dave21478

This scene was my entire fucking life back then. I had all the magazines, traveled the length of the country to go to all the big shows, was a regular at the local cruises, spaffed every single spare penny I had and later a fucking fortune I didnt have thanks to credit on hot mods and tunez, gave myself tinnitus from the bass and/or exhaust noises, I was a fucking master of handbrake turns outside Mcdonalds and the trafficlight drag race.
Its what made me the person I am today (a loser? yeah, probably) I started out as a total benny with zero mechanical skills, zero tools and zero knowledge and just got stuck in and taught myself. Scrapyard upgrades were the cheapest way to start....cars were like Lego back then and it was all just bolt-off and bolt-on to upgrade brakes, suspension, trim, even engine stuff. The breakers were full of plenty crashed cars to choose from....you could stroll into Persley Quarry and pick up a set of Recaros from an RS Turbo for twenty quid. An afternoon of fucking about with dads power drill and some big penny washers from B&Q soon had them bolted into my Mini which was one of the first proper mods I ever did....and that was me properly bitten by the modifying bug and it wasnt all that much later before I was swapping engines and fitting lowering kits to every car I owned.
 
 
 
I have lost so many photos over the years....fuck knows where all the old print photos have gone from the early stuff....The Minis....RC40s, HiLos, MG Metro engines, the entire back seat area boxed off with MDF and rocking 2x 18 inch subs and enough amps to stall the motor when the bass kicked. the Orions....RS kits, XR3 wheels, 6x9s, The Corsas....Koni, Janspeed, all the good stuff....
I have lost loads of digital pics too from computer deaths.
 
The Calibra was a regular at Billing and Doncaster shows.

convoy down the night before showday and sleep in the cars...

The astra took over when the Cally died
redtop forever...

Well, until you replace it with a V6

early arrival at another showground

and I have hundreds of pics like these but I wont bore you all with them....


 
I am a forty year old fat man now and the only way I could get some girly to bend over my bonnet and show her pants would be to pay a hooker, I would imagine.
I still find myself occasionally looking up under-car neons or drainpipe exhausts on ebay every now and then. I am seriously tempted to Barry the Metro to the fullest of my abilities....still got a massive pile of subs and amps and stuff in the garage....a few months back I sacrificed the rear footwell of the pickup to fit a sub box and amplifier so now I can once again make the mirrors vibrate so much you cant see anything in them with my Ministry Of Sound albums.
 
fuck, the late 90s and early 00s were the peak and life has been shit ever since. Now I am sad again.
 
 

Yyyyeaah.....you know that knobber that was going round and round and round and round the carpark "drifting" his Nova with Mcdonalds plastic trays under the back wheels while Robert Miles blasted out of the boot install loud enough to hurt, with a couple of tipsy 5th year schoolgirls in the back seat?
 
That was me. 
Sorry.

Piloted the rickman alongside fil in his red melos to aylesford priory car show today... ahh the days of cold starts with lil choke..

been to Shildon today for a classic show.
 
took Marvin and Cocopop. no black mini 1000 as that is in disgrace. last week on a run over to Malton we had too stop and let it cool down as it brewed up, and once back in Pickering i found an oilly deposit all round the n/s back wheel. 
 
now, there isn't any oil in the back hub, BUT there is grease, so, it seems that we've blown a wheel bearing, and given how the hubcap was scalding hot to the touch, i think as the bearings failed its melted all the grease, that has then squirted out of the dust cap and then all over the wheel.
 
so, i've got a new radiator (off Kerry for my upcoming birthday, i really wanted another tot train, but the rad will be more useful) and i've got a pair of back wheel bearings to fit at some point. until then though, the balck mini will be stopping where it is, so that it can think about its attitude.
 
so with that one not playing nicely, we had to manage with these two instead.





 
we also saw these

































 
and been a train museum we saw these too
 

There seems to be a bit of love for these little old Fiats on here so here goes.
 
In June of this year, 3 Pandas set off from the UK (1 french registered Brit) and drove 1000 miles to just east of Milan, Italy to attend a 1 day Panda event. 365 cars was the official number. We saw number plates from Italy, Austria, France, Holland, Switzerland and San Marino. 
 
