Reputation from Mr Laurence

Mr Laurence got a reaction from bunglebus in Album Covers with Interesting Cars on Sunday at 22:00

I’ve tried to find albums that haven’t been in either thread yet - much harder than I was expecting!
(there’s a few of these that I’m kind of eh about as albums, or that I only know a song or two from)

Mr Laurence reacted to stevek in A pair of decrepit 309’s March 25

Yesterday’s update…

The blue one - Tried really hard to remove the right hand drum, as this is the hand brake cable I have, the other hasn’t arrived yet. It spins freely so the shoes are off, and I have got it about 10mm pulled which has unseated the outer bearing but the inner bearing must have stuck on the stub hard. Remember this bearing stub was open to the elements for years so was rusted up, I did clean and sand it back before fitting but perhaps not quite enough. I tried using the wheel as a slide hammer, tried chocking the drum agains the back plate and hammering the opposite side, tried packing out the centre and crowbarring against a wheel bolt. No joy at all, it didn’t even feel that close so I have ordered a hub puller. This setback kinda knocked the wind out of my sails yesterday morning as it is the car I wanted focus on but it just wasn’t to be.

The gold one - Started by trying to drop the coolant/water but the most obvious bottom hose was held using single use bands rather than jubilee clips. Ended up choosing a water pump hose which was harder to get to but did the job. It was the most brown and silty coolant I’ve ever seen. Warmed it up and did 3 water changes.
STOP!

Got it properly hot today but the radiator fan definitely doesn’t work. Stuck a screwdriver thought the grill and and tried turning it but it feels seized. Oh well not too big a deal.

Next I decided to see if it could move under its own steam. Pumped up the tyres but one wouldn’t hold air so I swapped it for the spare before dropping it back on its wheels. Started it up, put it in gear and it went forward! It didn’t even drag the back wheels, they actually turned! Shunted it back and forth 3 or 4 times and now I can push it by hand, could do with some brakes though. No pedal at all, handbrake applies and releases but only with low effort.

-Steve-

Mr Laurence reacted to N Dentressangle in A pair of decrepit 309’s March 25

Lichen that

Mr Laurence reacted to stevek in A pair of decrepit 309’s March 25

Hi,
I’ve been aware of the brown forum for many years, but generally hung around on another well known blue hued forum, sort of on and off anyway. Most of my ‘fleet’ (if you can call a collection of long term broken cars that) is probably more at home on here but my most recent car tinkering finally pushed me over the line to sign up on here.
Ya see I’ve been spending a bit of time recently poking and tinkering with the longest standing, many years abandoned, heaps in my collection and I suspect this is the only place I might scrape some interest in what is basically a hopeless cause. Said heaps have been abandoned rotting on my drive for 17 and 19yrs respectively, but the house where they languish is going on the market soon so their existence hangs precariously in the ballence. Friends and family have been telling me to scrap them for about a decade now so their calls are almost deafeningly loud now. It would certainly be the sensible thing to do.
For reasons beyond common sense I want to move them to my current house which means making them mobile again. I mean ‘mobile’ as in I can load them onto a trailer and preferably drive them up my short but annoyingly steep driveway, not as in make them ready for the road.
Anyway, so what do you make of these two beauties?

