Dirk Diggler

Time for an update.
I Sold the Chevy pickup to a local farmer who deals in American cars. I think he’s selling it which is what he does as he’s a dealer. I had an easy sale and he should eventually make some money when it sells.
I’ve had an itch for some time for an  S class coupe. I’ve owned most Mercedes’ models made 1972-2006ish but not the coupe made during their fall from grace years at the tail end of that period. It was at the money that broken ones go for (usual quick visual of them sunk  on their bump stops ) But this one was not broken. 
It’s a 2002 cl500 so basically the “base” model. Still that gives you heated electric soft close everything so it’s all relative. All of that works too, plus at the time of writing the active hydropneumatic suspension works, which is basically the most complex and clever / borkable system they could devise at the time.
 

 

I also recently bought an w124 estate which I don’t think I’ve mentioned before. It’s a 1991 230te. I was particularly taken with the indestructible cream mb tex (vinyl) interior which is very old school MB. 





 

Initially I wanted to go Naked!
I had tried to arrange to see this 660cc Daihatsu Naked:

However after getting the runaround from the seller for close to a week, I gave up and decided to just go topless instead, with this:

 
It's a puny little 1.6, but its only done 55k with 1 owner. Needs a little fettling but nothing major. The interior swung me, I think its great. I do like beige & wood. 
Not much to say now, its due to arrive during the week and I will update in due course, but I'm looking forward to getting out in it

It's all a bit quiet on the circus front. The party was all good fun and some got a bit pissed on the Peroni that was provided, and there was a mountain of food. The Moroccans BBQed the meat. Steak and chicken Moroccan style was damned tasty. Lee, a rather vociferous geordy, got hold of a mike and tried to get some karaoke going but luckily failed although he did manage to get a conga line started. 
I had to take the stand pipe back to Glasgow today because Scottish bloody Water wouldn't let us courier it. Took the Transit rather than the Ldv as you can imagine. The gear shift on the Ldv is the 'stirring week old porridge and hoping to pick something out' type and hops out of fifth quite a lot. Seat is as hard as fukin nails for my poor boney ass and the row with 4 seats across, each seat is too narrow for me, and I'm a right skinny bugger, so I can't imagine how you could get 4 fat buggers in. The Tranny is alright. Goes well, 6 speed so M/way is 70 and 2500rpm ish. It still used 120 squids worth of dizzle and about six hours of my time, although I wasn't doing much anyway, Got a couple of little jobs to do before Saturday so no hurry there. Taking it easy time. 

Not sure if there was ever any crossover with Circus Vegas, but I can remember the 'American Three Ring Circus' doing dates across Ireland in the summer of 1988.
I was well impressed with their Mack F-series.

My Mk2 Golf GTI earning it's keep 😂

You can prove anything with facts.
Re: littering. We live in a highly individualistic society where being selfish is rewarded, your own life being easier is the ultimate goal and fuck everyone else, maybe start there instead. 

It is indeed. I have spent many hours on lough Melvin, in a boat with my Dad fishing for trout and having a pint and whisky chaser in Kinlough afterwards and have good memories of a local who thought we were priests! Wish we could do it again. Bloody brilliant that someone else on here knows where I’m talking about.

Some lovely spots round there, used to spend a lot of time up there potholing, up 8-9 time of the year. 
Manorhamilton is nice in Sligo. Belcoo/Blacklion are good. Rossinivor on the shore of Lough Melvin.
Some fantastic scenery, hillwalking, surfing, swimming, fishing, pubs and restaurants around there. 
Lovely part of the world, it's super pretty. 

Updates!
During the time it sat it's acted as a home for some birds who've since grown up and flown off:

After a long time searching for replacement brake/suspension bits, I popped round one day to find that another bloke had brought in a Datsun truck with disk brake hubs, a reasonable master cyl and some other bits I can pilfer - that he's getting rid of entirely! He's going with S15 running gear and suspension on his so I now have a reasonable option after thinking I'd be out of luck.
Carb wise we stole some bits from the old Samara carb and adapted them to sort the linkage for the new 32/34 that allowed it to be fitted well enough - along with the previous adapter plate.
Set up all the kit and after some fiddling about, it now runs and drives!!
First ever drive after being sat for many years below:
Next will be brakes and aluminium tank, then onto bodywork and the engine etc in time.
After more reading on my options and ratios, I've settled on going with a PD130 mated with a Toyota W58 box using an adapter, into a Chevy C10/Blazer rear axle (same PCD)
This will be something that takes a little to get going through through the next few months, given I'm moving about and such but it won't be a particularly long time till it's driving about on the road!

