jaypee

I had a very 'pressing on' impressive poster on my bedroom wall....
BMW 3coop, Sytner red/silver.... Slicks, coming over/dropping a neat curve WITH 3 tyres showing air!!
Never owned a beemer but DEFFO have felt 3 air gaps, when caning my 998 IMP 😎🔥
Ahhhh..... feel better for that 🚙💨

If it's not an Austin Maxi I'm going to have to ask you to give back your Cool Gang card. 

I'm a fairly sensible chap. I don't smoke, or drink to excess. I have a decent job, lovely house and the ability to get myself nice things if I want.
It has not always been that way. Whereas I am now just foolish, I was once young and foolish.
As most of you know when young and foolish, sensibility and practicality are not top of the agenda.
 
Instead, excitement and escapism are much more to the fore.
Exotic and unattainable things are desired. 
Core memories form - intrinsically linked to the object and the feeling it creates in you. Raw, visceral and undiminished by time.
Witness the ubiquitous Countach poster on the teenager's wall. An easily recognisable 1980s representation of the experience I describe.
But not for me. No. I lusted after something entirely different. On Friday 1st December I get to collect one of my bucket list cars.
Join me as I find out if you should never meet your heroes...

It went very well on the way home too despite the 40mph winds and driving rain, although the overdrive decided not to engage on the motorway despite working properly earlier.
Very comfy. Tremendous heating. On a winter's evening it's a very cosy place to be.
Drives lovely. Lots of grunt, I'd even call it lively.
No unusual noises. Sounds very snorty through the twin carbs. Lovely!
Rolls like a boat but feels planted and has endless grip. Steering is far quicker and better than expected despite being a steering box.
Brakes are absolutely fantastic despite being unassisted.
Gear change is slick. 
Feels like a Volvo.
I love it. ❤️

Let's go for a drive.

Plan B. I could have called it an alternate plan but I didn't.
The belt squeal was due to the alternator managing to walk the brackets out of the engine a tad and go out of alignment. Predictable?
I am using the wrong alternator on its wrong side.  But I'd rather make something work than spend the money because I'm miserable like that.
Here is alternator fitting kit 2.0.

Significantly beefier bracket / cradle and I lengthened the tensioner bar by welding two together.


That is significantly better, but it's still very difficult to set the correct tension. Normally you'd jam a crowbar in and then tighten the top bracket, but because there is a thin coolant pipe there I'm loathe to get in about it properly.
Here is the game changer. Turn the nut on the right to tension it up, then lock it down.

Squeak now you bastard, I dare you.

Random bits done.
Needed a new speedo cable as the non overdrive one won't reach the longer gearbox. Here's a comparison.

While under there I took a photo of the finished underside since I hadn't done it yet.

Went to refit the bonnet catch. Used a triumph release cable that was lying around but it didn't have a cable barrel stop on it. Made one out of an M6 connector nut with a hole drilled in it.

Probably stronger than the original.

None of the door locks really worked right, which was a straightforward remove, free up, grease and refit job. One of them needed the linkage adjusted slightly.

One of the rear passenger doors wouldn't shut at all and would just bounce off the catch. Turns out it was clipping the sill on the bottom. This only started after I welded the new sill on which made me think maybe I'd aligned things wrong, but looking at the panel gaps I noticed that the door was simply on squint. 
Not sure how this happened as there's no front to back adjustment on the hinges, but it's possible I damaged the hinges as I was removing the doors.
The only way to close up the gap is to remove material from the hinge itself.

That was a finger in the air guess but it worked perfectly. Door now snicks shut and the panel gaps are spot on.
Meanwhile @MrsJuular made some nice new door cards to replace the ones I melted. Those will look great on the car.

Windae washers. The car has the older style washer nozzles on the scuttle panel. Unfortunately I only had one nozzle.

I did however have one later style dual nozzle from the donor car. This goes in the bonnet after drilling a hole.



Skooshy.

The car didn't come with any mirrors (they were a dealer option in 1960s South Africa!) so I added some Lucas style ones.
Marked out and drilled.


Finally, I couldn't get the charging system working. I'm not sure whether it was the dynamo or the regulator but solving that particular problem is expensive and the end result still fairly shit.
I decided an alternator conversion was the way forward. @320touringkindly lent me a Lucas alternator from his spare engine so that I could make brackets and get it working before I shell out for a new one. This is a good choice of alternator as it's widespread and cheap while looking period.
I overcomplicated this in my head. It's not a big project. Here's the alternator next to a spare dynamo bracket to check fitment.

Solution : a couple of bits of angle iron bolted into the dynamo bracket.

A length of threaded bar on the rear mount.

On it goes. Used the original drive belt and bracket with a small extension on the bracket.

And that's it. Voltage regulator binned off, then the remaining two cables on the car's loom get shoved up the alternators bum.

That's better!
Enjoy some night shots of POWER.

What a dash at night.

So that's that for this round of 'things we do for shit cars'.
BX wouldn't start this morning. Here is what the inside of the glow plug relay looked like.

