LightBulbFun

interesting, every now and then back in the day there used to be the odd Trident around here that was loud as fuck, interesting to learn the reasoning behind that (assuming tridents suffer from the same sort of issues!) is that all?! a Routemaster will do about 8 or 9 Mpg IIRC...

I had one like this recently, I picked up from Japan this cute little 4W T5 switch start (magnetic ballast) fluorescent batten the 4W T5 fluorescent tube is the smallest normal fluorescent tube out there, but actual proper mains powered fixtures for them where never really made for them here in the UK sadly, hence why I went out of my way to import one from Japan but the fixture being Japanese uses a special sort of stater, like so however I know of a wide selection of specialist lighting wholesalers here in the UK so I do a quick check and find one that does the starters it requires, so I thought great, once the fixture arrives Ill order a couple starters for it and be on my way but It took them well over a week just to dispatch the starters, let alone for them to then make themselves through the postal system, I legitimately would of probably been better off ordering the starters from Japan with the fixture, both time and price wise to make matters worse, the lighting wholesaler also had another type of fluorescent starter I required, for some special high power fluorescent tubes which I have that I wish to start in the most gentle way possible, so i thought great lets tag these onto the order as well while im at it now I think you will all agree thats a fairly unique looking starter right? its fucking translucent purple has "EFS600UVX" written in fucking gold down the side of it but this is what was in the bag instead, just regular old fairly generic glow starters twenty fucking quid I had just spent with this wholesaler on some fucking fluorescent tube starters, that fucking stings in itself, so you think they could of done the decent thing and sent me the specialised starters that they had listed which I had explicitly ordered... so now I have had to faff about sending them back asking explicitly for the right item, and only today in-fact several weeks later after placing the order have I got another order dispatch notification from them fuck knows what will actually turn up this time! at least the Japanese starters where correct so I was able to light the fixture

thats a good point about the MOT, being 1961 it would not of been pre 1960 MOT exempt either, so she or whoever it was registered too would of had to produce a valid MOT certificate to tax it... unless it was declared MOT exempt under section F? https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5f7eceefe90e07741465559a/v112-declaration-of-exemption-from-mot.pdf I think it could be squeaked under those rules, since its certainly not moving more then a total of 6 miles a week! if I think its the tool your using, try if you have the means to, look it up by its chassis number with a random dot place in it or at the start/end, this gets the tool to spit out its other record, and you may see a bit more info its a bit of a quirk with Experian back end based tools, is vehicles tend to have multiple records of sorts and which one you get served can be a bit of a crap shoot, but depending on the record you can fuzz things and get the other records for example you can see depending on how I input the data, I either get only the latest keeper change or all of them and I have noticed in recent times they have become sadly even bit shitter in not providing all the details especially if you look up a vehicle thats been dormant for many years, it wont provide make model info properly or keeper change dates properly either, and you cant pull up its alternative record by intentionally miss-typing the chassis number (that trick only works for vehicles which have been recently active) it used to be even if a vehicle came off the road in 1987 or whenever, I could still get its keeper count, but now if you look up such a vehicle you get no keeper count whatsoever for example if you look up FPH782J, it used to be the case that I could see its full keeper history count, and it showed up properly but now you can see the data quality is poorer so make sure when you use 3rd party tools that you are aware of this, its something I am always on my toes about! and this particular issue is something I need to bring up with my assigned tech support agent before I top up the credits again, to see if they can do anything about it, because given I do pay for this tool, I'd like it to work fully as it used! its also worth noting in general that a V5 being issued is not necessarily always a keeper change, the Last V5 issued for my car was about 11 days ago, but I have owned it and been the registered keeper of it since July 2019 thanks! I was not sure if it was introduced when SORN was introduced or when continuous SORN was introduced

