just feels so warped and out of kilter, and I find that it does really upset me quite a lot. Just as I'm starting to warm to it, around 21st December, suddenly it's all snatched away. The contrast is highly disorienting. I understand that even in the US, the whipping boy for consumerism, Christmas tends not to be overt until after Thanksgiving (is that still the case?). I feel like it's been Christmas for a month here already. Where's it going to end? If Sainsburys habitually put their mince pies out a week earlier each year (which they have, in the past three years I've been actively monitoring them), then by 2030 they'll be putting them out in the third week of June.
 
For me, Christmas runs from Christmas Eve until Twelfth Night. Yet I have colleagues who take their fucking decorations down on Boxing Day - because, at that stage, they've already had them up for over a month. Then complain that the days after Christmas are 'really boring', so all they do is go up to Junction One and The Outlet and other soul-melting greybox retail developments, conveniently situated beside motorway sliproads, to buy more trashy shit they don't really want. Words fail me. My flabber is utterly ghasted.
 
Right, I've vented my spleen, and now I feel like pulling the shutters down now on all of this. See yis in January.

Jaguar wiper update: it ain’t right.
 
Seller accidentally sent a XJ40 arm as it got mixed up with his SIII bits. Unfortunately he didn’t have any correct SIII arms so offered a refund.
 
And here is my refund:
 

 
Cash refund? No thank you!
Hopefully this bits will bring the passenger rear door into fully operational condition. The broken speaker grill has been bothering me since I bought it and the window can only be operated from the front switch.
 
The seller has also given me some tips on upgrading the headlights and central locking, which should resolve some other niggles I have.

You're doing me a concern boy. Those standard wheel trims are plenty pretty enough.

If only you knew of a website where you could appeal to a member in the states you've never met to go and chop up some wreck and send the bits to you.

So, here's what I did.
 
Cleaning:
Obviously the metal was rusty, pitted and generally in bad shape. First was to run it down with low grit sandpaper to get the worst off, then scrubbed with a wire brush to get into the pits.
It was then soaked overnight in ascorbic acid (vitamin c) solution, scrubbed with a brass brush then left to soak again for the rest of the afternoon.
It was then put in a vinegar + salt solution and connected as the anode to draw the rest of the surface clean. It was wiped down and quickly placed in the plating tank because a highly clean surface like that will flash rust in a matter of seconds.
 
Copper plating:
I made copper (II) acetate as the electrolyte. Mix equal parts of distilled white vinegar (acetic acid) of 5% strength minimum and hydrogen peroxide. Doesn't have to be exact but measuring in a cup or measuring jug is fine. Place a copper pan scrubber into the solution and leave it to dissolve. Once it's a nice sky blue (if you leave it too long it gotta a really dark blue) remove the scrubber pad. Take a second clean pad and twist one end up into a teardrop kind of shape- this forms a connection point out of the solution else the clip and wire will pollute the copper electrolyte.
Place the object to be plated as far away from the scrubbing pad as possible. Connect up with the lowest voltage you can- this can easily be done with a D cell battery. It'll work down to about 0.6 volts. The scrubbing pad connects to + and the item to be plated to -.
You must keep the item being plated moving else you'll get uneven plating.
If you have too much current you'll get black greasy gunk form on the object. Wipe off and try again with a smaller battery. Slightly too fast and you'll get burgundy flaky layers that flake off.
Just right and you'll get pale pink coating that doesn't wipe off.
 
Nickel plating:
I went to the hardware store and bought 99% nickel welding rods, they're used for welding cast iron.
Use distilled vinegar, add a pinch of salt (don't go overboard) make 2 nickel electrodes and put one to + and one to -, not touching and put them in the vinegar.
I found that 5 volts gives reasonably good results, less would be better (about 1 volt). Leave the nickel to dissolve. The molar strength of the vinegar is inadequate to dissolve the nickel by itself so it needs some electrolytic help.
Once the vinegar has turned pale mint green (takes a couple hours) you're good. That is nickel acetate. Disconnect the - nickel electrode and connect your item to be plated, and dunk it in. It'll fizz, so you don't really need to move it about. Takes a couple hours to plate over. Remove, wash in water and buff with brasso to a nice sheen.
 
