lisbon_road

Looks like I am finally going to end up fixing old friend's Rover 25. Spare wheel well is full of water, rear floor is wet and it needs a cambelt and I don't know what else. I pointed out to her about six months ago that all the wires between the tailgate and the body had failed. I offered to fix it but she got it done by a garage. They joined the wires, damaged the boot as it is stuffed full of crimps, and wrapped the lot in insulating tape and she thinks that is one place the water is coming in. I'd have preferred to make a join inside the car, use new wire between the tailgate and the body and another join stuffed inside the tailgate and hopefully not damage the boot. If anyone has a spare rubber boot thing that goes there please let me know. Also looks like one rear light is leaking. That can't be too difficult. As to the wet floor, she and her brother think the water is getting past the door seal. I'm not convinced of this. Seems quite a decent little car though.

Better not delay. I've now had my refund from ebay. And bought 4 litres of Dexron III of Amazon from the same company without realising it for £11.92. See if it turns up.

me too, exactly my experience. Their feedback is terrible.

Strange. I had a look at this: Driving test: cars: Using your own car for your test - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) And it isn't in there, yet I am sure I remember seeing it before. Perhaps it has changed? Or more likely my memory is shot and I've got confused. My son took his test and passed about two years ago in the '96 Astra. The examiner didn't seem remotely interested in the car, which did look a bit older than everything else but I made sure it was really clean inside and out.

You're only allowed up to 30 years old cars for the actual test. That's why I have just a couple of years to get my daughter through her test in my '96 Astra. I did my lessons in an early Metro, that's just showing my age.

Hi Rob thanks for sharing your trip. Takes a die hard autoshitter to buy a non ulez compliant car while living in the zone, hats off to you. Looks a good car. What's it like in the zone? Is there really as much camera damage as we hear?

Thanks for sharing this. Looks like you are making good progress. Presume that it is about 1989, in which case it has about four years to be ULEZ exempt. We might need to move to Scotland as all their zones have 30 year exemptions, not 40, which means you'd be ok.

They're just 18" old type ones. Something tells me your Range Rover will need bigger ones, so £2.49 sounds pretty good to me.

I've given up buying branded windscreen wiper blades. After all, it isn't like they are some part buried in the engine. Just got some GSF ones for £1.48 each.

No suggestion at all. You might be taking my comment a bit seriously. Looks an interesting purchase, that's the main thing.

Autoshite isn't dead yet then. Congratulations.

Agree with all the comments, it is absolutely stunning and many thanks for sharing with us. I checked and am pleased to see: Good to hear that it is 'helping the air quality across London'. If it ever goes there....

Count me in too

Thinking about this, you're right that they were unreliable so people (we!) had to continuously adjust points, clean plugs and so on. It's just not that complicated to do. I s'pose they could rebuild dynamos, alternators, those dynamo control boxes and a few other things.

Just wondering, what does an auto electrician actually do on a Mk1 Escort? There's like just a few wires.

It is a Leyland Atlantean. It went on to work in Cornwall for Western National. Had long lives ISTR.

Good to see everyone and many thanks to DozeyD for organising us.

I will be, amazing memory you have, thanks!

Possibly, have to see thanks

In other news, I've bought another one. Yes, another Mk3 Astra. I have no idea why but this is Autoshite. It is a 52K mile special edition (yeah right) one which has not moved in 12 years. It looks basically very sound, though the headlining is very mouldy. The bonnet is rusty and the bulkhead at the bottom, but the wings, doors and arches look immaculate. It is the same Titanium Silver as mine. I will either (1) clean it up, white room it and sell for a fortune. Or (2) find it is rotten underneath and use the clean panels on mine, save the engine, gearbox, cat, steering rack and other stuff and weigh the rest in. Further news later this week. Including what her indoors thinks.

Thread resurrection. Well I still have 'em both but it seems the silver one has got hairy exhaust syndrome. Can anyone recommend where to get a better exhaust than this not very old ECP Kalrius one? I can get EuroFlo off ebay, which I've never heard of, and GSF list Walker but seem to be listing only limited stock at certain branches, though commendably cheap.

The door is open for the Chinese companies to fill the market for smaller more sensible cars. We're just holding up a white flag and saying come on and take the market. History says, if they get that end of the market, they'll soon attack the more expensive end too.

It is back together again and I've washed it since this picture was taken. It has new number plates, some better wheel trims, a new steering wheel, better gas struts. The last stages of getting it all to line up properly and getting all the plastics clipped back take a while but thankfully when I stripped the scrap car I also took every possible spare plastic clip - never regret that. It also has a couple of almost new part work Falken tyres which are supposed to be very quiet and do seem to be. It is also running on gas again as I repaired a broken plastic part and have leak tested the whole thing. I may yet need to do the head gasket as it was driven back with no water in it - and it really had just a trickle in it. I really don't like cheap head gasket sets so I have bought the cheapest on ebay, an old stock QH one so I'm ready and some old stock Payen bolts. Need to align the headlights which I will probably get done at my MOT garage 'between MOTs' for a bit of cash. The cars ok but I'm exhausted.

I didn't really like it when we first got it, but I have sort of got used to it. I appreciate that it doesn't seem to go rusty at all. I've done work on it, as it has been in two accidents, and the water pump failed when the shaft simply snapped just after we'd got it - made of cheese I guess, plus it eats mass air flow sensors. But of course being petrol/LPG, there's been no real expensive stuff. I change the ATF now and then and haven't really changed any ancilliaries. Trouble is, down south, lpg is soon going to be more or less gone. That combined with very expensive tax isn't great. Though it is ULEZ compliant so I reckon I could sell it. I haven't run the engine up since the accident, so may yet have a little to learn as it was driven back with no water in it and the EML on.

Got the panels back. They're ok, definitely good enough for the car, but not exactly perfect. Hoping to get it all finished on Sunday. Might be optimistic!