Fumbler

Don't know where else to put this, apparently a real thing from an Aldi SQ5 (whatever that is)

Modern cars are shit

Here's the full story, I hope @HMC does not mind a brief thread highjack...
 
As mentioned earlier on in the thread, I've wanted a post-war Lanchester Fourteen for ages. But they'd always been outside my budget, and I've also been a bit unsure that I would like the 1950s driving experience they offer. The Conquest is, of course, a facelifted Fourteen and the Century model comes with an engine which allows it to (just about) keep up with modern traffic.
So when HMC's Daimler came up for sale at an affordable price, it was impossible for me to resist. Messages were exchanged and a swap with his/my ADO16 was agreed.
HMC forewarned me that the Daimler had been temperamental, and suggested it would be wise to transport rather than drive her back to Chez Fraud. Being a complete idiot, I ignored his warnings, and this morning set off for Tavistock in the ADO16 with a plan to drive the Daimler back to base.
After a most pleasant chat, meeting Duggy_HMC, and an exchange of keys and V5s, I set off. Three miles later, breakdown number 1 occurred :

The Daimler began misfiring heavily under load, the engine stopped, and couldn't be restarted. A prolonged and incredibly frustrating call to my breakdown assistance provider followed, when I was basically told that they would be doing me a favour to send someone out, and it would take at least 2-3 hours for them to come and "assess" the car.
Having nothing better to do, and with a full toolkit and some consumables in the boot, I made my own assessment and replaced the condenser with a spare. I turned the key and the Daimler fired into life instantly. I did a little dance, cancelled the breakdown call out, and set off again.
The car ran nicely and I made good progress until I somehow managed to make a wrong turn and ended up in stop-start traffic in the centre of Exeter. The Daimler performed admirably for a good half hour, then the misfire returned and I just about managed to limp it onto the pavement before it died and wouldn't restart. Splendid, breakdown number 2.
This time I rang my classic insurer, who offer their own breakdown assistance. It was a totally different experience to my "mainstream" provider, I got a most helpful call handler and 45 minutes later an AA patrol van (sub-contracted, naturally) turned up. Typically, in the AA man's presence, the Daimler started first turn of the key and settled to a nice, steady idle. Bloody thing !
I was now suspecting a failing coil, but AA man told me he was not carrying a spare (outrageous !), and by this time all local motor factors had shut. So I set off again, resigned to the fact that breakdown number 3 could well occur. Only it didn't, and the old beast got me back to base without any further issue :

Hooray ! Now time to start fixing things...

Trunk packed.

Also, new green light arrived for gearshift indicator.

Works nicely. Happy with that.
 
Phil

One for the diary--

I was called into the control hall a little early and the guy seemed nice at first, but that quickly changed. After searching for the chassis number and finding it, he checked the seats and it went quite well with a bit of waiting while he filled in forms, but then he shifted his focus to the seat belts, which have clearly been installed recently. And the installation of seat belt fasteners must be done according to strict rules and must be approved etc. So he wanted to know who had carried out the work and wanted the necessary papers on it. And I panicked as this could become a nightmare, fortunately this work was carried out at an approved body workshop earlier this year and I had a receipt for this in the car but it was not good enough.
So he first said that I had to drive down to the people who carry out the work now and get all the necessary papers for this. Which would involve 2 hours of driving round trip in heavy traffic in heavy rain with no charging system. But luckily he agreed to call them and disappeared with the receipt for quite a while. And luckily the body shop really saved me, they were willing to send all the necessary papers and after a while the car was approved. And got MOT pass and changed seats from 6 to 5.
I'm exhausted but the car is now road legal for 2 new years and I can't explain how relieved and happy I am now.

And the 2 big heroes today were the body shop and the car's battery which managed 2 hours with lights and wipers and 4 starts of the engine without going flat. And the car got to try the steepest hill I know of in a large area and it didn't like it. Barely made it in 3rd gear and with low speed at the end with the engine temperature rising and an irritated truck driver behind me. So this is slower on the hills than a fully loaded truck which is fun.

