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With the MOT date looming I thought I'd had better crack on and get it finished, having spent a solid 7 hours on it today it's now looking much better. 
I've polished all the paintwork, I thought the welded repair came out well. 


I've since ran some stone chip along the bottom of the sill to protect it, I had a play with some coachlines again

I decided I quite liked them so nipped to Halfords and bought a roll to fit, I'm not sure if there's a right or wrong way up to fit them? I then spent ages cleaning the car up, the results speak for themselves I think. 








Much better i hope you agree! It's not perfect, you can see a where I've blown the paint in but all in all I'm pretty happy with it, I'll be even happier tomorrow if it passes! 

Still chipping away at this, I've got the MOT now booked for Tuesday afternoon so the pressure is on to get it ready in time! Some friends popped round Wednesday evening to help crack on with the welding in the lower rear arch. 


Which came out surprisingly well considering my mate isn't a welder, we all watched him do the work as usual. 

Meanwhile in exchange I fitted some coach lines on his camper that he's just got back on the road. 

Since then I've filled and primed the area. 


It's not perfect but I'm sure it will be fine once painted, I then spent this afternoon painting the other wing and front valance. 



I'm not pretending it's perfect but I'm happy with it! 
Just that lower quarter part and sill to paint, stray some Dinitrol under the arches and stone chip the bottom of the sill and front valance lip, a good polish and then it's ready! 

I took Barretts advice and had a go at one of the wings myself, unfortunately as I've got next to no budget I decided to be a cheap arse and use the Hycote paint so the colour match isn't perfect (it's much better than it was though) and I got a run with the lacquer on the wing but on the whole it's much smarter than it was. 







As you can see its getting there, a mate is coming over Wednesday to help weld up a tiny bit on the other arch, the only welding I've found, and then i can finish that side off too. 
I also picked this up at the weekend as it was cheap but I'm not sure I'll bother fitting it yet? 

As this got so much interest on the News 24 thread i thought I'd start it's own one.
During the week a friend of mine messaged me to ask if i knew if anyone in our car club was interested in a Mk1 Astra, he had meet them at Morrisons whilst in his 1940's Austin and they told him about the car that they had since new in the garage but due to old age and poor health it had to go, naturally i jumped at the chance even though i needed another car to a hole in the head.
I popped round and meet them yesterday and learnt the story behind it, whilst staying in a hotel called the Albemarle Hotel in Scarborough in 1982 the receptionist asked if he fancied entering a competition to win a Vauxhall Astra, he filled it in, had a lovely family holiday and forgot all about it. 3 weeks later he gets a call telling him that he had won, he couldn't even remember entering! So they drove back to Scarborough from Ipswich again to collect their prize.

He said the photo was in the Scarborough newspaper and the Ipswich Evening Star, he was so proud that he felt he couldn't ever sell it! Just lovely, obviously i took this opportunity to recreate this photo today!

Such a lovely family, the car hasn't ran for a few years so the battery was flat but my small jump pack and some easy start soon got it firing into life, out of the garage and onto dad's trailer.


It was at this point that it dropped it's water contents! this was the first time i'd seen the car outside and i had already paid for it and if I'm honest i was a little disappointed as the paintwork is a little patchy, i think it's had new wings and the colour match is piss poor and its had some arch repairs that aren't particularly painted well, but for a 40 year old Astra i probably should have expected that.


To be fair it's pretty good really, we found the reason that it lost it's water was because the stat was solid with crystallised anti freeze and so was the water pump so I'll get them replaced.

Shame about the zebartted engine bay but that's what has saved the car. It's only done 53000 miles, only 10000 of them was in the last 22 years!

The interior is really good apart from the dash trim that's popped out, unfortunately the radio doesn't work and the aerial needs fitting but that's no biggy.


and the very rare saloon boot!

