chodweaver

They're quite the sod to get aligned - the Bowden cables control the vertical AND horizontal and are tricky to engage again if you've taken off the slam panel. Also the reflectors clip into the housing with ball and socket arrangements that pop off for fun at the limit of their travel. Then there's the beam correctors and their yellowing to keep on top of...

Ps In case I haven't communicated this sufficiently before: impressed and jealous in equal measure with your purchase, progress and ultimately, rescue of this beast. My only gripe with mine is that the four-pedal dance of a manual with that parking brake is a bit frantic for the nature of the rest of the car, and i want to know what an auto 2.1td goes like

Right, here's curiosity getting the better of me. While the headlights on BKJ are quite ok, as long as the plastic beam correctors are clear and the alignment is good, I'm very conscious of the arms race going on with modernz' headlights and that my ageing retinae are often challenged by the wall of LEDs and aesthetically pleasing* fulltime front foglamps that are so popular these days. So I'm curious as to how successful/legal the late Ray Noon's solution was. Tl:dr I'll take the old ones, please! Can you let me know what the postage will be?

So, you were obvs afeared that your reputation for having cojones like spacehoppers was on the slide, hence you took your XM's electrics apart... ...THE DAY BEFORE AN MOT???

What are you using on them? Not that I've done any alloy wheels, but strip discs of the sponge type on an angry grinder are my favourite atm for removing paint etc.

Yep. One for every car. But there's no amount columns in any of them, because i might accidentally select the whole column in Excel and then see the SUM bit at the bottom, and that would ruin my enjoyment* of having a small fleet of shitters. (I sometimes note the cost of parts in a Comments column, but only so i have a record of where i bought them and to see what i can expect to pay if they need replacing again later) I have the spreadsheets as it seems the easiest way of recording dates and mileages of oil and filter changes, tyre replacements etc. and as a record of repairs (or attempted repairs) which I'd likely forget all about otherwise. I'm also crap at keeping and organising paperwork, so this makes for a better service history that i can pass to subsequent owners, either on a memory stick or printed out.

There's also the distinct intolerance of Das Polizei for any modding of cars by cretinous chavs, as evidenced by the convoy of British yoofs that fell foul of the German rules of the road a couple of years ago. Meanwhile the UK traffic police are so underresourced, an untaxed, uninsured, barried Corsa with cut springs, bald tyres, illegal tints, inadvisable camber angles, unsilenced exhaust and decidedly non standard lighting can be driven around council estates at breakneck pace with impunity as long as they don't go near an ANPR camera. It's these end-of-life vehicles that represent a proportion of the problem, and the MOT is one of the checks and balances that get them sent over the bridge, when the cost of repair/rectification is too great for the potless owner. Giving the scrotes an extra year's grace period before they have to source another shitheap and start afresh is asking for trouble. #middleclasssnobbery

Another vote for Uniroyals. I Am So Envious

If it's appropriate to associate 'strategy' or indeed 'thinking' with the policy makers, I'm guessing with a biannual test and two years for advisories to turn into reasons for failure, they expect a rise in MOT failures with a verdict of 'uneconomic to repair' and yay! another modern can be cubed, and another driver is pushed towards the PCP market because they need a car and sharpish. As for the obviously longer periods that a vehicle may be unroadworthy, fuck it, we're only the plebs that drive or get hit by the deathtraps. The policy makers will be safe on their yachts. #commierant

This is almost the mantra of Club XM: "XMs thrive on being used" My experience has been that (almost) ALL cars thrive on being used, but what is important to stress here is that the worst thing you can do to an XM is to NOT use it. Just saying, like

I need that in my life, too

I think that's the exit shroud for the air vent at the boot

I see what you did there

Adventures in CANBUS The Voyager has again performed van duties admirably, by swallowing a 1.7m bath, toilet, washbasin, electric shower and 20m² of wall tiles at BandQ and conveying them home ready for a new bathroom. I tried to reward it and me by attending to the tailgate release switch that didn't. It's a sod to get this out of the tailgate, and then when i put a meter on it, the switch contacts were fine. Yet if i measured between the chassis earth and the switch, it showed 12ohms resistance. Eh?... Oooohhhh. This'll be a modern though, won't it, with some of that hateful CANBUS witchcraft. Ok, I'll leave the wiring (obvs including some sort of resistor) the fuck alone, clean the white grease out of the switch and regrease with some conductive switch grease instead, before reassembling. Now works as it should, and used to. Pointless task #2 then presented itself: the wipers on this are embarrassingly rusty. Cue some frenzied scraping, sanding, daubing with rust converter and, a little later, spray painting. Sort of an experiment this: I'd like to know how long a simple derust, treat and paint will last. Being on the wipers, I'll see it on a regular basis so i can monitor for the inevitable return of the worm.

I'm a bit picky about car tube content. Bad Chad obvs is talented, but there's still too little actual doing of stuff. Fitzee's fabrication is better. Tavarish showed promise but i got bored with supercars and him farming most work out to people who knew what they were doing, and then did their stuff off camera. Edd is the exception with the workshop diaries. Yes, i will happily watch him drill out recalcitrant snapped off studs, or Paul blasting two V12 heads clean, even if they are going into an effing coffee table. Viewer's questions is a bit lame though, but sometimes opens up an interesting subject. China does know his stuff and explains any theory well, and demonstrates better.