KiwiAlistair

Please tell me you Photoshopped in Starsky n Hutches Victor 101 in. 
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It heats up, it can't cool down
Man in hat is spinning
'Round and 'round
'Round and 'round and 'round he goes
Where it stops, EMR knows
 
Astra, Astra you bastard,
I want the Hiab to grab you
Astra, Astra you bastard,
Astra you bastard
 

 
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VAUXHALL-ASTRA-1-4-57-PLATE-110-000-MILES-SPARES-OR-REPAIR-RUNS-AND-DRIVES/233194408000?hash=item364b784840:g:iBAAAOSwJoxcrQTJ
 
Eight valves are fit, eight valves are fly
These engines make me leak from my Jap's eye
I want to bum you,, your wheels are fit
paint flatter than a witch's tit
 
 
Astra, Astra you bastard,
I want the Hiab to grab you
Astra, Astra you bastard,
Astra you bastard
 

 
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1992-Vauxhall-Astra-2-0-CDi-C20NE-Short-MOT-Spares-Repair-Donor-vehicle/264264770093?hash=item3d8768622d:g:BboAAOSwKVtcoicy
 
Tim Wannacott in a diver's suit buffs up this mess 
If this was Bargain Hunt, I'd say YES!
Back-to-black and sills like lace
I wanna Stu_CDX right over it's face
 
Astra, Astra you bastard,
I want the Hiab to grab you
Astra, Astra you bastard,
Astra you bastard
 

 
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vauxhall-Astra-5-door-hatchback-1-4-litre-Auto-blue-1994/303120462564
 
I note with interest your photograph
giving Ventolin to a pigeon, are you having a laugh?
Being honest M8, it's not in good nick,
It's listing worse than the Titanic
 
 
Astra, Astra you bastard,
I want the Hiab to grab you
Astra, Astra you bastard,
Astra you bastard
 
 

 
 
Dumped in a car park 'cause it broke down again
British made, falls apart in the rain
Rusty unreliable absolute shit box
but enough about the Landrover, what of the Vaux?
 

 
 
 
Astra, Astra you bastard,
I want the Hiab to grab you
 
 

 
 
Astra, Astra you bastard,
 

 
Astra, you bastard
 
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/vauxhall-astra-spares-repair/153444472854?hash=item23ba00d816:g:tkMAAOSwHwRcq1di

I’ve had a car break down on a test drive before. Unfortunately I was the one selling it.

Public transportshite at the end of our road. Views show 1902, seventies, and modern- life-is -rubbish.
 
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Those are fantastic.
 
An era when charming olde-worlde English cosiness was enough to provoke car sales, through extolling traditional, solid values and pretty young things with shiny hair. A era when marketing small cars didn't necessarily involve edgy directors, moody shots of urban decay and a pumpin' grimecore soundtrack.
 
I'm sure ARO would be interested too - any idea on the backstory of the box of photos, or were they already there in the attic whenever blokey moved in?

Lavenham again i think
 

 

 

 
No idea.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Drum roll* New member introduced to the fleet today in the form of a late 940 estate in 2.3 low pressure turbo flavour.
 
Obligatory/generic stately home type pics en route to Casa Eunos...
 

 
 

 
Initial impressions were good, some judder under hard braking quickly subsided after a few miles had been covered and had completely resolved after the 30 mile trip home. The car holds temperature well and all seems gravy.
 
Barely run in...
 

 
Loads of history, original owners manuals and 3 keys!
 

 
The car has bills to show it's had a new exhaust, distributer, leads, all filters including fuel, drive belts, fluids and waterpump replaced within the last year or so. It also has the factory dog guard/luggage cover etc. Weirdly absolutely everything seems to work including all of the clocks. All in all good craic.
 
Bonus finds that came with the car include various Volvo porn...
 

 
Assorted road manuscripts of yore...
 

 
And a Haynes book of lies...
 

 
Not so good bits include this sunroof 'repair'...
 

 
Woeful drivers seat...
 

 
And peeling door cards...
 