So there's been a change in the fleet again, the Dolomite has now sold back to the original owners other son

I got a message from the other son who i bought the car off asking me when i come to sell it his brother who like to buy it back, a price was agreed and a massive 3 months later i got  the full payment... don't ask, it wasn't agreed to take that long but it's sorted now.
Meanwhile a mate of mine who I've been helping out a lot fixing and playing with his cars bought a immaculate Mondeo ST200 at the East Anglian Car Auctions after i expressed an interest in it so i paid him what he gave for it, i had to wait 2 months until i got the money and space from the Dolomite sale but last Thursday i collected it from him, he even put a years mot on it for me.


It started life as a BT Fleet managers car in Cambridge for the first 2.5 years and 66000 miles before being sold to a chap near Norwich who has owned it for the last 21 years and 33000 miles. It clearly been garage kept and rarely used as it's immaculate par a few stone chips on the bumper, these ST's have all rotted away as the water gets trapped under the bodykit but this one's like new still, I spent a few hours Saturday polishing it and the Imperial Blue paintwork is mint

I don't suppose I'll kept it that long as it's a bit modern for me but at the moment I'm really enjoying driving it and hearing that V6 bark and it brings back memories of the ST24 i had back in 2007ish!

Our Golf went tax exempt last Saturday, It literally just scraped in being registered on the 7th January 1983 so it probably one of the newest tax exempt cars on the road! Mrs T wanted to take it for a drive to a garden centre on Sunday to celebrate...

 
I really need to sell one of the cars, either this or the Dolomite but i think I'm going to struggle to be allowed to let this one go so I suspect it will be the Dolomite, that will be a sad day as the Dolly is such a nice car to drive and condition wise  

Even I'm not sure I'm ready for a Samara yet! funnily enough i got offer another car last week from my mate i bought the 240 off.

a 1 owner, low mileage R21 Savanna 2.0 GTX which has been of the road in a dry garage since 1995, I wasn't too keen on that either as it was one of them which wrote of my green Escort Si!

and lastly the current two, my 1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850, it was owned by a member in our car club who's father had had it new, it was looking very faded and needed 'lifting' back up again but with only 33000 miles and the most original and rust free body i'd seen i had to buy it, I paid proper money for it but i still feel it was cheap as it drives like new and doesn't even rattle or squeak.
 



I'd love to fit a set of Sprint alloys to it but they are really expensive to buy now, especially once you factor in for tyres and wheel nuts.
and last September i bought this Capri 2.0 Laser which i won't go into much detail on as it's all here.
but it's now back on the road and being enjoyed until i get bored and fancy a change again!

Car number 65 was the Volvo 240 2.0 Torslanda, i bought this of a friend for £1000 which won it in a Facebook raffle off some banger racers, thankfully he could see it was worth saving so parked it up until i was chatting to him and he asked if i'd be interested in it.


It only had 48000 miles on the clock but no service history so no idea if that was correct, and even though it had a current mot the brakes were all shot and rear of the sills rotten, 
a LOT of work and time went into it, i felt like i had bit off far too much and regretted buying it more than few times.



I managed to find most the parts at a scrap yard in Norfolk and a couple of months later it looked like this.



with all new brakes, tyres, a service and welding done it went straight through the mot and sold the next day for £3300 to someone in Dorset who promptly put it straight up for sale on Facebook for £6000, it's still not sold. The money from it paid to take the family to Disneyworld Paris which I've just come back from which was far more interesting than this car ever was.

Late 2021 i picked this up from my next door neighbour for £600 as a little project, it had been of the road in his garden for a few years and been used to collect wood in his garden



It was proper minging, i cleaned the crap out of it, fitted a pair of tyres, a new battery, fixed the turbo that had seized and fitted a new screen, moted it, used fit for a few weeks and sold it for £2100 to some random of Fcaebook who wanted it for free...



He sold it straight back on but to someone local to me as i still see it about.
Next was the 1982 Vauxhall Astra 1200 E Mk1, a friend was chatting to a elderly couple in Morrisons who said that had a old car in the garage that needed to go, he gave me their number and i went to see them, the full story is here.
but basically they won it in a competition whilst on holiday in Scarbrough and kept it ever since.

