artdjones

Far be it from me to defend main dealers, but the ones to blame for all this are the manufacturers.
Margins on new cars are low. The manufacturers insist on the franchise having a huge glass showroom, they also change signage and point of sale graphics at their discretion, but the dealer has to pay for it.  Likewise with a complete set of special tools and diagnostic equipment, where the manufacturer sets the exorbitant price. If the car maker decides to can you, that's it, they can do it on a whim, with a very short notice period, leaving the dealership in hock to the eyeballs with no way to pay the loans off. They will remove the signage etc. that the dealer paid for very quickly. So you get £210+VAT labour rates, because it's only through parts and service that the company can make enough money to ensure that loss of the franchise won't result in immediate bankruptcy.
It seems to be a particularly UK/Ireland system of doing business. French, German, Spanish, and Italian dealers are much more modest in size. In France there's an unpretentious Citroen, Peugeot, or Renault dealer in every small town, sometimes more than one.

Far be it from me to defend main dealers, but the ones to blame for all this are the manufacturers.
Margins on new cars are low. The manufacturers insist on the franchise having a huge glass showroom, they also change signage and point of sale graphics at their discretion, but the dealer has to pay for it.  Likewise with a complete set of special tools and diagnostic equipment, where the manufacturer sets the exorbitant price. If the car maker decides to can you, that's it, they can do it on a whim, with a very short notice period, leaving the dealership in hock to the eyeballs with no way to pay the loans off. They will remove the signage etc. that the dealer paid for very quickly. So you get £210+VAT labour rates, because it's only through parts and service that the company can make enough money to ensure that loss of the franchise won't result in immediate bankruptcy.
It seems to be a particularly UK/Ireland system of doing business. French, German, Spanish, and Italian dealers are much more modest in size. In France there's an unpretentious Citroen, Peugeot, or Renault dealer in every small town, sometimes more than one.

Far be it from me to defend main dealers, but the ones to blame for all this are the manufacturers.
Margins on new cars are low. The manufacturers insist on the franchise having a huge glass showroom, they also change signage and point of sale graphics at their discretion, but the dealer has to pay for it.  Likewise with a complete set of special tools and diagnostic equipment, where the manufacturer sets the exorbitant price. If the car maker decides to can you, that's it, they can do it on a whim, with a very short notice period, leaving the dealership in hock to the eyeballs with no way to pay the loans off. They will remove the signage etc. that the dealer paid for very quickly. So you get £210+VAT labour rates, because it's only through parts and service that the company can make enough money to ensure that loss of the franchise won't result in immediate bankruptcy.
It seems to be a particularly UK/Ireland system of doing business. French, German, Spanish, and Italian dealers are much more modest in size. In France there's an unpretentious Citroen, Peugeot, or Renault dealer in every small town, sometimes more than one.

Far be it from me to defend main dealers, but the ones to blame for all this are the manufacturers.
Margins on new cars are low. The manufacturers insist on the franchise having a huge glass showroom, they also change signage and point of sale graphics at their discretion, but the dealer has to pay for it.  Likewise with a complete set of special tools and diagnostic equipment, where the manufacturer sets the exorbitant price. If the car maker decides to can you, that's it, they can do it on a whim, with a very short notice period, leaving the dealership in hock to the eyeballs with no way to pay the loans off. They will remove the signage etc. that the dealer paid for very quickly. So you get £210+VAT labour rates, because it's only through parts and service that the company can make enough money to ensure that loss of the franchise won't result in immediate bankruptcy.
It seems to be a particularly UK/Ireland system of doing business. French, German, Spanish, and Italian dealers are much more modest in size. In France there's an unpretentious Citroen, Peugeot, or Renault dealer in every small town, sometimes more than one.

Because you're from a certain demographic in Ireland who rules don't apply to? That rig must be right on the towing limit, or over.

I've never had my three parked side by side before. They have to park line astern on the drive and even then one of them has to be in the garage. 
Well I was doing a bit of shunting this morning and there is a space at the top of our Close for two cars that was empty, which is a rarity in itself. Plus the sun was shining and the leaves have just started coming out on the trees so I thought why not.

Like I say, parking for two cars, but when they are all quite small and all yours you can squeeze three in. Obviously you have to start from the left. If I'd put the Triumph in last I couldn't have got out of the car.

Also, how to make a Favorit look like a big car. Park them either side of a Triumph 1300.

'I'll have a 999 with a flake in it please'.

Horch P240 Sachsenring Repräsentant

The thing that seemed strange when I went in a family friend's 55 was the engine revs decreasing as the car continued accelerating.

Ideal employee from the US point of view :-
"I don't have a social life, that would be like stealing from the company."

Ideal employee from the US point of view :-
"I don't have a social life, that would be like stealing from the company."

You could still get the Variomatic for a long time on the 343. I drove one once, as it was lhd and had to be started on petrol, then switched over to lpg, so that particular car was an acquired taste. 

No point pussyfooting around it, I had to do one of the most unpleasant jobs on a BX today.
The steering rack boot - usually a fairly simple swap. Not so with a BX.
The power steering hydraulic ram is external to the steering rack, so ram eye-end attaches to the nearside rack arm via a protruding lug (shown after I installed the boot)

First things first, the old one was whipped off. The track rod end was left connected to the hub on each side, and simply unscrewed from the steering rack, to roughly retain the tracking settings.

The old rack boot had been fouling a bent handbrake cable bracket, and had also dislodged it at one end.

