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vulgalour

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  1. Like
    vulgalour reacted to Zelandeth in Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - 25/03 - Trabant back in action...   
    I'll take that!  
    Tester was actually very complimentary of the state of the car underneath.  
  2. Like
    vulgalour reacted to Zelandeth in Zel's Motoring Adventures...Peugeot, Renault, Rover, Trabant, Invacar & A Sinclair C5 - 25/03 - Trabant back in action...   
    Today was mostly spent waiting for a landscaper who never turned up.  Being essentially unable to leave the house and not feeling I could get really stuck into any big tasks, I picked away at a few small ones.  
    Firstly was doing a bit of tidying in the garage.  You can't really see much for it, but the mountain of stuff on and behind TPA has really shrunk a lot.  She was pretty well buried before!  Most of this accumulated when I was doing the head work on the Rover.

    Still some stuff under the car, but the engine cover is clear now, meaning I was able to hook up the battery charger.  Hopefully actually get her out again sometime in the next few weeks.
    Actually putting a lot of that lot away will happen once I've backed TPA out of the garage.  Trying to get to where anything lives is just such a pain with the car there - which is why I wound up creating such a mountain of crap there in the first place.
    Still no sign of the landscaper, so I moved on to Trabant tinkering.  
    Given she's in for the MOT tomorrow I wanted to make sure everything obvious was checked and do a little cleaning and tidying.
    I did find we had one brake light out so got that changed.  Everything else checked out.
    The windscreen wipers were still parking in a slightly odd spot, so I tweaked the position of the arm on the spindle which has fixed that.  I also did a little more contortion to tighten up the last two nuts holding the motor onto the bulkhead, so that's securely fastened in place and no longer makes annoying clicking noises each time the wipers change direction.
    I grabbed the vacuum cleaner and gave the interior another quick going over.  It wasn't too bad, but I'd tracked in a fair amount of dead leaves, plus there was the usual omnipresent layer of dog hair, despite neither of them ever having been near the car.  Bit better now.

    This bit of loose trim in the rear of the cabin was bugging me.

    Obviously missing trim clips there which I duly replaced.  I bought like 40 of these and think I'm down to about half a dozen left now.

    Not perfect, still a bit floppy towards the back seat because the panel is water damaged, but it's a lot better.

    I then set about trying to remove some of the plethora of oily fingerprints which the car is basically covered in.   The paint had a lot of ingrained dirt everywhere too.

    Things escalated.  I started polishing things - as that ended up being the most effective solution for removing it.  Safe to say this definitely makes a difference!

    These cars never had a high gloss paint finish even from the factory - it's kind of halfway between an eggshell and gloss finish.  It's cleaning up pretty well all things considered, and is looking a lot better where I've gone over it.

    Amusing looking at the side photo in that the car is a completely different colour now.  It's definitely shifted from "off white" to properly beige.
    Started raining after I'd wrapped up.  Imagine it's been a while since the paint did this.

    This car is never going to be a show winner, and I'm not putting tens of hours into polishing every millimetre, but I'd like it to at least look cared for.
    To that end I'd really like to do something permanent regarding the crack in the front of the bonnet.  Which because of where it is is a bit tricky.  Might be easier to just get another bonnet and have it properly prepped and painted.
    Oh, look what I found thanks to a member of the owner's club.

    The paint on it is absolutely knackered, but I didn't see any cracks or large chunks missing at a quick glance.  It was free though so I wasn't going to quibble over it either way.  I'll take a closer look at that sometime in the near future.
    What will the MOT bring?  We'll have to wait and see.  Rust is my biggest concern - I really haven't had a really good dig around the whole underside, so quite likely there could be rot under there I've not spotted.
    The Partner is booked in to a garage to have whichever wheel bearing is making a noise sorted on Tuesday, so hopefully that will be sorted soon.  Though we will then the following week have the fun of getting that through an MOT - which *hopefully* shouldn't be too painful.
  3. Like
    vulgalour got a reaction from egg in The new news 24 thread   
    Didn't take long to appear in this FB group again.  Might be time for some passive aggressive "As seen on Cars You Don't See Anymore" stickers.

     
  4. Like
    vulgalour got a reaction from HillmanImp in The new news 24 thread   
    Didn't take long to appear in this FB group again.  Might be time for some passive aggressive "As seen on Cars You Don't See Anymore" stickers.