It had been off the road 7 years but look fairly solid so I handed over £2000 and took a gamble.

again i went right though the car and replaced everything that needed doing, it drove really nicely but didn't really engage me, i was just happy to get it back on the road and move it back onto a enthusiast to enjoy, I wasn't very happy about the colour match on the wings and couldn't justify doing it professionally which also bugged me a bit.



I ended up selling it to a lad in our car club who loves it.

I then sold my blue 2014 Grand Cmax 1.6TDCi as i found the car too heavy for a 1.6 115bhp and was gutless and replaced it with a newer shape 2.0 TDCi version which is miles better, yes it's still a modern Ford etc but it's much more of a joy to drive, it's basically a Kuga with 7 seats and not as good looking, especially from the rear, but as a family car that the wife uses it's ideal, I'll add the photos but appreciate they aren't really any interest to the forum.


The next old car was this 1983 VW Golf 1.8 GLi Cabriolet which i bought 18 months ago, It was advertised locally again on my East Coast Retros group for £3000 and i thought it was worth a look for Mrs Trigger to replace the Victor.



It had been 'scened' up a bit with coilovers, bonnet struts and stickers but this was all reversable and the boned of it were good, I've done quite a lot to it now since I've owned it, replaced all the suspension, replaced the interior with a much nicer one from a Clipper and numerous other bits and bobs. It goes tax exempt in April but I might sell it in the summer as I've got more cars than room at the moment, we'll see.




 

A lad i know was selling his Dolomite Sprint, I've wanted one for years and his was my favourite spec and having sold the Marina and Granada i had a bit of cash so a price was agreed and we drove to Potters Bar to take a look, again i bought it.


I removed all the stickers, started replacing missing bit and went right though the car and really enjoyed it, i still say a good Sprint is a wonderful car, unfortunately a good Sprint is hard to find and although mine was far from bad it wasn't quite as nice as i hoped either.


I felt that i was working on it more than driving it, every weekend involved me having to try and fix or replace something and by the time the rear main oil seal started leaking for a 3rd time my patience started to get to it's end, i turned up late for a friends funerial as i lost power to the starter and i just got a bit pissed off with it.
I did get to take it to Cowley where it started it's life

and i had it on display outside the doors of the Gaydon Motor Museum (with thanks to the Marina club again)

and once all finished it looked beauiful.


 
I ended up selling it last year for a lot of money which helped the burden and the new owner absolutely loves it and has the money to sort the oil leaks so all ends well

It was early lockdown and i needed something to cheer me up and when i saw this 1962 Vauxhall Victor come up for sale in our group for £2200 locally and i knew the owner i thought it be something to play with for a bit.

I had it delivered as technically i shouldn't have been driving about at the time, seems ridiculous looking back now doesn't it but such was life at the time.
Again i messed about with it, sorted some bodywork, new tyres and a few mechanical issue and got it looking and running nice and we took it to a few shows and a few local trips out once lockdown eased off a bit





and whilst it looked very pretty i didn't like driving it, the 3 speed box was annoying either being too high a gear or too low, the panel fitment was a bit crappy and the steering box and all the bushes under the car were worn out so it was a bit to drive in a straight line, the novelty wore out quickly, especially as technically i bought it for Mrs Trigger and she couldn't get on with the column shift

so that got sold to a local mechanic for £3300, this photo brings me to the next car.

Next along in 2018 was my Skoda, as previously said the Focus turned out to be shite so i binned that for a loss and found this 2008 Fabia 1.9TDi Sport locally on Autotrader, 1 owner from new and 44000 miles, I paid £2600 for it and have been using this as my daily to and from work since, other than normal wear and tear It's been faultless, it's now on about 78000 miles so not that high still, i really rate these cars and would have another one.

