Matty

If you ever did want to part with the ST I'm still looking...

Worst selfie ever

Finally.

Some lighter news.
Went North 



slept near some ghosts.
drove north

Chrain

AMAZING

SATAN

Got to be the mx5 unit……..I’ve got an RMA and there is not a lot of room in the bay but the Mazda engine would go in a treat and look similar. Original was twin cam…….cams in block and quite tall. Not sure about gearbox as rear axle part torque tube but then the Mazda engine is maybe a little shorter. Being live the rear axle mounting methods is very simple though…..just a matter of welding a couple of spring perches on the axle case

As a noob here, casually browsing the thread titles this one sprung out at me. For some reason as soon as I saw the words 'BX' and 'Leader' I had an exact vision of the white over grey, despite probably not having seen one in 25 years! Really warms my cockles to see folks keeping these bread and butter retro cars on the road.

Epic 

Bought a Mazda six to replace the smashed Civic, should fit right in here
Or the Grumpy Thread once I collectionizate it tomorrow.

I don't laugh much these days but this tickled me

That's a double negative isn't it? Which makes it a positive. I'd turn it off. It's what they'd want.

Must... Resist, must resist, ah fuck it 

You need a set of cross climates on there before Sierraman dies.

There aren't any reasons not to buy it.

These are ace. I had a 54k mile J reg 1.9 non sunroof at the turn of the century(!) Was an amazing car. A good one is a very special thing. 
Seen the Tolman restomod? It looks amazing but is a damn sight more expensive than yours!
https://205gti-tolman-edition.com/

That's fine. It's an old focii. You're not taking it to pebble beach.

Thought I'd do another fuel economy update. The second tank was pretty much identical - 32mpg with A/C on a significant amount of the time. 
The previous tank I decided to cut down on use of the A/C and had it on about a quarter of the time, just cycling it on/off myself to dehumidify. Interestingly the petrol light came on at more or less exactly the same time - I brimmed it having done 348 miles but it took less to fill this time, only around 45 litres leaving me with approx 35 average MPG. 
That shows the air con does not seem to make much of a difference. 
It's a 55 litre tank, but it was telling me I had 30 miles to go having only needed 45 litres to fill, so it's hardly accurate, and I could probably get 400 miles out of a tank if I pushed it. 
Anyway, enough of those boring statistics, it's got just over a month of MOT left and there was no chance of it passing with that gaping hole in the sill. What most people would do is wait until the MOT first, just in case, but I'm confident in it so I'm sorting it early!
Thought I'd do a little pre MOT check to see if I need to get any other parts ordered, and it's a good job I did because it needs 3x anti roll bar links and a front lower ball joint. 
I've been plagued with a very intermittent knocking noise from the rear recently, so having found a small amount of play in one of the rear ARB link ball joints I'm hoping it's that. 
One of the fronts has a split dust cover, consulted GSF who have Lemforder ones on clearance for a fiver a piece, so I figured I might as well just do both of them. 
The offside front lower ball joint dust cover has split again... I only replaced it a few months ago!! Poxy shite modern rubber *GRUMBLE GRUMBLE GRUMBLE* 
Anyway, GSF saves the day again with a TRW branded lower ball joint for just £7. I'm reluctant to replace the entire arm, because unnecessary expenditure, and I can't be bothered wasting my time fitting a dust cover that's going to split in no time and compromise the ball joint anyway. 
The nearside rear trailing arm bush (the one from hell) looks like it's starting to debond. I think I'm just going to coat it in underseal and declare it fine* 🤣
Now, the elephant in the room - the welding. 

^ Looks like a small, localized repair?

^ Hmmmm

^ Chop chop

^ Yeah it was pretty much fucked. In an ideal world it would have needed a replacement sill. It's paper thin, but just borderline solid enough to weld to. It's really corroded from the inside all the way along. 



^ I was pretty pleased with myself for that free hand fabrication. Only using hand tools in the way of chisels and an angle grinder. No, it's not perfect, but I don't care!

^ Pictures aren't doing much justice here, I wasn't welding with a gap that big along the top! It nicely lipped under the original metal of the car. But it's sitting slightly proud in the photo.

^ Please excuse the awful welding. Yes, I'm embarrassed by it! But like I say the quality of the surrounding metal was really poor and I kept having to build the welds up to stop it from blowing holes through. Any eagle eyed tame welders may have spotted a mistake here.... 

^ Yes, I forgot to drill the holes for the plug welds along the bottom! Luckily managed to rectify that in situ

^ All ground back smooth. Again, photos are not doing it justice as it looks terrible with loads of holes in but there aren't any, it's just shadows. 

^ Time for the wob
All this looks really bad but I can promise you it's not! It's perfectly solid, and despite the poor surrounding metal I think it will last a fair while before it comes through elsewhere. 
That's enough for today, more tomorrow!

That particular car seems the worst of all Worlds to me ; pre-facelift so SBC issues etc, Airmatic with associated potential expenses, 6 pot petrol for low mpgs. No w211 unless a V8 is fast so unless you really want a sunroof and keyless go, I’d recommend spending that sort of money on a post 2006 V6 diesel  the 280 has 190 bhp the 320 220 ( I think) both the same 3.0 V6 that Merc put in everything from Sprinters to S Classes for the best part of 20 years. Will do 40mpg in an E Class cruise all day at 100 and apart from annoying oil cooler leaks don’t really go wrong. Plus there’s much more choice as diesel was the default  choice for E Class buyers for most of this Century , so far.
 

Lovely car tho. Reminds me of my e39. When posh cars were actually posh!

As an aside. For the Eagle eyed. Yes I know that the crank pulley is buggered. I will be buying and fitting a new one before use. Not much of a harmonic balancer when bits of it are missing 😕 

So the final spec is.
1310cc
Marina block
Midget crank (balanced)
Balanced flywheel
Cooper s conrods
731 profile cam
Weber 40DCOE carb.
Just hope it works when it goes in the car now 😬
 

Bit of a cheat. I was 3 conrod nuts short so sumps only on with 4 bolts so I can go back in when the nuts turn up next week and finish the job. 
Also no starter, alternator, dizzy as they are being taken from my current 1098. As is my complete rocker assy as it has forged rockers. So heads not pulled down yet either. My car needs to be mobile still to go to the unit to do the swap.

Finally.

Timed dot to dot with new chain and gears