bigfella2

W⚓

now try and imagine trying to pick someone up from Warwick in a 19'9" long 8'3" wide ambulance (the yellow a&e ones are longerer!)

What's this? Corsa glovebox action and no pictures of the shark?

And it's finally FINISHED!!
All back together, running sweet as a nut!
Cooling system bled and run up to temperature all ok, air con regassed and ice cold, new rear shoes and drums fitted. 
Still no sign of any leaks from the power steering pipes although time will tell on that
All that's left to do is the cambelt and water pump. Possibly would have been better to do it while it was out of the car but I wanted to make sure it was a runner first. A slightly suspicious noise emanating from the cambelt cover when hot so I'm going to do it just incase 
The signs/smell of burning oil has cleared, so no worries there for now.
Unfortunately this engine does suffer from the death rattle on startup, a little bit more frequent than the old one did but that was an inherent risk with these engines. It doesn't seem to harm them, so I'll live with it
Will crunch the numbers tomorrow if I remember to bring the paperwork home! 
Now to sneak it back home.. it's a walkable distance so hopefully I don't have to "pick anything up from home" on the way to the MOT station 😉

Yellow or clear? Vote heart for clear or a yellow emoji face thing for yellow if you like. 

A reported post has been hidden by the Moderators, pending review.

Is stale in this context the same as the one where, as per the observation some post back, posts are still being deleted with no apparent reason or notification?
That's not 'whining', that's a fact.
I don't care what people spend their hard-earned, or otherwise,  on. I do care if someone is pissing up my back and telling me it's raining however. 
 

Got a call off the burd last night.
She had alighted at the station and walked towards the Golf 
Upon approach, she spied a puddle under the rear of the car..

As you can see, it looks an awwfa lot like oil, despite not being anywhere near the oily bits of this front engined, fwd car.
Careful prodding identified it as clean oil, hence further confusion.
Opening the boot revealed an upended oil bottle that had dribbled into the spare wheel well..
Relieved, we cleaned up and went home.

Wouldn't all these ramblings about bulbs have been better in this thread ?
 

I unlowered my 182 as soon as I got it and put it back to standard cup spec, and this is coming from someone who likes a lowered car.
182's don't have a massive amount of grip like a 197/200, but that's the fun, you can throw it about and get out of shape and it doesn't bite you in the arse.

No idea where to post this but here seems vaguely appropriate. Nothing odd about it until you realise the photo was taken in New York State USA.

This
Sorry but no matter how much your life revolves around these, you simply don’t have the right unfortunately…

Further to DVLA stuff on the previous page, I was reminded of this earlier today and it still makes me laugh an unreasonable amount.

INVACOD!

Does it really matter?

Really.

Day 2 of a mega 90s retro weekend. Pulp at Finsbury Park yesterday and Super Touring Power at Brands today. As Murray Walker would have said, Faaaaaaantastic

Noticed Stagecoach had painted one of our local buses in a rainbow colour scheme, actually it was on the route that goes near @bigfella2as well.

Yes- the rear torsion bars sit in front of each other, so one hub is a few mm further forward than the other.

Picked up this little shitter during the week!

I think we're both right, it was the smaller 14" wheels for the first four years of production, then the enormously wide ones after that. Still only 15", though.

FML

Did battle with the Maestro today. With added jeopardy too, as the forecast said rain was coming. 
Like some kind of crazy madman, I even put our washing on the line - tempting and goading the weather gods. 
They backed down, which was good because @Cluffy had a window in his schedule to help fit my sky window. 
All the hard work is done on the cassette - slathered in paint and grease with a dash of epoxy where its rotted through. Even harder was going to the arse end of Preston to get it. 
It was listed for a Montego so I asked the nerd forum if they knew whether they were compatible. 'Yes, but the glass is different' was their sage advice. 
Turns out that's bollocks. The frame is very slightly different - there were a couple of prongs on the frame (presumably to help Len and Baz at the factory) so I ground out the welds and removed them. The glass is identical, which I thought it would be - the BL bean counters would have demanded £investment and tooling costs to be shared across LC8 and LC10. 
Anyway, with the frame in place and suitably sealed with much squidgy adhesive foam, I fiddled about getting the glass panel in. It's in although I need to fine-tune the fit. Main thing is that it's now weatherproof for the first time in years. 
Flushed with success*, I moved on to tackle the fluttery running I noticed when giving it some beans the other week. I'd bought a full complement of Lucas electrics: dizzy cap, rotor arm and HT leads. Partly because I'd read about @Wack 's trouble with caps and rotors, and partly because they were very cheap. I think Lucas is now a zombie brand and just a label on no-name parts, although the logo is pleasingly retro. 
However, like an ape I levered off the rotor arm not realising it's held to the shaft with a cap head bolt. That meant the shaft (or part of it) came with it. To be honest I would have struggled as it was seized on there pretty good and needed a tickle with the hammer to get off. But the weird thing is the shaft is just an interference fit inside the camshaft - there's no key, although there is a mark which is hard to align to. 
I did my best to line it up and sure enough it fired up fine, but I'm now suspicious the spark timing is not correct thanks to my ham-fisted mechanicing. Luckily I have a strobe so I'm able to check it at some point. But not sure how to adjust short of wrenching the inner shaft in the cam. (there is no adjustment on the dizzy). I may resort to the HBoL. 
 

So, after an unfortunate incident involving water entering into my Focus's engine, and killing it very well indeed, I'm faced with 3 options. 
1) - scrap the car 
2) - swap the engine
3) - do an "Autoshite rebuild" 
I initially said it's curtains, but now I've had time to reflect on the situation, I have decided that I am not going to give up on the car immediately, and give things a chance. 
What is an Autoshite rebuild you may ask? 
Well, it will be a cost effective engine rebuild. 
I have the tools, equipment and knowhow. The time? Not really, but I'll make something work.
This thread will be a diary keeping track of things. Don't expect regular updates, I'll be attacking it as and when I have time. 
Plans may change along the way, but I've opted to do an Autoshite rebuild.
Second hand parts will be used, items will be reused. If anything about this concept upsets you, this isn't going to be the thread for you I'm afraid. 😅 ,- It's a 17 year old Ford Focus, worth probably no more than £1500 as a going concern so I'm applying a very conservative £500 initial budget to include the consumables and service items along the way. Whether I buy another engine for spares and make a good one out of the two, or only buy the spares I need is to be decided. 
I'd really not want to buy a complete engine because you don't know how good it is, how long it would last, how well it's been looked after and, particularly important for a Duratec, how much of an oil burner it is. 
This kaput engine was absolutely perfect before this, so I'd like to retain everything that isn't broken, ideally. 
For those who are interested in the rebuild, great! But if nothing else, it will be a helpful place to write everything down so I can remember important details along the way...
Stage 1 - Diagnosis 
So, what was the damage? 
Ordinarily, I would whip the plugs out and whirl it over to remove as much water as possible. (After trying by hand at the crank pulley first, of course)
This is the first hurdle, the engine has locked up even with the plugs out. 
Upon further inspection, we have the following results. 




Hmmm, we've either got at least 2 extremely bent rods there, or broken ones..
Predictably, the engine is simply locked up despite having no water in the cylinders now. Shunting it in gear did free it off a bit but it then locked up again
What next? 
Stage 2 - Teardown, inspection and parts inventory to follow...
 

My partner's dad was looking for a new set of wheels, after selling his weird Suzuki Ignis 4x4 hatch thingamebob.
So what does a 6 foot tattooed 70+ year old man with a bald head and a big beard buy to potter about in? 

Yep that'll do it. Hairdresser jokes at the ready.