colino

If a Simca 1100, "purrs like a kitten", he doesn't know how to adjust tappets.  That one looks suspiciously like the same colour as mine was - after I'd hand painted it with Parsons Repaint.

More going on.
I haven't quite finished with the one sheet I bought, but decided for speed I'd cut the strip from the fresh sheet.

Made a new panel, and tacked it together, then checked it again. This time, thankfully, it was a good fit. Ish. Got a little to fettle but will do that when it's complete on the car.




And the violin - that's et viola isn't it? - another section offered up and welded on (not in this photo).

Tacked one bit on the underside of the arch. Light was crap and I needed to do a bench.
The rust is from the flash rain we had at the weekend, when I was drunk, and didn't even think I had left that unprotected. I'll Vactan in when I grid back the welds. All of that panel, by the way, is welded. 
I'm so used to the panels flexing, now it's solid. Even the bit above, although I have warped it slightly. Nothing the filler won't sort out! 
Or a hammer.

Just the little things:



This makes me very happy. One of those things that tidies it up /and/ helps prevent rust.

Decided on the plate.
Checked the lights at night and I have maybe the only E36 I’ve seen in years with four equally-bright and shiny tail lights…

Finally something good has happened to me. This is ours from Monday Plenty of car storage space, and room for my 2 post lift, and all of my tools. CCTV security, 3 phase and running water!
 
Sent from my EML-L29 using Tapatalk
 
 

First of all that monotonous, "Wizard", yes that incompetent tosser has worked magic, by grabbing on the coat tails of a YT star.  He is a typical technician where big lumps are unbolted and sent off to someone skilled to repair and he makes another drudge of a recording explaining how he did it.  For some more unwanted advice, I would have no more than 4 cars in that shed,  too easy to make clutter your enemy/excuse.   You have a great channel, so that shed is your studio/money maker so it should be a comfortable workplace.   Why not do a crossover with that masochist who loves to roll around in cold, wet driveways replacing clutches?   You would both get new followers in that great Venn diagram of subscribers: You would get a new lease of life in that family car/business parts chaser at a discount too. 
Feel free to ignore, that's what the tinternet is for. 

Threw some paint on the van as I got fed up sanding. I'll never make a bodywork man but at least it's one colour. Hopefully in a few weeks I can flat it back and polish it up. Considering it was a twenty quid spray gun and painted outside I'm pretty happy with my first attempt at painting a whole vehicle. 

Says the man with two OltCits. 
My 2p's worth:  You need to get properly stuck into some of these projects you have.  Like 6-8hrs a day of work.  I don't know if you treat your video making as if it were a "normal" full-time job, but the *impression* I get from your videos is that you spend just a few hours at the unit each time before running out of steam and running away to do something else.  The car review stuff is interesting, but I do think you need more of the core "dicking about with old cars" content.
I may be wide of the mark here.  You might be putting in a lot more time at the unit on these than I think, but that's just how it feels.  Certainly compared to the engine-out and major work videos that you had for things like TWK and Foxanne, you've not done anything that "adventurous" for a little while.
However, that's just me, and I like indepth technical content:  With something like Hoovies Garage, I'm far more interested in what happens down at the Car Wiiiiiiiiiizard rather than watching a pillock with more money than sense barreling about in his cars.  It's just a shame that the wizard's own tube channel is as dry as the sahara, hence is quite hard work to watch.
Getting back to the C5.  Even with a 6hr book time, you'd be looking at 2-3 days of solid work to get that done in the unit with jacks and swearing.  It would be an interesting couple of videos that you could release over a couple of weeks, meaning you've got 2-3 weeks of content generated in 2-3 days.  I know it's *massively* more complex than that.  Editing takes up a lot of time, so maybe double the content generation time, but that's still not a bad content release Vs content generation ratio.
I'm just very much looking forward to the video "I pulled the engine and gearbox out of the OltCit to assess it properly" or "I stripped the wiring out of the Yugo to get it running" etc.  Even just a "I pulled the engine out of the Charade in order to strip it down and fit new piston rings".