The cars ranged from the very earliest 1980 Panda 30 (2 cylinder air cooled Fiat 126 engine), through all the years right upto the very latest mk3/4 cars. Fiat turned out with a load of brand new Pandas and journalists from various places (including the UK). Highlights for me were about 5 or 6 early 30's and a single Italia 90 special edition with the original soft toys, awesome! There was also a guy with a 750 Panda on LPG towing a bloody caravan!
 
The whole town just shut down for the day, all the roads were closed so we could have a huge convoy. The locals were amazing, waving and generally being super enthusiastic. The bars in the town put on special measures to cope (but certainly didn't hike their prices). When the mayor of Pandino heard some brits had driven to her town she demanded to be introduced to us, gave us her business card and generally just made us super welcome.
 
My little car, a 94 1000CLX didn't miss a beat. We managed 2700 miles in total after we left the rest of the team and continued on a holiday over the Stelvio Pass and into Austria. The car was unbelievably comfortable, consistently returned over 50mpg and was great fun to drive. It was a truely fantastic experience. The Italians were so unbelievably friendly and treated us brits like lost long relatives. 
 
The event was held in the town of Pandino. The story goes that in 2017, somebody posted a random comment on Facebook saying they were going to drive their Panda to Pandino and did anyone want to join them. Something like 150 cars turned up outside the historic castle in the town. Crazy! 
 
A very small selection of the photos I took. Can't wait for 2019! Hope you enjoy.

Surely there should still be some in scrapyards?
 
Newer ones are available cheap enough....
https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/Direction-Assist-e-Capteur-De-Pression-D-huile-Pour-Mondeo-Mk4-S-max-Galaxy-FORD-MONDEO/32858261776.html
but the wiring loom plug is different, so you could always just change the loom plug?
 
iirc all they do is raise the idle speed a little on full lock, so not massively important....if you have a non working spare you could plug the inlet hole up with chemical metal and screw it in as a planking plug until you get a replacement.

Its fucked - need a new one.
 
[bodge] figure out if the switch is normally-open or normally-closed when in use and either leave unplugged or bridge the loom plug with a little bit of wire as appropriate[/bodge]

Sadly this is why folk (me included) buy and use cheap Chinese shit that lasts a few years. Yes a Warn is the bollocks, but who has a grand and a half for one?
 
Your best bet is going to be ebaying it or try some of the its gripped, its sorted, its locked offroad forums.

good car worth keeping? fix it properly
 
shitter to run for a while and then get rid? k-seal away.

Surely there should still be some in scrapyards?
 
Newer ones are available cheap enough....
https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/Direction-Assist-e-Capteur-De-Pression-D-huile-Pour-Mondeo-Mk4-S-max-Galaxy-FORD-MONDEO/32858261776.html
but the wiring loom plug is different, so you could always just change the loom plug?
 
iirc all they do is raise the idle speed a little on full lock, so not massively important....if you have a non working spare you could plug the inlet hole up with chemical metal and screw it in as a planking plug until you get a replacement.

Its fucked - need a new one.
 
[bodge] figure out if the switch is normally-open or normally-closed when in use and either leave unplugged or bridge the loom plug with a little bit of wire as appropriate[/bodge]

I worked in the same office as Max Power just before it was killed off. My claim to Max fame is they borrowed my V8 Series 2 Land Rover for a photoshoot on dogging in Peterborough. 
 
I did go to the closing party, it was very boozy with lots of boobs.