     
  5. Like
    vulgalour got a reaction from CaptainBoom in What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread   
    One of my biggest stresses about moving back up north was the cost of just stuff in general.  I don't have the best relationship with money, I'd rather it didn't exist and I dislike having to strive to acquire a certain amount of it every week but until a better alternative arrives I suppose I'll just have to tolerate it.  Anyway, one of my big fears was just being able to afford enough food to be healthy because I've been used to Kent prices.  Kent prices, it turns out, are actually insane.  Being able to eat healthily and within my budget is kind of a big deal for me.  Also, next month I'm checking out the local gym since my old one doesn't have a location up here and if it's as good as it looks on paper, that's going to be half the price for the same equipment and better opening hours (it's a 24/7 one, which I wasn't expecting outside of a big city).
    This week has felt much more stable.  Routines are re-establishing themselves and a lot of my fears of going back into rented accomodation haven't been realised which in turn is helping me stay more focused and productive with work.  Makes it a lot easier to stay positive about things.
  6. Like
    vulgalour got a reaction from Morris 63 in The new news 24 thread   
    Didn't take long to appear in this FB group again.  Might be time for some passive aggressive "As seen on Cars You Don't See Anymore" stickers.

     
  7. Like
    vulgalour got a reaction from grogee in The new news 24 thread   
    Didn't take long to appear in this FB group again.  Might be time for some passive aggressive "As seen on Cars You Don't See Anymore" stickers.

     
  8. Thanks
    vulgalour reacted to stuboy in The new news 24 thread   
    I piped up in ur defence.. if u recognised the name from my user name on here..lol 
  9. Haha
    vulgalour got a reaction from Dan302 in 1980 Austin Princess   
    Be sure to say hi if you see me and totally confuse the heck out of me when I've no idea who you are
  10. Like
    vulgalour reacted to Asimo in 1980 Austin Princess   
    I think you might consider some simple (non-varifocal) lenses just for driving. These will be the cheapest of lenses. Might be worth asking about anti-reflection coatings designed to aid dark-driving.
    Except when you are driving in dark conditions (away from roadside lighting and oncoming traffic) the headlights of the car that you are driving are unlikely to be the root of the problem.
    Old windscreens, especially those at shallow angles, are buggers to see through against oncoming light because of the thousands of little diffracting scratches they have acquired over the years. Additionally, the further away from your face the windscreen is, the more the state of that windscreen affects your view.  
    (Try a new 'screen in a Landrover Defender or real VW Beetle at night: flat piece of glass, near to your face.  Compared to something old and slopey at arms-length: like night and day. Literally.  God help anyone commuting a 44 year old Cybertruck through the suburbs on a rainy night...)
  11. Like
    vulgalour got a reaction from High Jetter in 1980 Austin Princess   
    Drove to a little social thing tonight - it was good, will go again - and it wasn't fully dark on the drive out so all was fine.  On the drive back it was fully dark and it wasn't as fine.  Oncoming traffic up here has a lot less LED nonsense, there's still quite a few yellowy halogens out there which is nice.  However, the bright-dark street lighting plays havoc with my night time depth perception, another flaw of LED lighting.  Also, while I can see where I'm going, I can't see very well.  I stuck main beam on for a bit to see if it made a difference and it did... also nobody flashed me at all which kind of told me all I need to know about the brightness or lack thereof of my headlights.
    The two take aways from this is that I probably need some non-photochromatic night time driving specs and to upgrade my headlights significantly.  I already knew this of course.  What is money if not for spending?
  12. Like
    vulgalour got a reaction from RayMK in 1980 Austin Princess   
    Did a tip run in the Princess.  You can get a decent amount of stuff in it even though it's a saloon.  Still haven't washed it, had the weather for it today and I just don't have the brain for it so it can stay dirty a bit longer.
  13. Like
    vulgalour got a reaction from Richard_FM in Pink   
    I should really stick this in here I suppose...

    ...as a bishop once said.
  14. Like
    vulgalour got a reaction from Richard_FM in Pink   
    Barbara Cartland, what a singular individual.
  15. Like
    vulgalour reacted to egg in eBay tat volume 3.   
    For the Wedgister @vulgalour
    https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/954897472281867/


  16. Like
    vulgalour got a reaction from MiniMinorMk3 in Pink   
    I should really stick this in here I suppose...

    ...as a bishop once said.
  17. Haha
    vulgalour got a reaction from DSdriver in eBay tat volume 3.   
    That was the trip where Cabbage learned the instrument binnacle is always lit in a BX even when the headlights are off, which is why he was finding it hard to see where he was going on the way to the fuel station.  BX headlights can be bad but not *that* bad.
  18. Like
    vulgalour reacted to bunglebus in Pink   
  19. Like
    vulgalour reacted to mat777 in Pink   
    This lives near me, the matching house and car always makes me wonder just how good/bad the decor is inside!