Look what's back!

 
 

Very much enjoying this little oddball. Bringing it back to life and using it as an economical daily. My current favourite attributes (besides the way it looks) are the mega sunroof and the best sounding OEM stereo I’ve ever had in a car. 
I’ve taxed it so that must mean I’m going to keep it for a while… 
 
 

It’s been a while.. but, a new addition to the fleet has been achieved. It’s bordering on shite as people do point and laugh when driving by but I absolutely love it. 
It’s a 2003 1.4i petrol Audi A2 75bhp. 
Remarkably tidy following a good clean but more is needed. Small miles, 45k but failed emissions test on NCT here. Service kit has been ordered, throttle body was removed and cleaned. Like the rest of the car, it was rather dirty. 
These have a cool back story and I’ve wanted one for years. This particular car I’ve hoped would come my way and it finally did recently. 
Passenger door strap was broken, rear boot lid wouldn’t lock and sunroof was sticking. All sorted now. 
Still to do is sort glovebox door, missusfandango managed to break handle off that so now permanently locked. 
Deep scratch on rear passenger door, beyond my skilz so may have to spend to sort that. 
Wheels also need a refurb but I’ll have a go at them before making a bollix of that and sending them out too. 
Overall a wonderful / oddball piece of 20 year old shite that will hopefully stick around for a while. 
Who likes these? Any on here? 
 
CFD 

Not sure if I started a thread on this or not, probably not as my flameproofs are still smouldering from the Peugeot/Golf unpleasantness.
Anyhoo…. Vauxhall never made an FE panel van, a situation that needed remedying. It will have a Chevy small block in it, and it will be Cadbury purple…

Car spotting at the best music festival in Sweden: Muskelrocken or Muscle rock for you non Swedes. That Toyota Corolla got me bloody excited!

Scabby old E36 for under £1k? Why not!

https://youtu.be/tKrt01Sqllw
 




 
Picked up another quality machine today, a Yamaha v80 2 stroke step through.

Spot of the day at the local car show today…

 
 

It'll be here in the morning...  first job would appear to be a brake light bulb. 😅

It's round this time of year I'd hear my Neighbor's Zetor Crystal thundering round the back field with a round baler in tow. Think it was a Turbo 10045. 
It's impossible to overlook how popular these were in Ireland (and the UK). They had features at prices that you couldn't get in a comparable Ford or MF.  Even stuff like a cab and a heater was considered a luxury back in the day but it was accessible with a Zetor for a average farmer. 
Top quality.

"Old and knackered?!". Nah...

30 this year, still turning and burning...  Old Toyotas never die. 
 
🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞😅

Been a while.  How about a general car cluster update.
Well in all honesty not much to report. Ive moved12 miles further away from the workshop , this was to make my commute shorter but the side effect has been a drop in anything getting done at the workshop as traveling that direction around rush hour is a bastard.
The mx5 returned. Winter has added some more "patina".  Overall still pretty sorted. Brakes need a clean up and grease. Oil change will happen soon and the drivers window is getting stuck. Appart from that is now in the 114k range (bought at 109) and still mega fun. I was feeling a bit childish so i drilled the air box aswell and the induction roar is fantasticly loud now!  Cracking fun

This sexy silver bastard is just chomping up the miles still. Today i done a 140mile round trip to collect a tow bar and roof bars for it which will hopefully go on later this week. No issues to report appart from being in need of a massive clean inside.

This pile of purest blue joined the party.

Its a driver but we are definately in need of some improvement. Massive wheel bearing play up front and a busted gear selector mount and linkage slop are first of the list. Followed by a leaking rad. Dont plan to keep it long so id like to keep costs right down.
The ugly pugling still being cheap transport for the other half.  Absolutely full of shite thats "to go to the charity shop"  gave it a quick oil and filter the other month before if went for an MOT overall needs for nowt.

