Isaac Hunt

I followed a Puegeuot for a few miles the other day.  Didn't want to risk a photo whilst driving, but I couldn't work the Plate out, maybe there was nothing to work out, but we see many " TTIOMEE Tommy " style plates, I'm always trying to figure out what they might be trying to say

M17CUN

all I could read was MI CUNT 

C4MRY on and old Toyota Camry, I didn't 'pap it' as the guy was sitting in the car, I was in a rucking fush and didn't want to strike up any sort on conversation with an old car nerd, I did that a few days earlier, couldn't shut the fekker up as he rattled on about all the cars he'd owned

7 hours ago, Joey spud said:

Then it went and snowed which was mildly annoying.

Boris came with a pair of pattern part A posts that were stamped ''Henric" who I think we're a Minor parts supplier from back in the 80's alas like the drivers side one previously this passenger side one was way out on its hinge mounting holes alignment to fit as a complete panel but I was able to use it bottom couple of inches to tie the A post to the outter sill.

Now the A post is hopefully still in the right place (won't know until I hang the door again) I could deal with the rot/missing inner arch and inner wing.

At this time of year when I start late and I am loosing the light i have been known to slip in to "bish,bash,bosh,that'll fecking do mode"so while it's not overly pretty the inner arch has been reinstated.

Before adding this panel I painted everything I couldn't later get to with lashings of zinc paint.

I have been using 1.2mm Zintec steel for any homemade repair patches,it's a bit too thick really but is lovely to weld with.

Finally I just needed to plug weld on the A post/hinge closing panel,I had it all trimmed to size and prepped ready to go when I ran out of gas..

So that's where Boris and I are currently at until I can collect another cylinder of argoshield light next year.

Can I just say a big thank you to anyone who has ticked a like box or added a random comment its been a crap year for sure i have lost my Father and Father in Law (not to mention two stinky mutts) it means a lot and helps keep me plodding along.

Cracking job

On 12/19/2022 at 6:22 PM, HMC said:

I’m not so much into names, I just like  old plates that look good. I don’t have any at the mo, buying and selling is easy and as long as you buy at the right price you don’t lose money. These are from this year.

 

 

Where do you find is the best place to sell them?

Looks clean.  I had to throw away our 03 2-Door late last year, it needed a sparkly stick, nsf strut, Rad, 4 tyres and the paint down one side was proper Hobo.

it was a fun spare car but wasn’t really being used.  Scrappy gave me £400 for it so I drove it down there, felt quite sad, but I had a lot of other stuff on and too many cars.

fun cars

My bad then,  I always understood Bangernomics was the economics of running and older car.  10 years in considered 'end of life' and judging by the number  of 10 year old cars in my local yard and thus anything over 10 years is banger territory.  

What is the pedantic definition these days then?

Our MGZR came to us in 2013 for £650. 60k Miles, 6 Former keepers.  

It had some good MOT and was pushed straight into service.  First MOT required a couple of Tyres and. Track Rod End.  Then the clutch release bearing failed, so we threw a new three part clutch at it.  

A cambelt and waterpump was also undertaken.

A headgasket at 82k and other than a few sets of  brake pads and a set of four tyres, it needed nothing more than a couple of CV Gaiters and a set of spark plugs, a clutch cable, that is all it has needed.

it was laid up for a year during the pandemic and pressed back into service  12 months ago.

Reluctantly,  I've just scrapped it today.  It needed a section of still splashing with a welder.  It also needed a nsf strut assembly after a uhnfortunate altercation with a kerb.  Add onto that a set of four tyres as they were all on the limit.  

MOT is up the end of next week and the local Scrapyard offered £400. 

I hated driving it over to the scrapyard, but it's really surplus to requirements.  The lacquer and paint was hanging off one side where it had been painted at some time, so it looked a real mess down the one side.  

