GrumpiusMaximus

If you missed the early 1980s, you can relive it without the infinite energy required for a Time Machine by simply getting on an express train from Gothenburg to Stockholm.


These seats are fabulous.  And very comfortable, even for my 21-Stone, 6’2’’ hulking mass.
 

Lovely to meet you Ken. Hope the Lupo serves you well.
 

Slight fright today, although I was half expecting it since things have been going so well.  Yesterday the clutch pedal felt 'off', but I couldn't figure out if it was just me being tired, or the car being cold or what, so just had to wait and see.  Today on trying to reverse out of a parking bay I couldn't actually get reverse.  Now, the Princess has done this to me before a couple of times, I know the drill.  If the gear change is notchy, that usually means the oil is getting low so I check that and it wasn't as low as it would have been to affect the gear change. Dropped a tiny bit of oil in anyway to bring it to almost the full line and it made no difference.  That means it's clutch cylinder related.  It's not the clutch, it's not slipping, I'm just not getting full travel of the arm in relation to the pedal.  That is usually failed seals in the clutch cylinder or a collapsed clutch hose.  Checked those out and both are dry and don't show signs of damage.  Checked the fluid level in the clutch reservoir and it was actually very low.  It's been a while since I've checked this and the car had been sat around doing nothing for a while, it made sense that it might have disappeared a bit like brake fluid does sometimes.  Topped it up, still no change, opened the bleed nipple to check the hose wasn't restricted and found that there was air in the system, probably because the fluid had dropped a bit too low.  Once bled, all gears back to normal and reverse considerably better than it's been for a couple of weeks.
We'll see if normal service continues, it might, or I might need another clutch hose (there's at least three different lengths, which I found out last time I tried to get one) or to rebuild the clutch cylinder again.  Time will tell.  It's a bit of a relief something went wrong to be honest, it's been a bit overdue.

Was posting that   knee-cessary?

Hybrids are a stupid idea and combine two power trains, adding unnecessary weight and complexity.  They are also pointless if most of your driving is above 30MPH or extra-urban.  Plug-in hybrids are even worse because they're usually designed as a way of getting around taxes rather than giving a useful electric range.

I think the general standard of driving has improved in the last 30 years.

Any supermarket car park (other than Lidl) seems rather full of the German stuff these days - lucky my wife has a Bini.
Oh, hang on.....

 

Went to ASDA for some odds and ends.  Don't shop there although it is in easy walking distance, mainly due to the smokers hanging about in the entrance.  Anyway, put my big boy pants on and ran the gauntlet.
Bloody chaos in there, folks wandering about in a daze, focused on their phones.  A scrum for some marked down shit, couldn't get past them or see what it was.
Tills crammed.  Braved the robotill which went OK but I swear is slower than the human operated till.
Not used to this at all as I usually shop in Lidl, of which there are two close by, or Aldi, a choice of three.
Plus a couple of B&Ms & smaller shops.
Always quiet and calm in there, people get on with their shopping with no fuss, don't block the isles and there is rarely a wait at the tills.
Should have gone and got my car, although the trek is almost the same as walking to ASDA.

That is virgin on the ridiculous.

I moved a mile or so up the road recently, and I'm amazed at how difficult various organisations find the concept of 'I am moving house and I would like to keep paying you money'. I spent a lunchbreak a few weeks before we moved filling out all the 'I'm moving house' forms on various websites. Results as follows:
Octopus / Bristol Water - moved me out of the house fine. The idea that I might need electricity / gas / water / sewage at the new place apparently didn't occur to them. Still, a 10 minute phone call and a new direct debit set up for each and sorted. 6/10.
Council tax - OK, bonus points for being the only organisation to work out that I still needed to pay them after I moved, they sent me all the paperwork with a new account number for the new address, the amount I was being charged, instructions for how to set up a new direct debit etc. Unfortunately they decided the sensible thing to do would be to send that to my old address, three weeks after I moved and six weeks after I told them I was moving. 'Its the address we have on file for you' - clearly its not is it, you useless bastards. Still, I paid for a mail redirect and sorted using the council tax payment portal that's run by Capita and took me right back to 2004. 5/10.
Virgin Media - the reason I'm posting this here but actually I'm not sure I have the ability to type it out in full without hurling my laptop across the room. No exaggeration, I must have spoken to 20 different people across phone / email / live chat, and I've spent at least a day doing it including one 4.5 hour phone call which ended with the guy going 'I'm really sorry, but I don't really know how to fix it, shall I just cancel your contract?' (I said yes, he didn't). Got to a stage six weeks after we moved where they said they could sort it but they needed to send out new equipment. Now apparently that needs to be signed for in person, they won't leave it with a neighbour or in my bin shed or whatever so I arranged to work from home today. Cue two emails within 15 minutes of each other this morning, one telling me it was being delivered by Yodel and the other by Royal Mail. Neither have a tracking number, neither have turned up. I phoned up (again), apparently the solution is to get an engineer round rather than use a competent courier service. The next available engineer appointment is next week.  FUCKYOU/10. 

This. 
 
Some of the guys at work have binned a couple of grand over a weekend and then spent several years suffering for it. 
 
I’d ban all advertising for online gambling tbh. 

Less so than if I turned up in my Golf.  Which is currently missing its badge as it fell off.

do you reckon I'd get laughed out of Challock if I turned up there in 'da base'?

