Landy Mann

Always loved a Woody. 
 
Now some of you, who, like me, love words, will know that the word has multiple meanings. 
 
Including in no specific order: erection, place with trees, a fragrance note, a taste in many things, wine, Whiskey, mushrooms, musical tone, an automotive style enhancement, a cartoon character. 
The list goes on and on. 
 
I went out to look at a car yesterday. 
 
Well, it was not the first or second time, I really went out to see if it had been sold yet as it was introduced to me at around midday on 10th February. 
 
But being in the unenviable position of owning not one, two or three, but FOUR PERFECTLY CAPABLE CARS it really had to blow my mind if it were to come home with me. Rules are after all rules. And the rule is normally two cars, a shitter/project and a Sunday toy, with a company car out front. Unexpected Redundancy saw the company car being replaced by the VW Caddy as daily, The Astro bought in August before redundancy and the Rezin Rockit being an amazing build in 2022/23 equated the project. Then came the completely unexpected arrival of the 206CC  and my current in process, unearthing of my 1966 Chevy C10 stalked restoration project which now will have to go ahead, once I have cleared the rest of the garage space and done an inventory of the 100’s of new parts and to be cleaned up parts. Then the build will recommence and maybe my YouTube channel will start having a more focused if predictable content stream. 
 
Over time this changed somewhat. 
 
I had already introduced it to you all before when I went to look and asked 101 questions. 
 
The last 4-5 weeks I have been driving by where the Camaro was parked a few times like a masochist. Even Sally has reported a couple of times that she had seen it was still there. 
 
But I have not been able to get rid of any of the existing fleet. 
 
Admittedly I have not been trying very hard. 
 
Yesterday I posted off a parcel and went home via a 5 mile detour to see if the car in question, the Camaro, was still there. 
 
It was. 
 
As was the son of the owner, and his sister in a big Range Rover Overfinch V8 Twin Turbo diesel. 
 
So I reversed onto the drive. 
 
Spent some time with them indoors being offered furniture and crockery etc. 
 
We ended up speaking about the blue elephant in the room. 
 
A Woody that the sisters kids used to ride in, her son is 21 years old now. 
I showed interest and asked if the woody would be available for rehoming. 
 
They agreed that if I was that interested it could go with me. 
 
So I then got the owner to start up and show me the Camaro. 
 
Took some videos and photos and found out one injector on the motorway is dead. It is accessible. And that the waterpump is leaking. Add to that, the four cracked up dead tyres that need replacing and I was feeling more and more that I needed an unloved model Camaro in my life. 
 
Once done, the owner drove off to the council tip with his Overfinch  loaded with the result of breaking up his parents’ furniture and throwing it away. Sad really. 
 
And I got going with unearthing my yard find Woody. 
 
As found. 
 

 
Took a few minutes to unearth and remove the garden bed in the trunk. also many many snails. 
 
At this point I did wonder if this pic was indicative of what the Camaro represents. 
 

 
But of course being the man I am, I don’t shy away from a fight…..
 
Managed to load it into the Caddy and headed West. 
 

 
Once back home it was unload and get it into the back yard. 
Hosepipe in the rain and give it a quick wash and hose down 
 
I was really happy. 
 
These are rare AFAIK. 
 
Love  it. 
 
I took it down to the carport and parked it next to the Rezin Rockit. 
 

 
 
As for the CAMARO……
 
I did make a quick short video of it starting and running. 
 
The exhaust note is really subtle and pleasant. 
 
My Astro van is a bit more of a thug.
 
It also sports a 4.3 V6 compared to the Camaro’s 3.4 V6. 
 
Getting into and sitting in the Camaro is akin to sitting down on a skateboard. 
And I possibly felt like a tank commander when he directs his machine down the road. 
I had no clue where to front and rear of the car started or ended. 
 
Like sitting in a blacked out fishbowl. 
 
 
VIDEO: 
 
https://youtu.be/NRFCKsfUCiM?si=42L5YAnBfr7mcclY
 
 
And I still don’t know. 

Winner!

And we have 2 winners! Congrats to @SEATMad for being first.
This is the baby. It's an executive auto, pampered by the original owner and the current owner. Really looking forward to getting her. Various forms of transport will be involved including a fellow shiter starting proceedings.
Collection starts at 8.40am tomorrow.

