LightBulbFun

@vulgalour this on the wedgister? 
https://www.facebook.com/share/zQQhNxCST8qLgFVn/?mibextid=79PoIi

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/375348263870?itmmeta=01HTG5GAMT969CE2R7T0NSD2D9&hash=item57647ffbbe:g:0gcAAOSwhstmDFoJ

The temptation is so so real but if we bought another bus we might have to register as a transport company 
 
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/116117666058

Strong DO NOT PAINT vibes.

I don’t even know where to start. 😂
What the fuck is that steering wheel off?!
https://www.facebook.com/share/YxeaAxKzSEXajrLw/?mibextid=79PoIi
”2 bigger alloys on the front for more grip”

Last night was a local Triumph Club meeting, 20 people but not one Triumph showed up. We did get a 1936 Frazernash and a Volvo 940!

Custer chair

one of the few (if not only?) Powered invalid carriages to come out of the US  

I think a few do survive, I am pretty positive if nothing else Ian Hellings does have one  

Custer chair

one of the few (if not only?) Powered invalid carriages to come out of the US  

This Place!
I asked for some axle stands off "Trash for nothing" and was told they were gone. I have now had a message that said they were not collected and I can take them. Trouble was I am not planning to go back to Milton Keynes until Thursday so I asked for help.
15mins later they were safely collected.
Thank you @Zelandeth

It's not an argument, it's a healthy discussion! 
I generally agree, most Leyland stuff was under developed. They had lots of good ideas but quite often got it wrong. They got the public to do a lot of their development for them unfortunately which didn't help. But I'm going to pick you up on a few points. 
Triumph weren't late to monocoque construction, it was a conscious decision to go back to a separate chassis. The Standard 8/10/Pennant, the car the Herald replaced, plus the Ensign were monocoque designs. I forget the exact reason but it was something to do with all the usual sheet metal suppliers being booked up with other manufacturers for quite a long time so using a chassis meant they could make the body from smaller individual panels. Waiting for one of the big panel suppliers to become available would have delayed the car. 
To be fair the chassis served Triumph well, with them getting four different cars out of it, or at least two variations of two designs but a Herald and Vitesse are more different than they look at first glance. 
The Triumph V8 suffered from poor cooling but it was discovered that a lot of them had poorly cast heads and blocks, with blocked oil and waterways. They even found sand still in some of them so it was more of a quality control problem. Any that have got this far will probably be fine with regular oil and coolant changes. 
Hydrolastic suspension works better the bigger the car, but I suspect that's probably the same of normal suspension. The Austin 3-litre had a terrible image problem and came along as bigger cars were going out of favour so nobody bought them but the ride was superb. There have been a few reviews on YouTube in recent years by people who've never driven one and they are all amazed by the ride quality. I know HubNut did one and their have been a couple of others who have all said if they could make a car ride this well 50 years ago why can't they do it today. 
And I don't think they bothered updating the MGB because people kept buying it as it was. It was one of their more successful designs commercially I'd have thought. 
There were so many things they could have done differently but it's too late now, and besides what would we argue about on crap car forums if they'd done everything right. 

Once again, we are long overdue an update.
The good news is, I'm happy. The Pontiac is on daily duties at present. I am duly embracing the American commuter spirit by using the mug holders correctly and coating everything in scalding hot coffee.

I've decided not to start work on the MOT welding before the ticket is due, because the work looks to be so extensive that I wouldn't get it done in time and I'd miss out on my last opportunities to enjoy driving it. The work will instead be done once the ticket expires as it is looking like it will require cutting a length of the bonded plastic bodywork away to access the sills properly.
The battery adapters worked, although the only battery I had with the terminals the correct way round was the one in the Proton, so I've nicked the battery from that for now.

Of course, this battery was too big for the factory tie down to work, and was also so tall that I was worried about shorting out the positive terminal on the cross brace.
Copper brake line and the dust boot from a Lexus air strut to the rescue:

I came up with a better/more secure routing for the copper pipe, and put everything back together.

I definitely* will put the right battery in at some point. There's no fix more permanent than a temporary one etc...
At any rate, it meant I now had a car that started each morning, which meant it was daily driver time! 
The first proper run in it was to the Flower Farm meet where it was mainly used to entertain my son.

It's also done a few family days out, where it easily copes with 2 adults, 2 kids, 2 large dogs, the pram and all the assorted crap which we drag around with us.


