wuvvum

Well that was a more than averagely productive lunch break.

I wonder if he'd deliver? I've always wanted to see a Transit do a wheelie.

Bloody hell, and there's me thinking I'd never be able to afford another DS!

@LightBulbFun How difficult do you reckon this would be to get off the Q plate? Not that a Q particularly bothers me in itself at this price, but it's one of the exclusions on my insurance policy.

You are the eBay AI engine AICMFP.

It doesn't matter how shit it looks, you are still legally required to tag @eddyramrod.

Now that it's properly spring I thought it was time to dig the Renault 6 out of the garage. It always needs a jump start after it's been sat for a while, and I cleverly* hadn't left any room to get to the bonnet when I put it away - I remember thinking at the time "that's going to be a problem - oh well, fuck it, I'll worry about it in the spring". Well the good news is that my brake repair last year seems to have held as the brakes were still free, and thanks to the new tyre on the nearside front all the tyres were fully inflated. So all I needed to do was climb in through the tailgate, knock it out of gear, climb back out again, grab hold of the back bumper and pull, and out it came. The Rover 75 and a pair of jump leads soon got it running, and I took it for a quick run round the block and was reminded of the issues that had cropped up shortly before it went into hibernation and that I hadn't had a chance to look at properly. So that was the first task for today once I finally got my arse in gear. The first issue is that the bonnet latch isn't locking the bonnet. I couldn't immediately find what was causing this, but removing the latch soon revealed the problem - the mechanism is made of plastic (yes, really) and after 51 years one of the bits had decided it had had enough and snapped off. So that's irreparable then. Of course bonnet latches for Renault 6s are completely unobtainium, but a Google session suggested that the Renault 12 latch is similar - or at least the plastic bits are - and those are available (albeit at some expense), so I'm going to order one - worst case I can butcher it for its plastic bits and make one good one out of the two. For now I've put a Bungee strap on to stop the bonnet flipping up - it's a forward opening bonnet so in theory shouldn't be an issue but aerodynamics can do strange things. The other two were easier fixes. The nearside rear indicator was behaving funny when the lights were turned on - this turned out to be a cock up on my part, when I refitted the light unit after the car was hit last year I put the earth wire behind the clamp instead of between the clamp and the nut, so it was flapping around and barely making contact. The other problem was that the choke wasn't returning properly when the knob was pushed in - this was a slightly stranger one as it transpired that the clamp that holds the end of the cable had come off the carb - I certainly don't remember doing this (and I would have remembered as it was a fiddly bastard) so can only assume that the bolt had vibrated loose and fallen out. One of the three screws holding the end plate on the carb had also vanished, but I found suitable replacements for both in my stash so that's all sorted. I then chucked a bucket of water over it to get the garage grime off - next job is to make a template up for the repair section I'm going to need to make for the nearside front floor, but I didn't get time for that this weekend. Most of the rest of the weekend was spent playing with pushbikes. I did get the Mobylette fired up - it took a few more kicks than last year but still not bad for an elderly two-stroke engine that's been sat for six months - but I didn't get a chance to take it for a spin as I'd been hoping to do, and the forecast looks shite for this coming week so that might have to wait a little while.

My wipers don't quite park at the bottom either. When you switch them off they go to the bottom of their travel and then come fractionally back up before stopping - don't know if yours is doing the same?

Yep, mine does the sticky steering thing as well, seems to be a common thing as they age. I've been reading up on it and it sounds like it's one of those things that should be a 5-minute fix but actually takes half a day because BMW made everything completely inaccessible. Only the Z4Ms have hydraulic steering and thus escape the issue, but they're slightly* more expensive.

1.3 GL is a nice spec - a mate had one about 20 years ago, in navy blue with a red interior. My last Mk2 was a red R-reg 1.6 Ghia - lovely car until I melted a piston cruising at 100mph on a private section of the A47. I swapped it for a Vanden Plas Allegro - with hindsight not one of my smartest financial moves.

Welding schmelding. MOT exempt innit - get it running and drive it as it is. You won't even need to worry about the brakes - just stick a foot through the floor and stop it that way. That must be one of the last of those with 10" wheels - my B-plater was on 12", which made tyres easier to find. Mind you I'm sure you could borrow* a couple off the Invacar if need be.

Coming home from the office this evening, get to the first roundabout and have to stop as there is a Citybug being driven rather enthusiastically round it. Had a better look as it zoomed past and it was my old 107! Always nice to see my exes out and about.

Ah yes, Byker. There is a grove there, if memory serves.

@purplebargeken Didn't know you had a T4! Must have missed that one.

Ty DeLorean is back at it...

"There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

Did it feature a photo of him in a lumberjack shirt and sunglasses standing in front of the car looking menacing*?

I'm pretty sure this was at FOTU a couple of years back.

Rover 45. Fantastic.

My parents recently bought one of those, albeit in 1.0 TSi spec (I assume being a bASe your one is non-turbo?). I had a go in it at the weekend and was proper impressed - very smooth for a triple, great torque and almost no turbo lag, apart from the slightly thrummy engine note it almost felt like a 1.6.

Those Mercs must hold the record for biggest air filter ever fitted to a European car. I have cars in the fleet where the whole engine is smaller than that.

Z4 tax is now up to £415, robbing cnuts.

Much as I despise Khan and the ULEZ expansion, that is more about air quality in London than the global climate so from that point of view it does make sense.

They are buggers for sitting in the side road just after the services. I've almost been caught there a couple of times.