 
Other than the above niggles the passenger footwell is very wet indeed    Never mind. The aforementioned boggles helped whittle the price down by a fair wedge and the car is currently airing out under the carport until I have the chance to investigate...
 
On the whole I'm very pleased. Spent the day pottering around in it running errands and at this stage (Including driving the car home) I've covered about 80 miles or so.

Almost back in England now. Car is boringly competent and decent on the motorway, so no complaints here.
SDI BTW

I just saw what appeared to be a Nissan Qashqai that some cunt had stuck Maserati badges on.

It looks like it's had a terrible shock and is trying to run away from itself shouting 'what's happened to my wheels they've swollen to huge proportions'

WAKEY WAKEY TIME!

 
A quick spot of breakfast....

 
Its only a little over an hour away so no need for airline tickets or anything this time.
 
Lets saddle up.

 
 
I rolled up at the guys house and he proved to be a very brusque kind of chap...like it was a massive hassle for me to pay him money for a pile of shit that was cluttering up his garden. Anyway....

 
On the road again....

 
The journey involves a 15 minute run along an autoroute. I definitely wasnt pushing on hard as the pickup isnt particularly comfortable at speed, so I was cruising along with the lorries.
 
But wait....

 
Yeah, the temp needle shot up and it boiled over. There was a Le Halfords by my exit so I snagged a 5 litre drum of antifreeze and let it cool down, topped up the rad and continued on my way.
 
And then it was a tedious repeat performance of when it banged out on my original collection in UK. It will sit with the temp ok on downhill sections or on the flat if I dont work it hard, but after a few minutes of loading the engine it heats right up and boils over.
Its probably done the head gasket again? I just..... FUCK... I dunno. Fucking furious, tbqfh.
 
From there to my house is a road I travel a fair bit and it was punctuated by several cool-down stops. Weirdly, it only needs a few minutes ticking over at idle to bring the temp down to normal from the red zone. I would then have to slowly let the rad cap off, let it depressurise and then top up again.
 
Many times.
 
Here.

 
And here.

 
And other places I couldnt be fucked photographing.
 
I ran out of antifreeze but stopped by a lake where there was a massive selection of manky old plastic bottles lying all round the ground as far as the eye could see, left by filthy, lazy cunts who go fishing here. I chose the cleanest and topped up my 5 litre bottle.

 
And slogged it home...the problem is I live at the top of a fucking mountain, so it was working hard all the way up the road.
 
I rolled into home amid plumes of steam, and we can get a better look at the "prize".

 
Its another early Panda 4x4.
Its fucked. But I knew that in advance and it was priced accordingly.  No restoration here, its a breaker for parts....namely gearbox, there is a second gearbox in the boot too....condition unknown, back axle and various trim pieces, including the unobtanium passenger wing mirror for early mkI with opening quarterlight. Which I broke while loading it on the trailer like the useless, brainless, clumsy cunt I am.
 



 
So, if you will excuse me, I am off the cry into my pot noodle, then start removing the engine from the old pickup truck. 

You want colour?! VW Harlequin.
 
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You want colour?! VW Harlequin.
 
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You want colour?! VW Harlequin.
 
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This came out for a drive today aswell as the Mercury.
I ran it around the block quick then stopped and checked the wheel nuts. All ok, none had come loose. It did feel a bit 'off' somehow though!
I went back home and checked the tyre pressures, you'd think since the tyres were brand new they'd be spot on wouldn't you? Well, they were all way too high! One was nearly 40psi!!
I think the tyre fitter needs his pressure gauge calibrating.
 
I've backed them all off to the correct pressures. Then went out again.
 
Much better!
Drove it for a good 80 odd miles and it's bloody lovely to drive now. So smooth and quiet. Just goes to show how bad the old tyres were. The rears mainly I suspect as they were ancient and in poor condition. Really happy with it now. Looks good and drives great! Amazing the difference some new rubber can make.
 
Got home again so popped off the centre caps and checked the wheel nuts again with the torque wrench.
There were a few on each wheel that had slackened off a tiny bit, not much but they had come slightly loose, so I've re-torqued every nut on all wheels to 85Nm again then popped the caps back on again.
They should be fine now I think but I'll check them again in a few months time or something, just to be safe.
 
