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Slowsilver

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Everything posted by Slowsilver

  1. This is still going well and just being "an car". Starts immediately even in sub-zero temperatures, is quiet, comfortable and (for me) pretty quick. However there seems to be a peculiar problem with the heater temperature control, which appears to have gone binary instead of analogue. Instead of going from cold through warm to hot it appears to go from fully cold to fully hot in just one click at around the one o'clock position, which is about where the blue marks change to red. There is a photo in the HBoL of the back of the rotary knob showing a cable attached to it but I cannot find any information about where the other end goes or what it controls. I assume that it must operate a water valve somewhere but can't understand how it still works but is not progressive. How can a cable-operated valve go from fully open to fully closed within one click of the control. The cable movement for one click must be tiny. Do any of the Mondeo cognoscenti have any ideas. Maybe @sierraman or @egg would be kind enough to advise if they can help. TIA.
  2. Watching a recording of a TV programme about Carla Lane comedies when I spotted this: Dreadful pictures courtesy of mobile phone camera direct from paused TV. Was a scene from an episode of "Bread", supposedly outside a DHSS office in Liverpool. No idea which episode or what date. I think the car passing by is a Hillman Hunter GT.
  3. The pictures show the car as bought. I don't remember doing any modifications or even repairs to it, just routine servicing. But the black roof and the spotlights definitely weren't standard so I am guessing that they were specified by the original owner and added when it was new. I don't know if Longbridge employees got their discounted vehicles direct from the factory but I suspect they were sourced via their local dealer using some sort of discount voucher scheme. So the mods may have been done by the factory or the dealer.
  4. Almost identical to the one I owned in the mid-seventies. 1969 Austin 1300 2-door. The roof was painted gloss black, not vinyl. These were apparently also sold in the USA as the Austin America. Bought from my brother-in-law's father who worked at Longbridge and bought it new via the employee discount scheme. Ran it for a few years until I started doing road rallies and decided that it was too nice to use for that so I sold it and bought a tatty Mark 1 Escort instead. Big mistake! A really good car, the only minor downside I found was that the boot was quite awkward to load as it was very low and the lid was more vertical than horizontal and opened upwards, meaning quite a lot of bending and stretching. Sadly No record of ROC490G on the DVLA website. Potatocam pictures, probably taken on a Kodak Instamatic then scanned in.
  5. Hi Andy. Glad to hear from you again. Sorry to hear you lost the plot and your mojo for a while. I am sure the new toy will give you plenty of jobs to do but enjoy it, don't overdo it. Just play with it when you feel like it and don't fret about timescales. Hope you continue to improve and that the break from work has helped.
  6. Sorry, no Maxi this year. I feel that this event has now got too big for its own good. Despite the advertised start time being 9:30 we arrived at 9:00 last year and just managed to squeeze into the last parking space. By lunchtime every space on the roads (and pavements) around the centre were filled and there were so many people walking around that it was a fight to navigate the pavements and very difficult to get to see the cars. It's a shame because it is a very good show and free to enter unlike lots of shows nowadays, but I now find it is not worth the effort. On the subject of charging classic cars entry to shows, why had this suddenly become the done thing. Up until a few years ago entry was free. I have no problem with visitors in modern cars being charged, but surely the classic cars ARE the show. If none turned up there would be no show, and the owners do not charge the organisers to attend. Surely this is the equivalent of each footballer being charged to play in a match, or members of a band being expected to pay to perform. I appreciate that these events cost money to stage but this should be recoverable from the paying spectators. I understand that entry to this year's FotU will be £40 per car for both classics and public, which I think is excessive and gives the classic car owners no incentive to attend.
  7. Observations after following the Rolls Royce to storage. It gets down the road really well for an old'un. I didn't have any trouble keeping up with it in the Mondeo but certainly wasn't held up by it. It handles pretty well too, some body roll evident on corners but nowhere near 2CV levels. I'm not sure I would be happy (I was going to say not comfortable but that certainly doesn't apply in the lushy-appointed interior of this beast) doing 60mph on a twisty road in a valuable 90-year-old vehicle weighing about two tons with cable-operated drum brakes and skinny tyres but Chris seems to have mastered it. It is ironic that so far this historic vehicle has been more reliable than the equally expensive but only seven year old Range Rover. Old RR versus new RR - no contest.
  8. The most repeated words in a row to make sense I can recall seeing was 5. A signwriter is doing the sign for a pub named "The Pig and Whistle". When he has finished the landlord comes out and says "You have left too much space between the words Pig and and and and and Whistle"
  9. I can understand the tyre pressures affecting the economy but were the windows really so dirty that the weight of the dirt would have reduced the mpg? ☺️
  10. Pair of front seats with subframes and headrests. I was told they came out of a Rover 100 but I cannot confirm. Part leather part fabric. They will fit in a classic Mini. Belong to one of my neighbours. Free to collect from Buckingham MK18. Photos below:
  11. Google "royal mail send a parcel", enter the weight and size of the parcel, and it will give you a price for various services. Single magazine will probably be large letter, about £1.50, stack of magazines will probably be small parcel, about £3 by cheapest second class. You don't have to complete the postage purchase but if you do it is quite straightforward and you can usually arrange a free collection. They will even bring a printed label for it.
  12. I trust that the shame you are referring to was caused by you having to take an expensive 5-year old Range Rover in for a (doubtless) expensive repair and not by having to hitch a lift in a 45 year old Maxi that is still working perfectly. Money doesn't always buy reliability! ☺️
  13. I trust that you have also acquired the correct attire and headwear for the loyal retainer to enable him to perform his chauffeuring duties for Lord and Lady 6C on their formal engagements. I am, as always, at your disposal M'lud and M'Lady.