Heart still said fix it up and keep it going, but head said at £250 depreciation plus running costs, we've had our value out of it. It was just about to turn 140k

Good show, I nearly shouted out loud "There's the Dacia" but the other occupants would not have known the significance of the 'spot' @dollywobbler

A443 near Tenbury, there it was @catsinthewelder  @hub but 

On 2/25/2022 at 10:13 PM, hairnet said:

She's gone up in the world, it's on a Astin Marton now, silver of course, shaken not stirred 

6 hours ago, BeEP said:

Avensis safely back from Scotland, but If anyone in Glasgow spots one with a metallic bronze driver's door mirror cover, please ask where they obtained it...

...there's no way it fell off, all neatly, by itself!

Good job you didn't go to Liverpool, you'd have list all four hubcaps 

On 2/5/2022 at 5:40 AM, Parky said:

 

Need a trip back to the UK so I can pick up some Falken 310 Ecoruns for it and bring them back in my luggage

 

Good tyres are those Falkens.  I've worn out three sets of four on three different cars.  Although they were 914's or 514's (or something similar).   They did strike me to have crept up in price over the years, so our last car that wore out its Falkens got a set of Avons.  

On 1/13/2022 at 11:35 AM, Urko said:

That only works if you never move house.

2 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

there is even one for slowing down which the van driver should of/may have been been using if his brake lights where not working  https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/signals-to-other-road-users

I’m aware of both the slowing down hand signal and the left turn hand signal.  As for a left turn whilst slowing down, the only person I’ve seen do that is the Queen, although ironically she was been driven at the time

I often wonder how long it takes updates to the Highway Code to reach community immunity.   

I was following a van the other day, not too close, and it seemed to slow down, no brake lights shown.   Then it was clear it was slowing significantly, easily measured by the diminishing gap in front of me.  I then noticed the drivers hand out of the drivers window, the arm and hand being rotated in a circular motion.  I thought, ahah, brake lights an indicators are out, it's not often you see hand signals these days, well not a left turn hand signal anyway, plenty of others.

I relayed the story to a variety of age folk, and demonstrated the hand signal.  not one knew what the hand signal was.  Many offered more modern examples of hand signals that they had seen.

In relative terms, the increase is huge.

I can remember paying £650 in 2013 for an up and together 2003 MGZR, which was 10yr old at the time, 67000 miles

Then in 2014, paid £2500 for a 2005 Fester ST150, which was 9 year old.  Better paintwork examples were £3500.  Miles were 90,000

The guys at Salavage Rebuids have just rebuild a 2013 Fester ST which was an unrecorded total loss, but they have priced accordingly to its history, at £7500 ish

it is almost that everything has doubled in the last 10 years, what was a £750 10 year old is now £1500 and so on.  Low end stuff  is flying off the forecourts if you listen to the likes of Chops Garage on YouTube.  

Tyre Kickers on YouTube has just rattled out a 62 Insignia, which admittedly is a top spec, low mileage, well presented (after issues were sorted) for what I consider to be an obscene amount of money for the age and model, £7500 ish.  12 Months advisory free MOt and one of those ''covers everything but normal wear and tear warranties where unfortunately the item that has failed is normal wear and tear'  but as long as people are paying it then the market price level is set.

The thing is, there  to be thousands of cars for sale, so is it really supply and demand.  There must be a rake of 2018's dropping of a 4 year pcp, 2019's dropping of 3 year pcps.  Sure, not so many 2020's dropping off 2 year deals.  

Wait for interest rates to rise and then we might see some market correction.  

My daughter has just purchased a replacement car, five years old and it was a jaw dropping amount of money.  She has been running an old car for 6 years and felt she wanted something newer.  She's put if off several times but didn't want to wait for market correction, which might be a long time happening, or might not.  

It was all good stuff.  I see from his twitter he has got the Zephyr running and had the Volvo in bits.  Good to see he appears to be well and still pulling things apart and fixerating.  HNY Boll

On 7/20/2021 at 9:55 AM, bunglebus said:

 

I never knew Nora Batty worked in the VAG Trimshop

Wot the OP's say is correct, you will normally find the donor vehicle is issued an age related plate,

I seem to recall rather undesirable Combinations such a KSU are used and marked as non transferable to stop,you flogging the replacement plate to Keith Simon Unwin.