Citroen BX lickers. One for you



 
 
 
 
 
 

There's been a massive photo dump of pictures uploaded on the ACA Polonez, it's a bit frilly!
https://ukbarnfinds.com/2023/09/27/1988-fso-polonez-e37-emx-photo-dump/?fbclid=IwAR2Vfq1-gwUj-WgX4yIn1Kwf5WX4na-iSRBrn-QbPGK9_kzFnWo7iYSsd_s

Big, big thanks to @worldofceri for delivering a not-the-easiest job in the world today (its a bit frilly in places, to say the least, so loading/keeping stuff intact/unloading again had to be done a bit delicately!)
I know plenty of people on here know him/have used him before, but still worth pointing out to anyone who hasnt - cracking service for a cracking price and made it all go easily 👍  Cheers dude hope it didnt take you too long to sweep up any of it that decided to stay on your trailer afterwards 😂

Checked back round and took five minutes in the rain after a refresher break from the car.

Popped the worst of the kink out of the front edge, it's approaching the correct profile now.
Phil

It won too! Against that Previa. Boy that thing hit hard.

Today I have been mostly moving cars from one field to another.


The best part is that there are so many cars, I have to go back tomorrow. Hooray!

As a little aside to the main protagonists of this thread, I also picked this up during the week:



Only 58,000 miles on the clock with 1 nervous nun owner. I was never a huge fan of these facelift K11 cars but I could not turn this down when it was offered to me. It’s a nice and original example and drives so well. No idea what I’m going to do with it really but again, I just couldn’t say no!

Today I had to have a blood test, it was at 10:45, so I had to get the bus at 10:15, I woke up at 10:00 so that was a good start. I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything but water past midnight, so no morning coffee.
Blood test was fairly painless. They weighed me too, I've gained nearly 10kg since December somehow.
Once I finished with that I went to Costa for coffee and a toastie before I got the bus home, I thought I had enough time to buy some fags at Tesco too but as I walked towards the bus stop I saw my bus leaving. Not particularly feeling like wandering about a town with fuck all in it for an hour I walked round to the bus stop at the train station, as soon as I got there the Dundee bus pulled in, that seemed like as good a reason as any to go to Dundee so on the bus I got.
Got to Dundee and immediately remembered that the city centre is a desolate wasteland with nothing of any particular interest except CEX and I really don't need more video games I'll never play. I sat on a bench smoking fags and peoplewatching til my arse went numb then walked to the bus station; the bus that would drop me right at the end of my drive was just pulling away. Obviously not time to go home yet! So I get a bus to St Andrews instead, knowing there's a regular* bus to the village from there. I get there to find it absolutely rammed full of students, turns out it was the fresher's fair today! I sit on a bench on Market Street peoplewatching again for a while, then order a pizza from the Domino's I used to work at. I have a brief chat with a couple of my old colleagues, one of whom is going on break and sits with me while I eat the pizza. We reminisce and lament the high staff turnover. Then I go to the bus station. You'll never guess... my bus has just left again! You may realise at this point, I'm not very good at buses! I find out there's a quicker bus goes from a stop around the corner anyway, right next to the pub I used to drink in with Dad. It's not for an hour and a half, so off to the pub I go. I go in and mercifully it seems to be relatively student free, though it is rather full of middle aged men telling eachother golf stories. I ask for a Strongbow, find out they only have the dark fruits one, that'll do I suppose. Then I find out it's a bloody fiver! Daylight robbery if you ask me. I sit at a small table in a little nook and drink slowly. After about 20 minutes my colleague from earlier turns up and we decant into the hilariously shit "beer garden". We chat about life again then it's time for me to go for my bus. I manage to not miss it this time and it's empty except me and the driver. By the time we get to the village, the sun is low and it's not quite as boiling anymore. Before I embark on the walk up the road to the farm I pause on a bench to admire the view over the fields. I say hello to the sheep. When I open the front door the cats run to greet me.
All in all quite a pleasant day, if not particularly exciting. It may not seem like much but it's a big step for me to spend an entire day out and about on my own, I've spent the vast majority of my time since dad died either in my cottage or in hospital. It's a nice reminder that the outside world isn't as scary as it sometimes seems.

🙄
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/862828801382406/

Okay then.  Now that money has changed hands and we've pretty much sorted collection arrangements I feel I can actually reveal what it was that I was willing to spend basically a whole day going to look at yesterday. 
One of you definitely got it.
The answer is this:


Excuse the blurring.  As the photos were taken in the seller's front garden I wanted to blank out the background as far as possible to remove any landmarks.
A P6 has been on my wishlist forever, but finding a viable one with a reasonable price tag was something I'd given up on a good few years back.  I did look at a few about 15 years back, but all the ones I could afford then were complete basket cases.  
Then I read @Rocket88's tale of woe a couple of days ago.  I figured it was worth pinging them a message to find out some more details.  The rest is history.
From the look around the car I did it seems astonishingly solid.  Bit of surface rust here and there and some historic repairs, but nothing worrisome.  It hasn't been in use for Quite Some Time however, so will want to be properly recommissioned.  It does however run, drive and apparently stop - so not a bad situation to be starting from.
Have to admit I'm really pleased it's not brown with a black interior.  I mean they do look good in those colours, but it feels like virtually every one you see is brown/mustard or a very similar greeny grey to the P4 and with a black interior, and it's no secret that I like lighter or more colourful interiors.  Exactly like this.


