N19

Took the Mondeo out on a nice run to Bristol. Seen here on Vale Street, which is supposed to be the steepest street in England. I had faith in the handbrake.

The photo really doesn't convey just how steep it is. I make a point of driving up it if I'm going through Totterdown, just because.

Focus, behaving fine, gave it an oil change - remarkably easy as the filter is right on the front, you need only jack it up a few inches to be able to reach under and do the job. It's been with me for 3 months and 1,000 miles now. From the weekend I'll be using it more, given that pretty much any use of the Mondeo is a £12.50 charge.  Which I can justify if I'm driving a long way, as it's a much comfier long distance car, or if I'm moving big/heavy stuff, but day to day use will decrease. We shall see.

The Capri wait continues.

Kilburn, north west London.

Was I on Plantagenet Road? That photo shows up the differing headlights, one was from an earlier Bluebird. A shame, I miss that car...

Looking through again there's lots which I go "ah I know exactly where that is" and a whole bunch more that I recognise even if I couldn't say the location off the top of my head... The M-reg Mk1 Mondeo and the two rovers, I used to live around the corner from and pass daily. When I first moved there, there was so many old bangers around, sadly much depleted.

There's still a fair few that I see around. One of my neighbours has a G-reg Merc saloon, somewhat battered, (my lack of knowledge of Mercs shows in that I have no idea what it is) and still uses it regularly. A J-reg Honda that used to live off Bells Hill has gone, but appeared at FoTU so would appear to be in safe hands now.

As expected quite a lot of familiar cars there, I'm so glad you've got pictures for posterity!

There's also a very familiar looking Bluebird...

On 7/29/2023 at 9:21 PM, Soundwave said:

Believe this one did the rounds on social media, an ULEZ scrappage escapee:

Superb - this lived two streets down from me and I only noticed last week that it'd disappeared. I'm very glad it's been saved. 

Rear washer - to pin the cause definitely on the nozzle, I bought a generic one online (£1.99 delivered). Fitted and a good flow.

Will try blasting the genuine one with compressed air at some point over the coming weeks.

The headlining wasn't for staying up, then I remembered it had spring clips on when fitted. The nearest thing I could find were these re-usable paper clips, fitted a couple of these.

Once the paint is done, I'll be re-fitting the nozzle, then clipping/taping the headlining and the rubber seal will go on top of these, so I'm not too worried about minor imperfections.

I've got a few weeks off work upcoming, and I'd quite hoped that the car would be back from paint so I could get on with it during this time. Best laid plans and all that! There's also a niggle in the back of my head that I'll run into problems re-assembling, but I think most of that is me worrying purely because it's not in my nature to not be doing anything, if that makes sense.

46 minutes ago, BorniteIdentity said:

Thing is with catering - the vans won't come if they're competing with 50 other trailers etc, so it's a balancing act.  We queued, at lunchtime, 10 minutes for chips. I've waited longer on a Friday night in the pissing rain at a generic chippy.  No complaints there.

It's not that it's become over commercialised, I think it's just become very big. If I were Hagerty, I'd be handing it over to a proper event company to run now with

1. proper marshalling to stop 14 plate Vauxhall Zafira's parking with the chod. 
2. modern parking through another entrance to completely prevent cross polination.
3. a hard and fast cut off to chod. I think it has to 25 years minimum which reflects changing tastes and encourages the next generation through.
4. a proper stage schedule.

It was a good day but, even as a car fan, I'd had enough by 1430. It would definitely work as a weekender, and I'd happily pay £60 for camping and a bit of live music in the evening.  It'd likely need a different venue but, tbh, it's probably time for a change anyway.

Solid 8/10 for me.  Fix the moderns and the Youtubers and it'd be a 10 (!)

I've organised large events with catering traders and, as you say, the balance is incredibly difficult. Too few, and people complain. Too many, and the traders won't come next year because they made next to no money. Add to this the foibles of the weather, plus a venue with poor phone signal (lots of people expect to pay on a card), the general hard work they have to put in, if your event doesn't pay they'll move on elsewhere...

