Surface Rust

I have a slightly older Merc W187 and have found that the Unimog spares places are good sources of spares for the mechanical bits, I don't think they changed some of the parts from the unimogs introduction in the 50s until the 80s. Often cheaper too!

That Volga had real presence and epic ground clearance, I reckon you could service most of the undersides without the aid of a jack. Further photo for scale, the Cavalier is NOT far away. Dash is glorious too:

I don't think a Rolls owner should have to change direction, shirley everyone else should.

Some pics from a great day: The Gold Standard Nope, I'd never either... Someone out 'shedded' my Acadiane with this cracking Ami; AS royalty!

That is glorious. Well bought!

If you have power tools that run on 18v you can almost certainly get an adapter for your Dyson. Someone on here recommended it and as my battery was dying I thought I'd give it a go. Picked up an adapter for my Makita batteries for £13 and it works a treat.

I have 4 'classics' and one 'modern (albeit 15 yrs old). The idea was that I'd have a different car for each day of the working week and the modern would always be there in the background. The reality is that two of the classics are on long term sick leave, and the lure of the heated seats and air con in the modern win when the weather's at the extremes. For all the other days, I love taking the two remaining functioning classics, and I'd trust either of them just as much as my Honda. Once in regular use it shakes out all of the bugs that plague garage queen's that are parked for 98% of the year . In short try it, but handy to have a fall back!

Wow, I never knew about leaf spring greasers either - did you end up buying them? I have often pondered if I should be oiling mine but couldn't think how to introduce it between the leaves so just resorted to spraying them in GT85. Despite my P4 being a big saggy at the back, it still has a cosseting ride.

I love seeing old snaps like this, especially the holiday photos with overloaded cars and excited kids everywhere. Yours are particularly good as I spent loads of childhood holidays in Scandinavia in the 1980s and loved spotting all the unusual local caravans like Polar and Solifer, all usually towed by Ford or Volvo estates. Seemed so much more exotic than our Sprite Mustketeer on the back of a Carlton!

That is very cool, and perfect just as it is.

I hope I'm wrong, but I think the core plug at the rear of the engine in the P4 is in the block, not the head. Mine had a tiny weep from it over 10 years ago, and as it seemed such a nightmare to access, I'm ashamed to say I epoxied a steel disc in situ. It still seems to be holding though!

Great work. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with your clock as mine has never worked either, and I've no idea where to start. I did manage to get all my door switches working again, it was mostly just corroded wire crimps. The interior illumination is lovely in them, and each rear door has its own lamp as well.

This place claims to have some NOS RWD 'boxes, but the 'price on application' is worrying! https://cabmasters.com/product/landrover-gearbox-cer2346/

Nice to see it out on the road again. That bluff front and the nose up stance do give them a commanding road presence, and does give SUV drivers reason to think again before pulling out! Regarding your idle stumble, mine used to drop to 5 at idle sometimes, I eventually tracked it down to the Bakelite spark plug covers which seemed to give a path to ground, especially if a little damp. Being too tight for 6 replacements I fitted rubber boots and it fixed the problem.

It looks absolutely mint under there, has it been restored, or is it a fabled dry state car? Either way, it looks as good underneath as it does on top.

I was watching one of the yank YouTubers who had a land yacht with a similar baldness, they sprayed it with a textured bedliner for a pickup, to the camera at least it looked just like a vinyl top.

Is it the reserve fuel connection? Whatever you do, don't pull it. I had a test drive in a P6 once and it started to run out of fuel, the salesman promptly pulled the reserve tap, and 40 years of silt merrily flowed into the carbs and blocked everything. I still bought it obviously.

Those bumpers have come up really well - definitely worth having a go with the wax to try and maintain it. If anyone wants a rather well researched history of Rover / the P4, then this is worth a read. I stumbled across it on the web, which wouldn't be very remarkable, except the car in most of the pics (green 95) is mine, parked at work. They are watching you! https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/curbside-classic-1963-rover-95-p4-how-one-car-defined-a-brand/

I replaced the (admittedly very old) Avon crossplies on mine with the Hi-Flys(ies?). It was a revelation, haven't found the limit yet! They do make the steering heavy for parking though.

A pillage sounds apt! How do you find the 4 cyl compared to the 6? I love the sound of the 6 and think I'd miss the torque, but lighter parking also sounds appealing!

I think the P4 is becoming the Southern AS version of the Ssangyong Rexton.

You could bypass the servo and see what it feels like as a temporary measure. As they have a remote servo there is a junction block below it on the chassis where the servo assistance is introduced and so it can be bypassed. I discovered this the unfortunate way, when I bought my P4 it had a pull to the left under braking. I didn't think too much of it as I knew the tracking was out, and it passed a couple of MoTs like this. Anyway one year it failed on imbalance (same garage) and after lengthy investigation we discovered the previous owner has connected up the nearside front with servo assistance, and the offside front without, at that junction block. Hilarious*.

I think some very early p4s with the older engine and the later 105s were the only ones with twin carbs.

That's lovely, I could only afford the base spec 95, but they are lovely to drive, and the quality of the engineering and materials is impressive. I use mine year round, though fitting a 'colonies spec' radiator was the best thing I did, it sat happily in traffic in 38deg temps last summer. Can't say I was as comfortable as the engine though...

As there seems to be some slot car love here, I thought I'd share this. I got bored during the long winter nights and thought I'd revert to a favourite pastime of my youth, customising Scalextric cars. Sadly none of those creations survived the last 30 odd years, but I thought I'd still maintain the connection and make some cars from my youth, in particular, vehicles produced in Northern Ireland. A dim recollection from a visit to the Ulster Transport Museum in about 1989 was that Northern Irish automotive output was limited to: Some kind of steam powered horsey horseless thing from 18somethingorother Various armoured Land Rover products from the RUC workshops in Belfast DeLoreans This didn't give me many options to work with, and as I didn't even know what the steam contraption looked like, the list narrowed further. Eventually I settled on making both of them. Fortunately Scalextric had saved me a lot of effort by already making a Delorean, unfortunately it was plastered in BTTF guff, like every Delorean you see at a car show. I wanted the pure design intent so had to carefully remove all the Mr Fusion stuff and file the body smooth for a quick stainless steel* paint job. Anyway, that wasn't the exciting one. This was. Not terribly accurate, but a lot of fun to build. I was always fascinated by the Tangis when I was young, they used to sweep past my dad's Volvo 240 at what seemed like outrageous speeds for a big Land Rover, accompanied by a lovely V8 roar. The inaugural Norn Iron street racing championship was a predictable affair, the Delorean streaked away thanks to modern Scalextric 'sticks like shit' handling , however the Tangi had me giggling like a school kid as it slo-mo drifted round every bend. Eventually, due to its weight, I had to give the motor and controller a rest as they smelt HOT, but it's a firm favourite already.