Meanwhile a lady in our East Coast Retros group asked if anyone would be interested in her Fathers old Granada that had sat in the garage 10 years after he died and as her mother was going into a home they needed to sell it on, a few banger racers were circling so i got asked if I'd like to take a look at it, i think this most be some kind of code word for "buy it" !

so £400 later i owned a 1989 Granada Scorpio 2.9i...
I threw just over a grand at it, replaced lots of stuff and a lot of hours and it turned out looking pretty smart



It was a lovely thing to drive, very smooth and felt much newer than it was and had a good sound to it but i never found it particularly exciting or engaging to drive so once lockdown started i didn't see the point on hanging onto it or paying road tax on something i couldn't use so i stuck it on ebay and got £2600 for it, the last heard was that someone paid £5500 for it earlier last year from a dealer.

I was at a car show in the Ital van in 2018 when someone came over saying they had a old Marina in their barn they wanted to sell and would i be interested, obviously i was so a few days later i went to view it.

Now i know I've got a thread about this car 
 
so i won't go into too much detail about it but basically it had been of the road since 1981 only done 26000 miles and the owner wanted £1000 to see the back of it after he had nearly cut 3 fingers off whilst working on it 7 years before removing the fuel tank.



I had a lot of enjoyment with the car, the condition was outstanding and it really drove well, regardless what the naysayers say, I done 700 miles to Wales and back in it without fault and 300 miles round trip to the Festival of the Unexceptional in 2019 where i was amazed to be voted car of the show!


In 2020 lockdown started and i fancied a new car to play with and i couldn't take my children out in the car as it had no rear seat belts and no easy way to fit them so i ended up selling it for £3500 to a Marina Club Member, i do regret that decision but hey ho, life goes on. 

Next up was one of my biggest projects, this 1984 Morris Ital 575 Van, my same friend who i got the Sierra off rang me to say the barn the van was in was being sold and it needed to go, did i want to buy it?. I'd known the van since 1994 when i used to work with my friend and it been of the road since 1993 and in the barn since around 1999...

I went down and we got it started quite easily and i agreed on £800 and he delivered it on the same day as the Dolomite went.


what followed was two months of working in the garage getting favours of friends and my dad in getting it back on the road again.






I won't bore you too much as there be a thread on here with more info on it



I took it to Devon for the Morris Marina Nationals in 2018, over 700 miles and the van was faultless, me on the other hand was a broken man, sitting in a traffic jam on the A303 outside Stonehenge on a hot summers day was worse than torture! and the low ratio rear diff where it screamed it bollocks out at 60 mph was the tipping point, so i ended up selling it to a Marina club member

So after all that drama i was put right off using a old car as a daily anymore and my mum was selling her mint condition low mileage Fiesta 1.4TDi Zetec so i bought that of her instead.

Brilliant little cars, and mega cheap to run.
in 2016 I was at a local custom and hot rod show and saw this 1971 Rover 2000 (with a 2.2 engine fitted) for sale for £2500 so decided it was time to scratch that P6 itch.

I really enjoyed this car, it drove far newer than it was, handled well even if it did have comedical body roll, pulled well, it had a stainless exhaust so sounded nice and was comfortable 



Sadly i found that it was a bit of a ringer, the main body started life as a completely different car and HRT3J's panels and ID was swapped over, quite common on P6's apparently but i didn't like it so i sold it back on again to someone who removed the plate and rang me to say it done 90 mph all the way up to Stoke on Trent...
around the same time i got offered this Rover 620Ti for £400 which had been off the road a few years as a project to do.

Again i chucked some money and time at it and it turned out well, it was a bloody quick car, I'm amazed these haven't got more of a following as it's a proper Q car and great fun.




That ended up selling on here to JohnF.
Whilst I was having a Rover phase i bought this 2600 SE from a local garage for £3000


Now this was a nice car, i had a few rust repairs to do, cambelt change and few other little jobs but the best thing i fitted was a stainless rear box from Rimmers, the sound from that 6 cylinder was beautiful!

Modern car wise i traded the shite grey Focus in and bought this Zetec S model, another car i should never had sold

Older car wise i sold the Sierra and bought this off a member on here, it was a proper weapon, 1.8t 20v so basically a Cupra with a boot and I'm sure it had been chipped too, probably the quickest car i've owned!.