Artefact 1 - The gold one - 1989 1.3 XL special equipment
This was my first car, bought by a much younger self circa 1999. I saved up the £600 by working weekends in Burger King while doing my A levels. It was well used and abused until 2005, but it’s been parked up ever since. It was retired as a fully functional car on 109k miles, I just replaced it (with a 34k miles 1.3 mk6 Escort I bought as Cat D salvage and returned to the roads). It donated its windscreen to the blue one around 2009 after vandalism so it’s been open to the elements for a while too, it’s become home to some ferns growing in the carpet.
Artefact 2 - The blue one - 1987 1.3 GR Profile
This was my mates car for a year but he donated it to me when the MOT ran out, in 2007 according to the MOT history. The original idea was to fix this one up using the gold one for spares. After a couple of years ignoring it I did drag it to an MOT test in 2010 which it failed due to much more rampant rust than I had given it credit for, it’s sat ever since.
So what ya thinking of doing with them I hear you say! Well, the gold one has probably (though not certainly) had it’s day as a regular 309, but I’m sentimental about it and have a very harebrained idea for it in the back of my mind. It might never happen but I want to hold on to the possibility, so the goal is to just move it and sling a car cover over it. The blue one however is calling out to live once more, I want to get it back on the road. I’m better skilled to weld it back up now than I was back then, and once the old house is gone I should be blessed with more time and lower outgoings which should help. I just kinda fancy fixing it up a bit, I want to feel the mighty power of the Simca rattle box engine and savour the rolly polly handling on skinny tyres once more. But firstly I just need to move it so I can achieve priority no1 which is to get the old house up for sale.
There you go lots of waffle, I’ll post about where I’m up to and what I’ve got stuck on soon, if anyone cares.
-Steve-

Mr Laurence reacted to stevek in A pair of decrepit 309’s March 25

Hi there morrisoxide, yes I still have the 924. I had to take it off the road at the end of last summer to save some pennies but it’s ready to roll when I sort my finances out. Actually that’s a small fib, it needs tyres desperately and a bonnet catch return spring but that’s all. It’s still as rough and ready as ever but it’s a blast.

-Steve-

Mr Laurence reacted to Cavcraft in Pleasure Wagon Memories March 15

The only possible way to make this better is if @KruJoe walks round his garden 4,000 times to raise money for PWA (pleasure wagon awareness) then mysteriously ends up with a big fuck off conservatory on the side of his house.

Mr Laurence reacted to Roverjoe in A Sentimental Honda Civic Restoration January 8

So today ive been finalising the metalwork by filling areas with weld that needed it mainly around the outer arch section as i grinded too much away (whoops) anyways ive managed to rebuild it as best as i could. there is a few pin holes but i may just leave them as i really dont want to make more work for myself again. ive tested the structure of the arch and it seems strong so thats good. I will use a fine layer of filler just to get it all smoothened out so that it looks right, so a day of sanding i dont think will be too bad after all the work ive had to do today lol.

Today i also managed to flood the sill with cavity wax, made sure it got into all the areas and especially the areas where the welds were as the paint will have burnt off on the inside. i also managed to get it up into the arch too where i had to fill it with weld so that should hopefully be nice and protected from the inside now. I used Bilt Hamber S50 Cavity Wax which came with a handy lance to get into all the tight areas.

And Finally here it is with the Door on:

The Door needs slightly lifting up, i put it on in a rush as it was getting dark so thats something to do on another day.

For the next part of the project i will be focusing on this section of the front jacking point and floor on the passenger side. It just needs a small patch where it joins the floor. I really dont want to have to open this up but if it comes to it then i will have to. but i think once thats done i will be taking a break from the welding due to winter, and ill put my focus onto the other jobs, perhaps suspension and such who knows ill see.

Mr Laurence reacted to Roverjoe in A Sentimental Honda Civic Restoration January 8

Hello guys another update to the civic, ive finally managed to get the outer piece welded on. It was a bit of a hassle however. Every other repair panel ive made seemed fine to weld to however the genuine body panels are just terrible to weld to and i have no idea why, so there was plenty of crappy plug welds and blown holes.

I spent a few hours making sure that everything was lining up right making sure that the 1mm gap was present. This side shown here welded up really well however once i started work on the other join, the gap on that side had opened up leaving me with a gap of about 5mm to weld up which i really was not happy about. But i managed to somehow get it welded up thankfully. shown below, by the time i had got this done it was getting dark so i had to do the rest today.