The donor vehicle with the 911 plate needs to meet all the requirements for transfer.

years ago, circa 1963 vehicles go a A suffix plate.  A mate of mine flogged the dateless plate of his traveller and it ended up and a AAAnnnA typeface plate, which just looked so shit.  Not sure if the the DVSA still do that sort of shit or if the just go for the KSU style.

it is a bit of a shame when a car looses its original plate says he who has several pre 63 plates.  Although many of them had been transferred to moderns when I bought them.  I've got one 1962 plate that was on an Astra Estate before I got hold of it and another that was on a 1994 Jag, so the 'deed' from the original vehicle was done many moons ago.   I think I may be guilty of taking a couple off their original vehicles, but years ago you couldn't tell. I did ask the dealer  what one came off 'an old land rover he thought'.  I wasn't  entirely convinced that it wasn't just a standard line he used on the off chance anyone ever asked him.  

Lucas, Prince Of Darkness had other ideas

Checking a car for the MOT and we had a 380 stop lamp out.

new bulb fitted, all good.

checked the new bulb on the morning of MOT, blown again WTF

put another bulb in, all good.  Run it down the test centre

Tester puts it on the ramp and I immediately notice the bloody bulb has blown AGAIN FFS

No 2 & 3 were from my garage shelf stock, had them a good while, didn’t realise that they had a ‘best before date’ or ‘use by date’.  

So our little MGZR has found iteslef unexpectedly pushed into front line service meaning that there are some maintenance jobs that really should be done.

I've not got the balls for a full on cambelt roulette like some of you guys, so given they were replaced in 2013 and 63,000 miles ago, the boundaries are being pushed for a K series.

i order up the parts and the tensioner that arrives is in a re-sealed box, inside of which is a broken tensioner, looks as though someone has snapped it by the Allen key adjuster, so that has to go back, we weren't doing cambelt this weekend then.

i'll stick the alt belt and pas belt on because a good mechanic friend of Mike once told be, if they let go, they can take he cambelt with them if the get tangled.

many moons ago, I noticed that the lower alt adjuster 'bolt and spacer' had disappeared and berated myself for obvs having left it loose.   So I made up a spacer from a piece of copper pipe and replaced the bot as a temporary measure.  Made a mental note to get a spacer next time I was down the scrappies.

I did indeed source a spacer and put it somewhere safe.  I checked the 'temporary' lower mount and as all was well, left it alone.

lo and behold, came to the alternator yesterday and the temporary lower mount has 'gone'.  Lightening strikes twice.  I can't recall ever swopping the copper pipe for the proper spacer, so spend well over an hour trying to find the replacement from the scrappy.  Obviously some where safe is very safe, Murphy's law, found all my other stuff, but not the spacer.  

Fabricate another and remind myself what a real faff it is to adjust the alternator.  Looking at the adjuster bracket and comparing it to memory of earlier Rover 400's tells me there must be something missing.

a look at the parts diagram on Rimming Brothers, just shows and adjuster bolt seeming fitted to thin air.  Mmmmm, lets have another google.

Turns out, the lower bolt and spacer going missing due to either snapping or coming looses is a common problem.  So maybe it wasn't me leaving it loose after all.

the race guys use a nice rose jointed effort to replace the stock adjuster which that basically label as a 'pile of shite',

I think I can work out what is missing from the standard adjuster in addition to the lower spacer.   Rather than a 40 mile round. trip down to the local yard with no guarantees of finding the bits needed, the rose jointed replacement looks like it wins the day.

what should have been a simple job and all of that.

So back in 2003 we purchased an MGZR.  

It wasn’t the most pristine example, been painted down one side and was a bit tatty inside, some splitting of the drivers seat and the odd bit of trim missing, but it was at the lower end of the price range and the 69,000 miles stacked up on service and MOT history.