You can engage lots of event companies who can provide services like the traffic management, allowing the organisers to concentrate on the organising. I say this not knowing the experience or background of those who currently do the organising - but even wearing my hat of having Done This Sort Of Thing Lots Of Times, being able to palm off a segment of the work is infinitely easier.

I didn't go this year as I didn't have a suitable car and was reasonably busy, but hopefully will be there next year.

In the next month I'll probably be doing London - Bristol, South Yorks, Lincolnshire - back to London, and London - Norfolk and back.  If dates and locations match up let me know. 

I've been squirrelling away various parts to go onto the Capri, including this timing belt... but then I looked at the company name, and the phone number...

T&N Plc - the lot who went bankrupt from all the asbestos claims.... in the 90s. And phONE day was in 1995.

I know UV light etc etc but I may get hold of a newer belt... I'm not sure they'd respond to any Telexes about a failure..

I did a pre-MOT check on the Mondeo today, I'm putting it in two months early to try and space things out as I currently have three MoTs due in late September, together with half of the country so it seems. This wing is corroded to heck but it's not, as far as I can tell, a prescribed area. I'll tidy it up after the MoT (I would rather present it in an honest condition than slap some shiny underseal on it).

Seen at Baldock Services yesterday. This car lived within the ULEZ as expanded in 2021, so I am relieved to see it is still around. Apologies for the appalling photo.

I think mine has the original starter on. Although it's perfectly fine, I'm lucky enough to have an old fashioned firm of refurbishers in the next town who will give it a once over, clean up and check for a contribution to the beer fund. Another job for when mine goes back together!

Endeavouring to avoid any Annie Lennox moments. Windscreen temporarily living in the corner of my living room, as it's less likely to have any accidents than if I keep it in the garage I think.

Long nut and bolt on the other side and the bush was in. All tightened up and back on the ground now.

I'd had the car back-to-front in the garage to how it usually sits, and because of the windscreen being stored (albeit wrapped) where the passenger seat isn't, I decided the safest thing to do was to climb in from the back again... I'm not the smallest chap in the world, but I managed it!

and she was out! (ft pre-1991 tyre, and carpet offcut to prevent the boot latch locking)

The engine had a nice run up to temperature and I went up and down the drive a few times, in the hope of keeping things moving a bit!

Capri is going away for paint on Monday or Tuesday of next week. The bushes ordered above came in the post earlier in the week ,so time to get them fitted. Getting the inner metal bush into the poly bush was a pain in the absolute arse. I went with a very long nut, bolt and some washers in the end. Assembly instructions strictly demand that you do not over tighten these to avoid shearing the stud on the other side. I'm always left with slight paranoia in these cases!

I've got three weeks off* during August, if things go properly I may have it back by then which would be fantastic as I could spend a good few solid days working on it, but the best laid plans...

I took a trip up to Biggleswade to pick up some wheels for the Capri.

I'm not sure how to interpret these tyre codes, but I think it's pre-1991...

New tyres will be fitted anyhow. The wheels could do with the vinyl stickers for the slots for full authenticity, but they look alright enough. To be honest, the ones I've got on the car right now are decent enough anyway, just mucky - but these were half an hour away and a good price and in decent nick, not an opportunity I'd expected! If I get the new tyres on this set, the original set still has decent tyres and with a clean and polish up can be kept... maybe I'll go all OMGOSF and have a different set for best (!)

4 hours ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

TfL run bus lane enforcement cameras that use ANPR, some of these are mounted on the actual buses themselves. (Ask my brother in law, he's got a lovely picture of his motorbike from one  ).
No reason that they couldn't just pipe the data from those cameras into the LEZ system too? (just sayin')

I've setup the TfL account system for our vehicles/sprogs just in case we ever stray over the border - seems easiest rather tha sweat out where the new cameras are likely to be at.

There are a couple of LEZ cameras in Barnet which I am assuming will become part of the ULEZ monitoring. Whether traffic cameras for congestion or bus lanes etc will be...

I've set up the Mondeo with auto pay active, so the worst that'll happen is I pay the £12.50.

2 hours ago, uk_senator said:

Is there a map of the camera locations, or have you just noticed them? I think I`m pretty much landlocked where I am, despite living not far from you..

