Mally

A bit more of the bitsa interior. Upside- it’s semi trashed so very usable. (OSR door card- partially eaten by a dog?)


Dog guard secured by a ww2 soviet machine gun sling
The headlining is just the backing only, as it the internal a b c d pillar trim-

The NSR 1/4 window still has the breakers yard markings on it for extra couldnt give a fuck points. Actually this glass is more tinted, and is optikool rather than the other side windows being triplex- so off a later model i think.
 
Farthest off road so far

Verdict- must try harder
 

Sketchy AF. 

RIP, it's gone to heaven with Diana and all the angles. Let it be her Maj's and Sir Captain Tom's passion wagon now.

@RetroShite can rebuild it, he has the technology 

This one made it into the calendar, natch!

More from that exciting day here....
https://autoshite.com/topic/21257-rover-shennanigans-81115-lancia-loan/page/2/

It'll be the Trabant that has tipped whoever it is over the edge,I used to have a neighbour ask if I could tell them if I was going to start mine so they could bring their washing in beforehand.

You will get a week in Sunny Beach for 1 tooths worth. 
Work out at a free holiday including spends,

Rounded out my unemployment by spending the week driving the Civic and generally larking about. 


I also picked up some more goodies for it, SiR door cards which are a bit better for sound deadening and look lush, and an unfinished JDM rear plate conversion that I'm going to prep and have painted. 



I'm now an IT consultant. 

I had a bit of time this afternoon to complete a couple of small jobs.
I wanted to remove the redundant front fog light brackets.

I, incorrectly, assumed that undoing the two nuts and bolts would enable me to remove each bracket. Yes and no. The bracket also forms part of the bumper support, which is fixed to the chassis above. In the end, I just bent back the parts of the bracket that secure the fog light.

Lying on the floor looking up at the bumper, I realised that if I am going to re-spray the rear bumper, which is a must, I might as well do the front.
Next, was a simple job of refixing the rear number plate. Or so I thought. Turns out, whoever fitted the replacement number plate drilled two new fixing holes in the rear panel and the one on the right side is located exactly where the jack abuts the inner side of the panel. This explains why the screw that I removed was angled at 45 degrees. I put it back as it was for now but to sort this out properly, I need another rear number plate.
Note the reflection in the boot lid of the E46 parked outside.

I re-fixed the non-factory aerial. It fits ok but to make it fit, the mast leans towards the front of the car. I might have another go at aligning it but ideally I would like to source a Ford factory aerial.

As the paint in and around the arches was now dry, I wanted to replace the arch liners.
I spent a fair bit of time cleaning them and removing overspray but they still look shit. I cleaned the front ones with a pressure washer, a stiff brush and soapy water and with neat paraffin to remove the overspray. I am not happy with how they turned out. I know that they won't be visible with the wheels back on but that's no excuse to leave them looking dirty.
Any ideas what else I can try to make them look cleaner? I don't want to paint them as the paint will flake as the wheels kick up stones etc. 




All being well, I will respray the front and rear bumpers this weekend.

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.

I made good progress with the bodywork repairs today.
I got the Sunday Times out again and had another go at spraying the windscreen pillars.


Success, this time no more chemical reactions. The paint match is approx 95% correct.

I had a third attempt at spraying the bottom of the offside rear door. This time everything went ok.

I used a 240 grade padded sand paper to take the shine off the sills. Messy business.

But a good result.

I painted both sills with the new paint I bought on Monday. The previous colour was too loud, it looked more turquoise than blue. This shade is darker than it should be but looks less offensive. 
As previously advised, my iPhone's camera struggles to correctly present the original blue paint. The flood light doesn't help either. The paint match is actually a lot better. 


Next, I had to sort out these storage scars.

I rubbed down the corrosion down to fresh metal.

I masked up the scars to keep the repair patches as small as possible.

I then squirted blue aerosol paint into a pot and used a small sponge to dab multiple thin coats of paint over the masked off patches.

I did this wherever the paint was damaged.

With the masking paint removed, you can see where the paint was applied, however once cut back and polished, the repairs should look ok.


There was a deep scratch in the middle of the offside rear door.

I applied masking tape close to the edges of the scratch.

And applied numerous thin coats of aerosol paint.

With the masking tape removed, the scratch is almost invisible and will look better still once the paint is cut and polished.

The rear screen side plastic panels were also damaged during storage.

I dabbed some matt black paint onto the plastic. The paint was still wet when I took this photo.

Last week I found out that acrylic primer and aerosol paint reacts with oil based paint and causes wrinkles and cracking. Today, by chance, I discovered that dabbing the blue aerosol paint over the oil based paint that was applied 3 hours earlier, without using primer, does not cause any problems. Very odd. I dabbed paint over the offside rear arch, which now looks a lot better.


The fuel filler panel seal was covered with blue overspray.

Five minutes with a stanley blade got the old paint off. Much better.

That was it for today. 
I will leave the paint repairs to dry overnight and tomorrow I am getting busy with this stuff.

I hope the paint will respond well to a good cut and polish.
Can't wait to see the Sierra shine. 

Just a note to say that my dad passed away this morning. He is at peace now. I will miss him terribly.

Shad news….
Been gifted use of a garage


By my Boss, which is nice!