Shortly after purchase, about three months and 3000 miles, it developed a nasty noise from the cambelt area.  It looked as though it had had a belt and tensioner in the not too distant past.  Turned out the tensioner had been put on ‘upside down’ and was the cause of the noise, bearing failing, a common fault which a specialist told me, the tensioner positioning is actually wrong in some manuals 😲 I put a new cambelt, tensioner, alt and PAS belt on.

Then the clutch release bearing collapsed, so I put a three part clutch in it.

Then the waterpump started leaking badly.  Wisdom says ‘always change pump when fitting belt etc’, which I didn’t.  So on went a new pump.

Then it needed a track rod end and a couple of tyres for the MOT.

Youth then decided he wanted a different car and went out and bought a Fester ST.

The MGZR was ‘sorted’ by that time, so I thought it best to keep it whilst the ST was in our ‘shakedown’ period.

Good decision, as youth blows up the gearbox in the ST, snaps the mainshaft.  

So the MGZR was pressed back into daily service.  Words such as ‘keep it to sensible speed on the Motorway were ignored’ and just as I was finishing the ST gearbox rebuild, the MGZR arrived on a low loader, head gasket was toast.  tBH, it was on its last legs anyway and youth finished it off.  

It was a MLS gasket that had just rotted, the thing fell apart.  I cleaned up the head and block and put it all back together with a std elastomer gasket as I felt the liner heights were a bit to close the tolerance for another MLS gasket.

since then, I used the car as my second car, putting 60,000 miles on it, without any work other than a couple of CV gaiters.  I also put in a set of mint seats from a car down the scrapyard.

March 2021 and it was ‘Covid Carryforward’ on the MOT.  Oct 2021 and the week before MOT, the screen washers packed up, I ordered a new pump with the intention of ‘sorting it’.  But some subsequent illnes in the family meant I just sorned it and parked it up.  I wasn’t really using one car let alone two.

Fast forward 12 months and due to an unfortunate incident involving a Deer, avoid and a hedge, youth finds himself without at car.  

The MG was just sitting there and potentially was a much easier fix, just that washer pump and MOT.

So, washer pump replaced and MOT passed, MGZR back in service.

Folk always say, watch out for the ‘Free Car’ as they can often turn out to be far from free.   This little MGZR owes us nothing.

So, it is now 8 years and 60k miles since cambelt, tensioner, waterpump, alt and pass belts.  Whilst it is not a true cambelt roulette, the belt is bang on mileage change interval and slightly past date change interval, based on absolute history.

It could also do with a new battery, physical oversize currently fitted.  A couple of new tyres as well.

So, do I replace the belts and leave the tensioner and waterpump, or do I do the lot again ?

My experience of ‘not changing waterpumps’ Is 50/50, so i’m thinking, belts and tensioner, run the pump a second time if it looks and feels OK.  It’s not a big job the dive back in for the pump at a later date.

Bangernonics might say ‘just run it till it goes bang’ but you are then left trying to find something else the fill the void.  It could be a few weeks before the ‘hedge trimmer’ is fixed.

4 hours ago, pilninggas said:

Can imagine the insurance forms to Footman James when the garage with the classic burns down due to 'anti-E10 diy distillation games'.

Fag in one hand, mobile phone 'on call' in the other whilst venting to Atmosphere.

i thought it was a windup when I heard 'through a chicken drinker' as I'd never heard of such a device.

Might be of interest to classic car owners.  

Taking the Ethanol out of Petrol.  

An acquaintance had one of those in black V6 estate form.  

Everyone called it a hearse, wouldn't be seen dead in it.  

He just laughed it off and was gutted when he got a job with a company car and the Ventura had to go.

as for the push iron outside the station with the racing slicks on it and the yellow cow horns, I hope that front brake cable doesn't let go as he comes down station hill at Mach 10

I have had a 2.0 Pezza V6 that i’ve taken to 220k miles and it’s on the original clutch.

in that time, it needed tyres, pads, front discs, wiper blades, waterpump, rear arb droplink, 2 * heated oxygen sensors  a set of sparkplugs and an expansion tank.  A sill repair 

damn fine cars

i don’t know how involved the subframe is.

MOT Tester strikes me as very ‘keen’