I’ve always assumed there’s a certain amount of YouTube economics influencing HubNut’s decisions. Perhaps new car intro videos net more £ and it’s better to keep turning over the fleet?

Symptoms include: Divorce. Multiple Rovers. Empty bank accounts and hoarding of parts from years 1977 to 2005. 
My Rovervitis is so bad i am now buying back cars i previously sold...
So a few years ago i rescued this Rover 45 Saloon it was a 1.8 CVT of which they were only known to be three of on the road with this colour and interior. I remember at the time a chap called Craig Cheetham had the V6 model and he wrote an article on the car. it was one of the first cars off the production line and was a press car for its model. It had the rarest of the personal line interiors catkin green valour and an exterior colour celadon green pearl of which only featured on Rovers 45s for the first four months of production making it quite rare in its own right.
It had been sat in a yard in Birmingham for a few years and was in a very bad state mechanically so when i bought it i had a partial restoration done just to get it back on the road. However on the way home from Birmingham the engine blew up pistons one and four if i remember rightly straight through the block. Once the RAC got it home after a four hour wait on the hard shoulder i spent the next few months fully restoring it new engine box the works i did the lot below is a picture of the car when it was finished.

When it was finished i drove the car regularly and in that time it earnt the name Christine due to it giving my wife static shocks when getting in and out of the car and it not starting occasionally whenever she decided to drive it. The car also decided to spin out on a roundabout once at 40mph for no apparent reason but never caused me any issues and was a very comfortable reliable and enjoyable car.
 

 
After about two years of ownership i sold it to a chap down south and i never saw it again until last week when it popped up on FB marketplace it was listed as a non runner and its MOT has expired so i bought it back.
It will now be restored for a third time only this time il be keeping the car and will no doubt use it for the 100 mile daily commute to work. Which i am currently doing in an 827 so off the top of my head il cut my fuel consumption in half driving the 45.

On the ZF gearboxes there is whole lot of nonsense written about how difficult a filter and fluid change is, It isn't and I've done loads armed with no more than a trolley jack, ramps and/or axle stands to get it up and level.  Expensive Flir gun?  Nope, run it through the gears until the pan gets warm, not hot, to the touch. 
But getting to the point, it will be cold when you change the radiator/condenser and you will want the front up in the air for access anyway.  Autobox wont be under pressure, you'll be armed with specially designed, manufacturers bungs (Clean, lint free rags) and you disconnect, plug them and zip tie them up the way until your ready to refit.

Ok I'm going to get absolutely slaughtered here but so be it.  James, are you ok? I say this with the best intentions but I do find this thread very worrying. All the vehicle buying, house selling, it just seems very out of character.  I just want to know that you're feeling well, not having a manic episode and you've thought all this through. 
Not getting into a slanging match with you and I'm not going to respond to any replies. I just want to know you are ok.

I had a text after he went out for a drive to charge the battery and air suspension with a dash photo,  Mpg seems to be what I was expecting, closer to my Golf though. Local roads up to 60mph so probably similar to my commute. I may have it here a while for an Mot and a good coat of looking at.   🙈

On the finest day of the year, when I fully expected to be in bed from the Pfizer jab I had yesterday...


I've also been told to hurry up by the wife, as I need to do break the MG, get some wooden flooring, paint etc, as we are expecting our first born in November.
I get to keep the RAV4 until the Lada is on the road. Which is good I suppose. It also means that the wife took it upon herself to get a Mercedes Benz C350e as baby can't be seen dead in any child I think is nice. The wife very much likes that car, and that car only.

While I brokered the deal (as it was my gaffers old company car), I can't say I like it. I have to be careful with what I wear in it, how I drive it etc. So I need this RAV4 on the road so I can wear jeans while I drive!!!