As some of you may have seen in my thread, I spent the last couple of days nipping down to Worcester and as a result REV is now parked on my trailer outside my house in the North East of Scotland. How the hell did that happen? Pull up a chair to the fire, help yourself to a dram, and I will tell you  
Over the years on AS I got to know Dez on here, then on the winter zoom meets during Covid and I have met him once at the FOD. During this time (Dez, you might want to look away here, I will tell you when it is safe to return) I found Dez to be young and enthusiastic, especially about Invercars which it became obvious is his passion, to the extent he can become a pain in the arse about them, but that is Dez (you can look back now). When Dez got the chance to buy REV, I was one of the ones who advised against it due to his physical limitations. He ignored me  and I was wrong. Whilst owning REV has done nothing much for him physically, mentally it is the best thing he could have done. It has given him something to focus on, and I would go as far as to say Dez is now probably the leading authority on these things, and a by product he has become profficient in dealing with DVLA, and he has helped me out several times over the years.
Once Dez had got REV running and completed his chip run, it became obvious REV was far from in good health and fortunately he listened to advice and the true hero of all this @red5 stepped in and offered to sort it. I met Sam today, a true gentleman, and he told me what he had done to REV and believe me it is far more than I could have done! Sam did all this inbetween teaching and having a life and whilst having to wait 5 months for carb bits etc. All that is left is the kingpin on the technical front and a few other jobs which whilst relatively simple will take a great deal of time, which understandably Sam no longer has as life has moved on.
Around Christmas time, Dez became a bit frustrated, after all he passed his driving test 2 years ago and has not driven since. In his usual enthusiastic all in manner he asked about a car he was thinking of buying. A lot of good advice was given, and frankly, a whole heap of nasty comments were made at Dez. I was surprised by some people, and several of the worst offenders have posted on AS how they sometimes struggle with their own mental health yet fealt it was perfectly acceptable to pile in on Dez. I will not name names, nor say anymore on the subject, but  some of the people involved should be ashamed of themselves. Enough of that, at least some good came out of it.
A few days later during a zoom call, Dez MAY have mentioned Invercars once or twice and in discussion agreed with the good advice given that he did not need another car, he just wanted REV back. The piss taking I think annoyed me more than Dez, I am old and realise we need to encourage youngsters into the classic car game if it is going to continue. I told Dez that when I retired at the beginning of March, if it was OK with him and Sam, I would bring it up here and finish it off, probably not to such a high standard but with the quiet roads up here, a few miles could be covered before he got it back in a hope of improving reliability.
Whilst this was being organised, my ace mechanic Duncan, one of only 2 people I trust to work on my Cobra, approached with a problem he was having with a car he has owned since 1982 not showing on DVLA despite him having a V5. I contacted Dez, he said it was because it has been archived and it should be possible to wake it up. Dunc asked if Dez would do it for him, which he readily agreed to. There then followed a long argument between Dunc and Dez over how much it would cost, with Dez refusing payment and Dunc insisting! To cut a long story short (much too late, I know) Dunc is going to sort the Invercar, Dez is going to sort his registration and I have managed to help 2 friends. I think that is worth doing!
Anyway, some more pictures from today:

Hi,
I’ve been aware of the brown forum for many years, but generally hung around on another well known blue hued forum, sort of on and off anyway. Most of my ‘fleet’ (if you can call a collection of long term broken cars that) is probably more at home on here but my most recent car tinkering finally pushed me over the line to sign up on here.
Ya see I’ve been spending a bit of time recently poking and tinkering with the longest standing, many years abandoned, heaps in my collection and I suspect this is the only place I might scrape some interest in what is basically a hopeless cause. Said heaps have been abandoned rotting on my drive for 17 and 19yrs respectively, but the house where they languish is going on the market soon so their existence hangs precariously in the ballence. Friends and family have been telling me to scrap them for about a decade now so their calls are almost deafeningly loud now. It would certainly be the sensible thing to do.
For reasons beyond common sense I want to move them to my current house which means making them mobile again. I mean ‘mobile’ as in I can load them onto a trailer and preferably drive them up my short but annoyingly steep driveway, not as in make them ready for the road. 
Anyway, so what do you make of these two beauties?