The dogs like it if the unused seats are removed, as they can then sit between the front seats or stretch out in the boot. I need to get some seatbelt extenders so that the kids can both ride in the middle row - I've never known a car with such short seatbelts!
Whilst procrastinating over the larger jobs, I started sorting the small ones. One thing that jarred me was my rusty nuts.

I could see them from the driver's seat, and so this had* to be sorted. I designed and printed these at work:


Sorted:

No idea how long the PLA will last, but I can just make more if needed. It looks much better from in the cab and outside.
The modular seats are a great feature, it's been handy to have a car with a flat load space which I can use as a van. My mum needed 400 kilos of wood pellets brought up to the stables, and the Pontiac pissed it.

Kind of...

Once I get it through a ticket, I'm definitely sorting the boot struts out. In the meantime, I just use the nearest pole to hold it up.

I then got my Mitsubishi stuck.



It's stuck in 2wd mode, I thought it would cope with the mud but it just slid into the fence post and wedged itself in place.
This meant I had to use the Pontiac to move the car trailer (this was what I was getting the Mitsubishi out for).

It looks cool, but even though it's not that heavy a trailer you do notice it behind you. I wouldn't be mad keen on pulling it on the road. The mirrors are absolutely wank for reversing also.
Speaking of which, this was winding me up something chronic:

It's possibly not very clear, but the mirror adjuster stalk was pushed in flush with the trim around it preventing it being used. In this pic I've discovered and wound out the retaining grub screw. I then prised out the trim, pushed the switch back into place and tightened up the grub screw.

Sorted, we now have working wing mirror adjustment.
Next up was the non-working wash/wipe function. It used to work, but now it wasn't spraying out any windscreen wash. Turns out some fucking idiot (me) had connected the front hose to the rear pump, and left the rear hose dangling into The Void. Plugging things back into the right pumps sorted that out nicely.

The last major niggle was the headlight aim. It was like the car was cross-eyed and constantly staring at its shoes.
The headlights are easy to remove, one of the adjusters had been moved too far and needed taking apart and winding back on manually:


I then roughly dialled them in on the side of a beach hut.

It's not perfect but it lights the road up much better now. At some point, I'll need to obscure the LHD kick up for reasons of MOT obtaining.
Bonus dashboard at night content:

That's pretty much all the Pontiac fun from the last few weeks.
Next up: Citroen fun*.

So I dusted off the Pontiac and brought it back into daily* usage.
On Monday I charged the battery up overnight and then went to work in it on Tuesday.

This made me very happy.
It then wouldn't start when it was time to leave work - the battery had gone flat. This made me unhappy.
Luckily I brought the Noco shitey jump pack with me, and it brought the Pontiac back to life. I risked a run to the Co-op to get beer (mother-in-law was visiting and something has to numb the pain) and the Pontiac started without issue when I jumped back into it with my beers. This also made me happy.
I then went to the petrol station to check the tyre pressures. One was down at 17psi so I pumped that up plus the spare. I then went to start it up and leave, and... Flat battery. My Noco charger had taken a shit by this point and was refusing to jump the Pontiac. Luckily a taxi driver was at the pumps, so I ran over and asked if he'd give us a jump start with my set of leads, and to my relief he had a fuck off massive jump pack which sorted me out. Big shout out to the taxi driver for saving me from phoning my partner for rescue.
I then parked it up in the street whilst I sulked and thought about the best way forward.
The best way forward is to probably buy a new side post battery and figure out what's draining the battery/fit an isolator. A new side post battery is over £100 though, which is annoying when I've got a mountain of ok-ish batteries in the garage.
So I've ordered these instead:

They've arrived today, and when I get home from work I'm hoping they'll allow me to nick the battery out of something I'm not using and chuck it in the Pontiac.
I reckon I might need to look at the earths on the Pontiac too, as it does some weird shit when the battery gets low and you try to crank it - warning lights, gauges becoming possessed, all sorts of stuff you don't want to see.
For now I will just be happy if I can get it to a point where it can be relied on to turn on when I put the key in it.

Catch up time then.
Since my last post, child number 2 has arrived. This means that I theoretically have less time, but also I’m on paternity leave so I sort of have more time. This is possibly man maths in action.
However, it does mean that today I had some time to look at the Lexus.
Between now and my last post I removed the old starter and tested both.


So it turns out the solenoid on the old one was bad, it only throws a couple of mm. I’ll take it apart at some point and have a look at its guts to see if it can be brought back to life.
The new* starter then went in.

