Fabergé Greggs

Very minty it was too

Nice one man! An Amazon is top of the list of cars that I can’t afford but would gleefully spiral into bank loan oblivion for. They’re one of those cars that just seem so useable, and look great no matter what state they’re in.

@Jim Bellwhatever happened to the panda 4x4? I keep being tempted by them

£495

It's been a big day today: Bye bye Saab, I loved you to pieces 😭. Knowing it's going to a top shiter honestly makes all the difference though. Onwards with this little BranFind And this cute bum

Amazing! Don’t forget to drive it like this everywhere

Though I do love carbs, I’ve always been interested in experimenting with injection setups. Wouldn’t a Mini SPI setup be the natural choice or would you get better performance from a Peugeot throttle body?

Anyone heard from @purplebargekenrecently?

Bums. At several points of faff I wished I’d just replaced like for like, but I’m hoping this is a more reliable solution. Who knows, maybe even an extra horse or two. When are we doing the London ado16 cruise?

So where were we? Inlet manifolds for the Morris. One of the joys of a shared workshop is my neighbour has a collection of amazing stuff: a quick rummage revealed a Metro inlet manifold. This fitted great apart from the clamping depth being considerably thicker than my exhaust manifold. A careful bit of angle grinding got us closer to where we need to be: Before too long I had that all attached and clamped with some fresh nuts & gaskets. Next hurdle was that my exhaust front section was the same diameter as the clamping area manifold. Beep kindly sent me a section of exhaust but I ended up welding on a small 35mm sleeve to enable me to clamp it on. A lot of measuring and umming & ahhhing took place before just lining it all up by eye and going for it. Next hurdle: the clamp was impossible to fit without it fouling the exhaust mounting bracket. This meant chopping a bit out of the bracket. Only problem was, access was tight and I couldn't get the bracket off without first removing the freshly fitted manifold. Dayum. Manifold loosened, bracket off, reshaped, and everything fitted back gets us here: After all that fiddling, measuring and making I was rewarded by the rest of the exhaust going on without bother. It's all quite simple stuff but working under a car always feels a that bit more cumbersome and nasty. Whilst I was underneath I did notice that the driveshaft couplings seem to be eating themselves a little bit, visible if you look closely. I have been noticing some vibrations under load in certain conditions, so I'm wondering if some fresh couplings with roller bearings are in order such as these http://www.minispares.com/product/Classic/Drivetrain/CV Joints/QL5000.aspx?0801&ReturnUrl=/search/classic/QL5000.aspx|Back to search The eagle eyed of you will notice its all pretty oily under there. Obviously because British, but I think a fair deal of it was coming from the rocker gasket. I popped a fresh cork gasket on and it seems nice and dry now. Damn shame I didn't get all of this done in time for FOTU, but I did have a pleasant day of it being a car today: around 100 miles of joyful bimbling in rain and shine.

This looks ace, sorry not to get to catch up with everyone. Alas I only finished fixing the Morris about an hour ago..

Great work! Is it because it's 50cc that you don't need indicators etc? Speaking of which, is it still the 50 engine that you're running?

Oh a Porsche 924! Okay first things first. What's the spec? Sweet! Maybe I'm a people who require these types of cars. What's the next step? God that's so simple! I've been doing it wrong all these years.

No MOT but only £375. Could be a stinker, could be a suburban jewel.

Oooh I do love a scooter but I’m considerably short of Lambretta money

Oh man, so nice. One of the ways that I can tell that I’m maturing from reckless hooligan youth into weird old car guy is that I’ve really come to love a correct set of fresh tires on a car. Like really really LOVE

New manifold arrived for the Morris thanks to the tip-off from @BeEP so I set about the manly task of turning my borked manifold into an inlet. Much, much grinding ensued. Getting closer It was at this point that I thought, "hang on, this inlet is located on the studs by the exhaust part of the manifold, this ain't gonna work". I think I'm gonna need something like this that properly locates in the studs. I'm guessing I can do away with the water heating.

That's absolutely class. I wish it was a hatchback though. Did they ever do those? I'd like to put in a duractec in it or something and daily its little heart out.

It's always good seeing this come together. There's no two ways about it man, this car is gonna be FUN

Wow I didn't know the Montego came in A-series flavour! Now I NEED to see under the bonnet, there must be so much space!

Now where are we with the fleet? Having done everything to it, I sold the Vespa sprint and I'm backing using my much loved LML- it's just generally more stress-free leaving it about the place. I acquired this 1 litre beater as a suitable chariot for the learner driver of the household, but I've been loving it too! It's ridiculously upright and tiny and the most basic of base. Specs include: Electric mirrors And nothing else. Locking is manual on each door with a key FFS. Was that even still a thing in 2006? The reason it's so great is all that SPACE in something SO TINY Parking turns out to be something to look forward to it's so bloody tiny. It's got 3 cylinders totalling 950 or so cc, and yes of course it's objectively slow but it's also surprisingly willing- torquey and yet quite willing to rev. It's almost exotic sounding isn't it? Okay, almost. If you listen to start of that video you can hear the fuel pump. At various times it sounds like it's going to self destruct- I really need to change it before it self destructs somewhere on the motorway in the rain. The problem is I hate spending money in garages on modern cars and I hate working on modern cars and it's a tank out job. The 3 cylinder roar is pretty characterful, verging on rough when cold. I've lobbed some injector cleaner in and cleaned the MAF and it seems to be smoother after a bit of an Italian tune-up. I should probably clean the throttle body too but that looks ever so slightly more involved. Other niggles include the need to get a set of tires. The ones on these are all mismatched and I've become a right tire fusspot in my old age- I don't think they're doing anything to help the laughable handling. Hence the request for some wheels that would fit it in my wanted thread. It had a nasty wobble at 60-70mph before so I got the front set balanced which definitely improved things- the bloke said that it had a big dent in the front left rim that he hammered out. It's better but still there so maybe I need to get the rears balanced too or just get a new set. I'm off up to Scotland soon so I either need to do the drive in this (I'd happily do it if the wobble was fixed and fuel pump done), Morris (madness) or Saab, as a last hurrah before the ULEZ takes it forever.

This is tasty https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1359096#&gid=1&pid=3

Yeah there’s a U-clamp there which does seems to do a good job of keeping it steady- I had a look around for the proper clamp but couldn’t seen to find one. I’m loving your suggestion of sorting this with the above manifold- seems like it should be a much more robust connection.. what size of clamp would this new join need? Is it 1 3/8?

That’s some top advice as ever thanks- I’ve put in an offer on that manifold and can pass it on if it doesn’t work out. I did wonder if there’s an engine steady or something that I’m missing which is putting extra strain on the manifold joint- I need to research into the mounts etc.

Fixing the manifold lasted all of 20 mins, the blow was worse than ever. investigating further revealed that my clamp has taken a section of the bottom of the manifold with it.. I don’t think I was being too crazy with the clamp, as I was being cautious if anything. Anyway, new manifold time. Should I go crazy and get something tubular from a mini and escape this downpipe seal problem altogether?