Got it running. Of all the daft things there was a tiny crack in the fuel filter. Pump on these pulls from the top so the pipe's never under pressure so never showed up as a leak but when the pipe had drained down and the pump was trying to prime all the way from the tank it was just sucking up air. Got a little vacuum  pump on there (that's when I noticed the bubbles in the filter) and primed the system, dropped some fuel down into the float chamber, new fuel filter (glad I took a spare) some cranking to wake it  up and it spluttered into life. Bit reluctant from cold but once it settled down and the choke was in it ran pretty sweetly. For whoever wins this too, there's a little part missing off the driver's door handle linkage for the internal release. I managed to get it back together enough it'll probably work for a bit but it's not terribly secure so be gentle/ fix it soon.
Love these little cars - so easy to work with.  This one's a credit to @spartacus.

I'm sure you can coax golf fuel economy out of it, but rust is real on w211s.  Bigger issue will be the shit SBC system. 

A lot of people probably will have seen this already, but this 911 is one of the best things on pistonheads, used for moving race car parts about when it's urgent. 
'Built for commuting across Europe and the top end of Africa at speed it can carry 96L of fuel, generate it's own 240V mains supply, has three GPS receivers and one GLONASS receiver, a sat phone, telemetry, remote diagnostics, it's own specific lightweight Facom tool kit & spares package, 48hour emergency food and water, holds 10L of engine oil, can wade 0.5M of water, has BS5051 spec seal sealing tyres along with TPMS, a lot of underbody protection and a Tomtom!'
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=1601182

glad I have been able to help someone else fix their Invacar  even if Im fairly useless when it comes to my own!
Yeah! I was getting flashbacks to that! even now the throttle cable is still not quite right, we noticed it would Jam on when the handle bars turned as it pulled and pushed the entire throttle cable outer in and out of the cabin
so we bodged/secured the Outer cable to the cabin entry point and that solved the jamming on problem, but its still far too stiff, later Zel noticed It had far too much slack dangling about in the cabin (something I had wondered myself every-time I tripped myself up on it LOL)
probably does not help the twist grip itself on REV is also completely knackered,
so I do wonder if its a routing problem or if the cable just needs trimming or such (perhaps the new throttle cable inner we fitted is meant to be trimmed slightly still and is supplied over length to account for any control layout variations?)
regardless hopefully it can be sorted for good now finally!  
 
 
speaking of I feel like this video should of been titled "Man takes invacar for a walk" because it very much looks/sounds like it
also please never do that again without someone at the err "wheel"! If the throttle Jammed on for whatever reason then you would of been in a world of pain!
granted "man chases runaway Invacar round a farm" with the benny hill theme tune playing in the background probably would net you a fair amount of views! LOL
(although being a Handle bar Model 70 the whole setup is self centring so she would of just shot off in a straight line until she hit something solid!)

So that was quick. 
Had a call just now and the bloke was fairly sound tbf, he was looking at ebay sold prices while on the phone. 
He also mentioned the ombudsman and I said I had looked at their site too and quoted the Cazana valuation:

He rightly pointed out that my paint job isn't the best and it's a relatively scruffy bike with highish miles. 
The last few sold on ebay were £1000, £1219 and 2 x £1320 and they were all lower miles and not painted in graffiti paint. 
We settled at £1200 which I would struggle to argue much higher. 

Moved on to the under rear seat area this weekend.
There’s not much to work from on the drivers side.
how it looked when I stripped it down.
With some of the several hundred patches cut out
Looking in from the boot door.
Several areas tie together here. Boot floor to inner arch, rear footwell area, rear seat supports, and also there’s a a large crossmember that holds on the body to the chassis. (You can see the body mount bolt in picture 2)
For rigity this all needs tying together.
made a repair section for the rear bulkhead and inner rear arch.
Flipped over and welded it in
Few small sections added to fill gaps too
Several more miles of mig weld wire was sacrificed 
View from outside, scorched some of my primer from before.
Good penetration though round the body mount in centre. I’ll seam weld this this side too when I take the wheel back off.

Quick grind back and zinc prime the new bits.
Next time round I’ll finish this side arch area off, and further tidy these welds. Also tidy up and seam weld to the rear body mounts.
Otherside is slightly less ruined than this, so fingers crossed it’ll be a bit easier. 
 
