Matty

They're cooler than a polar bears nuts. When me and the missus were early days I put her through all sorts of shit (manta gte, fiat coupe, 205 xs). I really wanted one of these as at the time they were peanuts, but on reflection recognised it would be the straw that broke the camels back 🤣

Little more work done.
Finished the welding on the crossmember. With the rest of the panel painted to give it some protection.

Fitted a new radiator while I had the chance. Cooling fan works as it's meant to, that's a relief!
Then kicked the little bugger outside.

Very pleased with the colour in the sunlight.
Still waiting on a windscreen. I'll have to chase that up. 

Just for the fan club, I cleaned it (even though it wasn't really dirty). 
I might even put some fuel in it later. 

What a good looking car though. Always thought these were handsome even in period. Which probably made me an odd child 😄

What a good looking car though. Always thought these were handsome even in period. Which probably made me an odd child 😄

After all of the tomfuckery on collection day, I discovered that I actually DO have a 12v outlet. 
Some ABSOLUTE LEG has wired one into the glove box. It was tucked safely into a hole in the top of the box. 

 

 
Cheeky fkr

Have some pics from various famous* local* landmarks and from general pottering. 
 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 
 
 

Aldi RS6.  Dealer.  £500.
What were they doing?  Tyre pressures and a screenwash top up?
I didn't think it was possible to have a car go into a dealer and it cost that little.

What a good looking car though. Always thought these were handsome even in period. Which probably made me an odd child 😄

In fairness that's how it is. A lad I know a bit recently got quoted 500 quid approx to do some work on his rs6 by an audi dealership. He bought the parts at £ 259 and did the work himself and was scathing about what Audi wanted. The extra 250 quid has to pay for the building, the wages, the utilities etc etc. Sometimes I think people think other folk should work for nowt.

Today I raised the Maestro into service position, my thinking being that I want to check for coolant leaks. I pressurised it again with my useful special tool, and it's still behaving the same way - pump to 13psi, then pressure slowly drops to 12psi and stays there. I'm going to leave it overnight and see if it drops. 
Anyway my thinking was that if I can get underneath with the coolant system pressurised, I should be able to spot any leaks in the system. Not a sausage. 
I did spot some rusty fuel hoses though so I gave them the treatment ending in some Rust Anode paint stuff. 
And I put the summer wheels on... 

Wedged in
Expensive! But im glad they make them otherwise there would be alot of swinging caliper shitters without brakes. 

Hubs cleaned up and a splash of paint. Aswell as new discs, same as the mini so thankfully dirt cheap. Finally!. 

New hoses are an inch or so too long but ill make then work by modifying the bracket on the inner wing. Pleased with how they came out. 
Id quite like to strip the suspension arms off and go through it all as its a rusty grease dirty covered mess thats not pleasant, with a little play in the swivels 
Any ado16 touchers know if the suspension swivel kits are the same as the mini?
@sharley17194 @BeEP @SiC
 
 
 

Swing a ding!
After a bit time today lugging stuff about ready for collection , i spent the remainder of the afternoon stripping the brakes off this ready to clean up and rebuild with new pistons

Seal Kit with new stainless pistons from the bigg guys.

Stripped appart, Degrease, Cleaned up with the knotwheel on the angle grinder and painted with weld through primer. Its high zinc so holds up okay ish, thin and fast drying which is key as i wanted to spend no more than 5 or so hours on these.  Turns out id picked up a can of the copper based too in my last order so embraced it. 

Both of mine are compliant. Z4 3.0Si and Fiesta ST150.  And both great fun. 
Technically all 3 but I doubt you'd want to daily a frankensteins monster of an Austin A40. 

Today's job was to fit a roof rack to a camper which had hit a bridge and crushed the rack and bent all the brackets, after welding new rails onto it and straightening out the brackets we got the rough smoker forklift out and immediately had to mess about with 'fork extensions' 

Tightened on and missing fasteners repatriated, and also we fitted our own design of fabricated pannier box carrier frames to the door along with relocating a ladder to the side and number plate and lights to the top of the door !

After my Mito was condemned due to rust, I decided to go old skool for its replacement - 50 mile drive home - goes spot on. Forgot the pez shot sorry 😎

Whilst I've got the Triumph out I thought I'd try and sort the garage out.
This is what I've got. Eight of these blue stacking boxes mainly full of Triumph spares plus a couple of open boxes. What was once a work bench is now stacked with more recently acquired, mostly Škoda bits. There's more in the loft. These boxes stack in certain parts of the garage and still leave room for the Triumph but I don't really have room for any more 

But I've been a bit ruthless and condensed the eight boxes in to five leaving three empty to fill up with the stuff on the workbench. Plus I've moved more, mainly lightweight and clean, stuff in to the loft.
But the strangest thing I've discovered is this. A little blue box.

I don't ever remember seeing this before. So I opened it and it's a fancy old tyre pressure gauge. But not any old tyre pressure gauge, it's only a bloody Borgward one.




And on closer inspection I noticed the slightly tatty box has a Borgward logo on it too.

What's also slightly weird is that we were discussing Borgwards briefly on another thread on here only a couple of days ago.
So I can only see two courses of action from here. Find somebody with a Borgward and sell it to them or buy my own Borgward to put in. 
 

https://www.carandclassic.com/l/C1716090#&gid=1&pid=8

Maestro sitrep:
I've just been out to re-check compression and see if the cooling system holds pressure. 
Each cylinder now at 125-130 psi and I pumped the header tank to 13 psi and it slowly dropped to 12 and then held - which it's always done. 
There is some mayo in the oil cap but this engine is known for it, it's always done that too. Oil in sump looks squeaky clean. 
There is some suspicious sparkly stuff on top of cyl #2. I'm telling myself this is K-Seal that's found its way into the chamber and then completely sealed m9. Plus it's K-seal so completely safe for use m9. 
I'll give it another run tomorrow and see how things are. 

Ideal for funerals and remembrance services

Well I'm very happy with my Ford Donkey Jacket! but I don't know much about it. All I can find is a photo of a bloke wearing a similar one (logo slightly different place) at a workers strike in 1973.
Anyone know anything about these... would all workers be offered one? or just Truck drivers etc? ... I've naturally been driving around in my Escort mk3 wearing it like a nut job. Probably heading to a car show near you 😝

In fairness that's how it is. A lad I know a bit recently got quoted 500 quid approx to do some work on his rs6 by an audi dealership. He bought the parts at £ 259 and did the work himself and was scathing about what Audi wanted. The extra 250 quid has to pay for the building, the wages, the utilities etc etc. Sometimes I think people think other folk should work for nowt.

In fairness that's how it is. A lad I know a bit recently got quoted 500 quid approx to do some work on his rs6 by an audi dealership. He bought the parts at £ 259 and did the work himself and was scathing about what Audi wanted. The extra 250 quid has to pay for the building, the wages, the utilities etc etc. Sometimes I think people think other folk should work for nowt.

Today was Drive It Day.  So I drove it. 

I've never had my three parked side by side before. They have to park line astern on the drive and even then one of them has to be in the garage. 
Well I was doing a bit of shunting this morning and there is a space at the top of our Close for two cars that was empty, which is a rarity in itself. Plus the sun was shining and the leaves have just started coming out on the trees so I thought why not.

Like I say, parking for two cars, but when they are all quite small and all yours you can squeeze three in. Obviously you have to start from the left. If I'd put the Triumph in last I couldn't have got out of the car.

Also, how to make a Favorit look like a big car. Park them either side of a Triumph 1300.