 
The new boot was thrown into a boiling kettle for a while, in an attempt to soften the boot and give a bit more elasticity. The kitchen drawers were raided for spare spoons, in an attempt to allow the boot to safely stretch over the lug without tearing it. 
This was a total arseache, compounded by the fact the BX is on the lowest point of the axle stands at the moment. Crawling underneath it every few minutes was a pain, especially with the pigtail hydraulic pipes running through the middle of the engine bay.
Through divine intervention, I eventually got it on after much swearing. The aftermarket boot was much bigger at one end than the 44mm either side, so a jubilee clip was utilised to evenly take the slack up.

The other side was a breeze by comparison, and within half an hour, the offside boot was replaced and the track rod ends reconnected. The nearside boot does touch the hydraulic ram, but it shouldn't cause any issues.
Pretty sure this concludes the jobs around the engine bay. I'm planning to take two days off work next week so I can try and put some graft in to get back on schedule for the target date.
Oh yeah, here are a few random spots I forgot to post from last week:



The Xantia was very bouncy on the road, suggesting the spheres are not having a good time.
Cheers!

They did pretty well in production car racing, as the categories were based on the car's on the road price so a  very cheap 1.5 was much faster than  other maker's weedy one litre economy cars.

There is also a similar 1986 Scania 112 bus for sale here now, but this one is in very good condition and has only done about 100,000km. 8000 pounds.



https://www.finn.no/b2b/bus/ad.html?finnkode=317390251

1968 Simca 1501 Coupe by Heuliez. Never made it into production.

They did pretty well in production car racing, as the categories were based on the car's on the road price so a  very cheap 1.5 was much faster than  other maker's weedy one litre economy cars.

You can buy them with housing or without. Most of the ones that are sold are 83°, fairly cool, which might explain why they dont warm up easily, but you can get an 87°item as well, which is what I did. I did notice from the fuel computer that having the engine warmed up enough to read three bars on the gauge made a noticeable difference to economy. 

I’m at the grand opening of World of Volvo in Gothenburg…

Bought a new toy and polished the car. Before and after door pics. Not bad for a first attempt. 

Another Update on the Civic!!
With this little dry warm spell of weather that is happening i decided to get a move on and use it to my advantage. The Drivers side was desperate to be repaired and i finally took the angle grinder to the rust and started cutting. 
Heres a Before photo just to give you an idea on the rust situation:

 
With this being the worst side, the whole sill needs to be replaced. which seems rather daunting as ive never done something like this before. Although using the skills ive picked up from the previous side it should be a challenge which will be worth well doing for the final outcome. Im probably going to have to Brace the car as im unsure if im going to have to cut out the area where the floor is spot welded to the bottom edge of the inner sill. If so ill weld in some pieces from the floor to the upper portion of the inner sill to give the floor some strength and if needed a  bar will be welded across the pillars just in case. 
But for now im currently just focusing on the rear section of the sill. I Ideally want to get the rear of the car welded first, then progress to the front of the car where the rest of the sill and jacking point need doing. The Rover 200 and 400 Owners Club are reproducing the Front Jacking point panels which will come in handy as the Civic and 400 are the same car. Saves me making it all myself. 

Like the otherside the backside of the sill was covered in that black underseal which i rubbed off using thinners and it came up pretty well again which is great!

Unfortunately the rust on this side goes from the rear arch to the front jacking point. So i intend on getting the  Rear Arch done once the rear sill section is complete. thankfully i have a rear inner closing panel and some metal left over from the other sides closing panel which i can modify and fabricate in order to fill in the rest of the inner arch as it will have the same profile.

Thankfully it doesn't look like it has gone too far up into the inner wheel arch. the worst of it is probably where the bumper bolts up into the arch. 
 

So i got an area cut open to inspect the rust, and thankfully the upper part of the inner sill isn't as bad as i thought after a good clean up with some thinners to reveal the original Coating of Primer. 
 

I opened it up a bit more to reveal more rust. and as you can  see the sill gets worse as you work your way to the front, and Rust has crept up between the Rear and Middle section join. Which resulted in me drilling the spotwelds out and peeling back that skin of metal to see how far it had spread in that join. If im going full on with this i may as well get rid of all the rust or it will just come back resulting in more repairs years on down the line. 

So i cut a bit more out to reveal the panel behind and thankfully the rust hadn't spread too far up that seam. As you can see this is where the floor starts to be spot welded to the sill. 
This seam will be all cleaned up and treated or replaced if needs be. it was also nice to see that the Floor Lip isnt rusty. 
 

The idea will be to get all the area prepared and cleaned up ready for welding. I still need to cut out the bit of rot on the inner arch where its welded to the back of the sill, Which can be shown on the photo below.

Once thats all cut out i will then Trim up the repair panel i have made for it. This side i messed up a bit with the measurements and its about 0.5mm too big so im going to have to cut it and trim it down so that the inner sill will sit flush with the inner sill not much of an issue but still kind of annoying. 
 

Here is the Panel i have trimmed up to put in Still needs some fettling and cutting down in some places with the finger sander so that its perfect. But i aim to get this all welded up in one piece rather than tonnes of little bits. I had to cut the lower bit of the inner sill due to my measurement cock up, 0.5mm will then be trimmed off the other piece to get the profile right. 
 

But for now that is where i am up to, hopefully tomorrow i can get some more progress done and perhaps even some welding if all is good!

Don't you like him😊?

Don't you like him😊?