Ordered new sills for it too, so the box section ones will soon be history.nice!
Old shot of this side when I took the plastic arches off originally 
Think I can improve on that.
Cheers for looking.

I thought I'd do a thread on this as I have not done one on it before.
The reg is not covered up for any other reason that they took the plates off to clean it. The reg Number is T588STA 
It all started at the end of 2015.
I was looking on facebook when a rover vitesse came up on the owners page asking for offers of what it was worth.
I sent a message offering £700 (I think) due to no MOT and being off the road for about 4 years.
Anyway I was refused and thought nothing of it.
A few weeks later I had a message back saying people were offering over £2000 but never getting back.
They said if I could come and pay the £700 it was mine.
I agreed then worked out how to get the car home.
They sent me some more pictures and I started to get excited.
We then saw the car.
It was alot better than we thought. 
I then bought it and got my friend to transport it home.
I put it in for an MOT and it passed so I got the garage to do the cambelt,tensioners and water pump.

So a week after driving my van for the first time I have gone one better and arranged to buy this Leyland Roadrunner for £800 😀
The number plate says lorry lol. F392 LRY
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Leyland-DAF-Roadrunner-Horsebox-Wagon-Lorry-/254959172986?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286


It's powered currently by a non turbo Cummins B series engine but we may have to sort him out some forced induction at some point.
You may well be wondering why I have bought a truck and specifically a Roadrunner.... well it's because of the adverts below!
 
If that isn't a good enough reason to buy a truck I don't know what is haha.

So when I  finally got to the FOD I realised I had lost my sunglasses and they were most likely on the side of the M40 where I had failed to proceed earlier. So I just went back to look for them and found them 😀 They are genuine Rayban Aviators with a blue tint and I have had them about a decade so didn't want to buy new ones if I could avoid it.

Fixed!
I checked the two relays under the scuttle, one was definitely the starter relay as I could feel it clicking.  Both had crusty contacts which I cleaned up, but no improvement. 
I then realised I hadn't plugged the signal wire back in to the starter solenoid after my last tinkering session.  Still nothing, but I realised it made no difference so had that wire broken?  I followed it back and it led to this plug sat out on the inner wing.
Bingo!  It was full of green crusties ((c) South Main Auto) and after a bit of cleaning, I tried it again and the starter works perfectly.
Hooray for a simple, free fix!
When I first got the car I cleaned this plug up and repaired a damaged wire to fix some sort of electrical issue.  It would probably benefit from some dielectric grease or something to keep it from corroding, it's a bit exposed where it lives.
I took it for a run and it's running really nicely.  The manifold join is quieter but still not 100%, the alternator belt is currently quiet and all in all I think I can currently say it's as good as I'm ever going to get it.  The starter seems to be enjoying its squeaky clean connections and earth points as it's definitely spinning faster, it certainly starts quickly even from cold.  I'm pretty happy with it as it is right now, I just need it to stay that way for a few more weeks!
 

More welding occured on planet Fourtrak today.
This is inside the rear inner arch, passenger side.
Also in here is the middle body mount, and the boot floor edge. Right in the miflddle you can see one of the boot floor strentheners.
This is the rear body mount, behind the strengthening panel that is a touch crumbly.
wizzed out with the noisy spanner.
Deconstructing the rotten old shite, various patches and some ultra flammable sealer took over an hour.
Chopped out, you can see the body mount. This was repaired, primed and welded up.
Then it was on to the arch lip, and also the boot floor edge. 
 
Looking better!
Welded it from inside. 

Nice to not have blobs dropping in your ears! 
 
Did tidy up and prime these bits too.
Next time it’s onto the drivers side floor and under seat bit! Theoretically the tank, fuel pipes, rear suspension etc could be put on and it would be drivable.
Unfortunately im too sadistic for that, so stay tuned! 

I'd neg him anyway. A scamming twat who knew it had no cat and was hoping you wouldn't notice till it was too late. Arsehole