Cord Fourteener

Have the electronicicals gone French on you?

Tweed and twill.
I've been meaning to wear this tweed jacket with the Volvo, now I feel proper and that. 
No occasion, just a band practice. Normally I dress like a sack of potatoes unless there's a reason, I think enjoying a tweed with the twill seats is reason enough. 

Tweed and twill.
I've been meaning to wear this tweed jacket with the Volvo, now I feel proper and that. 
No occasion, just a band practice. Normally I dress like a sack of potatoes unless there's a reason, I think enjoying a tweed with the twill seats is reason enough. 

Can one get a double bass in a 740 saloon?
✅

Tweed and twill.
I've been meaning to wear this tweed jacket with the Volvo, now I feel proper and that. 
No occasion, just a band practice. Normally I dress like a sack of potatoes unless there's a reason, I think enjoying a tweed with the twill seats is reason enough. 

Went for a little raz out to Guyhurn to get an evening meal with the wife tonight.  Was an excuse to get some more seat time with the car more than anything and stretch it's legs a bit and get the director of household relations thoughts on the car while I decide whether it's to remain or to be sold off once I've improved it and spent more than the value of the car on doing so.  
Tyres with the right pressure make it a pleasant drive, the rears are some ditch finder spec ones but didn't try and kill me even when provoked, they're just a bit noiser than I'd like.  The fronts are Yokohama C drive, they are alright, but I'd not want to press on really hard with them. 
 
Obviously we encountered a few roundabouts so I got the test out the idiot triangle on the dashboard.  She wasn't impressed by either this or the in gear acceleration when leaving the roundabouts, but I enjoyed it, and the esp stopped be from being a total bellend and kept everything in check, so that works..  science..
A few 3rd and 4th gear pulls have confirmed it's doing the boosty thing it should do and it feels alright when you wind it up, you get a bit of whine but it's typically muted and mercedes.  I'm sure I could make it less so and increase performance while doing that but that's hardly the point of a car like this is it?
I'm sure a Boxter or big engined Z3 would be a much better car for the enthusiastic driver, especially in its day, but this is a nice comfortable way of covering a bit of ground with a a degree of pace.  Now I've got the seat where I want it, it's actually a decent place to sit and enjoy.

Here it is parked outside my house.
Initial drive shows a few issues.  
One, it feels a bit sluggish.  I've checked the Vanos solenoid and that's fine, the charger is working and the brakes aren't stuck on.
It feels a bit sloppy in the corners.
Three guesses what the issue was?
 
 
 

My Dad got himself this because his Jag is broken, and he's decided the gearbox is difficult so he went and found a 320 version with a slush box..
I'd already said I'll buy this one off him when he's ready to sell it, but didn't expect to get it this soon.. ho hum.
 
It's done 145k, it's a 6 speed Manuel with decent history and everything works.
The wife likes it.
More to follow.

Potentially very good news
it did it today, couldn’t accelerate past 60, felt like I hit a brick wall
So I floored it, right to the floor
Nothing, no increase in revs etc or kick down……interesting
lift off and back on and yep all fine
now it did it again shortly afterwards, so I decided to quickly wack on the cruise control, and use that to accelerate bearing in mind I had the throttle pedal pinned to the floor
kickdown, full throttle acceleration which stopped when I released the cruise control button
very interesting 

erp
i know the bushes go - didnt know they did a fiat
i was gonna slag you about the amount of cake in the back 
 

You were going to get it done anyway… just pushed it up a bit in the queue. 

Ah yes. The joy of camping. Rear axle collapse! (Caravan not hitched in this pic)
Still, Berlingo has done over 3000 miles since May. Deserves a bit more expense.

Tweed and twill.
I've been meaning to wear this tweed jacket with the Volvo, now I feel proper and that. 
No occasion, just a band practice. Normally I dress like a sack of potatoes unless there's a reason, I think enjoying a tweed with the twill seats is reason enough. 

Ever since I had the galaxy I've had a load cover but never the brackets, everytime I ask when being broken they either don't understand what I'm after or wanna sell the cover and brackets together ( understanderbly ) but now I have some and wernt cheap but hey ho, next challenge is to decide where to cut, can't find a decent picture online .so far.

Can one get a double bass in a 740 saloon?
✅

Can one get a double bass in a 740 saloon?
✅

I broke the 20mpg (just!) on arrival at the hire place.
Can recommend Southern Self drive if you’re in Pompey or Fareham area. Good service and good selection of vehicles nothing over 6 years old - lorry I hired is off to auction in a few weeks

It’s a DAF LF45 with the big 4-pot (180hp), 30ft long 12ft high.
I’ve forgotten how crap Tot Hill services are.