In hindsight, life would’ve been much easier if I had of taken the coolant cross pipe off. I didn’t though, and I endured misery for the sake of saving draining a bit of coolant and buying two gaskets. Possibly a poor life choice, but here we are.
Whilst I was in here I decided to take a look at the non functioning inlet butterfly thingies. The car was showing the check engine light due to a fault on these. The vacuum gubbins below control them.

Some testing with a pump and a power probe showed that this solenoid was fuckulated.


I ordered China’s finest* £20 replacement and waited, then fitted it once it landed. It verks!


I then spent about 50 million pounds on a pair of inlet gaskets.

This brings us up to today, where I put everything back together. In true Haynes spirit, refitting was the reverse of removal. Luckily* I took no photos as I took it apart, and removal happened weeks ago and my memory is shit. Fortunately, Japanese cars seem to be put together fairly logically, and I managed to put it back together by basically playing Lego. At the end I had no fasteners left over, and I didn’t put anything together in the wrong order which was a bit of a shock.

Ive left the dress up plastic cover off until it proves to me that I don’t have to go back in there.
The moment of truth then:

She fired up first go, sans check engine light. That’s the result we wanted!
Remove the towing eye of shame!


You can barely* tell I’ve been in there.
I took it for a test drive, and I was a bit deflated.
The car was hesitating badly, and the gear shift was incredibly delayed. The brakes were awful, pulsing and grabbing. The car felt shit to drive.
Ive taken it out again now it’s quiet and thrown it around the country lanes driven it under a range of conditions. The Italian tune up seems to have cured the hesitation and delayed shifts, it’s nice and responsive now. I also visited the stretch of road that I bed brakes in on, and I’ve given the brakes some abuse to get the shite off them and they’re now applying smoothly. The car feels nice to drive again.
To wrap up, this job was a bit of a slog but definitely worthwhile. I’m glad to have the car back in operation again, as despite being a V8 barge it’s actually very practical and more importantly it’s really enjoyable to drive. I’m looking forward to being able to use it again!
The only downside to finishing this is that now I have no excuse not to crack on with finishing the XM and the Lada…

Time for a roundup of recent work completed!
The Lada needs the floor welded up before I put the gearbox back in. So naturally, I have sourced a gear knob from our very own @jakebullet and fitted that instead.


I’ve also bought a few cans of paint, before deciding Fiat Bossa Nova White is the closest match without putting much effort into looking.


Ignore the tide line, it was some rust on the swage line that I mainly sprayed. I’ll sand all the shitey stuff back once the weather clears and paint the car a more uniform colour. The aim is not to get anything particularly presentable, I just want it to not look like a completely fucked rust bucket.
I also definitely wasn’t running it without a working windscreen washer system. However, here is a plastic bladder that I installed to contain washer fluid.

Moving on, the E class clicked over 180k. And I missed it.

It was rewarded with a carpark special headlight alignment

Theres always time to do it right the second time.
Next up on the Mercedes I will be replacing the prop shaft centre bearing, as currently the prop shaft convulses like it is possessed by satan. That’s a job for another day though.
Next we have the XM, which I drove to the farm in anticipation of putting in for a ticket. On the way there, I discovered that the ABS would kick in just before you came to a halt, causing the car to creep and me to shit my pants.

This was caused by the air gap on the ABS sensor.

I solved this by attacking the sensor bracket bushing with a hacksaw

I then liberated the front wheels


And had them shod with the finest pair of part worns that £45 could buy

These were then thrown on the car

And after a short test drive, it was confirmed that a) the ABS was behaving now, b) I need to fit the rear ABS sensor (balls) and c) XM’s are handsome bastards even if they are constantly broken

Last but not least, all ‘harr harr the neighbours hate me’ joking aside, I did leave the LS430 dumped halfway down my road since Christmas and I was losing sleep worrying about how fucked off the people living near it may or may not be.
So on Thursday I went nuclear and called my dad to give me a hand, and we towed it to outside my house where he saw the Pontiac. Luckily, the part of him that cares about what cars I buy has finally died, and he wasn’t fussed at all. Part of me feels bad about that.
Today he came back and we pushed it on to the drive, and if I needed proof that my direct neighbours don’t hate me then I had that in the form of the nice chap two doors down coming out to lend a hand pushing. My Dad stuck around, and despite him having no interest in cars whatsoever he pitched in and we tackled this together

To remove this

And be left with this

Me and my Dad don’t really share any common interests at all, and so we have never really spent much time together. I really enjoyed working together and chatting the last couple of days, and so to be honest I couldn’t be happier that my incredibly hard to access starter motor shat itself.
That pretty much brings everything up to date. Tomorrow I plan to pull the old starter and bench test it, and assuming it is as fucked as I think it is then I’ll replace it with the new* one. I need to order intake and throttle gaskets and then I’ll be ready to put it all back together and hopefully use the LS again before the ticket expires.
*edit*

Fuck me, has it really been that long?! I feel like I’m getting less and less productive by the day.

