Landy Mann

So, as the title suggests, it only bloody runs!! Properly this time!
Video evidence if you so require!
https://streamable.com/m0djqr
Unfortunately my oily sausage fingers did not hit the record button while I was one handedly trying to turn the key while also monitoring the dash to make sure the oil light went out in good time.. 
But anyway, it "runs like a swiss watch!"
Removed the alternator to refit that poxy clamp I left off, fitted the alternator, fitted the power steering lines (which do not appear to be leaking, yay!) , fought with the stretch belt and got it on via the frowned-upon method which is rotating the engine backwards. No, you shouldn't do it, but that won't stop me 😄
Filled the cooling system, went for the grand start up, and it fired into life straight away! 

Idle was a bit lumpy again to begin with, but a later fault code scan revealed it was historically trying to relearn the throttle idle position. It's sorted itself out now
EML and ABS lights were on due to everything getting it's knickers in a twist, but after clearing the historical codes out which were triggered after removing the original engine - we had no warning lights with a running engine!! Fantastic  - that means I didn't forget to plug anything in!

I ran out of time to get it fully up to temperature, but the heaters were getting nice and warm quite quickly thanks to the new thermostat - something I had always ignored on this car and subsequently suffered every winter!
Something that was doing me a slight concern is that it unfortunately seemed a bit smokey.. I'm hoping this will clear and stay away, it may have even been a sensible yard that put some oil down the bores during storage, but I strongly doubt this.. so I'm hoping it will fix* itself. Wasn't plumes of smoke, but it was that unmistakable smell of burning oil
But I'm not going to sit there stressing about it, the engine is installed now and it's not coming back out! Fingers crossed it all turns out to be ok 🤞

I've been away from shite for quite some time now- got fed up, and spent most of my time with the bike. After my close encounter in Germany last month I came home and bought something unseen!. Train down to Coventry, drove home in torrential rain up the M6, Next day I got to work.. Dash out to sort all the electrics bodged over the years and sort out all the cut vaccum pipes for the heater controls. Ripped out the broken MDF camper bits and the failed mega stereo install and built my own cabinets and put some more sensible 6x9s in with some panels i made and covered with crushed blue velour. Still lots to do!
 
Oh, Its a Starcraft Chevrolet Astro EXT AWD. 1993. Japanese Import.. 63,000 Miles!
 

My friend has just sent a picture from his phone. The MOT man has been a tester for 10 years and says this is the best one he has ever seen.

I am told by the garage who have my Classic Range Rover mine will be top of the pile in one month and get fixed.

One day last week it took me over 10 minutes to find a 13mm spanner despite having loads of them, so decided that the time to tidy the shed had finally arrived. To make it easier I decided to move the Bentley (parked on the ramp) and the Saab parked behind it outside to give me more space. The Saab had been sat for 3 weeks and the Bentley about 6 weeks. The Saab started instantly and stopped just as quickly, with no sounds from the fuel pump and refused to restart, but the ignition switch started to stick as well. I towed the Saab out of the way, the Bentley started easily to be driven out and the Saab pushed onto the ramp for investigation

The Bentley was returned as the tidy was postponed sadly*, this picture shows why the tidy is needed

A check showed no power to the pump and putting power to the pump directly had it running. The Ignition Switch Module (ISM) on these Saabs are standard across the range so the one out of the diesel spares car was removed and fitted but made no difference. Googling showed nothing else but an enquiry on UKSaabs told me there is a relay in front of the A pillar on the drivers side, so that is the next job as I ran out of time as I needed to load the Smart 4-2 for delivery to Rotherham. It had not moved for 2 years so three of the brakes were stuck, but wheels off and a hammer had them turning.
The new owner lives in Norfolk, not sure he is on here but his work colleague is, and he had hoped to collect from my friends near Sheffield but this plan fell apart, so it was dropped off at his friends near Rotherham. If anyone has an early front panel for an almond headlight one of these, let me know!



That is the 4th vehicle to leave the fleet this year, so things are going well. With an empty trailer it was time to collect my Disco 1 which had been away for a full respray. To say I am delighted with the result would be an understatement and the cost was extremely pleasing as it was less than 25% of what I had been quoted locally!




Yesterday it returned to my friend in Perth who did the welding, and as soon as he completes recommisioning a Corvette for another friend, we will start putting it back together.

Had a Lanvigator Performax H/T fitted to use as a spare today. In fairness I did ask my local tyre place for the cheapest 245/65 R17 they had, hopefully we won't need to use it.

I've got Boris the Morris back on Terra Firma today after nine months of on and off welding on the nearside (blame the bad weather honest gov).
He's rockin' his scruffy eight spokes and looking pretty rakish already but he's told me he needs his front end dropping a spline or two. 

We are both shattered now!  In fact MrsR is asleep as I type this.  There's a big car park by the hotel with a BFO Ferris wheel on it and a couple of catering stalls, so we went for a Wurst for our tea... well you have to, don't you?