This is what I've been noticing. I'm drawing a map of the ones I know in the area, I will send over.

I enquired about my Mondeo, and Ford were able to pull me the Nox reading out within 15 minutes (not bad for a random 23 year old car). Unfortunately it didn't pass the standard, but had it done so, I believe tfl would have reclassified it. 

It's a pain in the backside, and not justified in many ways. I don't drive down Oxford Street, that would be insane, but are you really telling me that the outer suburbs are the same?. I've bought the focus to do most of my trundling around, the Mondeo isn't compliant but for a few times per month, long trips or carrying lots of stuff, I'll swallow the charge. I can also get to my lockup and back without passing a camera.

The bushes are entirely seized onto the old shackles and not for coming off. A bit of measuring, in which I almost felt like I knew what I was doing...

Ordered up some new ones which, I hope, will go on and then everything can go back together for one last time. Hey, I suppose it's all part of the fun* of a project!

I noticed when parking up the focus that the headlights seemed to be varying with the engine revs, which worried me a bit, although there was a lot of draw on the system at that point with ac, headlights, wipers, radio etc so I suppose it's a fairly extreme test. An eye will be kept.

A lot of swearing, levering, grumbling, prising and coaxing later and...

...

Oh what's that,

Only forgot to move the bushes over to the new shackles, small thing. 

Bollocks. 

I was quite surprised to see this smileyface transit on my wanderings today. I used to see it all the time around my old area, and then it disappeared, and lo and behold the same van appears on a backstreet in Barnet, now with a welded plate instead of the entirely disintegrated rear door. It still does a reasonable mileage each year. And is showing as ULEZ compliant, which is curious, because from what I gather this generation of Transit needs modification to meet even the old LEZ. Perhaps said mod causes it to fall under ULEZ?!

(if I had the space, money, and the ability to weld I'd definitely have one of them for the purpose of general usefulness and it being a Proper Van...)

This is further down the road - off the road since 2014, tested in 2021 and a few failures but nothing too drastic?

Rear spring shackle had sheared off. Replacements have been ordered, so in the meantime, better get the old ones off.

Easier said than done! They are a bit of a pain. When the two parts are separated, I jacked up the rear body so the chassis rail sat higher than the spring, to give a bit more room for manouvre. One half popped out after some careful prising.

The other half remains in there, seemingly held in purely through being stuck fast in the bush?

Bit worried that I'll have a right game getting everything back into position on the car. I've never worked with spring bushes, so I don't know whether this is practical or if I'll end up taking the springs off to do it on the ground!

EDIT: Although, now I think about it, the bit that's in there now is perfectly sound - it's the bottom section (the part that's out) which has sheared off. I could save myself some hassle by just replacing the broken one (and copperslipping it!).

A few rear end jobs today, so I turned the car around in the garage. Getting out was fun* especially given that the black parcel on the passenger side is the windscreen and rear quarterlight glass!

The trusty off-brand cola was deployed. Everything runs through fine, except when the washer jet is attached.

I'll have a fiddle with that and try to unblock it.

Meanwhile, new fuel lines arrived and fitted. Shiny!

When cutting the old one up to be put in the rubbish, they are actually all in perfectly fine condition, just covered in years of underseal. Can't hurt though.

There was also an issue when the car was away being welded, I can't remember if he said the bolts were sheared or lost but there's currently a cable tie on the rear bush of the leaf springs. Another rear end job.

Heat has stopped play for now.

The rear washer hasn't worked in the time that I've had the car, so now's the ideal time to give it all a clean.

Time to pick up some cleaning agent...

I've flushed the line through with it, and left the nozzle sitting in a little pot overnight. I'll get the pump out over the weekend and try shooting it through.

Capri returns!

Now fully solid and just in need of paint. 

Feels very odd without the windscreen. But it's a great feeling to drive her, even if that's just manoeuvreing around the yard. 

While I wait for her to go in for paint, I've got a couple of jobs to do. I've got some new nylon fuel line here, plus all the rubber bits, and I've also taken the headlining down to look at the rear washer system. The pump works, so there's a blockage somewhere...