davehedgehog31

I'm 99% yes, just pending childcare arrangements.

Great write up, sounds like the SLK was just the tool for the job. I'd be too nervous in something worth actual money I reckon. The fees for having an accident there are pretty eye watering, especially if you bend a barrier. When you say there were 400 cars out at once, at 35 euros a piece, then it's more understandable. Time is Money. Looks like you got cracking weather for it too, very jealous, will need to do this one day.

Invacar?

I've not done a lot with the hole in the bumper. I used some boiling water on it to try and push it out a bit, managed to get it a bit flatter and reckon it could be fixed* with a bit of fibreglass and filler if you took it off and done it form behind. There is however someone on in Maryport selling a front bumper on eBay, might be a more sensible choice. Thanks Mally, I'm really chuffed with it. I'll enjoy it for a bit and it will probably be advertised here and stay in the fold whenever I do decide to move it on.

Another photo heavy update here. I had managed to maintain my ideal fleet size of 3 cars for a couple of months, a manageable amount for me, probably the most I can feasibly keep on top of. Time to get another then. In came the ex @Mally Ford Street Ka. @sdkrc collected it and enjoyed it for a couple of days before it came my way. After the satisfying cleaning/polishing jobs on the Fabia and Lexus I was motivated to crack on with the Ka. First order of business was to remove the hard top. We're coming into some better weather and I'd like to get a bit of use out it with the top down. This left us thusly; It was by no means filthy, after a good wash it was obviously a pretty straight car and looked like it would come up nicely. I removed the stylish* reflective strips that had been stuck to the edges of the bonnet and bootlid. This is how the paint looked after a thorough wash; Lots of swirls and shallow scratches. The DA polisher was deployed all over. I even done a professional* job and masked off the black plastics as I went. It got a coat of wax afterwards. After finishing the exterior I set about the interior. Seats were easily enough removed. Just two bolts at the front, three at the back and a single electrical connection for the very posh heated seats. Carpets hoovered and then cleaned with a drill brush. Always freshens a car interior up. It all got a general scrub with a brush and some all purpose cleaner stuff. The interior door handle on the drivers side had broke when Sam was bringing it up the road. Upon inspection it was pulling the full cable, not just the inner. This was due to a burst clip in the handle which holds the outer sheathing of the cable in place. A strategically deployed jubilee clip stopped it being able to pull the outer into the handle and now the door opens like it should. While in there I had a look at the inop door speaker, done a two way swap and both speakers seem fine so must be a broken wire somewhere. Will investigate later. The passenger seatbelt wasn't retracting properly. Had a go at the trick of cleaning it in a bucket with some laundry detergent in it. Also some silicone spray. Neither worked so I've ordered a replacement one for £15 from eBay. The flap that separates the roof from the boot was loose, I deployed some of the plastic trim clips I got in a big set from Lidl last year for a surprisingly factory looking repair. Interior all went back together and I reattached the rear Ford badge which fell out during some rigorous polishing. Here we have the finished article; Really happy with how it's turned out. It's a very honest little car, just as Mally's ad. Everything has tidied up really easily. Hopefully the nice weather keeps up and I can get out in it with the roof down!

My rediscovered enthusiasm for car stuff has continued now that spring has sprung. Bought a cheapo dual action polisher from Argos and set to work on the Lexus. I used this Auto Finesse "One Step" Compound as it seemed reasonably straightforward. I used the Bilt Hamber Double Speed wax on it, it's a great product and a tin will probably last you years. This is the only crap photo I have, but I'm happy with the results. It looks very smart indeed. My parents have put their tourer caravan on a seasonal pitch on the Solway Coast this year so we took a run down over the Easter Weekend for a few nights. Fabia was the steed of choice. Some scrap in Silloth. We also had a look round the Silloth Motorcycle Museum. It's just basically the bottom of someone's house but there was some really interesting stuff. Free entry but well worth a small donation. Spied a proud Corsa B owner in Maryport. On the way up the road we nipped in to the Leadhills Railway and then on Easter Monday the Fabia took us to the Doon Valley Railway running day for a steam train ride and then onwards to Girvan for Ice Cream. A big weekend for the Fabia. I filled it up on Saturday there and it had done 574.2 miles and used 38 litres of fuel for a frankly obscene 68.69mpg. What a car.

