Schaefft

One for @83C, seen parked down an alley in Alnwick.

The Corona only made a brief appearance as its now switching storage spaces with the Z3, which is reawakened from its slumber over the winter. The Clubman isn't mine, neither is the Rover 200 convertible rotting away just outside the frame. Today was actually the first time I could have a really close look at what I bought at Mathewsons back in October as the car went into storage not all that much later. A wash was badly needed, even under a tarp the dust quickly built up. So yeah, impressions are still very positive considering the silly low price I paid. There is a little bit of bubbling on the passenger front wing panel and outer sill. Since pretty much every exterior panel is bolt-on on the Z3 this should be a rather easy fix however, if I do anything about it at all for now. There's a scratch on the rear quarter and a few stonechips on the very large bonnet, other than that its really just very minor stuff for what is now a 25 year old car. I've managed to clear the airbag light (driver seatbelt tensioner) and will keep an eye on any fault codes coming up over the next few days. The plan is to take the car out for a weekend in the Lake district tomorrow, plenty of time to get a little more familiar with it then! The cheap floormats will go in the bin once I got a proper OEM-like set. I want to replace the center console dials/shifter trim with the burl wood variant as well to brighten up the interior a little, if I can find a sensibly priced set for a facelift dash that is. The chromeline package helps a little but the less matte black plastic the better. Its incredible to think that these were sold side by side in a BMW showroom back in late 2001/2002. With its E36 origins the Z3 feels easily more than a decade older inside, the E65 still feels somewhat fresh today. Speaking of the E65 - the 18 quid pedal assembly actually fixed the limp home mode. It sucks that things appear to break all the time. At the same time parts are so plentiful and cheap that it almost doesn't matter. With the running issues sorted I was able to confirm that the windshield was sealing properly after all, no whistling sounds noticeable at any speed. That meant the A-pillar trims could go back on for one last time: I've also had a moment to replace the bonnet badge. They are all prone to fading and its surprisingly hard to find a badge that's not clearly Chinese junk sold as OEM part, fake packaging and everything. That's much better: Still plenty of other things to sort but this was a satisfyingly easy improvement for once.

Not far from @HMC! I'd totally have this just to be able to say I owned a PT convertible.

Yeah, and with quite a few things standard in the UK (like leather) where you'd pay extra even for that back home it really is a nicely equipped car.

Can't tell you have German roots I researched the exact spec before I even got the car😂 A lot of the stuff is £££ if you were spec'ing the car when new.

I can't contain my nerdiness and need to report that they aren't. Your's is Nordlicht Blau Perleffect (Aurora Blue Pearlescent) with a light tan interior which I forgot the name of. Great color combo.

Yeah, I could sing a song about GM's half arsed export model homologation attempts, my euro-spec Caprice is similar, even the C5 Corvette got messed up with poorly integrated extra lights. Agree that it does look good though but pretty rough around the edges the closer you look. Another obscure practical workhorse that already has a forum counterpart. I'd still love to try a Sigma but it would have to be a sedan for me. This one looks great but has been off the road for 17 years which usually means everything needs replacing. Probably could get it for much less than the already discounted 1k. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1461056707806946/

I always thought these pre-facelift LeBarons looked very sleek with their hidden headlights. It might not have any structural rigidity in convertible form but would you care while surrounded by this level of opulence? https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/917118929752829/

One Dustbuster van on Autoshite isn't enough so here's one with less color and less power: https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/917118929752829/

It should be criminal that a car looking this good can be bought for under 2 grand. Absolute mega value. I don't think I've tried the suspension settings. Since automatic usually seems to do a good enough job I never felt inclined to.

It's particularly amazing when you are thousands of miles away from home somewhere in Italy/Greece and you know the Northern border of that former empire is a few steps from your front door. Puts the size and achievements of the Roman empire into perspective really. It also means that hundreds of tourists have utterly obscure shite in the background of their holiday photos. Can't wait to park my Caprice New York taxi there😂

Some very satisfying fixes on the Pontiac, hopefully motivating enough to keep the momentum and tackle that welding eventually! Just the ultimate in practicality there. Also good to see some progress on the XM, I keep thinking about mine. Apparently it only recently found a new owner. Maybe I'm seeing XM ownership through rose tinted glasses but having had no actual problems with mine it was a great car to own.

No, but as many non-native English speakers I guess my vocabulary was pretty much shaped by US pop culture from early on. I do try to adjust once in a while but I just don't agree with the UK spelling most of the time 😂 Some more bonus content. The Corona is still a lovely car to drive. It rides so well considering it's roots.