Artefact 1 - The gold one - 1989 1.3 XL special equipment
This was my first car, bought by a much younger self circa 1999. I saved up the £600 by working weekends in Burger King while doing my A levels. It was well used and abused until 2005, but it’s been parked up ever since. It was retired as a fully functional car on 109k miles, I just replaced it (with a 34k miles 1.3 mk6 Escort I bought as Cat D salvage and returned to the roads). It donated its windscreen to the blue one around 2009 after vandalism so it’s been open to the elements for a while too, it’s become home to some ferns growing in the carpet.
Artefact 2 - The blue one - 1987 1.3 GR Profile
This was my mates car for a year but he donated it to me when the MOT ran out, in 2007 according to the MOT history. The original idea was to fix this one up using the gold one for spares. After a couple of years ignoring it I did drag it to an MOT test in 2010 which it failed due to much more rampant rust than I had given it credit for, it’s sat ever since.
So what ya thinking of doing with them I hear you say! Well, the gold one has probably (though not certainly) had it’s day as a regular 309, but I’m sentimental about it and have a very harebrained idea for it in the back of my mind. It might never happen but I want to hold on to the possibility, so the goal is to just move it and sling a car cover over it. The blue one however is calling out to live once more, I want to get it back on the road. I’m better skilled to weld it back up now than I was back then, and once the old house is gone I should be blessed with more time and lower outgoings which should help. I just kinda fancy fixing it up a bit, I want to feel the mighty power of the Simca rattle box engine and savour the rolly polly handling on skinny tyres once more. But firstly I just need to move it so I can achieve priority no1 which is to get the old house up for sale.
There you go lots of waffle, I’ll post about where I’m up to and what I’ve got stuck on soon, if anyone cares.
-Steve-

I've been looking forward to this day since I bought the Sierra.
I used T-Cut and water to cut the paint where it was faded but not scratched.

And this stuff where the paint was badly damaged.

And then this stuff to polish the paint after cutting.

The cutting made a huge difference.


Looking better already.

Another before / after photo, spoiled by a crappy iPhone camera.

Job done. The paint responded well to the cut and polish. The deepest scratches remain and I did not try to get them out as I didn't want to risk cutting through to the primer. I almost did along part of the bonnet. Under my workshop LED light, the scratches are still obvious but under a halogen light and, most likely, daylight, the paint should look ok.
Since my first inspection of the Sierra, I knew that the paint was bad and getting it to this standard wasn't quick or easy and I am happy with the results. The nearside front door is not a good colour match and there are various flaws around the car where it was previously painted. Doesn't matter, it looks ok. 




It will look better outside, in natural light.
Then my wife brought me lunch.

After lunch, I had to do something with the two tone sills.

I masked off the bottom of the doors and sprayed both sills with the blue aerosol (no primer). Again, no chemical reactions, no cracking or wrinkling. 


Much better.
I'm getting there.

Here's what I bought.
Wooden Box Pergola Kit - Exclusive Garden Pergola Range - Largest on eBay | eBay
The carport is 4.8 meters wide, but the longest sheet of corrugated PVC I could get at my local builders merchant was 3.6 meters. The joists (four IIRC) are equidistant across the 3.6 meter span in the centre. I was planning to reduce to two cars (one in the garage, one under the carport) but that clearly isn't happening. I'll re-do the roof as some point to make full use of the 4.8 meter span. 

Peugeot Hoggar

Or at least it feels like that now.
 
So, I was on a walk and I found something so good that I had to reinstall Tapatalk just to do this.

Absolutely no words, except for shite

Well done ETCHY. It’s a funny one this, someone has clearly looked after it and it’s actually in good condition but some of the bodywork finishing is hilarious. 

Not a lot has happened of late, something to do with not wanting to waste my life fixing rusty old shite…..oh wait, here I am.
shell has now been transferred to the welders. Enter some sketchness unloading from a plant trailer with no winch, what could go wrong? Actually nothing.
 
Some rust so far……
 
welding starts this week, not sure I have the energy in me to do the Monza after this!

Millom


 

update if anyone's interested... (also someone please let me know how to change the thread title as I've had this thing for a month now)
sketchy times getting it up the drive - duct tape over the plate was for the tax fairies

everyone in my life who told me it wouldn't fit (including myself) can bugger off haha

 

found a free gift wing-mount aerial, but there's no radio, and no wings for that matter either? Came with the car so I'm keeping it, will re-install at some point in the distant future
 
Assessment time - removed the pond from under the rear seats, the dessicated rat from under the driver's seat (sorry no piccy) and the mouldly sound-deadening.
Needs: OS front floor (especially the bit under the rat, probably corroded by death juices), little bit of the OS rear floor, and parts of the boot floor:

eh, could be a lot worse
 
Floppy gearstick was irritating me, so had a look under the cover plate:

hmm that's not right...
 

pin's somehow sheared off the linkage. Probably unlikely to find a replacement, since seems it's base-model specific for some reason, so...

ended up being welded back together and popped back in the car. Was a right pain trying to get the bolt off the end to slide the pin back into the bushing, breaker bar in one hand and holding the linkage to the kitchen floor with my bare foot (socks give you no grip whatsoever)
 

All back together, featuring spare CV boot from the Golf, because again there's no way I'm ever finding an OEM replacement rubber boot. Please also ignore the large amount of daylight coming through the floor.
 
