tom13

Thanks! You never know if people are interested or if you are just shouting into the void! 
So this Easter trip was back to Spain - ferry to Bilbao, then Zaragoza, Valencia, Toledo and back to get the ferry home from Santander. 2200 miles, 64 hours on a ferry. 
Photos are a bit patchy, as due to my charging skills* my phone was often flat, because I’d plug one end into the phone, but forget to put the other end in a usb socket. Winner. 
Firstly churros. 

crispy hot loveliness dipped in molten chocolate. What’s not to love. For bonus points I saved some down my T-shirt for later.  
 
Lots of old shite around the place - loads of old French luxury saloons still doing sterling service. Car of the trip for me was this one though, what a beauty:


 
for bonus points still apparently in everyday use.
Zaragoza saw me having a squint at this, which was similar to mine but more dieselly:

Weather here was a bit mixed - warm but quite wet from time to time. 
Next stop Valencia, which was endless orange trees that I have lots of photos of but they just look like fields of trees, and you don’t get the lovely smell. It was much warmer and more desert like - this was the campsite:

whilst there I also tried pleb-shite (or cycling as the masses insist on calling it) for the first time in years. 
and I shit you not, found the actual holy grail - I’ve no idea what Monty Python or Indiania Jones were up to, it’s just in a side chapel in Valencia cathedral. if you believe the story it’s apparently the real deal. If you don’t it’s still a pretty impressive cup
 
 
bit more camp action:

Saw another nice caravelle which was for sale - lot less rusty than mine living as it had in the sun:

now I’m not religious in the slightest, but the Spanish catholics know how to build a top notch  place of worship

next was a trip over to Toledo and Aranjuez through the most horrific weather I’d ever driven in - driving rain and sleet. 
Toledo was spectacular, but a bit busy for me, full of other tourists and tat shops (never had so many opportunities to buy a sword).

the royals summer palace was a thing of extravagance - first some carriage shite

their smoking room - not sure what they were smoking though!

and the most comprehensive selection of coffee in machine id ever seen

did enjoy it all, and loved the geckos in the wash block 

started the long trip home and had the first issue. Gears have a dog leg first, with reverse above. Couldn’t select first or reverse. Two options - shagged gear bag (there is a delicate ‘hockey stick’ that controls these gears) or linkage issues.  

popped the selector box off, and found that without the lock out gate in place everything worked as it should, which was a relief. There is a spring loaded ball bearing that slots into an indent that prevents this bellows collapsing, and thus locking out 1st and reverse:



the ball under some pressure released at speed into the car park:

but I finally found it under the white one! Next it needed some cleaning and lube, but I had to improvise 

worked a treat and off we went again. Made it back to the ferry 
where I did spot this 

come on - own up which one of it was you?!
got home 11:30 last night and back at work today. 
Some minor work to do over the next couple of months then off to Finland and Northern Norway…..
can highly recommend Spain, lovely people, cracking cars and some great driving. The long ferry is also worth it I think, although it was just a shade rough on the return leg - I found myself at one point in the air falling, as my bunk was swiftly coming back up to meet me! Will book it agin for next year, give us something to look forward to! 

Recently acquired TDM850.
Nice feeling bike. Excited to get out on it. Sounds lovely with the aftermarket exhaust.

Recently acquired TDM850.
Nice feeling bike. Excited to get out on it. Sounds lovely with the aftermarket exhaust.

Recently acquired TDM850.
Nice feeling bike. Excited to get out on it. Sounds lovely with the aftermarket exhaust.

I think kit is cheaper than ever. I have a full Oxford textile suit. It was around £100 for the full suit. As @twosmoke300 said as well. I had an Arai for years and have then just gone to a HJC IS17 and it's 5 star rated, super comfy with loads of features and sub £100 as well.
I have 2 sets of gloves some short cuff alpinestars which were around £40 but I have a more traditional cold weather pair which were £15.
Boots are going to be sub 100 as well.
If you shop around you can get a full kit for under £250 and it not be utter rubbish. 

Recently acquired TDM850.
Nice feeling bike. Excited to get out on it. Sounds lovely with the aftermarket exhaust.

Recently acquired TDM850.
Nice feeling bike. Excited to get out on it. Sounds lovely with the aftermarket exhaust.

Never had one but always liked them. I never understood why they were never popular. Sound great with the 270° crank too. Well bought.