Entirely fair enough.  It would do the same to me.  I did say it was shit!  I ended up with a similar gap via-a-vis teaching.
Best of luck!

And if it was, there's no way that said person wouldn't be a serial killer by now.

He's not wrong though is he. British Leyland cars were always way ahead technologically, except the Marina obviously before anybody buts in, but that was there because they could see Ford were outselling them with their horseless carts and thought they'd have a go.
But by the early seventies BL had FWD, five speed boxes, fuel injection, 16 valves, hydraulic suspension (and proper springs on the ones that weren't hydraulic) and self levelling suspension. And not just Leyland, most of the continental manufacturers were dabbling in these things too.
Yet Ford couldn't even manage FWD until 1977. But Ford knew how to sell cars and Leyland didn't. BL came up with lots of good ideas but never developed them properly. Any problems at the start of production tended to stay throughout the life of the car. And of course they were selling cars competing with themselves. Ford were selling simple to the point of ancient technology but people liked that because they understood it. 
Obviously Ford won by keeping it simple but there's no doubt everybody else was building better cars.

I never said they were cool or desirable, I just said they were technologically more advanced.

Did the front discs and pads on my father’s i20 today finally. The bottom slider pin on both caliper brackets had seized so I sent it off to Bigg Red who returned it looking perfect. However my suspicions about binding at the rear have been confirmed. It’s going to be the same story, I can sense the bracket will be a nightmare again so to save time waiting around I’ve ordered up second hand calipers with the brackets that aren’t seized. New discs and pads on the way too and I have a feeling this has shoes inside? Perhaps someone knows. No idea.

I’m at the grand opening of World of Volvo in Gothenburg…

I’m at the grand opening of World of Volvo in Gothenburg…

Mike Brewer isn't all that bad.  I don't get why people dislike him so much, certainly he has a TV persona which can grate a bit, but in interviews, he seems to come across as normal and a bit humble.  It could all be acting as far as I know.
Ah, is that my coat?  Thank you, here is my membership card...

Today friend visited so we could finish the work on other friend's white Rover. All done and dusted, time for it to head out and possibly be replaced with another car, we shall see. Visiting friend did mention the little oil spots all over the drive where the Princess parked and had a giggle about it so we had a look to see just what we think is leaking.

Number one culprit is the phenolic spacer on the mechanical fuel pump. These was an issue when the O Series was a new thing, many a Marina has been plagued by it. I need to pull off the pump (just two bolts, no hardship) and fit some new gaskets, going to try cork instead of paper this time to hopefully cure it. Just tightening the bolts doesn't actually cure the leak, instead it can make it worse if you overtighten especially if you managed to crack the spacer. It's not a huge leak, just one that collects in the casting beneath the pump and then leads to a hot oil smell.

Number two culprit is the gasket at the bottom of the filler neck tube. Since I have the later iteration of the O series in FWD application, I have a filler neck tube that puts the oil in at the bottom of the block instead of the filler neck built into the cambox cover. I've had to wait for enough oil to accumulate on the front of the block to highlight this one after cleaning everything down to be sure, but now I can see it's the highest point of the oil leak in that area I know what to fix. Another fresh cork gasket here should solve things for a few months to a year before needing to be replaced.

Number three culprit is less clear. Some of the waterpump bolts are a bit oily, not all, and it's not very clear where the oil is actually coming from. It's not the speedo cable or the oil filter this time, so those leaks appear to be cured. It could be coming from further up, perhaps the camshaft, I'm not sure. It also has a bit of oil collecting at the front corner of the head-to-block gasket seam but since I've still got good compression across the board and no mixing of oil and water I think this is actually leaking from somewhere else and finding the path of least resistance rather than OMGHGF.

Number four is suspected to be the sump gasket itself. However, this could also be any of the above leaks finding their way to the lowest point of the engine and making it look like the sump gasket is leaking. Or it could be both.

We also chatted about materials cost and did some rough planning for getting the paintwork done. It seems the most sensible thing is to start with the roof and satin black sections first since they can be fully separated from the rest of the bodywork with no need for blending. This also means I can break the cost down a bit, I need a new windscreen so it would be good to get the roof painted with that removed, may also remove the rear screen if we feel we can risk the rear screen seal which is fully unobtanium.

I'll also tackle all of the door shuts and probably the engine bay with good quality rattle cans because there's not a lot of surface area and again, colour matching and blending isn't vital because of the nature of the areas, most of it needs to be plain black with the exception of the engine bay which I want to be pink.

After that we can do the rest of the bodywork. Friend is keen to see it done mostly because he's a good egg who knows how much the car means to me and how hamstrung I've been to get it sorted. £500 should be enough to get all the materials and then it's down to us to do a metric poopload of prep and welding and sanding and sanding and sanding and sanding and a little bit more sanding with some extra sanding just for fun before we do the sanding.

Entirely fair enough.  It would do the same to me.  I did say it was shit!  I ended up with a similar gap via-a-vis teaching.
Best of luck!

Ah ha, you too then!
Surprised and pleased really.  It always felt like it was pretty much a collection of spares flying in close formation given it would never make any logical sense to restore given the value of P4s and the price of spares.  Especially cosmetic stuff and trim, which that car really wanted a lot of, before even factoring in paint.  Shame to lose the genuine patina, but it really did want the paint sorting to ensure the car didn't just decay rapidly if being used regularly.  At the end of the day if it helps make sure it lives on it's all a good thing.  Better this than stripped for parts or taking a quick trip round an oval.