Carl1981

I’ve started another post about thinning the collection down a bit… but the Metro is the other car that needs some consideration, it’s currently off the road due to (I think) the thermostat not working properly. after the last post here, she did successfully pass the MOT, a bit more rot was identified in the rear cross member / rear balance area, but nothing terminal. but continued kettle series maladies and lack of time means in the last 12 months, it’s spent about 3 months playing up and hasnt covered many miles at all. It hasn’t turned a wheel again for a month now! I will do the thermostat when the weather cheers up a little, but I think the metro may have to go to support the thinking of the fleet and I promise not to buy anything else for a while immediately to replace the 2 car gap I’ll have in my automotive landscape! I need to focus on the T25 and the ‘40 and everything has got really expensive over the last 18 months, I’d rather have two or three good (ish) cars than a fleet of knackered cars I can’t afford to fix 😂 my question is this though, what do you guys think a 1994 metro might be worth? I was thinking £2250, but looking at what is available it’s really hard to tell if I’m pitching it right?

I'm not really upset that the Fiesta is finished, although I will mostly remember them fondly... I've had a few though... One of my older mates who was the first of our little group to get an actual car had a red mk1 popular that I loved and remember through rose-tinted glasses. Finance wasn't really the done thing then and hadn't got common place yet, so when my first Fiesta came along about 4 years later in 1998, mk1's were all very tired. I let Dad talked me into a much better mk2, D118 EVT, £160 we paid, with a bit of tax and test (probably just enough to get us home 🤣). This was a very tired and very end of life example. It was supposed to be diamond white, but it's 9 years had not been kind, it seemed to have spent most of its life parked up to its door handles in the sea! It had lots of orange staining and bubbly paint, on the arches, the sills, A-pillars, tail gate, doors and so on. The painted bumpers were particularly bad and the wings were beyond rescue. A sensible person would have admitted their mistake and cut their losses, perhaps selling on again as spares or repairs. But my driving test was booked for about 6 weeks' time, so within a month it was a multi-coloured mk2 950 popular, blue bonnet, two 'pattern' black front wings and a red door. Many rattle cans later it was all white again, but not pretty and not shiny. Within a month lots of the rust was starting to show through again 🙄 We got around the general grotty appearance by getting an MOT failure XR2 and in true 1990's style we swapped all the fancy plastic bumpers, body kit, spoiler, fog lights and pepper pot alloys on to mine. This dealt with the terminal rot very professionally hid the rust from view and allowed me to get on with abusing my first car. This meant the very cheap and tatty mk2 was actually a very expensive tatty mk2! But it was cheap to insure, and I learned a lot about running cars from my 18 months in my first Fiesta. I remember that car very fondly. My next fiesta (after many Rover and PSA products in between) was a 2001 zetec freestyle, mk4 .5? When Ford briefly dropped the sad face and put Focus/Mondeo style sharp/edge lights on the front as a face lift? That was a complete crock of cack, it was 25 times the price of my first one and whilst this one wasn't rotten it wasn't any better as 'an car', lots of niggly problems that the dealer didn't want to know about. I had it about 3 months, really didn't gel with it, someone must have done as it seemed to rock on until 2015 according to the MOT history. Again after some time away, I picked up and ran a cheap (£300) sad face Fiesta for about 14 months. My mates all called it '50 shades of blue'. There's a real pleasure in knowing your car, that the guys in his 3 series sneers at, total purchase price was less than one month PCP on his 3 series! I loved and drove that car until the front suspension unexpectedly and spectacularly fell apart pulling off the driveway. Car was destroyed as a result and it had to be trailered off in the most undignified fashioned to its final resting place, Tyrones in Brum. Strangely, I mourned and I continue to miss that grumpy looking car. Of about 30 cars I've had, Fiestas have been the most repeated and technically, if we include the XR2 donor car, I've had 4 of them. I like the look of the most recent ones, but they seem so expensive. Not when new (Although £20k sounds a lot for a Fiesta), inflation adjusted when you consider how big they now are and the safety kit you get, they're the same sort of price new as they probably always have been. But three and four thousand pounds for an end-of-life Fiesta, no thanks. Fiestas have always been best sampled at the now non-existent £300 end of the used car market! 😂 RIP Fiesta! (Definitely not heading over now to the sale section for another look at that yellow mk1! 🤣, don't do it, don't do it!)

That’s a shame, looked a lovely motor on the surface. I bet you’re disappointed on one hand and massively relieved on the other!

Lovely car, just the right spec, colour, engine everything… I’m not jealous!

That colour will look great, close enough to original that only the anoraks amongst us will notice it’s not 😎