(This was earlier, cake and coffee; again, you have to!)
Our peace was disturbed slightly by some Fast&Furious types in Mercs and BMWs with pop-fart remaps tearing up the car park.  I thought maybe there was a Meet this evening but I went out for a look later and saw nothing to indicate such a Meet.
Tomorrow we're back on the road, heading north.

Well I didn't update the thread with last years pre MOT welding... however to bring us upto date as fresh sorn is applied, the 110 is freshly washed. Let the summer welding season commence! (it about 4 weeks time when I have some time!).
 
After 11 years it's time to tackle the bulkhead again.
 

Well I didn't update the thread with last years pre MOT welding... however to bring us upto date as fresh sorn is applied, the 110 is freshly washed. Let the summer welding season commence! (it about 4 weeks time when I have some time!).
 
After 11 years it's time to tackle the bulkhead again.
 

Well I didn't update the thread with last years pre MOT welding... however to bring us upto date as fresh sorn is applied, the 110 is freshly washed. Let the summer welding season commence! (it about 4 weeks time when I have some time!).
 
After 11 years it's time to tackle the bulkhead again.
 

I did many miles in a rental accent (Melbourne to Cairns) in Aus, think this was a 16 or 17 model year, looked the same but I'm sure every panel was different to the near identical older i30. These were sold along side the new shape i30 for $AU cheap (equivalent to Dacia money IIRC.).
 

Doris Day was fond of Paris in the springtime, but the arse end of Norfolk in the springtime isn't entirely devoid of charm in its own way. 

it really is quite amusing how some evenings go, so here I am settling down for the evening, hot chocolate in hand, when a good lighting collector friend of mine *in the states* who i have not directly spoken to in a few years drops me a message 

okay computer issues sure, that sounds innocent enough, I am fairly competent with the things, what be the issue with ye olde computer?

Oh....
 yeah thats a different sort of computer issue entirely, I mean theres "help me install a video game" and then theres "help me low level hack my car" but I am not one to leave a friend in need
so, 3 hours 44 minutes later, at almost 2AM in the morning, yeah I fucking pulled it off LOL

 
 
but fucking hell it was quite the roller-coaster ride for me because,
at first thought ok, perhaps he just needs help setting up the dodgy windows XP era software that these things need and then I could just let him handle it from there?
I see that he running ubuntu linux on his laptop, so ok lets setup a windows XP VM and do USB device pass through, simples right? NOPE, turns out he is, essentially as far as all this is concerned, completely computer illiterate, and he did not even know *which* program he was suppose to use and how to use it,
and this is where it really dawned on me like "ahh fuck" 
like how would I have a fucking clue on how to work an ECU programmer? but again I was not going to leave him the dark
turns out he at least had another computer running windows (windows 11 eugh LOL) so i got him to get team viewer on that and I just took the reigns from there LOL (and just told him when to plug/unplug things) I know how to work linux myself no problems, but I was not going to even try and walk someone who is computer illiterate through how to setup teamviewer on linux/how to work a command line package manager! so windows it was!

but even then, I mean I have never fucking done this sort of shit before, so figuring it all out was fun, hence the roller coaster ride-ness of it, because there where several points during this where I was like "what the dodgy hell is that" or "where in the dodgy hell am I going to find that" and subsequently thought this was just getting too complicated/obscure for even me to be able to get going, but I got there in end!
first of all was getting the software setup, that in itself was actually not too bad, and in the end I did not even need the windows XP Virtual machine for it, so all that was a waste of time LOL (but hey now he can play pinball LOL)
but then came getting it to talk to the programmer magic box thing, turns out he got this one, some cheap knock off version of some programmer of sorts
https://www.amazon.com/Diagnostic-Scanner-V5-017-Programming-Unlimited/dp/B08M5SHK2L/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
note the glowing* reviews...
so the software was giving me a fit about it, after a bit of head scratching (read: googling cryptic error messages and trying to make sense of broken english posts from some god knows what forum) I had figured out/it turns out these programmers have an internal SD card thats onboard which contains the firmware for the programmer itself, and this SD card was bad (or was not making good contact in the socket) so I got him to open up the magic box and have a look for me, sure enough there be SD card

he got the SD card out, not in the manner its supposed to come out mind I dont think mind...

so then he had to go to the local store get another SD card, because he did not have one spare at home

