Sir Snipes

I think the mounts are different but they're broadly similar. 

Also, has @LightBulbFun had an early night?  15 minutes since you posted an Invacar and he hasn't liked it yet.

might have to buy a ticket for the Euromillions tonight.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rover-75-connoisseur/224133223185?hash=item342f619311:g:txYAAOSw5F9fLp31

Thanks guys. That's the kind of positive reinforcement my ego craves. As a reward, here are two more from yesterday
This A-reg Sherpley is particularly appealing and just the sort of thing I'd drive round in in my fantasy world scenario of having a small private income and doing house clearances 'just for fun'. Annoyingly I saw another one this morning, on the move, an ex-BT van in yellow, but my phone had run out of battery so no pic

This Jag was just round the corner, more or less. A proper old shed, and rougher than it looks here. Note Withnail-spec wiper set up. I know of Mks I and III XJ6s nearby, too, which will be getting snapped in due course

As you may have read elsewhere the purchase of a cheap DS fell through.
So I've done something equally as daft and bought a slightly broken C6.

It has a charging issue, but it made the trip home. Just.
I'm hoping fixing the charge issue will rectify all the faults that pinged up on the screen on the way home.


More tales of woe to come...

https://www.autoscout24.com/offers/toyota-corona-liftback-tt132-gasoline-blue-826535ab-4289-2a02-e053-0100007f9843?cldtidx=3&cldtsrc=listPage

Caldina (not, repeat not, Carina) 4x4 Barn Find.  £395.  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Toyota-Caldina-Auto-Estate-NOT-Celica-Carina/333692850958?hash=item4db1a4d30e:g:gPUAAOSwA7de05TI 

So, now the Chieftain seems to be coming together when are you going back to the Renault? 
I fear the Ponti may have softened you. You may have gotten use to fixing a car and having it work without something else, completely unrelated, immediately breaking. 

Dangly mirror 1.3 going through ACA:

https://angliacarauctions.co.uk/classic/sat-22nd-sun-23rd-august/ford-sierra-4-door-saloon-1300-cc/

Other early 90s Japanese cars you never see any more:

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1465586833638927/

Just reading your sig
 
Do what this guy did , register on facebook with the username Customer Support and start replying to the complaints on manufacturers threads
https://www.boredpanda.com/customer-support-guy-different-companies-logos-facebook-profile/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic



 
 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Suzuki-LJ80/124303677830?hash=item1cf1139986:g:VMwAAOSwvDJfFJkc

£800:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Volvo-244-240-flat-bonnet-glt-restoration-drift-car/154047936618?hash=item23ddf8f86a:g:f1gAAOSwBNRfORTJ

Best have another update.
Some bending rolls. These can only do 1/8th plate and they are a little old and worn but even rather old bending rolls sell for lots of money. As soon as they get big enough to earn their keep the prices get silly.

So, you take your rolls and you wrestle with a 3m sheet of 18 swg steel and you end up with this.

Which is the start of the boiler cladding. This is one of the more irritating jobs because it is very visible and easy to make a mess of. It is in two parts - one above the footplate and a smaller one below. Here is the beginnings of the top bit. The holes that are cut in it are just the pilot holes trying to locate the centre of each of the boiler fittings. The idea is to get theholes in the cladding as tight as possible to each fitting so the thing isn't littered with closing plates and other things you need to fit when you have made a not very good job of it. Under the cladding sits about an inch of ceramic fibre blanket. This is effective enough to keep the temperatures in the cab down to "unbearable".

These are the start of the brake arms. They will weld to the bosses on the brake shafts and a yoke is formed at the other end to take the brake rod and adjuster. Water jet cutting really is the business. When we did the last one we were having to flame cut all of this which was slower, more expensive and the things took a lot of finishing. The straight arm with a square cut out the end is the start of the grate lowering lever. This lets you stand back a bit when you drop the fire. A bit.

We've had  few pictures of these already but here is the rear drum again. This time everything is hammered up hard, the bearings are glued in and the wheel studs are on. 10 metres of drive chain has been ordered.

Fitted, glued and tighted. Modern adhesives are splendid things indeed.

Hallelujah! The front springs turned up for the fourth time and this time they were right! Wheel studs fitted and glued. It was about to get the axle final fitted when this was taken.