Should anybody be bored from looking at the Celsior by now, great news! The Alfa is back! It actually didn't go anywhere for months. 166 are anything but resistent to rot so it hasn't seen the road since October unfortunately. Which sucks as its so fun to drive! First up was a wash, it turned a little greener than usual in the time it didn't move much: Took a little while but much better. I just can't get enough of looking at this paint. The color absolutely makes it, I don't think I feel that way about any of my other cars, so well done Alfa. I've also finally put the wheel arch liner back on the car, it's been off since probably a year ago when I replaced the alternator. I'm not sure if I showed this before but the wooden steering wheel, shifter and center console trim from @sdkrc's old 166 are now installed and really improve things inside. People keep complaining about American manufacturers and fake wood but that center console trim is by far the least convincing faux wood I have ever seen in any car. Still better than boring matte silver with broken clips though. I still need to find a replacement switchpack for the fuel door release that also has the sports throttle response button. Harder to find than I imagined. At least the cigarette lighter surround lights up now, its the little things etc. etc. Hopefully some more progress in the next few days. And since I can't leave a recent post without a Celsior photo, have a size comparison between Toyota's second biggest and its smallest domestic luxury car offering back in 1992. There's a bit of of fish eye lens distortion going on here but the difference isn't as big as you'd imagine. The Celsior would be 7 series-sized while the Corona Exiv is more of a 3 series, although officially based on something one size smaller (Celica).

500 quid 2.0 Turbo XM Estate. Doesn't run because the seller not knowing the keypad code. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1471647893559387/

Ordered a replacement gas pedal for the BMW for 18 quid. It's probably the throttle body that's the actual issue but its worth a shot. In Celsior news, the car finally received fresh brake fluid, pads, hoses and wear sensors this weekend. I've also done a few other minor jobs while in there and unfortunately revealed a little more carelessness by the bodyshop. Let the wrenching commence! Front brakes first. I actually didnt end up using the caliper piston rebuild kits on the left, the pistons were still sliding back in nice and smoothly. Well, I think we can say I got my money's worth out of those pads. I don't know when these got changed the last time but it certainly been a while considering the car didn't do that many miles in the last 15 years. The loose wire in the left photo is the wear indicator sensor btw, for some reason whoever replaced the pads didn't know how to or didn't bother installing it again. This is also what I originally expected to be a cut ABS sensor wire a few years back btw, the sensor plugs into the wiring loom of the ABS sensor, bit of an odd design on early Celsiors. Can't say these are the worst pads I've seen but we haven't had a look at the rear ones yet. Quick look underneath to see where the minor exhaust leak is coming from. Like the exhaust shop said, one of the exhaust temp sensors is blowing, they tried to goop it up but no luck. Unfortunately impossible to buy now, not sure if it could get welded? I've also had a look at the O2 sensors and tried to measure their resistance. Well, it seems like there is infinite resistance which of course isn't right, it should be somewhere between 5.1-6.3 ohms at around room temperature. I unplugged them to see if it would make any difference to the way the car runs. It doesn't so new sensors it is! The 135 quid Maxpeedingrods which I only bought to get the car through the MOT are holding up surprisingly well. I've greased them up before installing them so everything is still moving nicely. Unfortunately I just remembered while writing this that I should have put some fresh grease on them... I also found the source for my very noticeable front suspension clunking. I originally blamed the coilovers but its actually the front swaybar bushes that are so worn out that the swaybar can freely move from left to right. So new swaybar bushes are added to the shopping list. I've also fixed the messed up passenger side bumper corner I accidently caught on a wall. No photos yet but some hot air, a tactical ziptie and reinstalling a bumper bracket did wonders. The rear is next. Working on an incline lifting a rear weel driven car is always fun. If you are wondering why Im using different brands for pads and hoses compared to the front, so do I. I think they just ended up reducing the combined shipping costs when I ordered them from Rockauto like 2 years ago. Motul RBF600 is probably some of the best brake fluid you can get if pedal feel matters to you. Yeah, I think its about time to replace those pads... The disc is getting very thin as well so rear discs are added to the shopping list... Certainly cutting it thin with these. The rears actually had the wear sensors properly in place, replacing this one finally got rid of the last (permanent) dash warning light. Unfortunately the passenger side rear caliper piston was really struggling getting pushed back in so I might need a new caliper there. I'm not sure how much extra I paid for the Bosch pads compared to the Beck/Arnley ones but they were certainly much more neatly packed and actually came with a sachet of brake grease. I used copper grease on the sliders for the front calipers instead. About the bodyshop's carelessness mentioned further above: The rear trailing arm bolt is completely loose, the nut was never tightened after the sill got welded there. Mistakes can happen but I'm really starting to get the feeling that things were just slapped together in the end to rush the car out the door. Something like this is pretty dangerous. I had to replace the nut (with a Mercedes one no less) as it wouldn't properly tighten anymore, I'll have to have another look the next time its on a lift though. While having the wheels off I finally had a chance to raise the rear coilovers by 20mm to level out the car a bit better. I don't think its perfect yet but lowering the front should result in a nicely balanced stance. Let me know what you think! The rear discs, swaybar bushes and O2 sensors will hopefully be the last few bits to make it mechanically solid. Being 32 years old now it'll probably always need something but any MOT relevant work should near with these 3 things soon. Some bonus content, the Cadillac is finally moving again and received a wash. That immediately revealed the various paint defects it has, the photos are hiding them remarkably well fortunately! Another big blue landyacht that will receive some more attention this summer.