  20. Like
    vulgalour reacted to bunglebus in Pink   
  21. Like
    vulgalour got a reaction from Datsuncog in The Wedgister - Princess and Ambassador Records   
    Hello and welcome to this weird little nook of the forum.  Great to see someone else enjoying a wedge in their own way.  I've just moved house so I've not had chance to get back into updating the info on the website yet, I'm planning to get working on it over the next couple of weeks.  Any data is free to use, I've just been collating what I can find that's out there really and trying to put it into one spot.  Eventually, everything I have will be here: https://www.angyl.co.uk/work/wedgister as a hub for all the info collected.  My survivors list is probably out of date as things stand, I know a couple have surfaced recently and are back on the road, and a couple have died.
    Mine is now my daily and only transport and I've got plans to do some improvements on her once the dust has settled here.  Definitely not one for the purists and I've no plans to return it to stock, I love what its become over the years and I'm looking forward to where it goes in the future.  I just use mine exactly as BL intended, as a car.  Here we were today at the tip earlier today, proving they are practical even if they don't have the Ambassador's hatch.

    Did you take over from Kev?  Or am I thinking of the other Princess/Ambassador club?  It got very People's Front of Judea when I was trying to figure out which club to join and now I'm not a member of any.
  22. Like
    vulgalour got a reaction from Rust Collector in What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread   
    One of my biggest stresses about moving back up north was the cost of just stuff in general.  I don't have the best relationship with money, I'd rather it didn't exist and I dislike having to strive to acquire a certain amount of it every week but until a better alternative arrives I suppose I'll just have to tolerate it.  Anyway, one of my big fears was just being able to afford enough food to be healthy because I've been used to Kent prices.  Kent prices, it turns out, are actually insane.  Being able to eat healthily and within my budget is kind of a big deal for me.  Also, next month I'm checking out the local gym since my old one doesn't have a location up here and if it's as good as it looks on paper, that's going to be half the price for the same equipment and better opening hours (it's a 24/7 one, which I wasn't expecting outside of a big city).
    This week has felt much more stable.  Routines are re-establishing themselves and a lot of my fears of going back into rented accomodation haven't been realised which in turn is helping me stay more focused and productive with work.  Makes it a lot easier to stay positive about things.
  23. Like
    vulgalour got a reaction from bunglebus in The Wedgister - Princess and Ambassador Records   
    Hello and welcome to this weird little nook of the forum.  Great to see someone else enjoying a wedge in their own way.  I've just moved house so I've not had chance to get back into updating the info on the website yet, I'm planning to get working on it over the next couple of weeks.  Any data is free to use, I've just been collating what I can find that's out there really and trying to put it into one spot.  Eventually, everything I have will be here: https://www.angyl.co.uk/work/wedgister as a hub for all the info collected.  My survivors list is probably out of date as things stand, I know a couple have surfaced recently and are back on the road, and a couple have died.
    Mine is now my daily and only transport and I've got plans to do some improvements on her once the dust has settled here.  Definitely not one for the purists and I've no plans to return it to stock, I love what its become over the years and I'm looking forward to where it goes in the future.  I just use mine exactly as BL intended, as a car.  Here we were today at the tip earlier today, proving they are practical even if they don't have the Ambassador's hatch.

    Did you take over from Kev?  Or am I thinking of the other Princess/Ambassador club?  It got very People's Front of Judea when I was trying to figure out which club to join and now I'm not a member of any.
  24. Haha
    vulgalour got a reaction from Cavcraft in eBay tat volume 3.   
    That was the trip where Cabbage learned the instrument binnacle is always lit in a BX even when the headlights are off, which is why he was finding it hard to see where he was going on the way to the fuel station.  BX headlights can be bad but not *that* bad.
  25. Haha
    vulgalour got a reaction from Lacquer Peel in eBay tat volume 3.   
    That was the trip where Cabbage learned the instrument binnacle is always lit in a BX even when the headlights are off, which is why he was finding it hard to see where he was going on the way to the fuel station.  BX headlights can be bad but not *that* bad.
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