Barry Cade

Only 1998 onwards. Before , you could bolt a towball to the back bumper of your Riley Elf and tow your Castleton up to the lakes, clutch and body structure allowing. That's why the regs were brought in .

Before European Type approval 94/20/EC - 1st August 1998, you can basically put a towbar on anything you want!

🙃

I don't think so. Would have to check the VIN plate for a tow capacity . I'm sure I've seen FX4's with towbars though?

Bugger. Had a slight loss of coolant in the Astro for months now, which recently turned into a big loss of coolant.Had to take all the dash apart to see what was happening, and access is..... a little restricted. Water was pouring down the back of the cylinder heads and I concluded the inlet manifold gaskets had finally given up gasketing, so I pulled off the plenum and the inlet manifold. Its a squeeze, but you are working inside, diesel heater keeping the chill off and some good tunes on the radio..The old gaskets were rock hard and took some serious work to get the faces cleaned up. Got a pair of proper Fel-Pro gaskets and built it back up. I filled up the radiator, then left it for another day as half eleven at night working on an old American van in the street late at night was causing some curtain twitching.. I went out this evening to get a bit more done, and there was water pouring down the back of the cylinder heads... Turns out it was a heater hose that had gone all squdgy and had some tiny cracks, and the leak was running down, straight into the Vee but was pretty impossible to see from inside or from under the bonnet..... Harumph.

Yeah, with some coffee involved.. It's in a stupid place. Here it is with my bucket of bolts R1100s. Tha battery was a hassle with that too..

Good mate has one , and it's in my care at the moment. It needs a new battery ... He's gonna owe me a few pints cos it looks like a whole mornings work!

I've had 90 on an Iveco 7.5 tonner with an L322 on the back, on the A9 hill down into Inverness. Knock it into neutral at the top and you get the satisfying "overspeed" on the dash 😆

It's a hypothetical question.. all my life I've had a want list of cars I hope to own some day.. which were probably the equivalent of 40k new now... but I don't have any new stuff now that I'd put on my want list when they get older.. I'm around cars and owners of brand new stuff every day and everyone seems so.... Meh...

You'd be a hero putting a quarter of a million miles on that!

Probably the same end result. You'd end up at the side of a motorway somewhere, skint and alone with a throbbing headache and an itchy tinkle. Much like Range Rover ownership.

Didn't get a pic, but was behind an RS3 with the plate WA10PER 😄

You aren't sticking to the rules... I wouldn't spend 40k on a new car ever.. I'm trying to make you ask yourself a hypothetical question to see where you think the future lies and how you see 2024 technology.. and how it has "progressed" since the 90s.. 40k. Brand new car, 250k in 15 years.. Same criteria, but its 1995 and 25k.. Forget about seats, tax, running costs, etc . Car will be dealer serviced, and maintained properly by them. Just been pondering as I listened to a US podcast talking about a similar scenario..

Something I was thinking about today.. You're in a position to buy a brand new car. today . You have £40,000. It's got to do at least 250,000 miles and you will own it for 15 years. What do you buy? Same question but it's 1995 and you have £25,000.

I had a job in Banffshire yesterday, and the snow was pretty bad.. ended up in a ditch as was struggling up a hill on a single track road, when a proper twat came down the hill in a Rav4, and drove straight at me... I reversed as quickly as I could and ended up putting 2 wheels off the lip of the road and the Transit sunk up to its wishbones.. twat drove round me and dissapeared.. luckily locals helped dig me out and got a helping hand from a Jeep Renegade.. fitted the bar in -6, then drove home on unplowed ungritted single track roads in the dark.. an Auto Transit on summer tyres isn't ideal, so I was "carrying momentum" everywhere.. Juha Kankkunnen would have been slack jawed 😄

Either use an airbag then a long hook to pull the bonnet release, or crawl underneath and put the jump pack on the starter live. I loved lockouts!. There are usually 2 fuse positions on VAG accessory sockets,, most are only ign live unless you choose them not to be.

The boxster has a little jump lead connection down at the drivers A post to get power in to pop the "bonnet" to get to the battery..

Daihatsu Domino

I vaguely remember the Fiat 132 had dark perspex sunvisors, with a separate one for over the mirror. ? Anyone confirm?

I'm 6ft4 and fit towbars for a living, so head/tailgate interference is a daily occurrence, but the manufacturers have added extra peril to this process. Many cars have the wavy foot boot opening thing, which can't differentiate between a wavy foot and a grumpy scotsman lying on the ground. When I stand up the daft car thinks I've got my shopping out and decides to close the lid which usually meets me half down when I'm half up. This usually includes a barrage of swear words which customers shouldn't really hear. Because of this I usually have to time my haircuts to coincide with a run of older car fitments.

You can read French? Quite a few of the European clubs and forums tend to make the manuals downloadable https://en.lanciaclub.net/manual_download.php?id=739 Quite a few genuine Lancia manuals seem to be still around, well worth seeking out.

I had an HPE for a bit, also remarkably rust free and sitting for many years. I did a lot of work, got it MOTd and on the road, then found it wasn't particularly nice to drive 🫤. Didn't keep it long after that. The sensors on the head, from memory are the temp gauge and temp warning light. As they are single wire , just touch the wire to the head and look at the dash to see which one is which.. gauge will go to HOT or the light will light up.. Edit..I've just repeated what's been said above! Soz.. 😆 I'll add some useful info. SGS engineering had tailgate struts on the shelf as the thing nearly decapitated me, and E34 headlights fit nicely and give very good illumination for Aberdeenshire hooning.. my fuel system was completely blocked, the metal pipes themselves, never had that before and the timing belt was in very poor condition even though it was a low mileage genuine replacement.

Ford chrome wheelnuts.

2.6 Sportline?

What is it lately with people not having their dogs on leads? We always get " oh, they're fine- they won't bother you" well, they do because mine are twats and get proper over excited when other dogs come towards them.. We had Christmas in the Astro, and had taken the dogs for a walk, on leads of course. We got back to the van and opened the side door, let the dogs in and I got in to take their leads off when a spaniel came bounding up. Roscoe the basset had jumped in and went round the table leg ,then spotted the daft spaniel and lunged out the van to sniff its arse probably.. ripping off the table leg, busting the table rail off the worktop, bending the cupboard door hinge and crashing a basin full of dishes and soapy water all over the floor and my jeans. Then I hear the woman shout , " he's OK, just wants to play hahaha.. I hope you hit a big pothole on the way home..