thought this best be posted in this thread

the DVLA will happily let you tax a vehicle without insurance but as I understand it they do eventually query the MID and if it comes up as not insured, they send a nastygram letter (its MOT they wont let you tax without, unless exempt) but maybe the process has changed in recent years? my last direct dealing with such a taxed without insurance matter was about 2013, when the previous owner of my car got into a battle with the DVLA over it as they had un-SORN'ed and taxed the car, because some departmental lady thought it was a mobility scooter, but the computer system correctly flagged it up as being a motor car due to its revenue weight, and since it had no insurance the DVLA then sent him nastygrams for having a vehicle on the road with no insurance this is an interesting theory, normally theres no way to generally have tax auto-renew like this, but I know vehicles in the NTFORU taxation class and, mobility scooters have their tax renew automatically so the DVLA computer system does have the ability to do it, so its not out of the realm of possibility someone managed to wrangle it for this Ford Consul but again if it was supposedly taken away from her in 2002, that would not explain the 6 total keepers it had with the last being in 2005, (which is interesting in its own right, as it means it had a colour change and then a keeper change after that colour change...) and I *think* by 2005, they had introduced the rules such that when you did a keeper change it cancelled the vehicle tax, so if there where any special arrangements I imagine those would of been stopped, when the keeper changes happened I mean theres still the question of just who was it registered too when she did still have it, given legally should would of been of no fixed abode I think? can a car be registered to itself? The Autoshite Paradox?

but that does not quite explain the colour change that happened a good couple years after it was sadly removed so thats most curious, either a ringer, or someone restored and repainted it? but yet again the fact its taxed but not on the MID is odd...

Sadly its not, its just a private plate slapped on it in 2017 for some reason! its in the disabled taxation class so it comes up as ULEZ exempt, but that exemption runs out in Late October 2027, if a genuinely a 1987 or older FX4 came up for that cheap that was not terminally fucked , i'd probably be doing something quite stupid right about now (but alas most are fucked and/or expensive)

"How Orange do you want your Taxi?" "Yes" it pleases me that even in 2024 you still get street parked shonky autoshite like this https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/2135946930077441

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/126335885597 no idea what this is actually worth and all the photos are what one might describe as a bit shit but I bought a load of T12 fluorescent tubes off of the seller who was a decent sort, and was kind enough to deliver them to me by hand for the price of petrol, so figured the least I can do is punt his Pug 405 listing into the place with the best chance of it getting some interest he said the story behind the 405 (because of course when I spotted it I went "ooh a 405") was he was saving it for when his kids turned 17, but when they did and he offered them the car, they said "we dont want an old mans car!"

if you get an extra .6 MPG do the headlights turn red?

Hah I almost wonder if there was some subconscious intentionality with that? as a fair number of the preposed replacements for the FX4 where Range Rover based https://www.aronline.co.uk/concepts-and-prototypes/austin-fx4fl2-proposed-replacements/

its still curiously not on the MID, so would imply not insured I always thought the DVLA would do your face in if you taxed your vehicle without insurance, that they do eventually quaerry the MID when a vehicle is taxed and if its not on there, they get antsy with you certainly from what I have seen in the past that was the case

I see the thread title expecting to see see hot Metrocab action and I get a P38 Land Rover? its cruel getting a mans hopes up like that! is this the Autoshite version for when an item in your shopping delivery gets substituted? "we are all out of shonky Metrocabs, some bloke called @wuvvum bought them all last time, have a shonky range rover instead"

No problems! I really appreciate the close up shots all the same many thanks for those

you didn't happen per chance, to grab any details on its chassis number did you? that ones been eluding me for a fair few years now as to which it is exactly! but I believe it to be the same one that has about 94K on the clock!

I love how the bloke in that sounds like and says things just like @Talbot does, but if talbot had a 20 packs a day smoking habit gives me warm fuzzy feelings of FoD days out "the carbatooter"

Ill have to double check with Stuart but im pretty sure its a 147 cc engine in these, so just that bit more terrifying I think these things tend to be mostly gearing limited, topping out at around 25Mph-40Mph depending on exact configuration I have always wanted to see someone drive one at speed, I bet it must be quite interesting, if you thought a Model 70's handle bars or Invacar's tiller bar looked sketchy well you see that spade handle? yeah thats your steering...

im not 100% sure the fine details, sadly it will be a Villiers of some sort but the again when it comes to invalid carriages, thats like the colour of the sky, its always going to be blue, apart from some edge cases question i'd be wondering is does it run/what state is it in? £1500 is a little strong in my opinion, especially if they are not open to offers, but if it is a runner, then ya could do worse thats for sure!

