Broadsword

Well, after years of patching and repairs, I’ve finally decided to get my Defender put on a galvanised chassis. The original one lasted over 30 years and 207k miles so has done well, particularly as the previous owner of 10 years used it for launching boats in the sea. Looking forward to no longer having to roll around under it getting showered in dirt and sparks, this should now see me out.

I did a buy, Volvo V70 d5, very recent timing belt, stacks of history heated leather. Very happy. 

Pez before Woollard
 

Collectioned. 

Just got a copy of Raymond Baxter's autobiography - 'Tales of My Time'.  Baxter was in his time a well known journalist and TV presenter amongst other things:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Baxter
When I open the book  - a 'change of address card' for Baxter dropped out - postmarked 28 September 1968 addressed to BMC at Abingdon.  

Baxter was 1967-1968 Director of Motoring Publicity for the British Motor Corporation. 
Amazing what you find. Just a bit of euphemera but quite charming.

Thread resurrection time.
After 12 months in slumber on my parents' drive, this old heap will be my winter/ULEZ beater for local trips.

I collected it yesterday and fortunately the showers had stopped for the 20 minute drive home.  Good job as the wipers were inop.  But this morning they fixed themselves so that's a job off the list already.
Plans are to do some mild tinkering, like replacing the knackered door seals and do a proper radiator flush. A big job I undertook in early 2022 was a head rebuild.  Big to me anyway as I'd never removed a head before.  New stem seals were the initial reason for doing it as the smoke on start up was an embarrassment frankly.  That turned into a hardened valve seat conversion (with new valves obviously) and loads of other ancillary shit I've forgotten.  The upshot was it drove much better and hopefully it'll continue to do so.  Now I'll just crack on and use it as often as possible.
 

I have been without wheels for two weeks since selling the BMW.
Having trawled ebay and marketplace it became apparent everybody believes there car is worth much more than it actually is.
I was looking for a BMW e61 - plenty in budget but too far away geographically. Those closer to home were overpriced for 16 - 17 years old with over 160k - plenty of bork factor. I wanted a six pot diesel - I would never have the awful four cylinder. A few XF jags were in budget but advisories for corrosion put me off.
E91's in my budget were 4 pot petrol and diesel - again overpriced. A lot of the adds made me laugh - pointing out the good bits and at the end of the text chucking in that basically it was fucked.
I looked at A6's/ mondeo - even insignias.
This morning an add popped up on ebay. I made contact with the seller and headed to Bickerstaffe with much haste.
I bought this - 

It's a 2.0 cdti SRI. It's minging inside and out but comes with one of the most comprehensive histories I have seen - the service book is stamped up to 175k. It has just passed 181k. It came with a sheaf of bills and all the books. Clutch replaced 10k ago. Timing belt in 2019. Oil pick up seal done in 2021. Ticket until September '24. Somebody really loved this car despite it now looking like it had been yanked from somebody's ringpiece.
Deal was done. I had insured the BMW with Swinton - it was less than £300.Unbelievably the thieving fagins wanted just short of £700. For an insignia. I have been driving for over 30 years.
They were told what they could do with their quote. Swinton will get no more business from me.
I actually  got a policy for two hundred and odd quid.
I put £30 worth of diesel in the car and headed straight for our caravan.
Observations? It's not quick - more brisk - I am certain it picks up quicker than the mondeo but it has less weight.
Through the new 20 mph zones I can leave it in 3rd - the mondeo needs 2nd. Brakes are sharp but gear change is not ford - smooth and has a bit of throw to get it over to 5th gear.
I have not tested all of the onboard functions cos' I need to read the book.

Filthy. But all the levels are correct and I cannot see oil anywhere.

Did I say it was filthy? And it stinks of cowshit having lived on  a farm. The seat bolsters are intact but the trim at the base of the drivers seat is broken. The aircon does not blow cold - looking through the bills it has been regassed a few times so this suggests it loses pressure over a couple of years.

Boot carpet will need to be removed and cleaned to assist with getting rid of the whiff.