I then had to figure out how to go about prepping the the new SD card, I mean just figuring how to program a car ECU is one thing, now I had to figure out how to program the fucking programmer itself! finding the firmware from god knows where on the internet, (yay for random broken english forum posts again) but, got it flashed to the SD card! (all while my friend had his thumb going numb holding the SD card down into its socket to ensure a good connection after aforementioned botched removal)
and this finally got the software and programmer talking to each-other, which by some miracle as per above was then happy to talk to the ECU in the car and dump its firmware, thank fuck for that! woo!
(for those wondering he says he needs the firmware from his ECU for some sort of remap, he says the chap modifying the firmware should be helping him flash it back to the  ECU, which is good because fuck having to then try and flash back *modified* firmware to something and the risk of bricking someones car, it was bad enough just trying to figure out how to dump it, knowing there was a still a none zero risk it could still get bricked)
this is up there in really fucking obscure technical support I have had to give/been involved with, I mean I have helped people out in all sorts of weird computer situations, in the past, from Hackintoshing a deaf guys desktop machine over FaceTime to helping someone else with the software for a Gas chromatography–mass spectrometer, but at least the person in the 2nd example was computer competent and aware of what they where doing and involved with
 but managing to help someone who is in in a completely different country and who does not have the foggiest idea whats what, dump the ECU firmware of his car, using the most obscure/dodgiest software tools/software known to man (and having to also fix said tool in the middle of all of this) is something that I am quite proud of LOL
and its clear he is really appreciative of the support (apparently he got the kit over 6 months ago and has been fretting about it ever since, not knowing what to do etc) and I am also just pleased I was able to help someone out in their time of need!
 
 
(and I guess this is what people mean by being tech savvy, I might not have had a clue what I am doing at first with this particular "computer issue" , but it seems I have enough similar-ish previous experience, general know how/understanding of how things work, and google fu to figure it all out in the end LOL)

Nissan Wingroad:

I was supposed to be having a rest day today, sitting around doing nothing, recharging... I'm rubbish at that so I did some tinkering on the donor car instead since the weather is so nice. I didn't plan to get the power tools out, I told myself that's too much like work, and then I did it anyway.

First of all, here's some better shots of the rot in the roof. I wanted to scope out the shapes to see if there was anything similar to the rear arch shape that could be salvaged but I'm going to have to accept that if we do need to repair that in the future it will have to be with new wood cut to shape since there's nothing to really salvage from the donor roof frame.



There's a lot of busy work now to remove all the items of value to us. I'll go into more detail in the videos I'll eventually post on this. For now I can tell you the voltage regulator looks like it might be decent (won't know until we test it, of course), the wiper motor assembly pretty much fell off the car due to rot in the structure it was screwed to. Column gear selector mechanism didn't put up any fight at all, which is nice, the other radiator stay rod was removed, the floor dim-dip switch was liberated, and the removable gearbox cover unbolted with no real trouble either.


Additionally, I learned that the larger portion of the gearbox tunnel unbolts separately and can be removed whole. The same is true of the entire toeboard. Both panels are in surprisingly good shape considering the state of the rest of the car and I've salvaged those. I don't know how the steering wheel, column, and box come apart from one another and it was easy enough to remove the whole thing from the car by unbolting the steering box from the chassis and slicing through the bracket that screws to the bulkhead as a strengthener/supporter for the steering column.


Access to the mechanical stuff still to remove at the front is much better now.

 

I collected our MG Metro today, it has had the steering rack replaced, tracking and a fresh MOT.

Cheers, for the price that looks hard to go wrong with

What type of carport/tent are you using? How have you found it stands up to the elements? I'm considering one to bridge the 5m gap between the leaky garage and leaky carport.

@PSAPerv last weekend
 

Claggy Clatter club. 
With the mx5 delivered to its new home i was in need of a ride back, mr6 was going to give me a lift back but as the trusty Zx had shown its issue was still around i offered to have a nosey at it and use it for a few days to see if theres any pattern to its spluttery starting. 

what a lovely thing to drive it is.  Just does being a car nicely.  A charming bit of lag then off we go, I do love old diesels.  Handles nicely and just feels like a good place to be.  Except for the ice cold water that pissed through the interior light panel when i was turning left today!  Gets a thumbs up from me.
The Astra went in for its MOT today and recieved a fresh ticket.  Id done zero prep, the cars filthy and the back was full of 3 tyres a headlight and 10 sprinter repair panels. Not how i like to take cars to my tester but thats just how it went. 

Really must give this car a clean. Its pretty grim! 

Sadly I have to report that the wing mirror made a bid for freedom on the M40 and invoked the ire of a man in a Golf, the front of whose car said mirror may or may not have pinged off.  Hopefully it’s a generic part that can be fairly easily replaced?

I have to say it’s one of the happiest looking things I’ve had bouncing along in my rear view mirror for some time.

He's had the DPF "delete" done has he? He might be disappointed to hear that a 53 plate Picasso had a DPF delete from the factory 🤣
I wonder what he's had removed thinking it's a DPF, presumably the cat 🤣

A few weeks ago I was dreaming about buying a Mercedes, but was not man enough to bid. So I then went a bit silly and bought this--------------
A 2003 Cadillac CTS 3.2 litre V6 done 190,000 KM's
So far it is a very nice drive, rides well, very little road noise , everything works that I have pushed, pulled and twiddled. time will tell how good or bad it is.
It has been sitting about for a year almost, so took a new battery to liven it up, one brake caliper was binding (ok now after some use) and a rear wheel bearing is a bid noisey. Also will do the cambelt as there are no records of a change.  It'lldo !