Found this at work whilst aimlessly browsing the web, a typical 90s Max Power scene and style:
 

This scene was my entire fucking life back then. I had all the magazines, traveled the length of the country to go to all the big shows, was a regular at the local cruises, spaffed every single spare penny I had and later a fucking fortune I didnt have thanks to credit on hot mods and tunez, gave myself tinnitus from the bass and/or exhaust noises, I was a fucking master of handbrake turns outside Mcdonalds and the trafficlight drag race.
Its what made me the person I am today (a loser? yeah, probably) I started out as a total benny with zero mechanical skills, zero tools and zero knowledge and just got stuck in and taught myself. Scrapyard upgrades were the cheapest way to start....cars were like Lego back then and it was all just bolt-off and bolt-on to upgrade brakes, suspension, trim, even engine stuff. The breakers were full of plenty crashed cars to choose from....you could stroll into Persley Quarry and pick up a set of Recaros from an RS Turbo for twenty quid. An afternoon of fucking about with dads power drill and some big penny washers from B&Q soon had them bolted into my Mini which was one of the first proper mods I ever did....and that was me properly bitten by the modifying bug and it wasnt all that much later before I was swapping engines and fitting lowering kits to every car I owned.
 
 
 
I have lost so many photos over the years....fuck knows where all the old print photos have gone from the early stuff....The Minis....RC40s, HiLos, MG Metro engines, the entire back seat area boxed off with MDF and rocking 2x 18 inch subs and enough amps to stall the motor when the bass kicked. the Orions....RS kits, XR3 wheels, 6x9s, The Corsas....Koni, Janspeed, all the good stuff....
I have lost loads of digital pics too from computer deaths.
 
The Calibra was a regular at Billing and Doncaster shows.

convoy down the night before showday and sleep in the cars...

The astra took over when the Cally died
redtop forever...

Well, until you replace it with a V6

early arrival at another showground

and I have hundreds of pics like these but I wont bore you all with them....


 
I am a forty year old fat man now and the only way I could get some girly to bend over my bonnet and show her pants would be to pay a hooker, I would imagine.
I still find myself occasionally looking up under-car neons or drainpipe exhausts on ebay every now and then. I am seriously tempted to Barry the Metro to the fullest of my abilities....still got a massive pile of subs and amps and stuff in the garage....a few months back I sacrificed the rear footwell of the pickup to fit a sub box and amplifier so now I can once again make the mirrors vibrate so much you cant see anything in them with my Ministry Of Sound albums.
 
fuck, the late 90s and early 00s were the peak and life has been shit ever since. Now I am sad again.
 
 

Holy fuckin....
I....
I just cant even right now.....
 
fuggin scorcher of a day today - ideal weather to spend 11 hours swinging a strimmer around. Not.
 
So, parched, itching all over, absolutely hosed in debris, plant matter, nettle stings and smeared with splattered slug, pine needles down the crack of my ass and generally sweating and smelling like a freshly poked minge I was glad of the aircon on the drive home. Anticipating a nice long bath and a bottle of raspberry cider I pulled up at the house and hit the button for the gates...(electric gates, see? proper posh, I am.) The gates swing open...outwards by the way... and I reverse the truck in.
 
"POP".
 
The fuck was that?
 
my last grump was partly about waiting for a fucking courier to not turn up....
yeah.........
He had delivered it today, although when I say "delivered" he had flung it over the gate and I have now just reversed the bastard truck over the parcel.
Was it a bag full of super hard rubber bouncy balls? No. Obviously not. Was it a lump of solid steel, like a little anvil or something? nope, not that either.
It was two 2 litre bottles of gear oil for the limited slip diff in the trucks rear axle, which given the difficulty in finding and price paid I can only assume is refined from velociraptor jizz.
 
This just confirms my suspicions that my entire life is some kind of cruel and ongoing Beadles About style of prank that is being covertly filmed for the amusement of others on a Japanese tv show.

Yyyyeaah.....you know that knobber that was going round and round and round and round the carpark "drifting" his Nova with Mcdonalds plastic trays under the back wheels while Robert Miles blasted out of the boot install loud enough to hurt, with a couple of tipsy 5th year schoolgirls in the back seat?
 
That was me. 
Sorry.