Again i sold that back onto someone on here and i think i must have had some serious head injury around this point as i bought this to replace it...

Car number 46, a 1988 Audi 90 2.2i, It was £600 on ebay and in Nottingham so me and a mate drove to buy it, it was a bit shit but i'd driven all that way so decided to take a punt.



as you can see it tided up ok after a while but it would smoke under load and the exhaust manifold gasket was blowing, once the novelty of that beautiful sounding 5 cylinder engine with a constant tapping noise wore off i sold it for £700 to someone on the Orkey islands would, got a taxi, boat, plane and train to collect it and drove 800 miles home!
I then bought the ill-fated 1991 Astra 1.6L


1 owner from new and 64000 miles for £400, it drove lovely and i set about tidying the arches, changing the cambelt, new plates and making it nice.



but sadly one night whilst i was at work some local druggys decided they wanted it more and stole it of my driveway and spent 5 hours joyriding around Ipswich in it...

I was getting messages on facebook all night about it being seen ramming cars and racing around town, come the morning i got a call from a friend who saw smoke under the Orwell Bridge on the A14.

My disklok was still in the boot as well as a load of club money from the car club i co-run.


I was sick after this and truth be known it was the main reason i wanted to move house.

Next up in 2015 was this 1991 Sierra 1.8 LX, I wasn't planning on buying it (Yeah that happens alot!) but a old friend of mine needed to sell it after it had sat in his barn about 7 years, i gave £250  for it and he delivered it for me.
 

A lot of work was done sorting out the fuel system and carb, genuine cossie alloys were bought for £25 so i refurbished them all and fitted new tyres and a wheel arch wa spainted and it looked quite smart



I used it for work for a while but i had a few issues with the carb that i couldn't get to the bottom off and sold it on here to a serial shitter for £900 i believe
Now i can't remember what happened here but i went from a nice pair of Cortinas to a knackered Dolomite 1500 SE...


A lady asked on Facebook if any would be interested in it and i was there the next morning! £800 was handed over and i drove it home and promptly broke down with a cooked wheel bearing and needed a tow from my dad


I spend ages doing this up, loads of welding on the front valance, loads of paintwork and went right through it mechanically, it was a real transformation once finished.











Here is the car in 1986 with the original owner

That car looked so nice once finished, I ended up selling to a enthusiast in 2017 who still takes it to shows, a week after selling it i saw it on display at the NEC classic car show on one of the main entrances 

 

After the Merc went i wanted something a bit cheaper to run but still fun so back on ebay again and i found this rare 1998 Toyota Starlet SR for sale in Norfolk for £600

It was a bit tatty and needed some love but had potential, again i spent a few months sorting the little jobs, fitting new stickers and tyres etc, Mrs Trigger had it as her daily as she liked it but annoyingly some bell in a Audi A6 backed into whilst in traffic and stuff the lights and bonnet.

Rattlecan man came to rescue and fixed it though

It looked ok from a distance!



I ended up selling that for £950
Next was this 1966 Cortina 1500 Super, i wasn't planning on buying it but someone at work was selling it for £4000 and at 26000 miles it seemed to good a deal to turn down so went to view it.

again obviously i bought it!

it was was part of a messy separation and the owner just wanted it gone, It was such a pretty car





I didn't keep it long sadly as it wasn't long after buying it that Mrs T got pregnant and i sold both this and the Mk3 to my dad, he's still got both cars although the Mk1's not been out the garage a few years now.

So next up we're back to the Alto, that sold in 2013 and i needed something to replace it so i bought this 1984 Triumph Acclaim HLS of another Autoshite member for £800

It had done around 440000 miles and drove well on the way home but sadly the head gasket had gone so the first top was to replace that and get the head skimmed, i then got the valance painted

and after that it wasn't too bad


I even took it to Shitefest  in Wales in 2015, 700 miles there and back with a boot full of car magazines and it didn't miss a beat, it was a lovely car to drive


Check out that wheel arch repair!