Here is the join which i grinded down, this was probably the best side and for a first attempt im pretty chuffed, theres still some more work to be done regards to grinding but thanks to the clocks going back and the nights rolling in i have less time in the day to do so. Its by no means perfect, i still need to build up them plug welds as the metal just blew through at the slightest bit of welding.

After a bit of primer it didnt look too bad. however it will need some more tidy up work doing to it tomorrow...

That was the good side, now for the side which was worst thanks to that 5mm gap that i had to fill.

Its not brilliant but the main thing is, is that the panel gap lines up right with the door, There are some pin holes that need to be filled and theres a section of metal which has just got a bit too thin from grinding so i will have to build that back up and grind it back into shape. Ideally i want to use as little filler as possible.

Fingers crossed i can get this all neatened up tomorrow so that it looks like it hasn't been done.

Mr Laurence reacted to Roverjoe in A Sentimental Honda Civic Restoration January 8

So first things first with the resto, i needed to replace the boot floor section as it was pretty rotten what turned out to be a smaller area turned out to be much larger in the end, the grommet holes after grinding down had weakened quite a lot so i just decided to replace the whole lot the panel i put in was loads better. the central piece which the spare wheel screws into was that rotten it just snapped off in my hand, (cool souvenir i guess)

But yes, here is the state of the boot floor, before the welding. As said, the areas i grinded were too thin to weld to by the time i got to fresh clean metal so it just made sense to use more of the donor panel.

here is a test fitment with the panel, not cut to size yet but wanted to make sure that all of it was lining up well. for those wondering this panel was taken from an R8 as they share the same rear floor panels.

Here is the panel i cut out i was glad i cut out more than anticipated as the rust had crept under the underseal. In order for me to do this properly i wanted to but weld the new panel in, which resulted in a lot of hours spent testing fitments and making sure i dont trim too much of the material.

Heres some of the welding i did, not too bad for a first attempt, a bit bird crappy in some places but thats to be expected from a novice. Although the majority of it, i was really happy with and the main thing was penetration was plenty and the fitment was spot on.

Here it is all painted and seam sealed, I am probably thinking of coming back to this actually and removing the seam sealer and grinding the welds down now, as ive been looking at finger sanders, using a standard grinder i could not get into the ribs of the panel. I also had to do a slight repair to the area in the middle as there was a few pinholes which needed to be addressed.

Those are the welds on the underside, so plenty of penetration.
Its far from perfect but for a first attempt at a body repair im pretty pleased and i can always go back to it if i want to tidy it up i think the most awkward part was doing some upside down plug welds to fit the tow eye mount back on to the new panel. but managed to get it all on in the end and gave it a test to see if it was strong by jacking it up there and it was all solid and fine so im pleased

Mr Laurence reacted to Roverjoe in A Sentimental Honda Civic Restoration January 8

So I thought i would share some of the panels that i have managed to source over the past year or so, For starters thankfully a lot of Rover 400 and 45 stuff is identical as the bodyshell is the same. i managed to find an entire side panel to use for the replacement of the arch and sill it seems that the rust on the arch has blown the seam all the way up to the rear light so an entire side is very handy as it has everything i need. Bear in mind i will not be chopping out the whole side, just the bits that need doing haha.

Next up is these two Rear inner wheel arch sections that meet up to the sill. i was very very lucky to find these as they are pretty much non existent now.

I Then Bought a Cutout to help me build up the passenger side sill at the back, I only wanted the top section as mine was rotten through. so i cut it out and went to get it acid dipped to remove any rust from the panel which thankfully it had very minimal amounts of rust. I also managed to get a boot floor cut out as the boot floor on mine the area where the spare wheel screws into was non existent.