Nothing too exciting to report tonight, I didn’t have much time.
However, I have removed the old clutch.
Official flywheel holding tool:

Flywheel:

hopefully that cleans up alright.
I found these inside it:

fuck knows what they are/were.
The old clutch disc wasn’t as fucked as I expected:


But the new one does have more meat on it:


What was apparent was that the old pressure plate had a lot of fingers on it that weren’t under much tension anymore. The design is different to the new one but the fitment is the same. I reckon that I actually was suffering from a bad pressure plate rather than a worn clutch.

And last but not least, the release bearing:


The old one has gone dry and the grease appears to have escaped/been vomited out. This potentially wasn’t helping the clutch friction.
The gearbox appears to leak from all the seals, and the rubber boot on the release fork is fucked so that needs replacing too. I’ll sort these bits whilst I’ve got the box out and then stow it in the garage until I need it.
Part of me wonders if I should just look for a replacement 5 speed box, but I’m unsure if it will spoil the character of the car by upgrading from the 4 speed.

It's update time again. I've been picking away at things since last weekend. Not all of these have gone as planned.
Car Tetris
The Lada needed to be in the courtyard. This space was 3 cars deep in shite with flat batteries, which is actually a better situation than normal. Everything moved out the way ok, although I realised that I left the window open on the Trans Sport last time I was in it 😢
 
The marks on the headliner were already there, as the roof gets really damp from condensation when not used - incredibly, the interior below the window was fairly dry. I think the fence saved me a bit there.
I've also found out exactly where the gauge reads before the Pontiac cuts out:

Luckily that happened just as I got it to where I was parking it.
Bonus content for @Zelandeth 

Lucky I've got the socks...


Bastard. The Landy had to pull it out in the end.
Car Tetris complete, it was time to actually do something. But first, storm preparation:


The Lada
As you can see form the last photo, it was now suspended up in the air ready for some TLC.

Then it was time to procrastinate by replacing the fuel filter


I ran it for a bit, and it would appear that there's loads of shite in the tank.

That's a job for another day though.
Knob out off.

Gearbag oil removed


Not much shite on the plug

And after a good clean I feel it looks worse, not helped by my appalling focus.

Golden retriever attack



Downpipe loosened off (I was worried it would just fall out if undone fully. I was wrong to worry). Free escargot.

Exhaust clamps removed. The first one came off with the spanner from the toolkit without fuss. The rear had* to be snapped off with a breaker bar.

Eastern European beer can repair discovered

And a ghost from the past was discovered by rolling onto it, I must have been having a bad day when I made this

Clutch slave removed

Starter motor removed

It's an enormous bastard of a thing.

I'm going to sort this spaghetti out as it makes my teeth itch. For good measure, earth coloured wire is used on both the +ive and -ive leads which could absolutely definitely not end in disaster.

Exhaust out. What a bastard. I couldn't split it underneath the car, and it's an absolute wanker to get out whole.

Split up, to make refitting easier. Possibly.

Forbidden Donut bolts removed.

More propshaft shittery. I had to spend ages cleaning up the threads of the studs as they were coated in underseal. They came off ok though.


It nearly twatted me in the head despite me being careful as I absolutely knew it would twat me in the head. It came out though.

The UJ's are all in good condition, as it the centre bearing. All the grease points will get a good pumping.
Getting there...

Now for a brief interlude. The bonnet stay was missing on this car from when I got it. The meant that the bonnet was instead stayed by the grille and headlights, which always made me feel incredibly uneasy.

A replacement was as much as £10, but comes from abroad which means waiting.
Whilst wandering around the garage looking for a bucket handle, I found something easier to work with...

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?!


Glorious.
I will get a proper one. At some point. Probably.
Back to work then.
Every 1/2" extension in a 5 mile radius was used to get the top two gearbox bolts.

The bottom two are easily accessed.
For a while I've quite fancied getting one of these gearbox trolley jack stand things.