Not been very active on here for a while, mainly due to lack of car related mojo/activity brought on by the cold and dark. Been slowly emerging from hibernation and foutering once again. Enjoying the longer days and slightly less biting temperatures. It's been all change on the fleet front. Already this year the Subaru Outback, Rover 45 and Lexus LS have left. The latter two sold within the forum. My brother had been making noises about buying some newfangled EV nonsense, meaning his 2013 Lexus GS450H "Premier" would be up for grabs. With the proceeds of my sales burning a hole in my pocket and it being offered at a very keen price I was powerless to resist. I'm still struggling with the concept of owning a car worth actual money and the potential borkage is strong. It is however very comfortable, very fast and will astonishingly do 40mpg on supermarket E10 if driven nicely. Has a couple of small issues to sort that were reflected in the price. The shutter behind the front grille is stuck open which flags up an annoying error on the dash. The blind spot monitoring system is also inop and giving a code for the NSR sensor. Otherwise, it's very good. Near full Lexus history and lived in Hampshire most of it's days rather than seeing the salt up here. The Fabia continues to provide sterling service. It was treated to front wheel bearings and a new timing belt kit a few months back and hasn't missed a beat. The small estate is a great size of car for everyday use. Being the 1.9 PD100 it's great on fuel with more than enough performance for everyday driving, the low down torque makes for a relaxing drive. The seating position is good but the seats themselves pretty awful, very thin with a lack of support. It's the low-mid spec Comfort model, not sure if they were any better further up the range. It was given a wash, clay barring, polish and finished off with some Bilt Hamber wax. We're probably out the worst of the salt so after MOT in August I'll spray some lanolin rust proofing on for next winter. It could also use a thermostat as it sits about 2/3rds on the gauge. The Kangoo has ran out of test and insurance and has been in shed configuration. I recently got a council lockup near home for £cheaps so it's currently living in there. I don't see it needing anything for a test after it's reasonable overhaul last year, I've just been time poor and feeling a bit skint after all my recent expenditure so have let it take a back seat. Will get it back on the road for May. Finally, decided to do something about the lack of covered car working space. Have built this carport at the side of the house, I say that as if I done it but in reality I had competent help and I lent a hand. It's been great so far and is well sheltered at the sides so can be working under there in the dry even in pretty horrible weather conditions. It's a good sized space, being about 7.2M long. Wasn't sure what to do roof wise, went for boards with a rubber membrane covering and added guttering to stop it pissing into the neighbours property. Very happy with the outcome. This is the only photo I have to hand, it wasn't finished at this point but is now.

Was talking about this the other night, the price of cars has taken quite a lot of the fun out it for me. The type of thing you'd pick up for £400 with a ticket is now well into "actual money", money that could make a difference elsewhere in life. There's an element of rose tinted specs, it was always hard going trawling Gumtree but don't recall it being quite so dire. I like buying and selling and experiencing different makes and models. In the glorious year of 2018 I went through 13 cars, can't see my turnover ever being that high again. More inclined to look after what I've got now seeing as they appear to be actual assets.

My entire fleet... I had five about a month back.

Good to meet you @cort1977 and glad it's going as well as I'd expect. It's a great car and I'll miss it. The driveway stains have been caused by some of my other appreciating* modern classics* I may add 🤣

Good to meet you @fairkens Pretty sad to see the Rover go, hope you're having a comfortable drive home! When it comes time to move it on do let me know 🤣

Carlisle? Excited to see what it is.

Elephants arse textured plastic. Has to be late 90's early 2000's Nissan? Primera?