Nice to see one of these, I had a couple of TRX850's in the day, make sure you follow the correct procedure for checking the oil level (check whilst warm with the bike upright after being knocked off for 10 seconds iirc)

Recently acquired TDM850.
Nice feeling bike. Excited to get out on it. Sounds lovely with the aftermarket exhaust.

Recently acquired TDM850.
Nice feeling bike. Excited to get out on it. Sounds lovely with the aftermarket exhaust.

Recently acquired TDM850.
Nice feeling bike. Excited to get out on it. Sounds lovely with the aftermarket exhaust.

OK, time for an update.
Manta
First off, I started assembling the 2.5 Duratec for the Manta. The block and crank have been checked and polished by an engine builder so I started by installing that along with new bearings. 

 
Pakora sauce applied


And I'm happy to say it rotates beautifully, as you'd expect.
I'll get round to the pistons, the new rings are filed and ready so it's a case of fit them to the existing conrods and get them mounted.
Jeep.
LPG leak. Bugger. It was definitely leaking from near the tank/solenoid valve.
It has copper pipe from the tank to the engine bay.
This didn't look too clever

And nor did this.

Don't worry about the rust, it's surface rust on the spare wheel well, the tank is inside that. 
I decided to replace the copper pipe with the correct hose for LPG. If that didn't fix it I'd take to A Professional as fuck messing with the scary bits of LPG. I knew that the shutoff solenoid worked and that the leak was downstream of that. I also knew that the tank was pretty much empty as I'd ran it out on the way back up the road. 
Anyway, it took me a month because
1. I ordered 3m of hose and needed at least 4

2. When I finally got enough hose I discovered that I had the wrong size of fitting for the tank end. Thankfully I managed to get the correct fitting from my local guy who also gave me some confidence in what I was doing and identified where he thought my leak was from the old pipe/fitting
3. The weather here is pish just now.
Anyway, I finally got a chance this week and cracked on.
Snake!

More snake!

Got enough hose this time

And the compression fitting fitted and ready to go. 

The hose is routed along the inner chassis rail and runs alongside the brake/fuel lines. I'm pretty happy it's secure but will double check it after a few miles. 
With this fitted and ready to go it was time to test it. I hoped there would be enough LPG in it to get it switch over and idle so I could check for leaks. 
Handily we had 30mph winds on the day I was doing this so I drove it on petrol to somewhere remote within walking distance of home and switched it over to LPG.

And-it worked! Either that or I've lost my sense of smell...
I celebrated by driving it to the local LPG station and filling it up. It's running fine on LPG with no leaks. Win! I even treated it to a wash but it's getting dark so you're out of luck for a pic.
It felt strange getting back into it after a month of driving more modern stuff but you soon get back into the way of an old school 4x4, it burbles along very happily and is a nice way to cover distance. Which could come in handy as...
 
911 
After a week or so I got a phone call from Hartech with the results of the strip down. It had spun a main bearing wrecking the crank. They also reported bore wear on the engine and gave me a price for a rebuild. It turns out that the £10k rebuild from the "specialist" pictured a few pages back was essentially a work of fiction. 
I've thought long and hard about it and have [Pistonheads]pulled the trigger[/Pistonheads] on a full rebuild with an upgrade to their 3.7 conversion. 
I'm also shipping the car down to them for them to get it running and mapped with the new engine, possibly trailering it down with the Jeep.
Because fuck installing it myself with the money I'm spending on it😶
So, the Porsche has gone from scratching an itch and hopefully getting out with my wallet relatively intact to being a long term keeper. At least until 996 values approach what I'll have in it. I'm thinking of it as a long term investment plan. Which will go like fuck and get used as much as possible. Euro trips coming up!
 

The OR came back the other day from a specialist (more of that soon) who's done some tweaking and fault rectifying (I think he said carb off, gaskets, jet changes etc) then a rolling road  'thing' with print out. It's gone from an R6 beating 1.94BHP to a rip-roaring, BSB Championship contending 4.40BHP.
The Chopper is probably still faster with my fat arse on it, but hoping to get out and about on the Suzuki and ideally go to a bike meet soon.