Ok so natural progression would be to get the clutch working, so master cylinders and servo out:

Wondering where all the brake fluid went?

Straight through the structure of the car of course. Excellent.
To be fair, looks like it's only the top side that's fucked, though not the easiest place to get to for welding.
 
Servo looked fine, so painted it with some weird £5 iron fence paint, just to protect it. Should really be plated but whatever.

May notice the recurring theme here that my workbench is a wheelie bin
 
Next steps, work out how to remove the front seats to get to the floors, and sort the clutch slave cyliner out as it's looking decidedly sad at present.
Need to get some taller axle stands from Machinemart since the ground clearance is so big nothing I have will lift the wheels off the ground, but gotta find a route that doesn't go through ULEZ cameras - every £12.50 I save will go on penetrant
 
 

Arrived safely on wednesday, after being stuck in the sea for a while because the ferry couldn't dock
Good news is the handbrake still works, which is quite lucky considering everywhere around me is hills

Went to pay the man, got barraged with questions from the fraud squad for about 25mins:
- where did you meet the seller?
- how comes you have the car if you haven't paid for it? - the lady asked me this question 3 times in an increasingly more confused tone.
- why did it take 6 months for the car to be delivered?
"sorry the parts for it had to be taken off 40 other cars and shoved in the boot first, which took a while"
- how did you receive the payment details?
- who's your internet service provider?
- have you had a test drive in the car?
"err... yes?" (does rolling it off the trailer count?)
- where's the log book?
"in the post..."
- where did you buy the car from?
Decided it was best I didn't tell them it was being imported from ROI and squeaked through customs, otherwise the interrogation would've probably lasted a lot longer.

Despite all this, not once was I asked why the account I was paying into was in the guy's sister's name and not his....

Anyway tilt and slide is coming today to somehow get it up the drive and into the garage which it's very likely too long for. Wish me luck I guess...

This shad is now starts on a flick of the key, sounds like a motor launch and after i cleaned and lubricated the auto choke linkages its running better than ever. I even used it “on a trip to the moors” im a gentleman and will say no more.
I cleaned the fuse box connections hoping it would resurrect a few dead things, but no dice.

Looks old school! I forgot to take a pic of the guide that comes with it- its on a small ally sheet that pulls out from it. 

After tesco (not seen- it now has a boot carpet in suitable shabby condition from a scrap car)  i tinkered with a few pointless but satisfying little things

The spec sheet is a nice reference for how it rolled out of Crewe in summer 1971. I cant ‘quite’ stretch to a full body rebuild and respray in ICI shell grey, but what about the “fine lines” in dark blue?
I would imagine they were applied by hand by a craftsman….. how about a 3.99  ebay coachline? More within budget. How the mighty have fallen!



 
Bit of a nod to the original spec. Easy to do despite the gentle curves on the wings as you can be guided by feel and sight by the body crease and trim. I looked at ads for mega expensive perfect/ original cars to see where the “fine lines” went.
Perhaps a bit of an insult to the craftsmanship that made it; but this is something that was nearly banger raced and will never be a “good” example. Usable, yes- and isnt that what its all about? (it is to me!)
 

It's the colour of bile. 
It is small. 
It is not a Dacia, Kwashkwai or Juke. It's much worse than any of these things. 
 

 

 
 

 
 

I cant say I enjoyed the process, but the car has been recovered from a vulnerable position on the main road to a garage about 3/4ths of a mile away.
Phew!

But this makes up for it

So unexpectedly i find my self with one of these
And wondered why there was no stirring implements - resigning myself to the fact id have to limp to the kitchen to get one
Realising i had a singapore airlines spoon in my bag
but then noticed the other end of the table
where there was cutlery and towels here
And again watching the pictures and drinking tea
4 hours back to Christchurch and coupla days in the nice b and b at the start of the holiday and find a library to write the nicest set of reviews i might ever write ( no way id do them on here cos id be cross eyed by the end

 

So it said
Lucky to get a bed or a door or bedding (byo)
Nope
Love it
F windy tho
The white ones are even posher






 

Lindis pass next
Kawa something gorge - that was good

Today marks 12 years of owning this car.  We've been through a lot together.  Other cars have come and gone, relationships the same, house moves, all the patchwork of life.  The Princess has endured.  Mechanically and electrically in far better shape than it was when I got it, structurally more sound too.  Cosmetically... we're getting there.  There's considerably less filler and rust in it now at least.

Outside maccys in dunedin
Needed ice cream
Still got hour and half to do
 
 

"where is da popcorn"
-Tactical Assault Potato, 2024