Joey spud

Walking past a near neighbours house yesterday and they were having a clear out with a hippo bag full or random crap on their drive. In front of the bag was this jack and a couple of bits of copper pipe.
Obviously I couldn't let what looked like a perfectly good 2 tonne jack go for scrap so asked if I could take it away. They said yeah no worries but beware as it creeps down after a few minutes.
So I carried it home (a bit of a faff with two fuck wit Beagles in tow) and gave it a once over/top up and last night lifted Boris the Morris up with it no problem.
In my old RAC days when you were taken off road for your vans annual safety inspection the H+S guy would test your service jack by lifting your van with it then having a fag break. If your van was still in the air after his break then it was deamed to be ok. So if you let your jack down while he wasn't looking it failed and you were told to scrap it and get a new one from Brown Brothers/Taskmaster (most patrols always had at least a couple of 'spare' jacks at home).
This morning the Minor is still in the air so it looks like I've acquired a nice dinky little jack that takes up hardly any boot space.

 

It's still not perfect but it's a great GROCERY GREATER and STATION SHUTTLE. Park anywhere, don't worry about it, worth nowt, let every seagull shit on it, no worries* motoring. 
Its nippy enough, comfortable enough at 74mph, small enough to fit anywhere, and isn't really even that cramped inside for a 6ft4 22stone travesty of a pilot. 
It's returning low to mid 40s mpg on mixed driving and costs nowt£ in tax and insurance. Lowest group on insurance and tax is about 2$ per month. 
ECCONOMYICAL
 

 

 
Still stuff to iron out, foibles-wise. 
Idles a bit high randomly, still misses a bit sometimes and has cut out randomly twice.  I'll keep piling the miles on and keep picking away at it where funds allow. 
 

I love these Pandas. There's one round the corner from me in that bright blue that I ogle enviously.
I've noticed Sainsbury's sell the perfect colour matched paint for yours, handy for touch ups:

Have some pics from various famous* local* landmarks and from general pottering. 
 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 
 
 

If you can't get away with posting loads of old Minors on Saint Georges day then when can you...

Swing a ding!
After a bit time today lugging stuff about ready for collection , i spent the remainder of the afternoon stripping the brakes off this ready to clean up and rebuild with new pistons

Seal Kit with new stainless pistons from the bigg guys.

Stripped appart, Degrease, Cleaned up with the knotwheel on the angle grinder and painted with weld through primer. Its high zinc so holds up okay ish, thin and fast drying which is key as i wanted to spend no more than 5 or so hours on these.  Turns out id picked up a can of the copper based too in my last order so embraced it. 

2 fiat fondle.

On the last look over id noted a duff wheel cylinder, the drums are original and pretty well worn now given the cars miles.  new drums, shoes and cylinders ordered in, forgot a fitting kit tho. 
Bosch are actually cheapest for these as they are the OEM manufacturer.

The back plates were very crusty so i unbolted the wheel bearing, and the back plates got taken off and hit with the knot wheel. The axle was given a quick go over with the  needle scaler and then wire brush before a splash of shultz. Im not a fan of this stuff but it has a place.

Having done the KA2 previously in this thread id already experienced the seized union on the brake pipe so just went straight to making two new pipes and cut the old ones off. Id like to have done a neater job but i was getting pushed for time today after doing the doblo and VP this morning.

Back plates bolted on and pipe installed.

Shoes and adjusters fitted. 

New drums on and a tweakof the  handbrake. All seems okay, ill paint the drums next time ive got the car on the lift. Finished around 10pm and dropped the car back. 

 

https://www.carandclassic.com/car/C1617002 

Back in 1983 and such easier times.
This place is still going strong today.
 

Not many, because pre digital and all that - here's when I bought it from an ad in the Sporting Escorts owners club magazine

The whole reason I bought this one was because my parents had an identical T-reg (local FN registered) from 1980-until the mid 90's

As mentioned before, when dad sold it, I kept the Serck plates, which to this day are in the shed

Makes my heart glad when people knock moderns on the head and go back to old cars. If its not 20 years + old or more, then you are just driving a modern to my eyes.
I remember my drama teacher having 2 successive Scirocco's when i was at school - I liked them so much better than anything else VW ever made  

After my Mito was condemned due to rust, I decided to go old skool for its replacement - 50 mile drive home - goes spot on. Forgot the pez shot sorry 😎

Walking past a near neighbours house yesterday and they were having a clear out with a hippo bag full or random crap on their drive. In front of the bag was this jack and a couple of bits of copper pipe.
Obviously I couldn't let what looked like a perfectly good 2 tonne jack go for scrap so asked if I could take it away. They said yeah no worries but beware as it creeps down after a few minutes.
So I carried it home (a bit of a faff with two fuck wit Beagles in tow) and gave it a once over/top up and last night lifted Boris the Morris up with it no problem.
In my old RAC days when you were taken off road for your vans annual safety inspection the H+S guy would test your service jack by lifting your van with it then having a fag break. If your van was still in the air after his break then it was deamed to be ok. So if you let your jack down while he wasn't looking it failed and you were told to scrap it and get a new one from Brown Brothers/Taskmaster (most patrols always had at least a couple of 'spare' jacks at home).
This morning the Minor is still in the air so it looks like I've acquired a nice dinky little jack that takes up hardly any boot space.