This scene was my entire fucking life back then. I had all the magazines, traveled the length of the country to go to all the big shows, was a regular at the local cruises, spaffed every single spare penny I had and later a fucking fortune I didnt have thanks to credit on hot mods and tunez, gave myself tinnitus from the bass and/or exhaust noises, I was a fucking master of handbrake turns outside Mcdonalds and the trafficlight drag race.
Its what made me the person I am today (a loser? yeah, probably) I started out as a total benny with zero mechanical skills, zero tools and zero knowledge and just got stuck in and taught myself. Scrapyard upgrades were the cheapest way to start....cars were like Lego back then and it was all just bolt-off and bolt-on to upgrade brakes, suspension, trim, even engine stuff. The breakers were full of plenty crashed cars to choose from....you could stroll into Persley Quarry and pick up a set of Recaros from an RS Turbo for twenty quid. An afternoon of fucking about with dads power drill and some big penny washers from B&Q soon had them bolted into my Mini which was one of the first proper mods I ever did....and that was me properly bitten by the modifying bug and it wasnt all that much later before I was swapping engines and fitting lowering kits to every car I owned.
 
 
 
I have lost so many photos over the years....fuck knows where all the old print photos have gone from the early stuff....The Minis....RC40s, HiLos, MG Metro engines, the entire back seat area boxed off with MDF and rocking 2x 18 inch subs and enough amps to stall the motor when the bass kicked. the Orions....RS kits, XR3 wheels, 6x9s, The Corsas....Koni, Janspeed, all the good stuff....
I have lost loads of digital pics too from computer deaths.
 
The Calibra was a regular at Billing and Doncaster shows.

convoy down the night before showday and sleep in the cars...

The astra took over when the Cally died
redtop forever...

Well, until you replace it with a V6

early arrival at another showground

and I have hundreds of pics like these but I wont bore you all with them....


 
I am a forty year old fat man now and the only way I could get some girly to bend over my bonnet and show her pants would be to pay a hooker, I would imagine.
I still find myself occasionally looking up under-car neons or drainpipe exhausts on ebay every now and then. I am seriously tempted to Barry the Metro to the fullest of my abilities....still got a massive pile of subs and amps and stuff in the garage....a few months back I sacrificed the rear footwell of the pickup to fit a sub box and amplifier so now I can once again make the mirrors vibrate so much you cant see anything in them with my Ministry Of Sound albums.
 
fuck, the late 90s and early 00s were the peak and life has been shit ever since. Now I am sad again.
 
 

Its all fun and games until the learner stalls it and it wont restart because hot start issue, or they stall it twice in a row and flood the bastard. Pulling the fuel pump relay and cranking till it clears the rotors isnt the ideal thing to be done at a busy junction - especially if its a tricky one that needs a tow-start afterwards.

Re the RX8 - will be good to learn clutch control in, even more so if the compressions are down and the engine is warmed up; they'll stall it it traffic once but probably only the once.

This scene was my entire fucking life back then. I had all the magazines, traveled the length of the country to go to all the big shows, was a regular at the local cruises, spaffed every single spare penny I had and later a fucking fortune I didnt have thanks to credit on hot mods and tunez, gave myself tinnitus from the bass and/or exhaust noises, I was a fucking master of handbrake turns outside Mcdonalds and the trafficlight drag race.
Its what made me the person I am today (a loser? yeah, probably) I started out as a total benny with zero mechanical skills, zero tools and zero knowledge and just got stuck in and taught myself. Scrapyard upgrades were the cheapest way to start....cars were like Lego back then and it was all just bolt-off and bolt-on to upgrade brakes, suspension, trim, even engine stuff. The breakers were full of plenty crashed cars to choose from....you could stroll into Persley Quarry and pick up a set of Recaros from an RS Turbo for twenty quid. An afternoon of fucking about with dads power drill and some big penny washers from B&Q soon had them bolted into my Mini which was one of the first proper mods I ever did....and that was me properly bitten by the modifying bug and it wasnt all that much later before I was swapping engines and fitting lowering kits to every car I owned.
 
 
 
I have lost so many photos over the years....fuck knows where all the old print photos have gone from the early stuff....The Minis....RC40s, HiLos, MG Metro engines, the entire back seat area boxed off with MDF and rocking 2x 18 inch subs and enough amps to stall the motor when the bass kicked. the Orions....RS kits, XR3 wheels, 6x9s, The Corsas....Koni, Janspeed, all the good stuff....
I have lost loads of digital pics too from computer deaths.
 