However, I've continued to procrastinate and for now we have a piece of gravel board and two 'danger orange' ratchet straps on a pressed pallet block of dubious vintage.

You'll notice the rusty outriggers. More on that later, sadly.
Rear mount undone, and the box slowly comes away

Obviously I checked the manual and made sure that I'd removed everything, and I definitely meant to leave the speedo cable connected like an umbilical.

Error rectified, and she's out.

I'll be back for this tomorrow:

Back round to the rust then.
Whilst underneath the car I couldn't help poking at the scabby bits, as I wanted to weld up anything that wasn't right whilst I'm here - I don't want the car going back out with any serious rot on it. Sadly, the scabby bits spread further and further as I poke. I've gone through the driver's footwell, both outriggers, and the floor pan in the driver's side is a state. The underseal means that the underneath looks alright bar the odd blister, but the rubbery coating on the interior of the floor has trapped moisture and the rot appears to be coming from the inside rather than the outside.

I'll be cutting that out then. To save time I will probably buy premade outriggers, and to save money I will probably make up the floor from the sheet steel I have here.
There's also some other bits that need sorting before she sees the road again. The indicators are in a bit of a shite state, it needs new mirrors, there's a hole in the rear floor pan to patch, the spare wheel well is knackered, the rear valence is also shot. I want to carpet the interior as I think the rubber it had in there is worse for trapping moisture/condensation than if there was carpet fitted properly. I want to look at the weather seals to try and seal any routes for water ingress as I think this has been the biggest contributor to the car rotting - most of the rust is in places that water has pooled on the interior. The front alignment needs adjusting. There's general scabbiness and surface rust on most panels, I want to sand all that back and get paint over it before that in turn becomes worse. I don't like the underseal / stone chip tide line so I will be sanding that where flakey  and painting with more stone chip to seal the bits that have blistered off and then painting it all white. There's probably other stuff I've forgotten.
I think the car is very much at a turning point in its life - it needs a lot of work now to ensure it remains safe and usable going forwards. It would be irresponsible to turn a blind eye to the issues and put it back on the road, I'm also certain that doing so would also probably seal its fate in terms of rot.
So, that's going to be a long term project then... that will mean a reshuffle of cars here to make space for it whilst leaving room to work on other cars, it will also mean I need to fix something else to use to get to work.
Cue:
The Mercedes
If you recall, this thing was making awful noises from underneath when coasting, and lots of vibration and clunking at other times. I may or may not have mentioned that after my initial panic, I decided that it was possibly the driveshaft hitting a heatshield. Best have a look then.
I bloody hate lowered suspension. I had to jack it from the sides on to spare steelies in order to then jack it from the subframe onto stands.

I would much prefer this ride height:

I finally found a use for the stack of about 10 trailer wheels that I have laying around

The photo may or may not show it clearly, but turning the back wheel revealed that the weight thingies on the prop shaft are just rubbing the heatshield.

A bit of adjustment with the heatshield calibration tool did the job.

This is of course a temporary measure - the centre bearing appears to be gubbed, so needs replacing. That's next weekend's job then!
For now the car no longer makes awful noises, and will be able to make the short journey to work and back for the next few days.
Once the prop shaft is behaving itself, I'll be going after the thermostat (again), t suspension clonk and the rather violent unlocking of the torque convertor. Then it's service time, and afterwards I want to tidy up the shabby bodywork. This will probably be the car I use for business travel going forwards, as I can't see the Insight getting sorted anytime soon and I need some MPG's.
Bonus content:
The Land Rover
Incredibly, it's still working*.
However, one of the side repeater bulbs blew.
Apparently the units have a small spring clip on, push them against the spring and they release out the hole.
Mine eventually pushed in and came out, and just as I could see the spring clip it went 'sprong!' and fucked off into the void in the door.

Wanker.
Best put a sticky pad on that for now then, and order some new side repeaters. It currently has clear ones, so I'll probably go back to orange for full tango effect.
Phew! I think that brings us up to date.

A rad hose was less than a tenner online and will be here in a couple of days. I’ll check the others and replace the thermostat (I’ve got a new one on the shelf), but it’s mad how good the spares support for these cars is.

Today was Retrieve Lada From Field Day.
I’d like that one please:

Not pictured: The chain harrow that my Dad left upside down in undergrowth. I drove onto it in the Land Rover (how it didn’t burst the tyre I don’t know), and then when I got out to find out ‘what the fuck was that noise that sounded like a tyre popping’ I went foot first onto one of the spikes. I had my boots on but I still fucking felt it. Cheers Dad.