 
Now, note this. Copper II acetate is poison! Treat it with respect. Wear glasses and gloves and wash thoroughly if you get it on your skin (you'll know if you have, it stains brown). Store it in a sealed labeled jar clearly marked POISON. Keep it away from children and pets. Likewise nickel acetate, it is toxic.
 
Also note that you will release hydrogen gas, a little bit of chlorine gas and some oxygen. Do this in an outside, well-ventilated area. This is not something to do in the kitchen!
 
However, take care and you can produce some really good results.
 
 
Phil

What about one of those self teaching fuel injection setups that they alway seem to use in Roadkill? Should be a fit and forget solution.

Alright. For those of you who have tolerated this sidestep into alchemy, the (very nearly) end result, and the whole point of this endeavour:
 

 
Reflective surface where there was none before.
 

 
With the sidelight hooked up in a temporary fashion, the result is plain to see.
 
Phil

They'll be more rock than metal. The metal will have dissolved.

V5 arrived.
 
It's not a Cat C, the V5 is clean!

Hands up who wants a car that looks like a ghost that's farted in it's night gown?
 

 
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Evolution-Hawk-Body-kit/253969482478?hash=item3b21c2c2ee:g:SxYAAOSwp7Rbl3Yy:rk:15:pf:0

Ha, that's an easy one.  Wait till they start asking 'well, how exactly does the sperm get in the mummy's tummy?'...

See?????????? It works.
 
Could do with the horrific noises it's making diagnosing, like.
 

 
MATS

A bit more bashing has been carried out and I've also fitted the headlamps to make the van look more complete as enthusiasm was flagging. The old lamps were tarnished so these are Indian made and come in a box of 5 for £30 including postage. I didnt want that many but maybe thats just a years supply...
 

 
Originally the roof was canvas on a bed of thin wooden lathes held together with tacks. I'm doing the curved sides in steel and the top in aluminium.
It would be a insult to proper panel beaters to regard my methods as good practice, but at least it'll stop anyone with a penknife getting in the through the roof.
The panels were curved a bit at a time over a lump of old propshaft clamped in the vice. It looks crude, but I draped a bit of rag over it before making the bend- I'm not a fucking savage. Fine tuning was done on a bit of tree.

Ive also started on the brakes, the master cylinder has new seals and is in place. The clutch on these is cable operated, but its not the modern type of cable with an inner and outer, just a length of cable. This means there must be a strut to prevent the engine and gearbox being hauled backwards each time the pedal is depressed. I might make some changes here....
 

On the plus side you can make it work for you.... find a train ticket site that gives you decent rewards for example. I took out a credit card when I started the job that I just use for expenses and shopping, and my expenses get paid into that account. It's a Sainsburys card, I use Sainsburys diesel, and I book train tickets through Virgin Trains who dish out nectar points. You get double nectar points on Sainsburys fuel and it's paying me a few quid per month. Same with a £120 train ticket, put it on the credit card and you get enough credit for the company to pay it off and you've just earned a few loyalty points / air miles or whatever.
 
I found it hard to adjust and sometimes get caught out if I go from a travel light month to a heavy one or vice versa as the payments are out of step with the credit card bill, you need a bit of a buffer but it works itself out.
 
(I was once warned by a previous employer that claiming nectar points on fuel that I then claim back is a taxable benefit! I indicated if they rolled up the receipt really tightly, they could stick it up their arse)

Blimey, your coffee's even worse than Junkman's!

Life is fucking surreal, I have everything I could possibly want right now, and everything I've ever dreamed of. I honestly never thought I'd ever see the day I was legitimately running two cars at the same time, with my parents' blessing, have a shed full of properly good bikes, good friends, a job I like... it's just absurd. 
 
I just wish I could keep up with university, as otherwise, life is pure paradise.