The Calibra was a regular at Billing and Doncaster shows.

convoy down the night before showday and sleep in the cars...

The astra took over when the Cally died
redtop forever...

Well, until you replace it with a V6

early arrival at another showground

and I have hundreds of pics like these but I wont bore you all with them....


 
I am a forty year old fat man now and the only way I could get some girly to bend over my bonnet and show her pants would be to pay a hooker, I would imagine.
I still find myself occasionally looking up under-car neons or drainpipe exhausts on ebay every now and then. I am seriously tempted to Barry the Metro to the fullest of my abilities....still got a massive pile of subs and amps and stuff in the garage....a few months back I sacrificed the rear footwell of the pickup to fit a sub box and amplifier so now I can once again make the mirrors vibrate so much you cant see anything in them with my Ministry Of Sound albums.
 
fuck, the late 90s and early 00s were the peak and life has been shit ever since. Now I am sad again.
 
 

We're having a brew before we set off.

Holy fuckin....
I....
I just cant even right now.....
 
fuggin scorcher of a day today - ideal weather to spend 11 hours swinging a strimmer around. Not.
 
So, parched, itching all over, absolutely hosed in debris, plant matter, nettle stings and smeared with splattered slug, pine needles down the crack of my ass and generally sweating and smelling like a freshly poked minge I was glad of the aircon on the drive home. Anticipating a nice long bath and a bottle of raspberry cider I pulled up at the house and hit the button for the gates...(electric gates, see? proper posh, I am.) The gates swing open...outwards by the way... and I reverse the truck in.
 
"POP".
 
The fuck was that?
 
my last grump was partly about waiting for a fucking courier to not turn up....
yeah.........
He had delivered it today, although when I say "delivered" he had flung it over the gate and I have now just reversed the bastard truck over the parcel.
Was it a bag full of super hard rubber bouncy balls? No. Obviously not. Was it a lump of solid steel, like a little anvil or something? nope, not that either.
It was two 2 litre bottles of gear oil for the limited slip diff in the trucks rear axle, which given the difficulty in finding and price paid I can only assume is refined from velociraptor jizz.
 
This just confirms my suspicions that my entire life is some kind of cruel and ongoing Beadles About style of prank that is being covertly filmed for the amusement of others on a Japanese tv show.

Holy fuckin....
I....
I just cant even right now.....
 
fuggin scorcher of a day today - ideal weather to spend 11 hours swinging a strimmer around. Not.
 
So, parched, itching all over, absolutely hosed in debris, plant matter, nettle stings and smeared with splattered slug, pine needles down the crack of my ass and generally sweating and smelling like a freshly poked minge I was glad of the aircon on the drive home. Anticipating a nice long bath and a bottle of raspberry cider I pulled up at the house and hit the button for the gates...(electric gates, see? proper posh, I am.) The gates swing open...outwards by the way... and I reverse the truck in.
 
"POP".
 
The fuck was that?
 
my last grump was partly about waiting for a fucking courier to not turn up....
yeah.........
He had delivered it today, although when I say "delivered" he had flung it over the gate and I have now just reversed the bastard truck over the parcel.
Was it a bag full of super hard rubber bouncy balls? No. Obviously not. Was it a lump of solid steel, like a little anvil or something? nope, not that either.
It was two 2 litre bottles of gear oil for the limited slip diff in the trucks rear axle, which given the difficulty in finding and price paid I can only assume is refined from velociraptor jizz.
 
This just confirms my suspicions that my entire life is some kind of cruel and ongoing Beadles About style of prank that is being covertly filmed for the amusement of others on a Japanese tv show.

Being done over by facebook seller selling me drl focus in working condition even though control module and other wiring missing rendering just low/high beam units, then blocking i decided to split the units and make my own...
 
To consul myself i treated myself to new multitool for 25 sheckals

Its taken me about two years to persuade the couriers to put stuff over the gate otherwise I would never get most of the stuff I order.
 
Its entirely my own fault for not seeing it...its not exactly a small box. Well, it wasnt before I flattened it, anyway.