Marina door handles

I have had a quick look on Microcat (Fords parts system) the part number I am getting for the outer LH side lens for a sapphire is 6177669, hope that helps.

How many people apart from Mitsubishi nerds would even expect to find a V6 under there?

I did notice your Sigma and was pleased to see it but mistook it for a Galant, doh! I think its sits in the same kind of area of as my Subaru Forester, rare but few people care..... Maybe you should have put the bonnet up, that always seems to draw a crowd regardless of what the car is.

Faffage continues...... The interior is slowly coming together, gone from this.... To this... Yep I have just pulled everything out, re fitted the boot carpet and sides, bolted the rear split fold seat backs -back in and gone on a massive hoovering/cleaning bash! So actually not got very far but it looks better. Next rear suspension.. Re secure the NS trailing arm..... Yes the big washer is missing, that was just to wind the bush in, I needed to get it so far in before I could then have enough thread to get the nut and washer on. That job done onto the rear anti roll bar issues, I had disconnected it so I could get full droop on the passenger side suspension arm for welding access. On re fitting the track rods, one of the threads picked up and jammed leaving it rattling about... No conventional spannering technique could free the nut, the shaft kept spinning and the little square section on the other side you secure with a spanner started to round off. Time to crack out the welder then! Firstly attempt to weld a sacrificial spanner to the square section..... This went slightly too well fusing the spanner to the shaft of the drop link and the suspension arm.. On the plus side I managed to free the nut off! It just took some serious persuasion to get the drop link free from the spanner and the arm, leaving a chunk of weld blob on the arm.. Fortunately I could get my finger sander in the gap and clean it off... End result. Not too bad and soon the area will look just as scabby as the rest of the suspension! The downside of all this is that the drop link is pretty shagged and its one of those parts you cannot get a straight replacement for. Like the wheel nuts there maybe a work around but in the case of the drop link I cannot find a straight swap. So with that in mind I removed the entire rear anti roll bar and plonked it in the boot. This is a MOT friendly modification, broken ARB is a obviously a fail but no roll bar is no problem. On the subject of hard to find parts, I am still in two minds about selling the car without a fuel filler neck fitted. By a stroke of bad luck I am having fuel leakage issues with my Subaru and have managed to skillfully use what I thought was the original part number to buy the wrong filler neck but it may yet come in use full yet....... The top half of it is a really close match to the Rover part a bit of careful cutting and this might well be the solution... The best part is this wrong part cost me £60, a hand made Rover replacement is nearly 4x the price.... As you may have noticed the Rover pipe has some additional spaghetti, so I chopped it up to try and figure out what the pipe work was doing and if I can replicate it using the additional pipe work attached to the Subaru filler.... It just sort of loops pointlessly? Well that is easy enough to copy. And that is were this post ends, hopefully this all makes sense? Thanks for reading!

Borrowed from a Modern Toss Cartoon.... "I'm worried about the effects of new technology on my work prospects", "Don't panic, we offered your job to a robot and he didn't want it",

Is this the Teletubies remake ?

Was this intentional or did you get lost on the way out of Gaydon?

Display chod, what a great mix of cars......

Pretty sure you followed my silver Honda Accord out of the event onto the M40! Anyway didn't manage to speak to anyone so here are some bad pictures.... The none event parking spots.. Rather glad I didn't park in the display areas as I would have missed those gems!

I will be lurking with my better half, not displaying a car as all my projects are very much still projects..... I shall keep an eye out for the respective AS cars and van

Someone local to me has an Axiam, might be the crossline model (weird French quadricycle) , I tend to spot it whilst driving hence no pictures but its an unusual site.

Interesting choice, I think I would go Merc, mostly because of the interior and general build quality and it has a real live Cosworth head for cool points I worked at a BMW dealers for a short while in the early noughties and got to drive a few M cars including the E36. The engines are very nice but E36 interiors always felt cheap , it almost felt like after the E30 (which felt rather vault like in the way it was put together) the 36 felt flimsy. I suspect all the budget went on the multi link rear suspension, air bags and crumple zones (all positive things really) but they made savings in the interior and the general fit and finish. The spec on the Merc is really good, brake pipes and fuel hoses are routed through the interior for safety (rally car style). The rear suspension is multi link, were as its on track Eighties rivals, Sierra and E30 M3 had trailing arm. The interior is really solid, very Merc! Just a shame it has only got 4 cylinders and the rust proofing was so, so.

I must admit, I was hoping that the add would have for sale links to the Alfa and the Jag hiding in the background which are more my jam....

