Burnside

I'm in the middle of doing the front suspension on the red Astra, new wheel bearings, shocks, arms etc and thought I'd try getting the main parts powder coated.  A local place did them, six parts for £60 cash which seems a good price to me.  They certainly look smart.  I don't know how durable it will be but they talked me through what they do and it all sounded good.  I've tried various different types of paint on suspension parts in the past and all of them seem to fall off quickly.  This is polyester over a primer.  Was tricky putting spring compressors on the springs without damaging the coating: I cable tied lengths of thick plastic material from a scrap suitcase thing.  Worked well. 
 

Will do, but be prepared for a long wait. It's such a lovely car to drive.

That will do for me then, the Safrane lives on. Still need to source a spring seat for her though. But it's great to have a local garage that is sympathetic to our old shite. 
Now I can concentrate on getting Olga fixed for the summer. No more car buying distractions.

After a chat with the garage it appears that the only welding required is a patch to the rear seatbelt mount. The front shock mount is the cup the spring sits in and a new one comes with a new spring. So for an old bus she's doing well I think. Booked in for the work and retest next Thursday/Friday.

Now waiting for the garage to get back to me with a price. I guess it's to be expected from a 27 year old french car. She drives superbly so she will be fixed.

She rests at her new home. A quick wash on the outside. Inside the radio is tuned to the stations I listen to. I had a good check of what buttons do what. There is some sticky plastic, as mentioned in a previous Petrolblog video, I have tried isopropyl alcohol and it's better but still not perfect. I will look into other options. Service history is mad! Everything has been covered. 23 services in the book upto 127000 miles. I am missing the drivers handbook so will be looking for one of those. 4 almost new Falken tyres. A few foibles to be expected from a 25 year old Renault, but otherwise a bloody brilliant car. I feel very lucky to have been given the opportunity to own her.

Arrived home. What a supremely cosseted waft. Yes the seats are as comfortable as they look! Not packed with horsepower but for a relaxing way to get about it's going to take something  special to beat it for a car in every day use.

Collection complete. Arrived at Exeter 12 mins late, not bad for the UK🙄
Compulsory wollard below.
Looking forward to the drive home.
An absolute pleasure to meet petrolblog, a thoroughly nice man .

I wouldn’t worry too much about the E5 being a rip off. I run every single petrol vehicle I own (lots of motorcycles ya see) on it, as E10 is basically liquified dogshit, so it’s a no brainer. Also you WILL get better consumption so when you add up the higher price per litre it’s about same

That’s why we’re going down the tax exempt route….

Mine's up to £335 a year now, plus my Car will only run on E5 pez which is another bloody rip off.
Yet they class my car as Ulez compliant for nearby Birmingham.
But if I had the so called evil polluting Diesel Version, I'd pay just £210 Road Tax and be better off fuel cost / MPG wise too.
So it just proves what a load of old bollocks this all is on the environmental angle. 
Can't wait for my Insurance renewal in May, to see what shit they come out with too.
Still whatever happens in the future with the soring costs of motoring, they won't get me back on public transport or worse in a fucking EV. 
 

Been over to Enviro Strip in Tamworth [which has featured in Car S.O.S], as my Brother needs a few panels to be treated before fitting etc.
Thankfully Tim Shaw wasn't there, but a bloody great big pothole hidden by the rain caught the bottom of my Stilo front bumper. Good job it already has a few scars, but it still pissed me off !
Had a nice chat with one of the staff there about our Fiat's and cars in general though. Apparently Fuzz Townsend owns a MK1 Fiat Multipla, which I guess is the one in the background of his workshop in a few episodes.
Hopefully the panels should be ready for collection next week, then I can make a return trip [ avoiding the holes ] and let the bodyshop do there thing.


 

Sorry been a bit busy to add a proper move update earlier, so…
Moving day went really smoothly! My dad reluctantly agreed to tow with his Freelander so I hired a trailer for the day (£60 Rothwell Trailers). Both 309’s behaved themselves so it was straightforward to load and unload them. We took our time since there was no rush to return the trailer, but we had it back in only 3hrs which I thought was pretty good going.


Feels good to have cleared the drive at my old place so I can progress that towards sale. It does make my current place look a bit scrapyardey but hopefully the neighbours don’t take too much offence. I chose to hide the knackered gold one up the back facing away so as to be the least of an eyesore possible. I’ll get some car covers too.