Don't worry, it's oak so it is plenty strong enough. When they converted to pneumatics you needed to put a big metal spacer between the front axle and the spring to get a bit more clearance under the footplate. This one is just temporary because it needs to be sitting on all fours with some weight on the rear springs to know where to set the front height. This means that everything sits level. Once the spacer thickness is set then the proper bolts for holding the axle on can be made.

Tightening the front hubs onto their tapers takes the biggest impact gun you have. In this case you need a 3" AF socket which we didn't have. Kennedy will sell you a new impact socket for the scarcely believable price of £27.00 including VAT and delivery. It is a very big socket. For scale those are  big spanners next to it. You'll also make out 3" stamped on the side. When this arrived it was possible to hammer the front axles up for the final time.

A while back I started on the water tank which didn't go very far. It then dawned that the water tank was going to become important soon so I thought I'd better have another go. Sadly this involves trying to form 14SWG sheet by hand which takes quite a lot of sweat. Here is one of the tank ends making progress. I folded the curves on the straight sections in the folder and then beat the living daylights out of 14 gauge sheet untill they started to look like the curved sections it needed. Then I gas welded them in. Sheet as thick as this is a pain to work but lovely to gas weld. The big hole is so you can get inside to clean them out or if you are making them, to put the rivets in.

Originally the ends were pressed which wasn't really an option on our budget so we need to fabricate them. All welds are butts. Once the tank is assembled and rivetted it goes off for galvanising so I don't have the option of hiding things under filler and paint. These wleds aren't dressed out yet - there are still a few places where the whole job can turn to shit and it will need to be thrown away to start again. I didn't want to spend too long making one weld look just dandy only for it to look good in the scrap pile. One of the worst things about this job is knowing that when this one is done there is an identical one to make for the other end.

The small corners are harder to make than the large ones. Again, the weld hasn't been fettled yet so it looks more gash than I would like it to. Proper gas welders would also point out that my hands are probably better suited to being a shaker boy in a cocktail lounge. The end is held in place with 5/16" rivets put in at 1.25" centres. There are a lot of them. The curve looks flat in this picture. It isn't, I promise.

This is the start of the second small corner. Take a piece of steel and attack it with a ball pein hammer until it starts to stretch into something like the shape you want.

Two curves for the price of one. The thing is that when you watch the pros doing this they make it look easy because they are almost always working in something that is car body thickness. By the time things get this thick you need to hit it really hard. The blocking mallet in the photo doesn't really cut it.

What else? Here is the brake shoes being fitted up for the last time ready for the hub and drum to go on for the final time.

Oh yeah, this was the other important step forwards. Here is the front end sitting on its wheels for the first time. Those are the rear wheels that it is sitting on  - the front wheels have fewer holes in them. Another four tyres are on order so it will be on its rear wheels soon.

You can probably start to appreciate what a really bad design the front axle is on these things.

We needed to get wheels on the front so the props could be shifted out the way. This lets us start running copper pipes which join the hot and/or wet bits together. This is why the water tank became a bit more important - it won't be too long before we can put some heat on the boiler.
 
 
 

Can someone please explain the US sealed-beam-headlamp law that made European manufactures to "Federalize" their cars? I understand the US-Bumper, that was done for the low mile impact test, but I can't understand the headlight story. Cheers. 
 

Just deleted my twitter account. Full of bile that I do not need.

I keep threatening to get rid of mine but almost six years later it is still my daily

Pointless SUVs in awful colours unite!

Phwoar.... Not cheap mind

Still, Luther says it's "Never too much"

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RENAULT-5-MK1-GORDINI-1981/124298392418?hash=item1cf0c2f362:g:ve8AAOSwguZfGS45

Anyway, I'm not sure I can articulate why, but this early beige on beige plus jesus fish S80 is doing it for me this morning. £595.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/2984434775011667/

This must be up there with the metallic pink Civic on trims that my dad had when I was about 13 as least glamorous coupe ever made. £400, mind. 


https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/648555445868723/

I remember when the Quattro Audi A4s were dominating the British Touring Cars back in the late 90s the 4 wheel engine braking was one of the things that was apparently giving them such an advantage. 

I remember when the Quattro Audi A4s were dominating the British Touring Cars back in the late 90s the 4 wheel engine braking was one of the things that was apparently giving them such an advantage. 

It’s had a significant amount of Italian tune ups since purchase!