That's actually how I found Josh, I really like E28s and still miss my old one. I actually watched the AutoAlexV2 E28 vid (I was mentally prepared to endure annoying Alex and apart from a thirty second commercial he didn't appear on it, the whole video was fronted by his tame Mechanic Taylor who is way better on camera! ) . If anyone else is Interested here are the E28 vids..... Honestly better videos than the thumbnails suggest.....

Have we had this one, Bran fond Jelly Mould..... Just recently discovered this channel Josh is a very laid back youtuber/mechanic makes a good video. This is a bit unusual in that he has a group of friends with him as the Sierra rescue is quite involved, lots of Car-dening is needed to free it from the knackered shed its hidden in!

Interesting, I was only familiar with the rather prettier Sylva Stylus and 7esque Striker model This looks kinda duttonesque but not terrible...

Sold already! Sadly not to me.....

I liked the line "it is a head turner and a head scratcher" I bet it is in Germany! Nice video.

Todays update, the wheels are off and the brake bleed kit is out... The main reason for doing this is that I had undone a union inside the cabin and removed (and refitted a rear brake line) I wanted to make sure this union wouldn't start leaking as it would be hidden under interior trim (putting the trim back is the next job). These are cars are notoriously awkward to bleed, I have been given various bits of advice on this, one was to crack the connections on the ABS pump another was to vacuum bleed the brakes, so I thought why not try both? Firstly I set up my pressure bleeder - pumped it and then cracked off the unions, well, 3 out of 4 unions (one was utterly seized) and created a small cascade of brake fluid down the gearbox, which is what I was hoping for I think... Next re connect the unions and start bleeding proper, first attempt on the passenger side front and I get a steady stream of fizzy brake fluid, looks like someone has fitted a soda stream in to the brake lines! 🙃 Re check the connections on the ABS pump to find brake fluid dribbling out of one of them -possibly drawing air at the same time... At this point I was a bit concerned that I had cross threaded a Union, after a bit of fiddling I found that I simply had under estimated how tight these things need to be, really fucking tight! Once that was sorted, I upped the pressure a little and went round all 4 corners with my vacuum pump and......... We appear to have a brake pedal again, although as the car doesn't have a driver's seat it was a bit difficult to test properly! At least I can start re fitting the interior now, well next time I am off work anyway.... Thanks for reading...

I'm pretty sure that there was a South African 3ltr Cortina but not a UK spec one. In the the UK the biggest engine option was the 2.3 Cologne offered from about 77.

FYI the Tamiya is a Clod Buster, which is not a great name, sounds a bit like a drain cleaning product..... At least its not a Chod buster, that would be very un Autoshite.

New project truck has arrived, will I be joining the tax dodging, self employed pickup driving crowd (who clearly don't need a pickup for you know IT work etc) ....... Nope its a bit smoll.... I appear to have inherited a Tamiya monster truck, needs a new battery pack and a bit of fettling, Woot!

Its nearly March, guess its time for an update and decision time on what I am going to do with the big Rover...... I have come to the conclusion that I don't really care for it unlike my other cars, its definitely one that seemed like a good idea at the time but that time has long gone! I have enjoyed the process of welding it and have learnt a fair amount, its been good practice. What I am going to do is put it back together as best I can and flog it as a fairly complete project, I wont be attempting to MOT it, as its going to need tyres a fuel filler neck, discs and pads all round, maybe a windscreen and possibly other bits I have missed... Anyway I might as well document the hmm wont call it a rebuild as that suggests it will be better than before and that would be questionable but errrr a re put together in a slightly haphazard fashion..... Firstly fit the new MGF master cylinder as this has been kicking about for nearly a year, first carry out bench bleed Not overly convinced by this as the connections don't seem to seal fantastically well and draw in a small amount of air! Then I transferred it to the car and lost more fluid, and gained more air in the process 🤷‍♂️. Even getting it "plugged in" lead to more fluid loss as the unions are tight under the reservoir and really difficult to get a spanner on, had to use this pair to get them nipped up tight.... The novelty shaped spanner being particularly useful. Access doesn't look so bad on camera but in reality, bloody awkward! Nicely in place but not properly bled yet.... Next job refit the passenger side rear shock as the suspension had been pulled apart and was in full droop (is it okay to use a Citroenesque term on a none Citroen?) for welding access... Slowly getting there, more instalments to come, this is going to take a good few days..

Better late than never but finally found a good spot for the Autoshite Calendar........

Coming along nicely, the paint match may not be fantastic but its way better than rusty patches. I am enjoying this thread.