About a third of the journey back from Manchester to Portsmouth at Norton Canes services.

I need fuel (about 4-5 gallons left) which should do me another 75- 100 miles but not chancing it. Pretty impressed with an average of 19.5 to a gallon though as hire company said I wouldn’t get much better than 15mpg.
If there’s any interest I’ll post about hiring a lorry for a house move and if it’s better or worse than getting a removal firm. It’s certainly a lot cheaper!
EDIT - here it is for the most riveting* topic 
 

Can one get a double bass in a 740 saloon?
✅

Can one get a double bass in a 740 saloon?
✅

Barn find!
Or, at least, what everyone dreams of finding in a barn. 
Win.

Barn find!
Or, at least, what everyone dreams of finding in a barn. 
Win.

Yesterday's main task was to make a start on doing the oil cooler change on the Dodge ready for the arrival of the new one.  I spent a fun* couple of hours yesterday draining the cooling system - part of the reason it took so long was that all the hoses were held on with those bastard spawn of Satan spring clips, and most of them were in locations where it was almost impossible to get a decent pair of pliers into.  Still, I got there in the end, and ended up with a nice bucket full of oily coolant.  I also took the expansion bottle off and brought that inside to give it a good wash out in the kitchen sink.  The joys of being single.
I also got the pistons pumped out on the Volvo's rear caliper, which was more of a faff than it needed to be - I had to make up a brake pipe extension so I could connect the caliper back to the car without it being sat on the brake disc, and the new brake pipe flaring kit I bought turned out to be a bit shite.  Got there eventually though - the pistons had some surface rust as expected, but not too bad, and after a good scrub with 1000 grit they've actually come up OK.

I'm going to grease them up and wind them back in and see if that cures the sticking.  Otherwise a replacement piston kit is 30 quid.
Today I was going to make a start on dismantling the engine on the Mobylette to replace the head gasket, but when I went to the front door I found that the oil cooler for the Dodge had been delivered - I didn't know Royal Mail delivered on Sundays, but there you go.  So I fitted that instead - the actual removal of the old cooler and fitting of the new one was an easy if messy job, but getting all the pipes reconnected was an absolute twat - in fact I gave up on three of the spring clips in the end and drove to Roys to get some Jubilee clips.  Eventually everything was back together and with the coolant refilled (with water plus a bottle of radiator flush - I'm going to drain it again next week and refill it properly with antifreeze) and the oil topped up it seemed to run happily enough.  I actually took it for a run this evening, did 10 miles in it and it behaved fine - the coolant level had dropped when I got home but that's fairly normal on the first run after a refill, and hopefully means it's not pulling any more oil into the system.
I stuck the Toyota up on the ramps to give it a quick look over in advance of its upcoming MOT.  Didn't find anything too scary, although one of the rear flexi ferrules is looking a bit grotty so that may or may not need doing - I'll take the wheel off and wire brush it to see if it'll clean up.  I'm also going to do the annual Gun Gumming of the exhaust - it's actually barely blowing at all at the moment and would probably squeeze through but it looks a bit of a flaky mess.
I then attempted to fit a split CV boot to the Renault 6, which was an almost complete failure.  Everything on that car is an odd size - the small end of the boot wouldn't stretch round the driveshaft far enough to glue it together no matter how hard I tried, so I snipped the end off to use the next size up, only that's looser than a whore's drawers.  The big end is also between two sizes - it really needs to be the third size down and then stretched over the joint but if I cut it down that far the boot is going to be so short that it's going to struggle on full lock. 
A split boot is the only solution though - I can't fit a stretch boot as I can't get the driveshaft out, it needs pressing out of the hub which I could probably wangle but it also then needs drawing back through, which needs a special tool which hasn't been available from Renault for about 40 years.  There are universal puller sets on eBay but they're fucking expensive.  I'm wondering whether the issue is that I bought a cheapo eBay boot as I've never had that much trouble with them before.  I'm going to order another the same make as I usually use and see if that's any better.
Oh, I also fitted the wheel trims that were in the "free shite" pile brought to Shitefest by the Cornish contingent to the 107.  I think they quite suit it - they're a lot better than the random selection of Poundland trims that were on there before, anyway.

Oh yeah, forgot to add, the 121 now has working headlights again.  I gave up on trying to get the original wiring to work and fitted separate switches (one for on / off and one for dip / main beam).  It's not a brilliant bit of wiring - when I have more time and more wire I'll redo it with a relay powered off the sidelight switch rather than a permanent live from the battery - but it'll do for now and means I can drive the car at night again.  Now I just need to find a way of sorting the bloody wheel bearing...
 

Utter barg! Bastard!