Talbot

3 hours ago, Bradders59 said:

Im still trying to work out how and why someone thinks that FWD is an advance over and is better than RWD.

One of the major benefits is that in slippery conditions they are more stable in a straight line.  In ice and snow, a FWD car is somewhat more controllable than a RWD one.  That is, for the average (IE utterly incompetent) driver.  Yes, I prefer a RWD car in the snow, mainly for the LOLs, but FWD is proven safer.

Also for interior space.  A RWD car loses a surprising amount of interior space compared to the equivalent FWD arrangement.

in most cases, the parking lamp feature was done with wiring switching only.  The indicator stalk has multiple connections, which were fed ether with power when the ignition is on (Indicators) or when the ignition is off (parking lamps).  It looks to me like one of the circuits is live when it shoudln't be, possibly due to either a short, or maybe a stuck relay or similar.

10 hours ago, CGSB said:

Why does everything need meddling with? Its worked fine for years - leave well alone.

No it hasn't.  People have gone back and deleted long standing threads, or deleted all their posts in a thread, making bits of it unreadable.  We had a fairly significant thought process on ensuring that all photos remain visible on old threads as otherwise they become unreadable, the same should (IMO) be true of comments and posts.  When you remove parts of the conversation, it makes no sense.

Yes, posts need to be able to be edited for spelling and other errors for a while, but once it's been up for a bit, IMO it should stay.  It's "published" at that point.

On 24/03/2024 at 09:01, Dyslexic Viking said:

 I'm a very boring weirdo who is mostly used to socializing with a cat

116 pages (and counting) of the little furry bastards*

(I owned two until quite recently.  Just one now)

I suspect a lot of the question here is what do you define as adequate?

The merc I daily is about 1500kg and 177hp.  It's perfectly comfortable in every situation thrown at it, and very rarely do you need to use all 177hp.  I'd say most of the time I'm barely using 100hp in normal driving, sometimes less.

When the MAF failed a little while back, it put it into limp mode, which meant it was power limited to about 80hp peak.  It was a bit noticeable that I couldn't mid-range accelerate as well as I'd like to, but the car was still perfectly driveable and I did several thousand slightly tedious miles like that.

With a replacement MAF, the car was a lot more relaxing and easy to drive.

I've also driven the 4.3V8 version of my car.  with an extra 100hp over mine.  Lots more fun, but no more relaxing to drive on a daily basis. If anything was a bit more frantic, as if you planted it, the world starts whistling past rather quickly and you have to be paying attention.

50hp / tonne is driveable but gets a little tiring after a while.  100hp/tonne is a lot more comfortable and relaxing to drive.  150hp/tonne is probably more than you can sensibly use on UK roads.

2 hours ago, jakebullet said:

Ma bursts into my shed while I'm drilling.

Quick! Idiot Sister is on the phone. She's at KDA and wants to know what to buy to cut the cat stuff!!!!!!

"I've no idea what you're on about and am not going to make a decision without the right information that is clearly going to be my fault later."

Seriously.  Stop letting everyone make everything your issue.

45 minutes ago, juular said:

Does Germany have any motorway specific training / test involved in getting licences? I found it a lot easier and more relaxing to drive there, even doing 100mph in a van!

German test is significantly more extensive than UK test.  it involves motorway driving, night-time driving and I think also some wet weather experience is needed.  It's a much more involved process.

31 minutes ago, horriblemercedes said:

Yes, this is true. I think only with a proper driving instructor rather than with parents/older siblings on L plates

Yep.  Only with an ADR registered instructor.

Which, quite frankly, is a bollocks rule.  I've taught a few people to drive, and it would have been beneficial to take them on a quick hop on the motorway for experience before the test.

You're either competent to supervise a Learner or not.   And most people are not..  3yrs and over 21 is just not enough qualification to supervise a Learner.

An unpopular opinion:  Drivers should be re-tested on a regular basis, and to a far higher standard than they are currently.  This is actually more important than checking the car on an annual basis.

However, this will never happen as the Government makes far too much money from fuel duty and other vehicle taxation, so removing dangerous/idiotic/incompetent/blind/drunk/thick-as-shit drivers from the road will cost them too much money.

I would happily sit a driving test on a regular basis.

14 hours ago, Metal Guru said:

Why are wheelie bins so noisy?

Try this one wierd trick:  (no really, this actually works...)

Balance it on one wheel while rolling it.  I know that sounds utterly stupid, but a wheelie bin (especially when empty) balanced on one wheel is noticeably quieter than when on both wheels.

Absolutely no idea why.  It just is.

Not recommended when it weighs as much as a small moon, or if you're trying to move it over gravel or some other impossible surface.

