RobT

Sorting out 2 years of backlog of spotting photos.
Some time in early 2022 my eldest decided sleeping beyond 5am was not an option. We took to pounding the mean streets of Cardiff in the early morning.


























 
 
These were in Chepstow, near a friend's place:


 
And these were spotted on repeated visits to a friend in Godalming:

Abandoned brown Proton Perdana to win this page of the thread. 
 

So… the story is thus. Having had a desire for a Saab ‘vert since my last one, once the Nova was condemned to a mass weldathon I knew I wasn’t the man to do it. So an agreement was made to sell, meaning I had the money saved plus the sale cost burning a hole in my pocket. My intention was to buy a nice 900 or 9-3 convertible… or maybe another MX5 or maybe something else.
What I actually ended up buying was a cheap 9-3 which needs a little attention… 
I actually looked at two on the same day, one which was purportedly in very good condition and well cared for. It was rough, and had DMF rattle… no thanks. Then we went to look at the cheap one on Anglesey because it was within an hour and we like a day out to the island. Turns out this one too was a little cosmetically challenged… but the old lady who had owned it for a number of years was charming and knocked the price down further when we discovered the roof was not working… MrsB is a pretty good judge of these things and was very much in favour. So we did a deal for less than half of the asking price of the first one we looked at.


As mentioned, the main issues are in-op roof. Now this was working before winter, so the fuse seems a good bet. If not for the price I might either get it repaired or just use it manually.
Other bits are mainly cosmetic, the front bumper has taken a clack, and someone appears to have broken in on the past, so the passenger door has some quirks. 

Broken glass under the seats shows recent break in attempt. 

Nod to its flying heritage! 
 
However, despite all these minor things, it drives spot on, pulls well and is very very smooth… if I can get the roof working it will really have been a good deal! 

Saab 900 was loaded with small humans and the A55 traversed: 
The journey has included: 
Tunnels

Distant castles 
 

Bridges

And prettier bridges

In an interesting factoid I have bought a car of this brand and body type before. Also from Anglesey. On that trip I stopped to check over the car ten minutes into the journey… in a car park about 20 seconds away from where I have picked this one up from. 

Nothing to see here!
Just an old Volvo estate doing what comes natural. A new wooden 6 seater garden table with chairs plus umbrella base, they looked a bit lost in there. The table is for the FoD and don't worry we have raised our standards as they were from Freecycle!

Yesterday the opportunity arose to get the Royale back out of its muddy puddle where it had been sitting since the crane needed the space in the yard.
Today I have started to think about what I need to get it running and there does not seem much missing on the face of it. HT leads, petrol pipe, vacuum pipe and an alternator. @Slowsilverstarted to help me get the ignition system back up and running at the end of last year before the weather closed us down.
Unfortunately the hinge pin for the bonnet cable plastic pull tab release seems to have broken so that's another job.

Hi,
I’ve been aware of the brown forum for many years, but generally hung around on another well known blue hued forum, sort of on and off anyway. Most of my ‘fleet’ (if you can call a collection of long term broken cars that) is probably more at home on here but my most recent car tinkering finally pushed me over the line to sign up on here.
Ya see I’ve been spending a bit of time recently poking and tinkering with the longest standing, many years abandoned, heaps in my collection and I suspect this is the only place I might scrape some interest in what is basically a hopeless cause. Said heaps have been abandoned rotting on my drive for 17 and 19yrs respectively, but the house where they languish is going on the market soon so their existence hangs precariously in the ballence. Friends and family have been telling me to scrap them for about a decade now so their calls are almost deafeningly loud now. It would certainly be the sensible thing to do.
For reasons beyond common sense I want to move them to my current house which means making them mobile again. I mean ‘mobile’ as in I can load them onto a trailer and preferably drive them up my short but annoyingly steep driveway, not as in make them ready for the road. 
Anyway, so what do you make of these two beauties?



Artefact 1 - The gold one - 1989 1.3 XL special equipment
This was my first car, bought by a much younger self circa 1999. I saved up the £600 by working weekends in Burger King while doing my A levels. It was well used and abused until 2005, but it’s been parked up ever since. It was retired as a fully functional car on 109k miles, I just replaced it (with a 34k miles 1.3 mk6 Escort I bought as Cat D salvage and returned to the roads). It donated its windscreen to the blue one around 2009 after vandalism so it’s been open to the elements for a while too, it’s become home to some ferns growing in the carpet.
Artefact 2 - The blue one - 1987 1.3 GR Profile
This was my mates car for a year but he donated it to me when the MOT ran out, in 2007 according to the MOT history. The original idea was to fix this one up using the gold one for spares. After a couple of years ignoring it I did drag it to an MOT test in 2010 which it failed due to much more rampant rust than I had given it credit for, it’s sat ever since.
So what ya thinking of doing with them I hear you say! Well, the gold one has probably (though not certainly) had it’s day as a regular 309, but I’m sentimental about it and have a very harebrained idea for it in the back of my mind. It might never happen but I want to hold on to the possibility, so the goal is to just move it and sling a car cover over it. The blue one however is calling out to live once more, I want to get it back on the road. I’m better skilled to weld it back up now than I was back then, and once the old house is gone I should be blessed with more time and lower outgoings which should help. I just kinda fancy fixing it up a bit, I want to feel the mighty power of the Simca rattle box engine and savour the rolly polly handling on skinny tyres once more. But firstly I just need to move it so I can achieve priority no1 which is to get the old house up for sale.
There you go lots of waffle, I’ll post about where I’m up to and what I’ve got stuck on soon, if anyone cares.
-Steve-