Finally, the Metro... I still love this car, gingercators and all! But she's proving to be hard work, I've had her just about one year now and have made many improvements in that time, but she hasn't been running properly, the MOT has expired, she's had to have a tickle with a welding stick and she's been overheating! It got that bad, I sent her to the naughty corner (MIL driveway) and forgot about her for a couple of weeks months whilst I tried to get my Metro mojo back. Welding in the rear arches is sorted now, Whilst finishing that job, I cleaned the arches out properly to ensure we'd found and repaired all the rot properly. I was pleasantly surprised by the condition... I've now touched up any chips or damage and painted the welded areas with the same zinc primer, stone chip, body colour similar blue and then two coats of black dinitrol. So I'm fairly confident she's solid now, and protected from the elements a little. Next on my list was the rich running and lumpy idle, unwillingness to run without a bit of choke etc. Fearing all my symptoms could be OMGHGF, I consulted my big book of knowledge... Took a brave pill and told myself I'm already a couple of grand into this car, she's not completely rotten, must be worth saving and a bit of effort, come on man get a grip! I thought I'd start by cleaning the carb as I have already replaced all the electrical service items within the last 300 miles. Cleaned everything I could get to without completely dismantling beyond the point of my confidence to re-assemble again. Whilst putting it back together I consulted the haynes manual for cause of rich running on these, the Haynes manual made reference to a vacuum hose and also a breather hose that if blocked can cause rich running. I checked the breather, fine. Started the car, it was better but not 100% and still wouldn't idle warm without a bit of choke. So disconnected the suggested vacuum pipe and the car settled down, this vacuum pipe goes from the carb to air filter housing and from what I can make out there is a temperature operated switch in the air cleaner housing that should switch vacuum between cold air from the filter and warm air from the manifold, the switch must be past it's best as the car tries to stall if you put your finger over the disconnected vacuum pipe and if you reconnect said vacuum pipe to the air cleaner housing. It's running properly better now, but some further investigation required here I think. Next up, overheating. I started with a drain and re-fill on the cooling system. I had to fit a new expansion tank cap a couple of months back as it was hissing when the engine was running and whilst cooling down, which I think was letting air into the system. I hadn't been able to bleed the air back out properly so a drain and re-fill seemed a good start point. Flushing through with the hose didn't see anything untoward flush from the system, and the rad was replaced just about 2 years ago, so I was fairly confident to proceed to refill. One thing I noticed when the car overheated last, just before coming off the road, was that the fan wasn't coming on. It works if you short the wires, so i suspected a faulty switch (or an air lock in the system). I decided the safest thing was to install an override switch in the dashboard. So if the temperature does head for the red I can switch the fan on if it isn't working automatically for any reason. All these jobs done, I started the car, ran it up to temperature and left it to tick over. It ran well, didn't need much choke and none when warm. Doesn't smell like it is running rich anymore. Fan cut in on its own when temperature reached 3/4, so I'm thinking it was an airlock, but I'll keep my eye on it. MOT is booked for Tuesday at 11:00, fingers crossed we can get her through and get back to a bit of metroing! I may even be able to get miles on it at last 😲

I previously mentioned that we have Jowetts in the family too, another small break away in May at the annual rally. My lad is 6 now and hasn't been in Grandad's Jowett that he can remember (because Covid), so this was a real treat for him! Picture below, with Grandad, clearly having defeated the Jowett 😂

The next update is the Jag, my favourite on the fleet. We went to XJ40 day at Gaydon as mentioned in a previous post, we had a great time amongst all the other '40's that showed up. Next opportunity to get out and show her was a JEC event in Shropshire. It was good day out and to my surprise my car won its category, much silver ware, well glass ware, was received! A picture of the winners line up, very proud indeed. I've had this car since 2009 and it's always been a case of preserve rather than restore, nice to have all that effort recognised and by the JEC no less! The car is now sorn'd again as I won't get chance to use it now until September 🙄

It's been a while since I've updated anything on here, but there has been much car activity over the last couple of months... First thing is the VW, we've managed a couple of holidays in it so far this year, one of which was the Jubilee weekend, hence the wifes bunting on the awning! Kids still love it. Ran out of fuel on the way home from the last trip, the fuel gauge has never worked but I've always got on OK using 25mpg as a figure and then calculating the mileage vs what fuel has gone in. Double checked my maths and it appears that I can still do maths, I conclude the van is using more fuel for some reason 🤔 I cast my mind back to getting the van out of storage and doing my usual fix everything that has broken itself through the winter trouble free and most enjoyable first run out. The fuel lines had been leaking near the carbs, perished rubber. So I replaced the fuel lines from the tank all the way back, I've had a few aircooled VW's and dodgy fuel lines are known to bring an early end to many cars lives, so it really wasn't worth only replacing a small section. Its was a good job I did look at the whole system as iirc the fuel line is 6mm and there was no fuel filter fitted. But, the main run through one of the chassis rails was a rigid plastic pipe shoved inside the normal rubber just after the tank and running the length of the van to the fuel pump. 'Strange' I thought, then I measured the pipe, it was only 4mm. I replaced the lot with rubber and thought no more of it. The van seems a bit perkier (bear in mind its an old VW, so it's pedestrian at best 😂), perhaps the engine was struggling to get enough fuel through that old pipe I thought? Anyway, she struggled to pass the emmisions at the MOT test (running rich) and seems to be flooding a lot and my maths says she's using more fuel than she normally does, so my working theory is that the carbs have been set up to cope with the limited fuel coming through and now the fuel lines have been replaced it needs setting up again. I will get booked at rolling road services and see what he thinks. Other than that, the van is great, 8 years we have had her now and she's tax and MOT exempt next year which reduces the pain of the running costs somewhat!

I think it looks great, and even looking at Gumtree ads the money isn’t terrible. It is only an asking price after all! can a deal be done, perhaps £5k is more realistic given it needs some tlc? Have you seen it in the flesh?

I remember the 800 being a huge car in its day! looking at it next to that monstrosity Tesla it’s positively compact 😂

I was just about to post that I could have waved, well I could if I went upstairs! (Halesowen, ish)

‘tis ar! We’m bay as bad as them!

There’s no getting away from us is there! 🤣

Yes I did, still do occasionally but the forum is pretty much dead these days. It’s a great technical resource still though. What was your user name on there?