On 22/03/2024 at 21:12, chaseracer said:

@Talbot's an expert welder, he would never* set fire to anything... 😉😁

If you've never set fire to a car while welding, you're just not getting enough heat into the weld.  Try cleaning the metal back further and stepping up to the next power level.  Maybe a bit more wire feed speed too.

.. and I totally did not* set fire to the Merc C250td on the driveway a couple of days ago.  Nope.  Not me.  Never.

Briefly.

1 hour ago, andy18s said:

Project  BrownNova?

Trailer it down to Shitefest, trailer it back with somewhat* less rot.  Could work....

If you really want to just squirrel it away in a corner and revisit it at some point in the future, I would absolutely recommend an outdoor-speicification CarCoon.  @Crackers has had some recent experience with one of these, and they really are good.  A car put into one of these is actively dried out, and will not rust any further.  Yes, they are a little bit spendy when bought, but the running costs are utter peanuts (you could likely run it from a solar panel if you're so inclined) and you'll then always have it to put another future project in.

If space isn't the primary issue, then it could well be a good option for the time being. and mean that when you do make the decision on it, it's not 2/3/4 years more rotten than it is now.

Second-hand one here:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364775783912

And even if in 2 years time you still decide to get shot of it, the CarCoon will still be worth decent money.  That second-hand one has only depreciated by 17% of the cost of a new one! (surprisingly)

Just a couple of thoughts:

• That's not a lot really.  Rust looks spectacular when it has run a meter up a sill, but in reality the time it takes to sort an entire rotten sill vs a "50p sized patch" is completely disproportionate.
• As Juular mentioned above, it's not the actual act of welding that takes the time, it's the stripping out of the interior, the cutting back of the rot, the fabrication of replacement/repair panels and making them fit, the making sure you don't set fire to anything (trust me on that one) and the having somewhere to do all that work.  The actual *welding* bit is maybe 5% of the overall process.  Probably less
• I would not recommend learning to weld on rusty car bodywork.  It's one of the most difficult things to weld.  Access is often terrible, you have old paint/underseal/primer/etc. floating about, the fit of the panels is often rough, you're usually having to weld upside-down, and can never quite see what the hell you're doing.  Workshop welding on a bench on thick (5mm plus) sections is where you ideally start, and then work towards more difficult stuff.  To say "i'm going to learn to weld on a rusty car" is like saying "I'm going to learn to drive (from scratch) in a formula 1 car.  On a racetrack.  During an active race."

Whilst I am in absolutely no position to take on any projects at the moment, I'd say that with the interior stripped out, a new sill available and a load of sheet metal (plus maybe a box-and-pan folder), that's maybe a couple of days' work to sort.  Especially if you have access to the 2-post lift it's currently on.  Makes life about 9.74 times easier.

13 hours ago, catsinthewelder said:

@Talbot happy to do hookup for lights/chargers.  Less keen if its a heater.

That's fair enough.  I was thinking mainly for lighting, charging stuff and possibly for AC reeeegas, as it seems to be a running theme that I gas at least two vehicles per shitefest now.

(vac pump is about 100w, so counts as being "not a bloody great 3kW heater.")

Looks like there is power on site.  Is that accessible to use by happy campers? @catsinthewelder

2 hours ago, juular said:

poly bushes
sharpened up steering
overdrive seems to snick on in a much more dignified fashion.
sounds great when opened up.
sports exhaust
more polybushes,
electrical upgrades

Bcoz Sprotscar.

I think this is fast becoming the car with the most difference between "how it looks" and "how it is mechanically"

It'll either make it a bit better (gummed/siezed ring) or worse (broken ring)

There's so little left that this can be!!

On 09/03/2024 at 20:05, goosey said:

although it looks bad, I’m actually very happy this came out without snapping off.

now to find an M8.1 tap to chase the threads

Blimey that is a long glowplug.  How wide is the head??

58 minutes ago, loserone said:

Mega confused.

As am I, as the post I removed was from another member.  If Sheefag liked one of your posts,.I can see no reason it wouldn't take you to the post in question.

The post I hid had no likes or reactions, and isn't even adjacent to any of your posts...

Dunno.

I noticed.  Cheeky bugger!  I'll add it to the tally.

1 hour ago, stevek said:

enmil Socket - Use it as you like, whatever floats your boat I guess LOL. I can even attach a higher res version, unless you prefer it lo-if.

(just realised that’s not much higher res, oh well, it is what it is)

You're probably not aware, but the forum software (in order to save storage space and bandwidth) compresses jpeg images fairly hard, and reduces their size down to something useable-but-not-huge.  This saves us a LOT of money, but does mean that images are there for context rather than photography prowess.

If you want to show off a high-res high-quality version of some of these (and you should... they're good!) upload them to an alternative provider (photofuckit, flikr, wherever) and link them here.  As soon as that's done, it moves the cost onto the photo hosting company.

22 hours ago, juular said:

It was a fun weekend.