I then sold that in 2014 and replaced it with this 1991 Merc 190E 2.0 that i saw for sale on a road in Colchester for £600

this was a revelation compared to the Acclaim, it was beaut to drive and was in fantastic condition.





Mrs Trigger took over my Focus and i used for work for ages but the fuel costs and the automatic gearbox started to annoy me as it was always in the wrong gear for the corner, does it still belong to someone on here?

This made a quick appearance in 2013, a workmate needed to sell it quick and offered it to me for £250, he dropped it off on the Friday, i spent the next couple of days polishing it to a inch of it's life, fixed a couple of things and sold it to another friend for £500 on the Sunday


the Mondeo ST also got traded in for this grey Focus which was a utter piece of unreliable crap, i don't get on with grey Focus's.

but back to shite in 2013 whilst on ebay i saw this 1976 Honda Civic locally to me and decided it was worth a look, i went to the owners house and this is how it looked.


He had inherited it of his auntie but only wanted the number plate, we agreed on £1000 for it and i took it home.

I spent months going right through the car, had the rusty bits repaired and polished it up, it was a lovely car, miles ahead of anything we built in the UK at the time, the engine was nippy and fairly refined, i like my BL stuff but god knows why you would buy a Allegro over one of these but Japanese cars weren't so popular back then




I then got asked to display it on behalf of Honda at the BTCC at Brands Hatch in 2014 and got to meet these too

This was one of them cars that if i had a massive barn and loads of money I'd still have it now

in late 2012 I got offered this 1985 Suzuki Alto FX on Flickr, the owner, at the time saw a photo I'd took of it outside his house and said that the head gasket had gone and wondered if i wanted it for £120, obviously i said yes and he bought it round mine with a trail of smoke behind and i set about replacing the head gasket and skimming the head.
 



but once all finished at turned out pretty well, I'm not sure why but i sold the Golf and Mrs Trigger then took the Alto as her daily driver, i think she liked it as she only worked a few miles away from home and it was easy to park at her work.



I didn't really like it though, it was woefully slow and felt like a stone was enough to write the car off and when a lorry pulled out in front of her one day i decided it was probably time to sell it so i think i got about £600 to it, i ended up selling it to a friend who broke the oil pump and it spend years sitting behind a local garage until recently when i saw it on ebay for about £3000

Meanwhile early 2012 i decided i need a old Ford in my life and whilst trawling Ebay i came across this 1974 Cortina 2000 XL in Evesham, the photos we are shite as you'd expect

but i decided to bid anyway and won it for £2100, the next weekend we drove down and collected it.




It made it home fine apart from one seized caliper that made me pull into oncoming traffic traffic whenever i braked!
I had this car for 4 years and done a LOT of work on it, It's been to a Shitefest in Wales too which was brilliant.

the interior was a mess, the front seats had been replaced with Alfa 156 seats and the rear seats painted with sticky cream paint, i had the original front seats repaired and cleaned all the paint of the rears.


I also bite the bullet and had the car resprayed too and a pair of front wings fitted 


and when all finished it looked like this.



What a nice car! When my wife got pregnant in 2015 i got a wobble on and decided that i had to sell all my cars so my dad bought it off me and still owns it, but there's still a lot of cars before that happened!

Next up in 2011 was this 1984 Ford Escort 1.3L, i was at a car show in Clacton when i saw it with a sign simply saying "For Sale" in the window.

I asked the owner how much he was after and he said he'd be happy with £500 for it, the car was near immaculate and only done 40000 miles, I took it for a run around the field.

and decided I'd be a right plum not to buy it so the deal was done at it because car number 31


I sold the blue Escort and Mrs Trig used it for a while but realistically it wasn't as nice to drive as the blue one and after hearing Mrs T moan about the clutch a millionth time i decided to sell the car on, I think i got £800 for it and it went off to Ireland

After all this fuss i felt guilty so thought I'd better treat the wife to something a bit nicer so bought her this locally registered Golf 1.8 Cabriolet for £800

It was a nice car, i fitted a set of alloys, new stereo and replaced a rotten wing and it done well for a year.