This is not what you think!
Yes we have had delivered a 1979 Mercedes 450SLC to the FoD, but it is not ours. It belongs to Colin from the Milton Keynes Classic Car Club and he has just bought it. The car has been stood for 10 years unused. The engine turns over and the car does not look very rusty so the aim is to get it running and driving. The plan is Colin will join us 20/21 April for the FoD event.

At the end of last week the Morris 1300 came to the top of the list at my favourite garage and the steering rack bush has been fitted.
The other job it was in for was replacement of the heater matrix. It turns out the used matrix I bought was slightly thicker than the original and the inlet/return pipes were further apart so it would not fit in the case. While the original heater matrix was disconnected there was not obvious evidence of a leak so I took it to Kempston Radiators to have it checked properly. I await news.......

corvette c3 car parts | eBay

 

Its older cousin had been performing faultlessly. It even has a functioning aftermarket alarm system that you can see in the front window…

MGF progress 
After a pump up (i had a hand pump that i got off e bay years ago) it now sits at the spec ride height. So much more comfortable, presumably it was skittering about almost on its bump stops.  
I was a bit worried the shit ride quality was also blown displacers, but is now manages to be both sporty and a lot more supple.
 

 

Bought this last week as something to do.  It came with half a tank of pez so have a viaduct shot instead.

1.2 HLX with working City mode.  Paint is thoroughly knackered but it drives fine, and will do as a stop gap whilst I sort the Xedos out come MoT time next month.  I initially thought the tow bar was for trailer tip runs, but the seller used it to occasionally shift his MG Midget about.

In other news I bought this recently, not my ideal choice of motor but second hand cars are somewhat limited here in Gibraltar and this has been well kept.    Very little choice of nice 15-20 year old stuff here.  It’s mostly death traps that haven’t been MOT’d since last millennium or nearly new Mercs and Range Rovers for eleventy million pounds, only for it to be scraped and dented before you get the thing a mile up the road.   So this tank was acquired, starting to quite like it and very practical for going shopping over in Spain (when our Spanish neighbours let us through the border) 

I posted in my Safrane thread, but I forgot on here 🙄 
It's only a small patch required on the nearside sill and the spring mounting is the cup that the spring sits in on the shock absorber, so just a new shock needed no welding. Looking through the extensive history of the car these are still the original shocks! Who says french cars are tat????

Went out for a drive in The Forest this morning and the whole area is as waterlogged as I've ever seen it. No chance of taking the dog off the major paths and even some of those were impassable. On the plus side , the place was deserted. We had one of the New Forests major car parks entirely to ourselves at 9 o'clock on a bank holiday morning which is unheard of.

Used the Carina E for some daily driver duties this week, found a 1996 friend:
It did well, apart from an unexpected FTP - went to a work meeting, came out and it wouldn't start. I'd left the lights on, silly boy. Luckily one of the friendly engineers there had a jump pack.
Ideally I should get the door switch for the interior lights working again, then I might have had a lights-on warning chime....
Although Mrs SL prefers the Lexus RX in terms of comfort she did concede that the radio in the Carina E sounds better to her. I recall @Alan Prost saying similar in comparison to his other half's more modern MINI.
In other fleet news, poor planning on my part means that all three of the other cars are going into garages for work this month. RX is going to the main dealer for a scheduled service (major one, so that won't be cheap), and I have both the LS400 and Laurel booked-in for service/MoTs on consecutive days next week......

6 hours in the Saab today. Amazing how comfortable and capable this 27 year old car is. Handled the whole journey there and back with ease, and I didn’t get in any way uncomfortable until I got stuck in a bit of traffic on the very last 15 minute to home and my clutch leg got tired. It’s true what they say about Saab’s legendary comfort! 
 
However, normally I see at least a few retro cars out and about. Today, the only other car from the 90s (or earlier) I saw was a K Reg Polo…. 

Bollocks

1980s office car park vibes. 
Head of accounts parked next to the company director. 

Today has been spent working on a friend's white Rover.  Another friend was here helping and arrived in his red Rover.  The Princess was just there to provide moral support and tools.

First show of the year at our local harbour. They're usually very yank tank heavy but this one had representation from our local historic vehicles club. A few pics for those who may be interested:

This is the setting sun giving long shadows on the A19 between Middlesbrough and Sunderland at 5:30pm on the 30th September 2012.