Using the power of swearing, I dragged the chain harrow out the undergrowth and relocated it into the hedge.
With that sorted, I turned my attention to starting the Lada. Surprisingly, it was happy to crank over despite the tired battery.

Unsurprisingly, it wouldn’t crank long enough to draw fuel and start.
Luckily*, the jump pack in the Land Rover had gone flat. It was fully charged last weekend and has just been sat in the boot. Noco stuff is absolute shite.
I went back home and grabbed the battery that I had previously charged for the XM and brought that back to the stables.
I ‘forgot’ my tools (they’re blocked in the garage by the leaning tower of crap) so I had to make do with what I could find in the boot of the Lada.

2 spanners, a pair of pliers and the pry bar I’ve been missing for months. Ok then.
Success! (You’ll have to take my word for it as there’s no rev counter)

It was absolutely filthy from being sat under a tree, so I gave it a quick jet wash before driving it home.
Green:

White*:

Time to drive it home then. None of us were very excited at that prospect:

However, once I got off the main road and I was rolling around the local roads along the seafront I felt a lot better. I’m sure my confidence will come back with this car.
Home safe:

And then the last job for the day was to go and chuck the recently disgraced Mercedes into the discarded S210 pile.

I’m growing more confident that the noise is something simple like a fucked mount or a loose heat shield. I’ll have a poke around after I’ve done the Lada clutch and the starter on the Lexus…
Bonus Content:

I forgot to put this into the post, but handily it got tagged on at the end as I uploaded it… I should probably replace that hose.

If you strip a Trabant of the Duroplast bits what you're left with looks remarkably like a miniature version of the base frame skeleton the Rover P6 is built around.  Front and rear panels are non structural steel, I'm guessing simply because the moulding would be excessively complex to make in Duroplast with the various cutouts and such.  
The inner structure is a (surprisingly rigid) framework including the sills, floorplans, roof frame, window surrounds, front and rear wheel tubs, door apertures, front bulkhead, and boot floor.  Everything else is then attached to that.
P6: 

Source: http://www.roverp6parts.com/history.html
Trabant: 

No idea where I originally found that one.  Here's a (crap) photograph of one stripped to the shell which original surfaced on Pinterest somewhere.

For such vastly different cars it's almost uncanny how similarly the very basics of the inner structure have been penned.  P6 is obviously vastly more substantial, but you get the idea of what I'm saying.

Given they do have a bit of a reputation in that regard I'm under no illusions of things staying all that clean, but I'd like to scrub at least the worst of it off just so I can see if any new leaks do appear.  The 'box just sweating a bit from seals and such that's deemed to be normal I don't have a problem with.  For all it looks a right state I don't think I've ever been aware of this car leaving a drip of anything where it's parked (aside from water dripping out the interior before I sorted the bulkhead seal anyway), so it obviously isn't losing much.
We did suffer a major technical failure today.

Okay, that might be slightly overselling a blown tail light bulb.  Needless to say this was a five minute fix.

Really do need to get some paint on that rear panel.
Also, aren't Nissan Qashqais huge?

This car is still very much making me smile every time I see it.

Exo has been rescued from hibernation - took a little more effort to push out of the garage for some reason

i’d suspected this might happen so had the compressor with me, a quick check of the fluids and the engine fired first time  
a brief hoon was had but on the damp roads, the crappy chinese tyres really showed their true colours - they’ll be getting replaced asap

in the meantime i’ve refitted the steelies with semi slicks, they drive so much better than these ditchfinders 

Had a lovely day yesterday. Xsara took me to Birmingham to pick up a friend, then Wakefield to a vacuum cleaner collectors mini-meet at a place some of the northern lads rent out and use above a gym (literally the first time in my life I've ever 'been to a gym') 

Someone bought their early 1910's Hoover 103/5 (I can't remember), that was cool to see! 

Xsara smashed the lot at either 30, 50 or 80. Bar a couple of times the turbo didn't kick in occasionally it took the drive and the hellish journey back into brum at 7pm to drop my mate back off. 

Just seen this on TheFacebook, green laning in a midibus.

Sad day, my 480ES has been collected, but the number of £325 tax cars we have is excessive so some have to go.
It is staying on the forum, but I will let the new owner reveal himself.
Update:
@robinmasters has now revealed he was the buyer of the 480.