Ista+ will tell you, unfortunately I don't have it myself, I got the wiring diagram from a BMW specialist who I hoped would diagnose my airbag problem (didn't but gave me enough info to continue and figure it out myself).

How do you know it the satellite module speaks over CAN? My rear seat satellite wasn't showing up at all when scanning for all modules despite receiving power etc. The fibre optics cable must have had a crack somewhere, causing the "blinking" messages to never arrive/be sent out, basically making the module invisible to the larger system. You can easily check the fibre optics cable by shining a light into one end (probably where it connects to the parent airbag module under the dash) and see if it shines through the other end. Mine wouldn't at all.

Actually a '67 or '68 so another owner who got no real clue about what they sell.

It really depends on the car I think. I don't think anyone really cares about Opel Vectra As/Cavaliers outside of the UK so values are appropriately low. Same with Fiat Barchettas which were borderline worthless everywhere while they somehow held their value fairly well in the UK. As usual, supply and demand. I haven't looked up prices for either in a while though. Another great purchase. Only on Autoshite you will find someone go from a Rolls Royce to an Escort in a matter of weeks.

The PDF only describes how to set up SP Daten as far as I can tell. I got the full set of steps, updated by myself to clarify a bit where needed, to setup a used airbag module which absolutely possible as I've done it on my E65. As you mentioned, you flash the module (overwrite to latest factory programming for your car), write the VIN to it and then set the system time. Unfortunately it's all incredibly unintuitive with the default tools and often poorly explained by those handful of people who can be bothered in the first place.

INPA and a few extra tools. I can send you the instructions.

E65 finally got a new windscreen today. Unfortunately Im fairly sure I heard some whistling sound coming from the windshield on my way back on the motorway, which would mean that it's not sealed properly and will need doing again. I wanted to confirm during my lunch break, the problem is that either the gas pedal position sensor or throttle body decided to die, sending it into limp home mode and it's now not recognizing any gas at all. E65 ownership in a nutshell. At least I was able to glue a new BMW badge onto my remote so there's that.

This Lincoln Continental is for sale again, this time with distributor issues. Very interesting color combo. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/450776033955290/

Thanks for the advice, I'm still hoping to get a call back from the agent eventually because the sale did end up falling through (way too early for that at the moment though). The property was rare enough with the combination of price, seller's motivation, location and curb appeal that I can't imagine anything similar coming up anytime soon. We've been looking for over a year by now after all and our set of requirements are quite specific. But we'll see. Quick update on the Celsior today. The new driver seat triggered a seatbelt warning after putting it in the car. Turns out even the seatbelt buckle is slightly different on the Celsior, it has 4 wires coming from it while the UK LS400 one only has two (which are used for the nighttime illumation of the buckle on both cars). The wiring loom of the seat is identical, it's really only the loom of the buckle thats different, very odd but an easy fix. I finished (for now) polishing the bonnet as well. I could keep going forever to get it all perfect but a) I got enough after like 5 hours and b) my Halfords polisher died once and for all. That means it might be time soon to finally get a better polisher with more power that should hopefully speed things up significantly. 600 grid wetsanding to get the worst scratches out first: 1500 and 3000 grid discs next (thats where you really need to be careful to not burn through the clearcoat. In hindsight I didn't have to be nearly as careful as I was, the super close-up results probably would have been better. Done. These photos were actually before I spent another 2 hours today polishing the paint further, daylight wont show all the fine scratches that would become very visible under streetlights. It's probably still not perfect but the difference is like night and day. The before photo below was after me cleaning the hell out of the bonnet, including using the claybar that normally removes everything. I ended up having to sand the dirt off of it. So yeah, there's the proof that you can polish a turd as long as there's some clearcoat left on it. The problem really is that damage over such a large area takes absolute ages to remove. A better polisher might make a difference but as of right now it would take days to really cover the entire car. It might save you a respray though. Depending on when I get a replacement polisher I might have a go at saving the paint on the front bumper. Its mainly scuffs that should mostly come out. The rear bumper received such a piss poor respray at some point that there's little hope in rectifying that though. Next update is hopefully me figuring out what O2 sensors I need to order and finally doing a brake flush. I might even change the ancient pads and/or hoses.