The C looks like an Asian car typeface and it's posh enough to have a rev counter. Still no clue, I'm going to go Ssangyong Rexton

All the best motors come from East Kilbride Oh, wait...

And where are we up to with this Wimpy?

There's a Wimpy in Dingwall

I have always said my ideal fleet is three cars, enough redundancy if one breaks or needs work and enough variety to keep it interesting. I had a fleet of four, the LS, Kangoo, Rover and Subaru so needed to do something to address the situation. So I bought this from @sdkrc

Well bought man, looks like a textbook collection trip too.

I take it you could. I did spill some and white spirit cleaned it up easily. I might try and clean some of the dried overspray off the exhaust, will let you know. The application would be very easy with better access. Just need to get the stuff good and hot first, it's like lard at room temperature and returns to that state quite quickly when it cools. Like I say though, seems to be acceptable to thin it a bit with some white spirit.

Sadly the last thing to smash that particular one was the big claw at Copart. Goodnight sweet prince.

Cheers man. I had heard that Lanolin based products were on fleek at the minute, as the youth would say. I worship at the altar of Project Farm and he said good things about Lanolin based Fluid Film which got me curious.

With winter fast approaching the roads will have salt on them any day now. I already have the sacrificial Subaru, but given the Kangoo has four nearly new Michelin all season tyres on it, I thought I should use it. It's very clean for an old van and is a genuinely useful tool that I'd like to have around for a while yet. I'd thought about various ways of protecting it against rust. It was pretty clean to begin with so didn't want to hide it under stonechip, I also don't have the patience to apply it neatly. In the end settled on a Lanolin based wax. I looked at Lanoguard initially, but at £100 for 5 litres I thought better. I went for a product called Corrolan; https://www.rust.co.uk/product/cat/corrolan-sustainable-rust-proofing-43 At £35 for 5 litres it seemed like a more affordable bet for when I made a hole of applying it. They have a couple of products, the "pure" is a thick underseal for exposed bodywork and the "Active" is for cavities. I suspect you could probably just thin the "pure" down with white spirit and use it in cavities in a pinch. I got 5L of the pure and 2.5 of the Active. It's seriously gloopy stuff, when it arrived it was almost solid. I sat it on a little 130 watt tube heater overnight which had the whole bottle runny. You could hear some of it in a vessel in a pot of boiling water if in a hurry. Alternatively it can be thinned with a bit of white spirit. Given the time of year I should probably have done this too. This is the gun I've got to apply it, it's a Sealey Professional number and seems very good quality; Got the van up on stands. I done a bit of preparation. I treated surface rust underneath with Vactan the day before. The OSR arch was scabby so I cleaned it right back with a wire wheel to solid metal, vactan then primer and paint. Removed all the plastic liners and the spare wheel beforehand too. This was my first mistake, it really needed to be much higher in the air for the undercoating. In future I think I'd drive it up on ramps, or jack one end right up and do one half at a time. The main issue was that I couldn't get the tip of the gun far enough from the floor to get a wide fan on the spray. As a result I've probably applied it too thick in places and used more product than I would have with the car higher up. Still, it's well covered all the same. I used my 6 litre SGS compressor to blow it on. I had it heated, so very runny and it managed fine. I'd probably add a nip of white spirit next time. I didn't mask anything up really, just put a carrier bag over the front brakes. I could probably have been a bit tidier, but it's a van so aesthetics aren't high up my list of priorities. Anyway, got there in the end. The flash on the pictures makes it look a bit glossier and patchier than it is, but it's well covered. Less visibly, I used the extension with the 360 degree nozzle on it to get wax into the cavities and front subframe. We'll see if I regret it the next time I need to do any work on it. It dries to a slightly tacky finish that you can scrape off, I'm sure a bit of effort with a pressure washer would take it off. The stuff gets good reviews online. Hoping it will provide good protection while being relatively easy to remove or top up as required.

Seeing the car in its proper habitat is making me miss it even more. Let me know when it's time for it to move on again 😂