Shep Shepherd

So the paints knackered, and its a bit accessorised. So very 1990. But then again its unwelded and original- not very 1990 at all.
 

However- 
this one can stay

And this one ive added….

But first matter of business…. lets just turn the orgy of stickerage down a bit….

 

 

 

Once off loaded….

1990 just arrived with someones first set of wheels…..

That's brilliant.  Tatty and honest - just the ticket.
I remember in 1999 I was 16 and me and my mate knew another guy who was a year older than us and he'd just passed his test.  Lovely guy - Christian family - and his NAN insisted that her car went to him.  Robert therefore had a brown Mk2 Escort on a V plate and everyone (other than me) felt sorry for him.  His contemporaries had Clios, Fiestas, the odd 205 and Novas - and he had to park his Mk2 Escort around the corner to avoid getting RINSED by his mates.  
Nowadays, he'd be everyone's hero.
Same with Cortinas.  Our caretaker had a brace of MK5 Cortinas and by 1999 I remember marvelling at them in the school playground thinking 'Fucking hell they look shit nowadays'.  They were both 17 years old, my daily is now 25.  
Crazy how things change so quickly.
Anyway, enough bumbling of the insane - well bought @HMC

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.

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 .

We here’s progress so far, I contacted a friend with a printer who was happy to print me one using that link kindly provide by @N Dentressangle obviously not perfect but I’m more than happy with it for the time being, we’ve just got to figure out if the print material used can stand up to chrome dipping or if spray paint is the way forward, I’ve also ordered one of these from this eBay seller, just a replica but again it doesn’t bother too much as it still looks the part, it’s going to be a while before it shows up though 

How did they get it off?!
I thought they were really firmly attached underneath?
Cut it? Lucky no damage?
Really 'old money' folk take the mascots off anyway and put their own on.
'Old Bill' was popular with military types. Thought valuable now.

Find something cheap and cheerful of your own to put back?
If you are leaving it out I'd remove the hubcaps too. 
Sorry to hear about this. Total idiots.
The market for these nicked RR badges has to be miniscule - bet it turns up somewhere.

What a shitty thing to do.
Hope the Karma Police give them a good lesson on how to use the station stairs

So operation tidy the Rolie Polie has started, first with these new plates, not a huge thing but I was growing increasingly annoyed with how faded the old ones were, not slagging off HMC at all as they still looked infinitely better than the black and silver ones but I still couldn’t stand the faded look 
 
I got them from here if anyone’s interested, https://www.classicplatesonline.co.uk/plates.asp?gad_source=1  
they do great repro plates, they even do repros of the original raised digit plates but at 120 odd pounds I couldn’t justify it at the moment so these pressed plates will have to do, next port of call is to give it a really good detail and polish as looking at the paint whilst it’s not the best finish it should come up really good, that’s tomorrows job 

They are reproductions I had made of the original plates which I still have- they were just looking a bit tatty and were letting the car down, but these are 100% identical.
Thanks for all the kind comments.
Up until 2 years ago I worked as the Fiat/ Abarth specialist at my local Fiat dealer for 11 years, so most of the parts to rebuild it have been genuine Fiat, surprisingly hard to find, even with access to Fiat parts systems.
it spent a bit of time in the showroom too.
exploit yellow was the colour that Fiat did most of the early advertising with. My mum bought an exploit yellow 55sx (one up from base with black bumpers) in 1995 so I had to have one in this colour.
it also has a lot of very hard to find new old stock accessories, probably worth more than the car as a whole 🙈
headlamp protectors, mats, mud flap kit, boot liner, Philips 6 disc CD changer
I still have the original 14”steel wheels with correct brand new ELX trims, but you could spec Punto GT/ Sporting wheels as a cost option so I’m happy to run them.
its won a prize at the Scottish Italian car day last two years in a row- most people seem to be more impressed in a near 30 year old Punto than all the exotic Ferraris/ lamborghinis’s etc

hi there, thanks for having me.
This is my exploit yellow Punto 75elx that I have owned for 10 years, and have restored.
I love this car, enjoy the photos.
simon

Today's job was to fit a roof rack to a camper which had hit a bridge and crushed the rack and bent all the brackets, after welding new rails onto it and straightening out the brackets we got the rough smoker forklift out and immediately had to mess about with 'fork extensions' 

Tightened on and missing fasteners repatriated, and also we fitted our own design of fabricated pannier box carrier frames to the door along with relocating a ladder to the side and number plate and lights to the top of the door !