I’ll be taking a break from these while I prep and arrange the sale of the old house but once done I should be in a better position to tackle some of my car projects in earnest .
-Steve-

The blue is one:
The eBay aux belt should have arrived on Wednesday but it didn’t even arrive before the Easter break, it finally dropped through the letterbox this morning. I swiftly set about installing it and immediately realised it’s much too small, <sigh> that was well worth the wait! I decided to try and get a 10x750 off the shelf somewhere but the web search for GSF and ECP only search by car so that wasn’t working. Pre-armed with a couple of part numbers I trundled off to GSF where they were able to cross match a belt. They got one branch transferred from Bradford to Leeds in 2hrs which I though was good. Should have done this in the first place.
Belt 1 10x740 - £4.19 inc del. eBay
Belt 2 10x750 - £6.96 GSF 

Even the 2nd belt was tight. No way it was going on by hand but it flicked on with the starter motor trick. No need for additional tensioning!
And with that I declare the blue one ready to be moved.
 
The Gold one:
As previously covered this one starts and moves but has no brakes. I don’t really fancy loading, unloading and driving up the steep driveway without any so this was the next task. 
Surprisingly I managed to get both front bleed nipples out ok, though they will need replacing down the line as I gave them one hell of a beating. Got one rear out but the other wouldn’t budge. Gave the pedal a pump and it built some pressure, that’s promising. So I started it up and tried shunting it but the pedal went to the floor again. Bummer. Loads of fluid coming out of one drum so that’ll be a popped wheel cylinder. I’m not digging myself a new hole by taking these drums apart, it’s time to engage bodge mode… just snapped the rear brake line and squashed the end over. An initial leak was fixed by getting a bigger hammer and with that the rear brakes are isolated.

Gave it a shunt and yep we have brakes, rubbish brakes, but that’ll do.
Wedged a fuel can in down the back and strapped it so it can’t fall on the exhaust manifold, also threw a strap on the battery. That should suffice.

I declare the Gold one also ready to be moved.
-Steve-

This thread reminded me of when I was a kid and my parents had a 309 GE. 
I used to have thoughts about how cool it would be to travel in time into the distant past (the 60s) with my dad's 309 so that they could be in awe of its advanced design. 
Stuff like the engine that sounded like some spanners in a dustbin, or the picture of a lion where a rev counter or clock would go on the higher models, or the rough and scratchy hessian seat covers. 
I could sell the patents to such wonders and become rich beyond my wildest dreams. 
I thought that car was the fucking business. The business was probably a hot dog stand outside a vegan convention though. 

don't assume there is any guarantee it will be tax free in 2026, I bought my elan when it was 24 years old and 9 months before it was due for free tax, mr Blair got voted in and 15 years/ around 3 grand later it finaly became tax free when the Tories got back in. Based on Labour's anti car approach (particuarly around London) I would not be at all suprised if with a phrase like 'Rich people with a toy cars don't deserve a tax break' it all gets scrapped.

quite agree, until they come up with a plan as to how they are going to fund all these things they plan to do without raising taxes all I see is a even less competant lot than the Tories.
What we all have to face up to is we saddled ourselves with an enourmous debt during covid (which all parties agreed with) and over the next few years we have to pay this back while trying to grow the economy and while maintaining things like the NHS,  it seems almost inevitable that whoever is in power will continue to raise taxes to one degree or another, I'm old enough to have lived through the Brown Blair era, those guys took taxation and partcularly stealth taxes to a new level.

It's a piss take it really is, just how the fk they can justify putting it up again with the state of the roads is beyond me. And yes we all know its not "road tax" but many still say that. 

The Sierra is up in the air again.

This time it's getting a new set of boots.
The existing tyres are a mix of more than half worn Good Years and half worn Kwik Fit's own brand.

One of the Good Years has nasty cracking along the sidewall.

And, more worrying, a crack that extends the full circumference of the tyre, between the sidewall and the tread.

I've gone for a set of budget 165/80 R 13 tyres.
The Sierra is unlikely to exceed the national speed limit, at least during my ownership and it will not be driven in the rain, so I didn't opt to spend as much again for fancy branded tyres. Whatever I will fit must surely be better than what I've removed.
More tomorrow.

That was what I thought being grown up would be like 😆

'I wanted a Sierra, but I've got one of these terrible new Escorts'

I’ve done 20 miles with a B&B clutch cable fitted and have no problems to report.

@High Jetter @egg
Thank you for your kind words.
If the prize is an all expenses paid full respray for the Sierra then I accept.

Thread of the year so far? I mean lots of ongoing threads have been great, but as for guiding us through the Winter with this recommissioning project with a happy ending - bravo.