And Finally i could not find the lower sills as NOS panels anywhere so i decided to get some 1.5mm Sheet steel and fabricate them myself using the cutout i have this made it much easier to get the right shape. I did a welding course at college in summer and the bloke who ran the course very kindly let me borrow the huge folding machine they had so i was capable of making a sill which was close to original as possible. The Sill on this car and the HH-R Rovers they are in three sections. The Front where the jacking point and outrigger is, The middle section and finally the rear where the suspension mounting areas are. I made the rear pieces and one middle section. i will have to come back to making the jacking points some other time as they will require more measuring to get right.

More Progress Soon!

Mr Laurence reacted to Roverjoe in A Sentimental Honda Civic Restoration January 8

Hello Guys I thought i would share the journey of my 1998 Honda Civic 1.8 VTi Restoration. Its a vehicle that has been in the family since pretty much new. My Nana and Grandad bought this car a few years after it was registered. It was bought from York Toyota as we believe the previous owner part exchanged it for another vehicle. It's a car that has been apart of my Childhood from start to finish, I used to go out in the car quite a lot in the summer time, going on trips to the coast and other places, we even went on holiday to France in it a couple of times. Unfortunately though in 2010 my grandad passed away hence leaving the car to us, but we just never got round to using it sadly so it ended up being sat around not doing much. Im Thankful that during now and then that the car was not taken in for scrap as it would have been a massive shame. The car was not totally left to waste away, the car was regularly started and moved within them 13 years of not being on the road, but with it being laying on grass this meant that the underside was going to be problematic down the line. My Nana fell ill with Alzheimer's around 2014 and ended up moving in with us so we would care and look out for her, and when i started to learn how to drive in 2017 i really wanted to try and get the car back on the road to try and get her to relive some of the memories she had in the car. Sadly we were not able to as she passed in 2020, so the aim is to get the vehicle restored back to how they had the car. Its a car that i want to have look clean but also have the characteristics of the car still there so it tells a story. With it being a VTi they are very hard to come by these days as many of them were scrapped for their B Series engines, Lots and lots were modded by boy racers and in the end a lots of them were scrapped due to Rot on the front floors and jacking points, (Rover 400/45 owners will know the pain of this). You will be pleased to know that this car is staying 100% standard and will be restored to a standard which i looks factory.

Heres some photos of the car in 2020 where it was layed up and some of the Rot investigation i started:

Thankfully the car is not in such a state as it was there, I am currently on with restoring the car and have nearly finished the passenger side of the sill!
More Photos and Updates to come

Mr Laurence reacted to brownnova in Cars in film/TV that still exist December 31, 2023

How weird is it that this thread resurfaces, today I had seen a clip of dead man’s shoes and then looked up the 2CV in question and saw the clown car pics…
Was coming here to post them!

Mr Laurence reacted to mark165 in 1989 Toyota Corolla September 29, 2023

I thought I'd put this up here as it sits nicely with a few other shonky Toyota threads.

There's something about an F reg that just draws me in... I'd just started a large building project last year and definitely didn't have time or cash to spare on it, but it popped up in ebay one evening and I saved it in the watch list. You know, just in case. It looked surprisingly clean from the pictures and on googling the plate this came up.

Expecting it to go for Covid project money I chucked in a low bid to amuse myself and let me move on, only to win it at £412. Wife not impressed, meaning I then had to balance with some garden furniture. And then pay to get it moved to Kent. So, not that cheap then.

Anyway, the guy I bought it off told me the usual story of 'track car', how he'd changed the engine for a starlet one then never got any further so swapped the old engine back in and sold up. I paid the money and then a car transport guy offered recovery cheap on a return leg. Then began a very long weeks wait.

To my relief it turned up and was clean, no rust and plenty of beige, with a whole load of parts in the boot. Annoyingly though the old engine was just bolted up to the box and doesn't look there's a release bearing there.

With the kids getting a bit older and a garage to now work in, I've just started this week. Plan is to remove the engine, do the belts, water pump, clearances, clutch etc and then just drive it.

Sent from my SM-A145R using Tapatalk

Mr Laurence got a reaction from neil1971 in eBay tat volume 3. September 23, 2023