Having a look at the freight rover again, I decided to whip out the +0.5mm pistons to reuse in a seasoned 1.7 engine block as I feel the bores in this engine have suffered through an over heat, so I instructed the chief apprentice sister to whip the sump off and bop out the pistons so I could strip the 1.7 to a bare block and get the parts off to the rebore shop expeditiously 

Easy work for wor kidda who is a bloody fast learner at this sort of work 

i compared the crank to a B series but alas the bastard is different, I could have coverted a spare 1.7 to 2.0 without much effort if so !

this VW 2.0tdi which runs of three but feels like every cylinder has compression actually snapped off 2 of the exhaust rocker arms so it might be that with a set of new ones fitted that it might be OK however I dislike the idea of valves that have been forced up by the piston so will recommend a head rebuild at the very least.

Thankyou all, very kind uplifting words
So today's work has been in 2 stages 

This crafter is in for a mystery engine problem, it was bought by the owner stripped like it is with the engine unable to start, when attempted it basically just made like a knock sound every crank rotation and would just fire, so checking it manually I found all 4 cylinders felt like they had compression 1 maybe less than the others and the timing marks all made sense, so I kept persevering to which it did fire up and run on 3 seemingly

Next up today this bad lad, 2.0 petrol freight rover in the exact spec i wanted for a recovery truck, decent underneath too !

The convoy doors offend me greatly it had to be saidbso I'll have to swap those for some earlier jobs 

Chassis is all sweet so that's getting painted up ASAP and the cab will go BL blue I think 

Here's a wierd thing, the pistons stop short by 8mm which to me seems mad, its a 2.0 O series so has the 89mm stroke rather than the 75mm of the 1.7, the engine itself seems to have been bored out 20 over and maybe overheated a few times as the radiator is new as is a few ignition bits, it running terribly prompted me to take off the head as the carb settings and ignition timing seemed to make no difference to running at all !,,I might end up building a new 2.0 out of a 1.7 and reusing the oversize pistons !

Thankyou all for your kind words there's no doubt its going to be a stress fest but I'm relishing the challenge my sister has been the star really as I've basically thrown her right into the deep end with welding/fabricating and quite intense mechanical work without any sign of flagging so far, not bad for a former office based employee!
We're based at Derwent foundry, Whatstandwell DE4 5HG 
01629 818296
RRM Ltd facebook
RRM Ltd website

Pretty happy with that. Still damp so look patchy in photos but they’re clean and smell great. Chuffed as I thought I was going to have to get another set from the scrappy!

Second pass after spraying the seats with  liquid, drill brush attachment scrub then wet vac’d out. 
 
That’s just the base of the rear seat! Can’t wait to do the front seats at the weekend..

Bought a Vax spotwash machine partly for this and partly because Labrador in the house..
Ordered some drill brush attachments but in the meantime I decided to give one of the rear seat bases a quick pass over with just the machine. Not bad for a single going over!
(Patchy as it’s still damp)
 

Today I set about giving it a quick clean just to see what we’re working with really. 

Issues I’ve found so far:
Front end knock over bumps - advisory for drop link, pair of Febi’s ordered and due here tomorrow. 
 
Blower motor doesn’t sound very happy, sounds like it’s catching on something. Plan to remove it, check it, fix or replace.
Seats are hanging, they’ve had kids in the back and there’s all sorts spilt on them. I’ll either wet vac them or if I can find one being broken, I may even just replace all the seats.
Overall though I’m very happy. I honestly think just by washing and hoovering it and taking half decent pics I could advertise it now and double my money. 
 
The damage is a real shame as it’s a lovely car but it’s just not worth repairing. Touching it I think would make it look worse, probably best to just embrace it!

Collected it last night, stuck 3 hours insurance on it for £11 and made it the 30 min drive back from Norwich.
First impressions? Decent. Auto box is smooth, it runs/idles lovely, cabin is very basic but I look at this shape and see it as a brand new car still. £550 seems mental. 
 

This will be a short term project so going to start a thread rather than cluttering up my ‘Current long term car’ diary thread.
So, after the shit storm of Corsa B to roffle ownership it got me in the mood for another project after the bargain Volvo last year. 
 
Had a look on FB marketplace and stumbled across a 2010 new* shape Seat Ibiza. Pretty poor photos, unwashed, unhoovered, just a lazy effort but I could see potential. 
 
So what do we have on offer here? 
 
2010 ‘60 plate Seat Ibiza ‘Sport’
1.6 Pez, N/A, chain driven.  
7 speed DSG
ULEZ friendly 
134k with full stamped history from new, only missing this year as it’s due now.

MOT’d last month, runs until 19/03/2025
2 keys
Whats wrong with it? The main thing is NSR quarter, they scraped a post in a car park. Unrecorded. Air con isn’t very cold.
It was up for £750, I threw a cheeky £500 offer and they replied £600, we met at £550. 
Here are the advert photos:
 
 

My three toys (aka money pits), first time together.