IMG_0758 by Dan Clark, on Flickr
 
Look how wide the Mercury is compared to the Volvo!
They're offsides are parked level. The Volvo's not exactly a small car but I've never noticed quite how fat the Mercury is!

Hello my daily is now for sale, ideal WBOD.
I've owned it since July but am selling it to go traveling
- 2005 (2006 model year) Volvo XC70
- 2.4l D5 185BHP AWD Manual.
- 195k miles (in daily use so going up)
- The head gasket, cam belt, water pump glowpugs ect... were replaced in January '16 @ 174k.
- Tow bar (hardly used)
- Good service history
- MOT till June '18
- SE spec - Full leather, electric memory position drivers seat, cruise control, dual zone climate.
- Fairly clean MOT history, rear brake pads now replaced.


 
 
£1700 ono
Located in near Northampton (M1 J15)

Very, very briefly..  aerodynamic drag comes down to ;  a.)  the distance and the amount of air being pushed out of the way (so angles and frontal area come very much into play),  b.)  how readily the air returns back to its static position (rather than being sucked along behind the vehicle),  and then  c.) what is referred to as 'parasitic drag' which is all about the smoothness of flow.  (ie.  a. and b. in much finer detail ..around every nick and cranny of the vehicle).
 
Although seemingly nicely flowing and rounded., with the above (truly fantastic looking) Hupmobile - one needs only to imagine how the air flow would swirl (splitting the laminar air flow into numerous vortices) around its front bumper, around its beautiful but bulbous wings, into its wheel-arches and dished wheels, and even around the deeply recessed windows - to see how even a boxy car with 'flush-fitting everything' minimises these air disturbances.  
 
Parasitic drag is very often under-rated - because we rely so much on pre-conceptions that size counts. So many details (..like the recessed windows) are so small in the overall picture ..as to surely be insignificant.?   However, just put your hand square out of a car's window when being driven along at 70mph.  Although the surface area of your hand is quite tiny compared to the overall frontal area of the vehicle - you'll have difficulty holding it out square against the force of the air flow.  Multiply that resistance by 50 similarly 'small details' not faired in and you'll see how together they adds up to something quite considerable.!  Then clench your hand and feel how disproportionate the difference is. In racing it's not unusual to see the split lines between panels taped-over to fair them in, because they too make a difference.
 
What happens under and around the bottom of a vehicle is equally important. The above classic motor car probably has a really substantial channel or box section chassis, with numerous iron brackets, a deeply sumped engine, an exposed drive train, and then also front & rear transverse axles to catch and swirl the air around, together with steps in the body's floor to accommodate their travel. Every one of those details induce and so adversely contributes to the vehicle's aerodynamic drag
 
I hope that helps start to explain ..without confusing the topic with too much detail or jargon.
 
Bfg
141,650 views

You want colour?! VW Harlequin.
 
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You want colour?! VW Harlequin.
 
Sent from my Lenovo TB3-850F using Tapatalk

You want colour?! VW Harlequin.
 
Sent from my Lenovo TB3-850F using Tapatalk

You want colour?! VW Harlequin.
 
Sent from my Lenovo TB3-850F using Tapatalk

Yellow cars are a great idea if you need a car that is less conspicuous on the back of an AA wagon.
What have we got ?
Erm... oh yes, a DS23 in Delta Blue, a Volvo 949 estate in a sort of greeny blue, a Saab 9.3 in midnight blue with navy floppytop and the Peugeot 206 of last resort in resale silver.

DS in the vinyards by Jean-Pierre Declemy, on Flickr

As snapped by Heidel_Kakao before we swapped and he got my XM estate of similar hue.
No pics of the Saab, it will probably look black in a photo anyway.

So car picked up, filled up and already a hour of driving back.
 
Here's the reveal:


 
Currently having a cold drink somewhere on M6. Quick "let's have a look at the engine" and French stead shot.

Breakfast.
 

Second leg of the journey commenced.

 
I thought I will share with you guys the reasons for the purchase.
1. It's cheap.
2. I've not owned one yet
 
That's good enough isn't it?