No spare wheel. But bonus breaker bar and adaptor.
I doubt the expensive VXR alloys were standard - the tyres are legal but not for much longer. 
Road tax cost me £35 - much better than the £395 for the BMW.
It needs a monster of a clean and some refrigerant. And a spare key. Given the mileage I won't be putting much money into it and due to this it means when I am done with it I can P/X with no guilt rather than deal with scavengers on tinterweb.
You may be wondering how much the bovine excrement smelling GM chariot cost me?
I paid £2k. The alloys are worth near 50% of that.
There is still the odd bargain but you need to be quick.
It seems that £2k is the new £500.

The oil, oil filter and air filter changed on the Clio yesterday.

After not servicing much else aside from a 2.4 V70 and the 1.9 SDi Golf for many years now, I must admit to being slightly taken aback by the size if the oil filters for these.
They're TINY!

I also noticed the ID sticker was about to peel off the engine block, do I rescued it. I believe this would make it a 'D7F726'....

Right- Some developments here.
Our trusty Golf SDI shat its power steering rack last week. By this stage it was looking pretty rusty, timing belt was overdue and it had done 195K.  A tough choice,  but off it went for scrap.
Goodnight sweet prince....
 

 
I'm actually still  pretty sad about this, but honestly, it was time.
Meanwhile,  I've bought a 112k Octavia SDi estate locally. Frankly it's pretty much immaculate, not a spot of rust on the sills or anywhere, undertrays still fitted etc. This will be taken over by my younger brother. I'm actually really jealous this one isn't for me....
 

 
For us, I've picked up this late registered manual 1.2 Mk2 Clio on 61k.....
 

 
The MOT history on it is pretty pleasing. It's our first French car (Not counting the C1 as technically they're an Aygo). Honestly seems OK so far.
 

The boot of a range rover looks huge until you shove some 21"wheels in it 

these were a mega bargain , taken off a low miles L405 by a dealer then shoved in a corner 
£400 for the four and amazingly not in Devon or on a Scottish Island , only 20 miles away 
The tyres are £242 each 

Next up OFF WITH ITS HEAD(s) 

No joke i needed a scaff tube on the end of my breaker bar to crack them off one of the bolts tried to strip which caused an hour or so of sweating..  


For the drivers side the lower manifold bolt for cylinder 8 is near impossible to get at unless the arch liner is removed..

So off which its wheel and liner.. 


I did discover a small compost heap residing behind the mudflap  


No rust though which is very good to see  

Bores are in good nick with the crosshatch still very much visible    
 
 
And all covered up
 
 
Getting parts together now  
 
hasn't fought me too much so far..  
 

Spent 30mins after work having a go removing a few things. 
Managed to loosen off the dreaded heatshields, for those aren't aware it usually takes longer to remove them than anything else. 
Next down the line was the manifold Y pipe bolts which are notorious for either snapping or stripping the studs in the manifold, luckily with a good douse with GT85 and my dewalt impact they came out ok, the passenger side needed a 14mm socket hammer on them but other than that it went well.
The gaskets proved to be completely knackered, that'll explain the ticking sound under load.  





The nuts are on there loosley at the moment becuase the rear crossmemeber needs to come off to allow the cats to drop off, so they're taking the weight while that happens.  
 
Got the G box supported in preparation for the crossmember to be removed. 

 
More later when I have time LOL   
 
 

Got a call from the old dear about 2 hours ago, little bro' @Nev has died out in Lanzarote. 
Pretty instant from what I can make out, flying out 6am tomorrow, PM will be done by Wednesday.
 
Balls.

Right it has been 9 months since the last update.. 
Old P38 has been off the road for a long while a leaking headgasket, which is allowing coolant to leak out at a rather alarming rate that being her current bug bear, to be honest its an easy fix but with the weather being either way too bloody hot or like today too damn cold i've been trying to clear out some old sheds to put her in so i can take my time and do it properly
 
First up leaky engine or not she had to drag out an old caravan.. 😈
 
 
Good looking motor the old P38!  
Concrete floor cleared off and she's finally sat under cover..  


Bit more tidying up to do, notably moving the old cement mixer and hanging some shelves etc etc. 
Plan is to do a full top end overhaul on the engine, complete the list of problems HVAC and audio system to name  a few neither of which work properly or at all.  And then compound/polish the living daylights out of it.. 
 
Cheers.. 
 

