JMotor

Weekend came.
Corsa B time. 
I replaced the front crossmember a few years back. I did weld it in and made sure it was glued in well. 
What if I hadn't done a good enough job!?
I also LOVE* making work for myself.
 
These plates are needed for Turbo swapped cars. Totally overkill for a 1.8! Figured having the tie rod area beefed up couldn't hurt.
Right! Cracked on with welding these plates in.


Passenger side welds are better. I was able to dial my technique in by then. Drivers isn't great, but there was enough heat in the weld to take a good hold. 
Rubbed down the crossmember to slap some red oxide on. Then that reacted with some paint I threw on it years ago. 
Duck it! I'll let it dry and worry about it another time.

It's got a face!

Have to tweak the bumper a wee bit and some other fixings to put back on.
Gave everything behind the plastics a good covering of cavity wax. Happy with the way it's coming on now.

It's got a face!

Have to tweak the bumper a wee bit and some other fixings to put back on.
Gave everything behind the plastics a good covering of cavity wax. Happy with the way it's coming on now.

It's got a face!

Have to tweak the bumper a wee bit and some other fixings to put back on.
Gave everything behind the plastics a good covering of cavity wax. Happy with the way it's coming on now.

I remember repairing the rear valance on my royale. 
No welding  - plastic padding smeared over card - the box from a matchbox 1/76 sherman firefly model kit.

You don’t want to read words, just look at depressing photos….

That's a lovely old thing, you've did quite a bit of work on it well done. I just like seeing old things like that still getting used it's great.

I was then lucky with my tester last year who knew this. But I will probably have to change them in the near future or at least look at them and change the grease.

40 km trip to the post office this morning went without a problem.

Today I are mostly been fiddling with Maestro 'lectrix. 
Ever since I got it, the 'main' relay has been bodged to be 'always on'. This means it drains the battery if the relay is left connected. 
So up until now I've been pulling the relay when parking it for any length of time, which is a bit of a PITA as it involves popping the bonnet and fiddling about. 
Having studied the manual and relays in detail I can see that one of wires that is meant to go to earth with ignition on, is not doing so. 
So I have added another relay that provides an earth when it sees +12v from the fuel pump relay feed (which also comes on with ignition). 
Basically the 'main' relay now behaves as it should which should mean no more battery drain and no more rummaging about under the bonnet for relays. 
Fixed? Sort of. Bodged? Maybe. Do I care? No. 
In other news my tame mechanic phoned with news of the Avensis air con. It's a bad condenser and they have quoted £345 to fix. 
I've just looked up the job in the workshop manual and it doesn't look too bad. It does say to take the front bumper off which isn't the end of the world, but it may be possible to do it without doing this. 
Anyway I found a condenser for £60 which seems very reasonable so I'm looking at £120ish by the time I've paid tame mechanic to refill gas. I know I will thank myself for it in the summer. 

Did a bit more with the Maestro. I was running the (slightly ridiculous) shelf mounted 6x9s via the subwoofer amp, but this is now living in the Avensis. 
I have a Blaupunkt amplifier that I bought off someone here (thanks but I forgot who you are). It's just gathering dust so I decided to mount it to the rear seat back and run the 6x9s off that. 
Haven't got as far as running the power feed to it yet but that'll be tomorrow's task. 
When Mrs Grogee got home I jumped into her Corsa to attempt to fix the airbag light. After a failed session of parts darts I found the culprit, see this thread for details:
All in all a good day's spannering. 

Little more work done.
Finished the welding on the crossmember. With the rest of the panel painted to give it some protection.

Fitted a new radiator while I had the chance. Cooling fan works as it's meant to, that's a relief!
Then kicked the little bugger outside.

Very pleased with the colour in the sunlight.
Still waiting on a windscreen. I'll have to chase that up. 

The old taxi has finally come back on the road again after 6 months of winter storage.

Little more work done.
Finished the welding on the crossmember. With the rest of the panel painted to give it some protection.

Fitted a new radiator while I had the chance. Cooling fan works as it's meant to, that's a relief!
Then kicked the little bugger outside.

Very pleased with the colour in the sunlight.
Still waiting on a windscreen. I'll have to chase that up. 

And it drove very well, but I need to tighten the fan belt before the next drive, that's the only thing. And this one had an idle speed adjustment on the dashboard, need to see if this works and if I can connect it again as it is a bit grumpy when cold and likes slightly higher revs then. 
And I have a fascination with taxis and now that I own this one I often look for pictures of these from when they worked as taxis and I have found this great picture where a taxi company gets 50 of these new delivered to its taxi fleet. The flag looks Finnish and Taksi is taxi in Finnish so this is from Finland. Lucky drivers who got these as a workplace.

Little more work done.
Finished the welding on the crossmember. With the rest of the panel painted to give it some protection.

Fitted a new radiator while I had the chance. Cooling fan works as it's meant to, that's a relief!
Then kicked the little bugger outside.

Very pleased with the colour in the sunlight.
Still waiting on a windscreen. I'll have to chase that up. 

First drive in 2024 is a success. Good to have it back on the road again.

Little more work done.
Finished the welding on the crossmember. With the rest of the panel painted to give it some protection.

Fitted a new radiator while I had the chance. Cooling fan works as it's meant to, that's a relief!
Then kicked the little bugger outside.

Very pleased with the colour in the sunlight.
Still waiting on a windscreen. I'll have to chase that up. 

It's still not perfect but it's a great GROCERY GREATER and STATION SHUTTLE. Park anywhere, don't worry about it, worth nowt, let every seagull shit on it, no worries* motoring. 
Its nippy enough, comfortable enough at 74mph, small enough to fit anywhere, and isn't really even that cramped inside for a 6ft4 22stone travesty of a pilot. 
It's returning low to mid 40s mpg on mixed driving and costs nowt£ in tax and insurance. Lowest group on insurance and tax is about 2$ per month. 
ECCONOMYICAL
 

 

 
Still stuff to iron out, foibles-wise. 
Idles a bit high randomly, still misses a bit sometimes and has cut out randomly twice.  I'll keep piling the miles on and keep picking away at it where funds allow. 
 

#LivingTheDream

I have just realised that garage door actually ending up costing more than what those two heaps combined were to buy. 🫠

Just been taken out for a spin in this. 

Fucking gorgeous interior. 

Mate has paid £2.5k for it which seems fair.
The electrics survived the drive to the pub. 

I must admit I didn’t realise Samsung made cars. This one was their first in the late 90s but apparently failed Vel Satis style. 
 
Now the Samsung motoring arm is under Nissan/Renault control and they still re badge Renault products as Samsung in South Korea. 

Yes - the P900 project would have been introduced as the Daf 77 in 1975, but when Volvo took over the introduction was delayed for a bit, some modifications were made, and the end result was the 300 series we are all probably familiar with! Some older prototypes:

Just to add, Amayama is a legit website, I've bought various things for my Sirion from there and while its not cheap, it is available and ships quite fast. Some stuff comes from Japan and some stuff from the UAE (bizarrely?) but expect it to be with you ~1 week after ordering. Its excellent for JDM stuff, or just Japanese cars generally.
If nothing else, the exploded diagrams give you the part numbers which can sometimes turn up results on ebay or aliexpress if all else fails.