Pinging @dollywobbler on the customer service line, for what I hope is taken as constructive feedback for next time and not an old man rant.  TLDR; I enjoyed it and I will come back, but there's scope for betterness(tm) without big changes.

Having to apply separately for a parking space within the event is a stupid idea.  The distinction between attendee and exhibitor was made so blurry it didn't exist. I bought a ticket (very early),  it was weeks before I realised the need to apply to park. Many said they didn't know about having to apply until the last minute when it was too late. As a result some interesting stuff wasn't there, or was parked miles away. That's a little sad really. Having a default first come first served space with a block at the museum reserved for mobility seems fairer.

Communication.  Almost everything official was posted on Facebook. Facebook is an echo chamber unrepresentative of the outside world, and more people I know are off it than on it. We had to rely on word of mouth or continually pinging the Rustival email address for clarity. To their credit they were shit hot at replying and were nice about it, so kudos.

I found that facebook information conflicted with what was on the Rustival website and differed again from what was being said on the Gaydon website. To compound; there was a video doing the rounds of what to expect, details differed again.  9 mostly serious adult people were sitting round a table the evening before the event trying to arrange a convoy, but we had all gleaned different details from the scraps we picked up.

I wasn't emailed tickets, so I'm glad I screenshotted the website booking confirmation otherwise I'd have done a 700 mile trip for nowt. It might be worth looking into that, as I definitely wasn't the only one.

It may not have been intended this way, but Mayfair did feel a little out on a limb and that cars were a bit scattered and/or grouped into bunches of car clubs. We really felt that Mayfair was Rustival Unofficial, a separate event for those that didn't get the memo. Meanwhile, notable empty spaces in VP, or they were taken up by modern yawn that I could enjoy* outside Tesco any day of the week. An age limit or some other gatekeeping just to gently press the ethos might be a good thing.

Positives, and there are plenty.

It's got a nice feel. Really friendly. A refreshing absence of rivet counting. Lots of people saying hello and welcoming inspection of their shitheaps. 

On the whole the cars that showed up were ones that we wanted to look at.

Despite my comments about organisation, we all just rolled off the M40 and slotted into a parking space. It was fairly seamless in the end. @Talbot however did not have the same experience.

Being at Gaydon and having access to the museum and its facilities was tremendous and sets it apart from FOTU in that regard. 

I mean the ticket price was a positive too, no doubt. FOTU is going to shoot itself in the foot with that.

ANYWAY.

I shall echo all of the above comments, as they are very much in line with my experience.

The comment that I did not have the same experience needs expanding on:

I simply did not appreciate that the procedure here was to pay for a Gaydon ticket, and then you had to book something extra on a completely unrelated platform.  I did not watch any youtube videos about this process, as I do not subscribe to any of the youtube-based organisers of this event.  I've very little interest in youtube subscriptions tbh.  Equally, I don't do Facebook for very much more than local marketplace, hence did not read anything on there about the booking process.  As far as I was concerned I'd paid my money for a ticket, and that was that.  I'm there for the show, not the Anti-Social Media experience.

The blokey checking tickets on the way in (after absolutely no queue, which is bloody excellent!) was remarkably non-understanding of this, as when pressed for "where are you parking?", my reply was "I've no idea, that's up to you isn't it??".  After a somewhat drawn out back-and-forth, I got a remarkably rude "well, I'll let you in, but next time, fucking sort yourself out will you"

Quite frankly I'd have happily run him over after a comment like that.

As it happens, I had every intention of needing to pay for my additional passenger, but I never did in the end.  Even the blokey on the museum desk didn't want to take my cash.  So I spent it on other things at the event.

Excellent event.  Much more laid-back and pleasant compared to FOTU.  Youtube stage with amplified people was easily avoided and I met a lot of friends I haven't seen in a very long time.  It was quite remarkable spotting how many (mainly Citroen BXs) cars had been on my driveway some 15-20 years ago.

Only other comment was my not really understanding why some sub-5-year-old cars were in the display areas.  I'm glad there's no strict age limits, but a BrandNewCar is rather pointless being "displayed" in a slot where something MuchMoreInteresting could be.

But I will definitely be back.  Especially if the booking method is simplified.

Ok, as this seems to have run it's course for this fundraizr, I shall close this off now and say thank you to everyone who contributed.  At first glance, it would appear that we've done enough to keep us going for about 4-5 months (useage depending) so that is superb news.  Exact figures will be posted once I am not held up in a hotel room and struggling to log in on the world's shittest wifi.

1 hour ago, richardmorris said:

Just donated. Didn’t realise we were running dangerously low.

We're not.  Actually the deficit is reducing every time I run a Fundraizr.  The deficit was entirely of my doing, so I covered the cost, and will continue to do so.  As long as it all works out in the end, then it's not an issue.