Got this the start of last week.
Ended up selling the Himalayan, I'm sure I will regret it as it was a great bike but hopefully with the new model prices on the original will crash and I can buy a cheap one and do a full off road spec one.
It's a DF200. Basically a DR200 made for more agricultural tasks, hence the racks, extended guards, plus kickstart. There was a DR200 in Devon I really wanted but the guy was messing about whether he was selling or not and then this popped up. Super happy to have this spec as it's rare over here and I wanted the racks and Kickstart. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the only one in the UK.
I just wanted a reliable lightweight trail bike. This is 20bhp and around 100kg.
Could have gone DR350 but would have had to spend a bit more and a lot of them looked very rough, plus the extra weight.
Plan is lower and push pegs back, new bars and maybe a bit of suspension work and that's it. This even had USD added as a bonus.
 

Whilst pondering my sanity with the horror show that is the P6 - I dragged this out of the cellar drying room and charged the battery up.... 

Started up first time. Throttle twist grip repaired and it's running great. 
GF not happy with the smell of 2 stroke throughout the downstairs though 🙄

Fuck. The boss is here.

K11. Prices will continue to rise and they are cheap and reliable to run and repair.
107, C1, Aygo. They are mega cheap to run and spares are cheap plus you will always get back what you pay.
MK4 escort, mk2/mk3 golf, E36s can be a good reliable appreciating classic but they need a bit of love to keep rust at bay.
Anything bigger or premium has the trouble of one big bill causing you to lose money on it.

You are doing an excellent job here. Hats off to you.
I do love a lightly modified one of these though.

I clearly have no idea what the fuck I’m doing 
Formula 1 autocentre actually came good today, it was an older chap who you could tell was actually a mechanic rather than an 18 year old ‘fitter’
 
45 mins in and out, he said when he first opened one of the rears with their pressure thing on the system, the caliper hissed before any fluid came out there was that much air in it 😂 said it was spitting air and fluid for ages before he got a steady stream. 
 
Anyway, £40 later and I have a fluid change and it’s bled properly, pedal has never felt so good. 
 
Near enough ready for our Xmas trip now, just a few odds and ends inside like fitting some USB’s and some hooks. 
 

Took nearly 6 hours of me fucking about mounting the heater under the van, running fuel lines, mounting a fuel filter, running the exhaust out the side, drilling the cab step for fresh air inlet, drilling the rear floor for the heating ducting, wiring it in and mounting the control panel but it works! 
 
Diesel heater plumbed into the main fuel tank, it’s a Chinese one but it’s the dogs bollocks of them, it’s got the control panel, a remote and also can be app controlled (see screenshot) but is also the only Chinese one available with auto on/off. One of the chaps on the CDH Facebook group has had his set to something like 19c for about 3 months - they regulate the temp and automatically click back on if it drops by 2c. 
 
Should mean we never wake up to a cold van but also don’t cook!…. If it works 

Got this the start of last week.
Ended up selling the Himalayan, I'm sure I will regret it as it was a great bike but hopefully with the new model prices on the original will crash and I can buy a cheap one and do a full off road spec one.
It's a DF200. Basically a DR200 made for more agricultural tasks, hence the racks, extended guards, plus kickstart. There was a DR200 in Devon I really wanted but the guy was messing about whether he was selling or not and then this popped up. Super happy to have this spec as it's rare over here and I wanted the racks and Kickstart. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the only one in the UK.
I just wanted a reliable lightweight trail bike. This is 20bhp and around 100kg.
Could have gone DR350 but would have had to spend a bit more and a lot of them looked very rough, plus the extra weight.
Plan is lower and push pegs back, new bars and maybe a bit of suspension work and that's it. This even had USD added as a bonus.
 

Cd175 has @Cavcraft name all over it. 

106 Rallye

Got this the start of last week.
Ended up selling the Himalayan, I'm sure I will regret it as it was a great bike but hopefully with the new model prices on the original will crash and I can buy a cheap one and do a full off road spec one.
It's a DF200. Basically a DR200 made for more agricultural tasks, hence the racks, extended guards, plus kickstart. There was a DR200 in Devon I really wanted but the guy was messing about whether he was selling or not and then this popped up. Super happy to have this spec as it's rare over here and I wanted the racks and Kickstart. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the only one in the UK.
I just wanted a reliable lightweight trail bike. This is 20bhp and around 100kg.
Could have gone DR350 but would have had to spend a bit more and a lot of them looked very rough, plus the extra weight.
Plan is lower and push pegs back, new bars and maybe a bit of suspension work and that's it. This even had USD added as a bonus.