Of course there is a poster that was released to show what happens when you try to start an XUD without glow plugs.

Jump lead direct to glow plug circuit and we're away.

See you next time, misery lovers.

Excellent work dude!! 

Good to see @chaseracer sitting down on the job like a good Union Man.

That's a white rattle can away from being finished.

There's no point stringing out the collection journey and the car in question as it's going to be a minor point in the larger picture as you will soon see.
Poo count : 2, as the journey began in the afternoon.  However I predict bowel movements will be into three figures before I get the car home.
Breakfast the first : 

Mode of transport : Trafic Campervan

6.5 hours later:

900 MILE TRIP IN A 34 YEAR OLD BRAN FIND CITROWEN WILL IT RUN AND DRIVE HOME!?

Some oil for the Galaxy? Sounds like a fair trade... 

Some oil for the Galaxy? Sounds like a fair trade... 

Some oil for the Galaxy? Sounds like a fair trade... 

Cheers for flagging. Oil for the Clio and Oxford bought, plus some for @jaypee's galaxy.

Blue moon, you saw me standing alone

Without a dream in my heart

Without a love of my own

Blue moon you knew just what I was there for

You heard me saying a prayer for

Someone I really could care for

And then there suddenly appeared before me

The only one my arms will hold

I heard somebody whisper "Please adore me"

And when I looked, the moon had turned to gold



 
Lessons learned:
If you leave your car to get as manky as physically possible, people will queue up to wash it for you.
Veg oil stains are load bearing.
People will park next to a clean car. This maybe isn't a positive.
I can actually say my cars get washed once in a Blue Moon.  Blue supermoon: World gazes at rare lunar phenomenon - BBC News  
With thanks to @320touring @davehedgehog31 @davidfowler2000 @jaypee @Supernaut for a hilarious evening's activities, and teaching me what various harsh chemicals do.
 

Nothing much to report lately.
Been busy at work and post FotU I've not been majorly arsed.
Acclaim is in the garage, new fuel pump is located, just needs a power supply sourcing from the switched ignition side. Need to refill my gas bottle so I can weld up a new mount for the wipers.


Re torqued the Dolomite's cylinder head. Only two nuts were appreciably loose although one did managed over one revolution!
Ran it up to temp and it's seemingly no longer pressurising it's coolant. Massive exhaust leak though, one of the nuts/clamps for the exhaust manifold had simply vanished and another was spinning loose. Reinstalled but it still sounds like I'm running open headers, so will require some further fuckery.

Moved to the front of the driveway for ease of test driving...

And yes, before any of yous start, I have indeed put some rubber mats in it. 
 

 

 
No. This will not do. 
 
 

 

 

Use the one from your car. You're welcome 😊

Yaaaas! 

finally ! well done, sounds like you really enjoyed yourself - any plans to get a license and do it competitively ? 
 

**LONG POST ALERT**
After a year of trying and 4 previous attempts (Leaking caliper, clutch failure, slitting my thumb open and a power steering pump failure) I finally got the Clio 182 on a hillclimb!
I booked it on Tuesday but told no-one until yesterday. Mildly superstitious but it seemed to work.
A gentle tootle to the track got some decent MPG

I arrived early, and the weather was perfect*

That Anglia was amazing - an ST170 Lump and some fancy tuning..

The Clio was in some esteemed company - two true sports cars and an Elise!

After a safety briefing, I put my helmet on and hung about until the other competitors had made their way down to the start.
My thinking was to not mess up anyone's day on the first run, and take it as a steady sighting run - having never even walked the course.
Here is the first ever run. Traction control cutting in at the start and all!
 
 
According to my Racechrono app (no idea how accurate it is at all!) - the first run was a 1.10.93. That set a benchmark for Subsequent runs as it was at least a consistent distance being measured. I wasn't looking at the times on the runs, just using completed runs to see how I was progressing.
Picked up about 10secs over 4 runs. Reckoned that was all the easy stuff out the way😀 

I stopped for lunch now and gave the car a check over before going back out.
I was trying to get the confidence in the car and myself, but not be over confident. Later braking/harsher acceleration are where those 10secs have come from. There was more to be had but don't want to take too much!
Changing into first at the mid course hairpin, and being more aggressive on power and braking got an (ALLEGED) 55.1 run as per below.
 
You can hopefully see how i improved over the course of the day in this side by side video created by @Skizzer (cheers dude!)
 
 
Times were coming. I was now at the point where you think too much. I stopped again for a break.

Certainly getting more confident. Decided to quit at 1.45pm after 10runs.
 
Never pushed a car or myself that hard. Didn't want to overdo it, but that's 15.2secs (according to the app!) shaved off the time from first to fastest.
Hillclimbing is thirsty work!

Here's some of the cars that were taking part

this Mini decided to undo a tappet adjustment locknut and pop it into the top of the head. Luckily no damage done!

The run home got good MPG

 and , randomly, the oil light and stop light came on for about 300yards.. I was less than a mile from home so I just carried on driving🤣
Lights went out and it sounds ok.