Odometer is showing 01034 - so that'll be 101K.

The handles for the doors are in there, reckon they were taken off when some paintwork was going on.   I've not spotted anything that's actually missing yet.
Have always been curious to see what this panel looks like at night.

Nothing scary under here.

The previous buyer claimed that the oil was full of fuel and that a head gasket had gone because of the moisture on the oil filler.  Yes, there's a bit of fuel in the oil but nothing you wouldn't expect from a car that's been out of use so probably hasn't been run off choke in years.  Likewise there's a bit of condensation on the cap, but absolutely nothing you wouldn't expect.  We're both kind of baffled over what the previous buyer was playing at.
Even the vinyl roof is in decent shape.

Exact date has to be confirmed, but hopefully it will be getting delivered next week at some point.
Pretty clear very basic plan of attack for when it arrives - plus anything else that I think of then.
[] Change all rubber fuel lines.
[] Chase any electrical gremlins.
[] Change tyres.
[] Change all fluids.
[] Sort any sticky brake issues - anything causing issues there will just be chucked at Bigg Red to be rebuilt, I'm not faffing about trying to wrestle sticky pistons and such into behaving myself, especially with how bloody awkward to get to the rears are.
[] Put back together the bits of the interior which are currently on the floor and give it a damned good clean.
[] Get it professionally rust proofed so it hopefully *stays* this solid.
I am extremely excited to be bringing this on fleet.  As I've said before I'd long since really given up on ever owning one of these.

I'm enjoying your exercise in total misery. An overnight mega bus to pick up a Peugeot 106, bloody hell. Presume you've packed a pillow full of broken glass to cheer  yourself up?

Have we had this yet? Early one, one owner from new. 


https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1329925770941871/

You should buy it, you know you want to.

That's right, and TBH a box stripdown was more hassle than I wanted to take on at this particular time. I just wanted a simple, bolt-in solution, and ideally one which put me in a better position than I was in previously. So I bit the bullet and found a rebuilt gearbox that I could purchase outright. The label on the side of it almost felt like it was rubbing salt into my wounds!

So this should be a simple case of bolting it all togther and happy days, right? Er no, as it happened. It seems like my original gearbox was a bit of a hybrid between the diesel and V8 versions. When I first fitted it the clutch pushrod was far too long, and I now realise that the boss the clutch fork pivot screws into sticks out further than the V8 version. 
Old...

...and new.

So, I now needed a different pushrod, but at least not a difficult or expensive part to source.

Finally I could start to fit it, with at least some confidence that it should all work!

It's still a bugger to manoeuvre into position, as Hyundai clearly didn't have the foresight to give ample clearance in the transmission tunnel. But with a lot of up, down and angling things, it slid together. (I'm sure that reminds me of something, but I'm struggling to remember what).
I thought it best to test the clutch operation as soon as it was on, so any excuse to fire it up with no exhaust...
Happy days indeed! Then just a case of refitting mounts, propshaft, exhausts and centre console, and time for a test drive.

Great to be back behind the wheel again for the first time since May, although there is still work to do. I think sitting unused through hot weather has gummed up the carb, as it seems to be running very hesitantly under acceleration. But the gearbox is good, both quieter and a sweeter gear change than the previous one. That was always a little whiney, so I'm questioning how well that was actually rebuilt...

GOING TO REAR FLEXI
That sounds like a Sam Smith house party moment

Pre-Covid, you used to have to go through the test centre with the tester - them driving, you in the passenger seat like a muppet. Then you got to go and sit on a little chair at the side while they hoicked it up on a ramp, and all the testers gathered round to laugh heartily and knock bits of car off onto the floor.
Actually, that last bit was usually just my cars.
But now the punters have to stay outside, in a Greenhouse Of Shame, to prevent spreading lurgee.

There was an 02 plate Volvo V40 in just before the Yaris; and it's just come out.
It had a two-page fail list.
Oh lumme.
I'm next.

1.4 Vauxhall Astra minutes. | eBay
'430-year-old car drives really well'