tis a Stanley Argson Victory funnily enough the model Stanley produced just after the war originally registered as KPH30, but sadly in 1998 it was robbed of its plate and given GSJ265 as an age related plate, despite it being properly registered as an Invalid Carriage, and thus should never of been allowed to have been robbed of its plate an invalid carriage is a vehicle not of an MOT Testable type, so thus is not a vehicle one can transfer a registration mark to, or from, same reason you cant rob a plate from a Milk float or a Tractor or Kiltox's Electric Kangoo, but sadly when it comes to Invalid Carriages, a lot of people including MOT testers and the DVLA incorrectly treat them as Tricycles when, by the letter of the law and the DVLA's own written rules they are not!, but I digress its been bounced around a bit since then, last spotted on eBay back in 2014, and then much more recently it sold or at least was put up for auction, at an Auction in York or Yorkshire, and now its on Facebook market place but my own DVLA grievances aside, it is fully DVLA alive, a good project for someone

its funny you say that, I was just thinking that when seeing @Yoss's pictures because it reminded me of their lightbulbs, of all the eastern block countries, Czech's state run lightbulb manufacturer, Tesla Holešovice was really quite advanced, they produced quality lightbulbs, and had quite the technical prowess developing many technical lamps that other eastern block countries did not they where the first eastern block to develop a high pressure sodium lamp for example http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Spec Sheets/D SHP Tesla SHC400 Nb-cup.htm and again their lamps where generally always pretty decent for example I was very given my a fellow collector in Lithuania, a *large* bundle of eastern European/soviet tubes in exchange for sourcing and shipping over to him some specific western tubes he really wanted and just could not find. (I was the only nutter who was not phased about sending 25 4ft glass tubes all the way to Lithuania ) anyways heres a quick picture I took of 2 of the tubes as I was unpacking one of the parcels he sent me (ignore the black writing on the top tube, I did not put that there!) the top tube is a PZGRL, Poltava gas discharge lamp manufacturing plant soviet fluorescent tube from Ukraine the bottom tube is a similar age Tesla Holešovice tube of Czechoslovakia and I think one can clearly see even from this quick photo just how much better the Tesla tube is constructed, its still a bit crude by western standards of the 1980's but its *way* better constructed then the soviet tube of the USSR (the Tesla tube has proper full sized cathodes with plenty of emitter while the PZGRL tube has wimpy cathodes with hardly any emitter on them) and also rather to my surprise even the Tesla tube has cathode guards, not something found on a lot of western tubes even. so yeah I hope @Yoss does not mind the lightbulb diversion, but I just found it interesting to see what I see in their lightbulbs, also reflected in their cars, or should that be what one sees in their cars, also reflected in their lightbulbs? you know what I mean

is that the same Cummins V6 they tried in XF3?

I cant do that, but I can sort you out an evening snack? with some crisps or onions on the side

thats sadly "just" a cache of previous eBay listings from around 2012ish, which is quite interesting in its own right in the past its been a very useful reference tool its how I found a few survivors in my early days https://autoshite.com/topic/32723-lightbulbfuns-invacar-general-ramble-thread-index-on-page-1-survivors-lists-on-pages-24134-adgecutlers-invacar-mk12-restoration-from-page-186-onwards-still-harping-on/page/11/#comment-1723755 I appreciate the heads up none the less

to be honest if you tried calling a garage and said "i'd like parts for my Invacar please" or "i'd like parts for my Model 70 please" these days, you would get the same reaction if you said "i'd like to get parts for my Willy" "you want parts for you what?!" (and then you find yourself hastily explaining what your actually on about!)

yeah sadly that pair is a bit of a Hot potato, I do feel bad for Chris Young, I think it was him that was somewhat miss-sold the Mk12E in the first place, the seller said to him "oh the ICR can sort it out for you" yeah no, not without a known chassis number! (that being said a DVLA issued chassis number and suitable dating cert would be able to get an age related number, thats a fairly involved process that the ICR is not currently setup to handle) as for the White and blue one you can read about it here https://autoshite.com/topic/32723-lightbulbfuns-invacar-general-ramble-thread-index-on-page-1-survivors-lists-on-pages-24134-adgecutlers-invacar-mk12-restoration-from-page-186-onwards-still-harping-on/page/302/#comment-2715961 I agree that im not sure it should of been registered as an Invacar in the capacity that it was, but thankfully said identity is just on a 2018 record, age related plate its true idenity for the most part has not been touched, so should someone be able to able fabricate a new chassis for it to faithful Mk12B specifications, then its true identity could likely be returned to it