 

This image gave me a wry smile.

Back in 1983 and such easier times.
This place is still going strong today.
 

Back in 1983 and such easier times.
This place is still going strong today.
 

Bizarrely, it is how the Model 70s were transported...
 

Hello together,
this is the state of work regarding my Invacar...HEV109H...it is not a long way to the goal now.

On Facebook I have also shared a Video with running engine...

Best regrads from Germany
Stefan

Back in 1983 and such easier times.
This place is still going strong today.
 

No. They are absolutely mental and total poo bandits they spend all their time when out on a lead seeking out Cat (especially cat),Rabbit,Horse even Unicorn cack.
I love these hounds but they are totally driven by excrement.

Back in 1983 and such easier times.
This place is still going strong today.
 

Why is it some people have zero problem with some brands and others always have issues?
I have never had anything ever problematic with Hondas. Just get in and drive. VAG mostly the same - despite others always having issues with them. 
For me it's BMWs. Whether hire car or ownership, they always seem to want to try my patience.
Last night I filled up the tank with petrol in expectation of using it today. On getting back the right hand indicator started flashing rapidly. But the front/side/back were all lit?

Well it turns out these have two indicator bulbs in the front headlights. I'm sure there is a BMW indicator joke in there somewhere.

Annoyingly they use a weird bulb that very little else uses. H21W. Ended up picking one up for a fiver in Halfords. 
Fitting is through the wheel arch with a flap you can just about remove on full lock. Then a Philips to unlock the bulb holder.

Today I set off and went to the in-laws. As a way to persuade me to go, we took the Z4 and planned to go to Avebury. While taking the scenic route along the A4, I decided to push my luck and detoured at Atwell Wilson Museum instead. It happened to be drive it day today, so they had plenty of visitors. I'll do a separate post of that in a moment with photos I took.
Anyway back to the Zed which got to the in-laws fine.

The way back we went down the A34, along the A303, past larkhill and through Wiltshire/BANES back home. Along the A34 I had the Emissions light ping up. 
Also noticed that left corners gave a worbling brake noise. Pull up the handbrake would stop this for a bit. So I'm pretty sure something in the handbrake shoe/cable mechanism is sticking. Tbh the handbrake always has been a bit mushy and doesn't hold the car great. 
I hate dealing with shoe handbrakes on the driveway, so probably throw it at a garage to be sorted. Probably needs a clean up, adjustment and maybe a few parts replacing.
We got home fine and covered 187 miles. All in I've probably covered nearly 500 miles since I've owned it. Not bad considering its spent a week on axle stands. 😅 
Still, I came back to Engine light, bulb out light and dodgy brakes. BMWs seem to hate me.

In better news, it's indicating 36mpg. Which if true then is stonkingly good for a 6cyl. That's a mix of motorway, fast a-road and some b-roads.
Also the blower fan has been well behaved the whole time. So far it's just had cleaned up contacts and all put back together. I don't expect it to last as is. I plan to remove it again and hard wire it by soldering directly to the contacts on the hedgehog resistor pack. But I know that resistor pack is good and I can do it in confidence that it's very unlikely to need removing again.
 
What gave that light?

Hmm. Google suggests its often an intake pipe splitting. I pulled it out and it looked fine. 2017 date code.


What this does have is the pipe that goes to the firewall to parse on engine noise. It makes the 6cyl roar louder. While quite nice, it gets bloody painful at 5k+ rpm. This usually is only fitted to the 2.5 and 3.0. Almost certain it's been retrofitted on this. The clamp to the intake hose is Pearl which is definitely not OE BMW!
You can see the box just under the brace bar.


 
This has a diaphragm in it so it's not a direct connection between the interior and intake. Otherwise unmetered air would get in. 
This isn't completely air sealed when sucking. Some air can get in. You do really have to suck though.

I'm wondering if this might be causing the code. I am tempted to remove this as it's a bit too annoying. Probably better on the bigger engines as you'd rev through it much quicker than this.
While I was there, I removed the throttle body and gave it a clean. I've seen much worse but it was dirty enough to make it worthwhile. Bit of a PIA to remove. Not TFSI awkward but still fiddly. Took me a good 20mins to remove and similar to put back in. An annoying bracket is in the way that was a fight to get past.

After

 
I've cleared the codes for now and I'll have to see if they come back. The front lambda I can see and it doesn't look that old. I need to check the paperwork and see if a decent brand was fitted. If it comes back, I'll do some more investigation. My suspicion is a vac leak somewhere.