dollywobbler

I guess all the decent people decided to just stay at home, so we certainly do seem to be getting the absolute Grade A C-words screwing up the nice places. Hopefully they'll decide the countryside is too dirty and will piss off for good.

I don't think anything will ever top the Lada Samara 'Wheel of misfortune' ROFFLE live at Shitefest 2016.

Oh that is an amazing colour. I'd love a 600 in that shade. They exist.

Yeah, I may need to invest in a seal kit, or new pins, but I'll strip it down when the weather is being a bit more kind and have a look. One worrying thing about acquiring the Delica is that it takes me to eight cars. Of the eight, only three are currently road legal, and one of those (the Invacar) is leaking so much engine oil that I really need to sort that out. And the that the offside window glass fell out. Am I a hoarder now?

I like the tip. Thank you. The water doesn't come out with much force, which makes me wonder if someone has tried clearing them with pins before now, and accidentally opened the diameter of the jets up too much. I'll try vinegar though. Yesterday was service time. Not too bad to work on, though the engine contains 7 litres of oil, a good litre of which is just the oil filter. Thankfully my catch can is 7 litres. Just! Air filter is very accessible and easy. Fuel filter needs you to remove the battery and intercooler, though neither job is onerous other than the battery being a hefty old beast to lift out. Engine sounds a little smoother, possibly because I only had 15w40 oil, but it's still sluggish. Not helped by brakes that bind occasionally - both fronts were at one stage, though they later sorted themselves out, but the nearside rear often seems to get quite warm. May need a strip and grease. To be honest, a complete brake overhaul with new discs and pads wouldn't go amiss at some stage. I am a little worried that the gearbox is not healthy though. It feels seriously sluggish in gear, and notably picks up when the torque converter locks up. It had fresh fluid a couple of years ago, and hasn't done much since. I should probably check the level but somehow entirely forgot to do that yesterday. I can give it a sniff then too.

One reason to swap to the earlier rear lamps is that the brake light is FAR better. On the smoked lamps, the brake lights are where the fog lights were on the older lamps, and seem to use a bulb dimmer than a TOWIE. Also, this thread sadly confirms my suspicions that petrol carb BXs are just an utter pain in the arse. Therefore, fit fuel injection and electronic ignition. Pretty sure that's easy.

Can you tax it using the reference on the green slip? Apols if this is what you're trying to do.

Part of the territory! More expenditure today. Four new Cooper Discoverer AT3s at £83 plus VAT, plus tracking. Drives MUCH better now. Then yet more expense. I was expecting worse than that to be honest. Note rural Wales prices... Hope is to get 300 miles out of that. That'd equate to 24mpg. I also tried getting the washers working better, but haven't had much joy. I'll have to remove the pipework (buried under a sound insulation pad) and blow it through, maybe the nozzles themselves. Getting the wheels off also revealed that I'll need front brakes before too long, and the rears aren't superb. Oh and there are some crusty bits that will need attention before the next MOT I suspect. But the main priority for now is to service the thing, which I hope to do tomorrow.

Yes, did rear brakes three years ago I think. They were a seized mess. But I did that job at Sparrow Automotive, under his guidance (and with his breaker bar). I also don't have tools for doing rear wheel bearings. My last tinkering slot with the 2CV revealed that there is a LOT of catch-up work I need to do after the Croatia trip. Last year got a bit chaotic, so it just kept getting put on the back burner.

Haven't fallen over yet. The previous generation, which was proper forward control, could be a little, um, tippy. Yes, a 3.5-litre V6. Bear in mind the diesels struggle to top 22mpg in general driving... Yeah, I'm a bit miffed that we've had a huge stretch of sunshine and I've not had the 2CV. I must apologise to WorldofCeri because instead of booking his excellent transport facilities, I went and bought a tow vehicle instead. Plan is to ship the 2CV to Peak 2CV in Derbyshire so we can tackle the rear brakes and wheel bearing. I'm still trying to settle into life elsewhere in Wales at the moment, so it isn't good news for the 'projects' within the fleet at the moment. I may get the Matiz out, but the Fox, Tercel and Invacar need fairly substantial amounts of work each, so the chances of any of them seeing much action this summer are negligable. The Invacar is road legal, so may get the occasional blat, but it's pissing oil out at a slightly terrifying rate these days, and only has half a door on one side.

Yes, they're surprisingly jolly even though they're slow and handle like a wardrobe in a wheelbarrow. You can chuck them around a fair bit once you get your confidence up. Not sure I'd like to try and Elk Test mind you... Just had two new tyres put on it. It was meant to be four but I managed to only order two... Another two tomorrow and alignment. That should make it feel better to drive too.

So, having failed to get any of my cars MOTd, the only option was to give up and buy something. Oh yes! A Mitsubishi Delica L400 Space Gear 2800 Turbo Intercooler! That isn't an oil puddle. That's LHM from the GSA... (now fixed). It's big, ugly, noisy, slow but practical and comfortable. It has already suffered a puncture as it sits. But I'm replacing the tyres this afternoon as they are all cracked and a bit rubbish. I've known this car and the owner for almost a decade. It dragged the striped BX out of a snow drift in December 2010, I once used it to ferry some friends for a day out in Merseyside and have had the occasional drive since then, during which I thought it would be nice to own one. My mate has two of them and decided it was time to sell. He used it for hauling logs around, as a gig wagon all over Europe and for towing heavy things, so I know it's had a pretty hard life. It seems to have survived though. He nabbed the tow bar, so I'm on the hunt for another but it could definitely be useful for hauling my motors around - some of things are far from road ready at the moment (like the 2CV, which I'm going to take to a specialist for rear brakes etc). I tried to reveal it live on YouTube yesterday, but my phone (a new Huawei P30 Lite) just isn't up to live streaming, so the footage was awful. Then the live stream got interrupted by a bloke looking for his dog... Here's a video I then recorded.

Lovely. It has a highly original look - very hard to replicate. Should go nicely with your obviously-not-stock yellow and white one!

Nope. Stopped in 1983. Looks like it had the factory sound deadening still...

That looks like a 2CV dashboard...