P38 news
The section of p38 carpet/ moulded foam underlay that was hacked out during its tow truck conversion has been sourced and dispatched from a suitable supplier, and they sent me this in lieu of a tracking note 💪

It's taken too long,cost too much,pissed me off on numerous occasions,failed on two stupid items,but finally this shitbox has passed it's test and is fully road legal for the first time since 2012.

Appropriate badge...

 
 

Fatha and dog approved.
Shame the weather hasn’t been up to much lately.

A week retired and I still have no time! The difference is this time it is up to me what I do and where I go, and that makes a huge difference.
The last few days have been spent getting my Classic 900 'vert Saab ready for MOT as it has been laid up off the road (OK, abandoned in a corner outside) for over 2 years but in 2 and a bit weeks it is going on display at the NEC for the Practical Classics show. No pressure then. A new rear half exhaust was fitted (I have welded it for the MOT for the last 4 tests), serviced it, checked and lubricated everything and tightened up the bolts on the cat. I managed to get an MOT slot today so off we went. Started off great, but going through Dundee the brakes started to stick on after gentle breaking, but were fine if used enthusiastically.
For about 8 years, the brake light switch has been a bit sticky requiring a pull up of the brake pedal with your foot to make sure the brake lights were off, so the sticking brakes were also cured with the same pull up. The brake light switch is a bastard to get to on these old Saabs, being behind the dash on the passenger side, so I have just lived with it. Got to the MOT station by which time the brakes were back to normal.
The tester put it on the ramp, and whilst he was away logging the car on, the brake lights decided to come on (no ignition required on these) so before he noticed, I quickly pulled up the brake pedal up to turn them off. The test started, and the exhaust was blowing, not badly, from the cat joins, yes, the ones I had tightened yesterday. Of course, the brake lights refused to work at all (never done that before) so a failure ensued. Not a problem as the left hand indicator repeater (tested yesterday) decided to call it a day, the wiper blades fell apart in the rain on the way down (new for the last MOT and done virtually no miles), the bungee cord that holds the battery in lost its stretch so an insecure battery and the movement had destroyed the insulation on the starter wire. The good news is despite the exhaust leak, it just scraped the Lamda sensor, everything else was fine. Finally, on the rollers, the offside handbrake decided not to work.
I now have two weeks to get it tested in time for the NEC. I have ordered the bits I need but I cannot start on it until Monday as tomorrow I am off on a collection mission. It will take a few days as it is nearly 500 miles from here, needs to be trailered and my friend and many good beers is on the way back! I will update the collectioning when I can, but it will not really be a live collection as I will be on my own so only update when stopped. Looking forward to meeting another shiter I have not met before on Thursday for the collection.

The decline of traditional media has caused so many problems. Last time I needed to mask up my car, I had to print out a load of Reddit posts. 

I kinda of knew what I was getting when I bought a high miler VW, but I thought I'd at least be able to shut the bonnet before it broke again. 

Even just taking it around the yard was enough to remember how lovely and agile it felt . 
Really looking forward to using this a bit . 

Next job is to take all the coolant hoses off and clean up the stubs where they fit as they are getting furry and give the system a good flush . Dad always kept good anti freeze in it so hopefully not too many horrors . I know there is at least one coolant pipe that has been “ dadded “ which needs to be replaced . Unfortunately it’s a pre moulded shape and different sizes at each end . I’ve been stock piling random coolant hoses for a while so hopefully I can sort something out . 
 
It’s starting on the button lovely now so that’s a moral boost in any project . 
All the electrics inc radio still work fine too . 
 
This MOT will be its last one too as it turns 40 next year. 
That will be my second “ free” vehicle on the fleet after the KE175 . ( family has owned it almost as long )

 

Some progress ! Got a new old stock carb from Italy . They are different from 104s and sambas which is a pain in the ass . 
Just given the engine a good jet wash off and ran it back up to dry it out .
Ive booked a few days on it in March to undo dad’s bodges and hopefully get it mot ready . 

 

I've just spotted that "automatic" badge on the bootlid.
 

I'm sure that should read "without god".
Sign writer with my sense of humour.

jesus christ thats rough, bless there souls

Thread resurrection. As I haven't seen anybody from the circus since last October there was many hugs from every body  saying they had missed me,  when I met them at Haydock Race course to move everything to Norwich Showground. I've never had that much of a reaction before. They are a good bunch of people and there is rarely any problems between anybody. Going to be here for about 3 weeks and I have got a fair bit of work to do that would have been done if I had been there in Holland, 4 weeks Xmas New Year, Glasgow, 2 weeks, Haydock, 1 week so a fair bit of stuff to sort. Starting with 2 bunk wagons that have leaks when it rains. What joy, chasing leaks. The water system I had has been somewhat wrecked by those that didn't have much of a clue so there's a few days to get that back to how I like it. I knew that would happen but I've said that I need to show somebody how it's done when I'm not there. Which at my age could be at any moment, or if my ankle gets any worse then I'm going to have to give it up. 
There's been a few minor changes. A few different trucks, different performers, but not all, some new showgirls, etc. I shall leave you with 2 pic of my new circus 'rig'. One of where we are and a dizzel shot. If anyone wants to know what its like let me know. I'm sure you will notice a slight anomaly.