Black Astra currently kindly out the way over at the 6s place. Had just chucked new arms and inner and outter tie rods on before getting the tracking done.  Another wagon that needs nowt doing to it now.

I bought a big thing aswell which for the past 3 weeks has blocked the workshop up. 


A 4ton 4 poster. It was from a local garage at a very decent price. Influenced by some friends i bought it. It is however a bit large. 
Finger cross its functioning this weekend! Woop.
And thats it. Nothing exciting, i feel a sell up on the horizon but we will see. 
 

I did three seasons - May to September but our schedule wasn't as full-on as yours. A typical week would be
Monday - take-down, once we got slick the whole show could be packed away in 3 hours which gave us the rest of the day off
Tuesday - travel to next pitch, usually not more than 3 to 4 hours  (we didn't run tachos but were limited to 56mph)
Wednesday - set-up, 6 to 10 hours depending on ground conditions - we didn't have JCBs and a pneumatic pin hammer, just a knackered Transit called Gloria (sic transit...) and some sledgehammers!
Thursday & Friday - schools shows 10am - 3pm, evenings off.
Saturday & Sunday - public shows

Moving to Stirling. Last show was Tuesday 8ish finish and nearly everything was in Stirling by 3ish, except the two Yank trucks. My last trip got me to the site at around three in the morning. As one of my jobs is to get water to everyone, as soon as, the previous day I had a scout around to see where a hydrant would go. Didn't need to because the council put one in on Saturday afternoon. Thanks for that. Saved me a bit of time. When I got to Stirling at three I had a look at how I was going to lay it out. Remember I have only seen one set up as the last one, I was doing drivey stuff which is first and foremost. Got a plan sorted and started chucking some hard plastic piping around from the back of my van when I noticed it was only firing on three. Bugger, not what I wanted at that moment. Broken injector pipe. Bollox! Spraying anti rust treatment everywhere. This old van I've got is an ideal shed, in more  ways than one, for getting around the site with all my tools in the back and hose, connectors, barriers, etc. and I get an allowance for it and fuel, so I chugged on for a bit on three and gave up. Shanks's pony then. Luckily, or possibly not, I was interrupted by a phone call, at about 4 from Ivor, a well known character in this, erm, series? asking me to get a strap and bring it to the hard shoulder of the M8 heading To Edinburgh in the minibus. Okey dokey. Have to get a torch and hunt for a strap coz all the power isn't on yet. Eventually get one and hop in to the Ldv and head off. Find them with the Tranny, no offence to transitionals, on the hard shoulder. As you can Imagine they do all their own recovery work having trucks and a low loader if necessary. Can you imagine the bill for a roadside  recovery deal? Carried on to Edin to get the trucks where I had to chuck all the wood we used to get over a real shit entrance on to the field. A kerb and then a slope down which coming in or out with trailers that are quite close to the ground is a graunchy experience, so wood is used to make it less so. It took 5 mins to do this so was not far behind. Did I see them on the road ? Did I fuck. When I got to Stirling after thrashing the Ldv, they were already there and parked up. Showman shite allows you to drive yank trucks at 70 or more here, it seems. I've put a couple of pics below of the Kenworth. Bad quality of course.
I was about to say that the Dublin trip yesterday morning didn't happen coz the Tranny had cam belt breakage but it's back all fixed up and ready to go. From broken yesterday to being fixed today. I might need to find out who, for future ref. So it's off to Dublin on the 7.30am boat to Belfast tomorrow and back Friday at some point to be arranged. So I'll get some grub down and some shut eye before leaving about 3 I reckon. Got to be at the boat no later than 45mins before the off. 
The van woes. Luckily I had some pipes including a new one so did a bit of bending and got that sorted this afternoon while I was  thinking of a nice easy couple of days and I was going to sort out a new passport, in case we go to Holland and can't do it online for some reason so it's a trip to the P.O. What joy.  
More circus shite to follow, I'm sure.

Photos of actual car.