As you're all well aware we are experiencing regular outages on the site currently.  
This stems from the initial outage we had last month, where the site became disconnected from the server due to a networking fault.  Since then despite taking a number of steps to rectify this on our side we still get the site disconnected from the network once a day. 
Unfortunately we are not receiving the support we need from the external hosting company to rectify this, as the fault appears to lie on their side.  Essentially whilst we (well by we I mean Slartibartfast) can apply the jump leads each time to get us back up and online, they (the hosting company) are failing to fix the underlying fault or provide us with the tools/support to do so. 
As an admin team we are trying to work out our options for the long term stability of the site. This is not totally straightforward given our varying working hours etc. but Slarti does jump straight to it every time we go down.  This morning we were made aware at 9.59 we were back online by 10.21. 
What can I do?
As people have been - if you spot it's down and you have a means of contacting any of the admin team via external methods let us know.  One of us can contact Slarti and he has been getting it back online in a few minutes. That way we hope disruption will be kept to a minimum. 
I know a few people have offered practical help and experience, this is greatly appreciated.  I'll be asking how we can best use this. 
I'm going to lock this thread simply so it is only used for latest updates, and these aren't lost in a deluge of posts and therefore any member can see it easily.
 
Finally, thank you all for your patience - this is a very frustrating spell for AS and I know it is extremely annoying!

Whatever it is, dibs.

Because I don't have enough stress in my life as it is I picked this up last weekend. 

Got it cheap because it's got 204k miles on and is in need of some welding but appears to have been looked after. Front and rear cambelts changed at 180k and various other important bits done. Even got brave enough to try the parking brake last night
Have done 300 miles so far and looks like the trans will need servicing (getting the classic vibration going uphill) but I absolutely love it. Now watch it break...

My not stolen centre caps turned up today, excellent service from someone that is not a crack head. Immediately, I set about 'diluting' the appearance of the screwdriver marks and proceeded to go fit them...
 

That's 2bhp added, if ever I've seen it! I cannot wait to rip the head off and get this exhaust manifold issue sorted, I still have never heard the beauty of this car taking off because it is destroyed by tractor sounds from under the bonnet. What a day that is going to be! Found a firm that does snout pulley work for the 10%er. It's 350£ odd,  but you know.... Whilst I'm there etc ...
This car is going to be fucking fast. That's all I have, I'm overcome with excitement. 
I know you are all eyeing up the neighbours Nissan, it's fucked, stop it 
 

More goodness and drama... 
I managed to get a bank 1 (RH) exhaust manifold as there is the chance that the one on it might be warped and I already have a genuine NOS gasket for that. Caldoofy hasn't turned up yet but there is a long delivery time so I'll have to wait for that fun stuff.
The doner Jagdroid screen turned up and was not the one I bought, it's for a diesel spec. Instead of getting mad, I had the cunning plan that this could go in the er, diesel and I'll get the one I was supposed to get for cheaper, no harm done M8?
Seller was cool with that and the proper one is on the way. In the meantime, Jagdroid bloke got in touch and gave me a date to send the unit off. I am preparing to do the head work during this period so I've other things to get like a timing set, gaskets, DCCV valve, intake hoses, and other bits and pieces... and I wouldn't mind swapping the supercharger pully to the smaller one- whilst I'm there like. I'll do the CATs at this point. 
As everyone does, I have further plans beyond this essential work and the black car may be donating more than I first thought. For example, anyone seen this:

See those rear arches? Those are stype front arches and I like that- a lot! The STR is going to need rear arch work in the next few years and not only that, the STR's rear subframe is not great but the 3.0 rear frame is absolutely minty, so I need to see if that works. They don't transfer to the X202.5 body but STR is the 200 body, the same as the 3.0 body. The STR frame could be beefed up in places and I could add said beefing if it requires it but some assessment is required. The diff needs upgrading to LSD too which is something I nearly started to get the bits for but I need to sort the exhaust system out first and I need to get Jagdroid now or I'll never get it!
So, still plenty of fun to be had out of it!

Collected DOY earlier with 12m ticket. Still looks dodgy by the roadside, mind.

They should be testing it on petrol. I had an issue with failing emissions on a LPG Jag V8 once and the advice was to have a look at the spark plugs because they are going to wear out much faster on LPG. Sure enough they were very worn down and a new set of plugs sorted everything out.