  14. My dad with his 1967 Morris Oxford beside my uncle's caravan on South Denes caravan park in Great Yarmouth. My uncle bought the car new then sold it to my dad, so probably early 1970s. We used to spend our annual holiday in this caravan every year when I was younger.
  15. Me, the wife and the Mother-In-Law with a friend's Mini on our drive 11th September 1982.
  16. I was watching a programme that I had recorded called "Dial 999" on Talking Pictures TV. It was an episode called "Extradition", made in 1958 so obviously in black and white. I spotted the following: This is the full-resolution picture taken from the whole paused TV screen. And this is a potato-cam style closeup. It appears to be an invalid carriage of some sort, possibly an early AC. The registration number looks like WPL 874. I don't know if @LightBulbFun has seen this before or knows of the vehicle but I thought it was worth posting for interest.
  17. Another unexpected visitor to Chez Silver last weekend. A near neighbour just round the corner, an American guy now living over here, who had not previously owned a classic car, bought this 1981 Mini Clubman estate about 6 weeks ago. It appears to have been restored fairly well, though certainly not perfect, and has a 1275 Metro engine in it. He wanted to have a good look at the condition of the underside and also see if he could find some mounting points for rear seat belts as he has a son who travels in the back, so I offered him the use of my drive and ramps. The electrics are a bit suspect so I also helped him fix the hazard flashers and the interior light. It is perfectly useable but he is slowly tinkering with it to fix some of the minor niggles.
  18. Thanks for the tip @egg. Unfortunately I didn't see your post until this morning and they are now out of stock. Supposedly 66 sold. Fortunately my existing weather strips are not too bad. I did remove them all, scrape off all the moss, clean them up and reshape them as best as I could and they look reasonable now.
  19. Two wooden slatted single beds. 2 metres x 1 metre. Both take a 6'6" x 3' mattress. Reasonable condition. All fixings included. Dismantled for transport. Headboard in first picture looks manky but is actually covered in stickers which should be easy to remove. Free for collection from Buckingham MK18.
  20. AS-worthy bodge applied and we can now select reverse again. Removed the roll pin and slid the collar off then cut the top of it straight and drilled a suitably-sized hole in the thickest part of the bulge above the finger groove. Pressed the roll pin through this hole and into the cable ferrule. This means that the collar now sits higher up on the lever so I had to ditch the (broken) plastic bit that fits inside the knob to allow the collar to move up inside it. It also means that I now have to put my fingers underneath the collar to lift it, rather than in the finger groove. But it works. I don't know how long it will last as the 30-year-old plastic has gone horribly brittle but I deliberately drilled the hole at the thickest point for (hopefully) maximum strength. I forgot to take a picture before I bashed the knob back on but it now looks like this: Not a brilliant job but doesn't look too bad and will hopefully last a while until the remaining plastic disintegrates. In the meantime if anyone finds a replacement collar, knob with collar, or complete lever in their spares stash or sees one for sale please let me know. Also, does anyone know if the later gear lever is the same at the bottom end and would fit into the early linkage?
  21. I attempted to reverse the Mondeo off the drive today and when I lifted the collar on the gear lever to allow me to select reverse it disintegrated so I was unable to engage reverse gear. The workshop manual gives details of how to remove the entire linkage but nothing about removing just the lever. Lifting the gaiter and the rubber boot underneath it revealed a circlip which I eventually managed to remove and the gear lever pulled out. I was then able to bash the knob off with a rubber hammer to reveal the broken piece. The sleeve with the finger groove and the insert which fits inside the gear knob should be one piece of plastic, held onto the metal gear lever by the roll pin visible in the picture which also goes through a ferrule on the end of a cable. Lifting the whole thing pulls up the cable, lifting a bush on the bottom of the lever and allowing reverse to be engaged. It may be repairable but it certainly won't be easy, so I wondered if any Mondeo lickers on here have either the plastic insert or even an entire gear lever with the knob still on it in their parts stash. I have looked on line and there are gear knobs, but without the insert and gear levers, but without the knob. If what I have read on line is correct this arrangement with a pressed-on knob was only used on very early Mondeos and later mark ones had a screw-on knob with a different arrangement. Any help or advice would be gratefully received.
  22. You are correct. The whole driver's side brake was seized solid and I had to split the calliper to free it off. I threw it back together with the pads in to make sure that the pistons didn't get ejected but no shims, which should still have been in the boot. The pad retaining pins were pretty mangled and one of the bolts holding the calliper halves together didn't go back in fully. It will certainly need some serious overhauling, if it is indeed salvageable. Good luck sorting it.
  23. I replaced the leaking fuel pipe but it still didn't want to start. Then I found a wire with a connector on it which wasn't plugged in to anything. Consulting with@Andyrew, our resident Vauxhall guru, who fortunately was at the FoD and actually used to own this beast, produced the matching loom and connector, which apparently goes to the crankshaft sensor. This was plugged in and after a fair bit of cranking it fired up. The clutch was a bit sticky but eventually it was mobile. The initial blue smoke turned more to grey as it warmed up. It was a bit tricky to drive as it refused to idle and kept stalling. We did discover that number 3 plug was actually loose, but tightening it up did not seem to improve matters much. The oil in it looked very clean, but also very thin. Maybe a change to some thicker stuff will reduce the smoke output. More investigation required I think.
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