Fuck me, where were we? I tried to copy paste text from another forum but the phone wasn't having none of it, so here's the low down...
I'm breaking the black jag to scavenge valuable plastics that would cost me thousands and then it's going around the oval. Can't wait for that. The STR is fucking brilliant, what a car, as I've said in another forum, it's boy racer, mid life crisis, and retirement all rolled into one. That thing uses traction control in the dry, just pulling away from lights (to beat the latest golf GRD) The thing is rapid and hilariously fun.! I mean that it leaves other modernz like they are standing. Thanks to the rear 275 tyres, it still breaks loose, traction control comes on every time. I can turn it off but I'm a bit scared because the rear tyres are £200 each and i don't want to light them up at every roundabout 
I got a replacement arm rest in between the seats, mine didn't open because some dick head snapped the cable mount..  how do you even do that? The replacement is like brand new. I've also got some cats and stuff from magnaflow to build a proper exhaust. The ones that are on it are fucked, most likely smashed out but the new 200 cells are the way to go. The plan is to Frankenstein the front pipes and add in the sensors, I've got 90's to weld in on the Oxygen sensors, move them out of the stream yeah? It'll look professional, I've the bollox of a mig, just need to chuck some stainless wire in it and blame myself when it goes wrong. The original exhaust is that stainless steel/ part steel shite, so we'll see how that goes. Then I've got to rip the head off and get the snapped stud out at a shop, I'll have them all pulled out and new put in. 
I've also bought a spare touch screen and cd player that can go off to JAGDROID, (a bloke that turns the touchscreen into Android) so that I can bring the interior up to date, I miss my toonz, cds are only good for so long. I'll have Stevie nicks, the clash, and similar in there but sometimes want banging drum and bass, especially when the tarmac is open. I'll be sneaking in some more poly bush too... Take off is fine but when a rabbit runs out into the road ... Control could be better than 20 year old rubber at 80mph. 
She's a charm fellas, go and get one now!
 
Edit: Oooh, forgot to mention, it's got a caldoofy intake coming too. I liked it ... It was shiny. 

That is one caddish Jag! I never liked the look of the basic XJ40, but the moment it is hunched down on big wheels and wide tyres with the quad light and most importantly the presence of the V12 in my mind increases the visual appeal (don't ask me how I came to that conclusion, it's special logic). Great colour too!!

And after many many years of hibernation while I was out and about in the world, a temporary resettlement in UK requires the old girl back in my life:

a call was made (sorry Ceri, I needed her back really quickly), transportation arranged, and it came down from Scotland.

 
and now with a new battery, it is blasting around the grounds preparing for an MOT next week and being pushed into duty as client fetching limo / photo prop.

still love the old thing - hope it loves me back…

That’s it, we’re out! The weighty Getrag lump is free of the red Jag. In the end what I needed was a 50 cm extension bar and a shallow impact swivel socket to get the harder to reach bellhousing bolts out. After that the final challenge was teasing the gearbox off the locating dowels, since it was seized on.
Before too long the gearbox popped off and there was ample room to push back, lower on my little motorcycle jack and drag it out from the side. Doing this job in a small single garage on axle stands is only just about doable. It’s not terribly complicated but I really had very, very little space to manoeuvre.
It was exciting to see how how bad things were inside. The release bearing is absolutely shot. How it didn’t disintegrate is a minor miracle. More impressive than that is how the pivot on the fork was seized solid and the fork was seized on the input shaft. It would barely move. How the clutch didn’t stick is beyond me. For a moment I wondered if the car had been in a flood. There was watery rusty residue in the bellhousing. Soon I realised what had really happened. Water has dropped from the air box drain direct to the top of the bellhousing and leaked into the transmission. Condensation attacked the pivot and release bearing in particular. In short, with a good clean up and the new bearing fitted it will be fine. To my surprise the clutch itself is in good condition. I know this sounds unconventional but I’m not going to change the clutch, just the release bearing, selector mount bushings and just clean everything up. New fluid of course, but that’s it. I’m certain it will be great after that. If the clutch was smooth (but heavy) in this state it will be fine with this work done. By the way the clutch is BEEFY! It weighs an absolute tonne!