phil_lihp

Awesome Fiat 127

 
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363780067884?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=AVqIVeM9R1W&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=y9xs1hiVQ9O&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Can you even imagine a time when people wanted a small car that was simple, unpretentious and didn’t put image above everything else?
Seems inconceivable now

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/403572626921?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=1inxqdjyq7m&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=y9xs1hiVQ9O&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

480 went in for MOT today with zero prep. I had it done a few months early as our baby is due just before expiry. Crossed fingers I wouldn’t have to add more jobs to my expanding list of jobs and the wonderful old thing passed! Usually they need handbrake adjustment every year.

C6 tomorrow… I ‘m pretty confident in that doing the same. 

My favourite quote of the day, make do and mend at its best.  Excellent bit of resourcefulness, every time I see a thread like this it reminds me that I should learn to weld.  

ROVER 216 GTI 1 OWNER FROM NEW. | eBay

In my opinion this shape looks better without the chrome grill

T Reg 75

Early Legacy

Kizashi!
 
 

Yes - I had to do this with my Transit when I discovered it was rated at 4500kg.
I highly recommend SV Tech - http://www.svtech.co.uk/our-services/downplating/ - they will, for £120 +VAT, handle the process, provide you with help, info and relevant paperwork and provide you with a new VIN plate to put alongside the old one.  There is a way to do it yourself I believe but for the amount of confusion and hassle involved, I thought it was money very well spent and I was able to be confident it was 100% correctly done as well.
Excellent work on this as always!

My favourite quote of the day, make do and mend at its best.  Excellent bit of resourcefulness, every time I see a thread like this it reminds me that I should learn to weld.  

The weldathon continues - booked to go to France in this on the 23rd April, so pressure's on!
This patch was horrible, up inside the strut turret. Not really enough room for my head, the welding helmet and the torch in the turret and very uncomfortable welding in such a confined space:

All of this work is in the O/S inner wheelarch area. This is a reinforcing place beefing up the area where the engine mount is attached on the other side. Started off like this:

Reinforcing plate off - no bueno:

Chopped out, new metal in:

Reinforcing plate sandblasted at work and plug welded back in:

Then started to rebuild the jacking point/outrigger area - ended up having to replace the bottom section of that repair as well, thought I'd be able to get away with just a patch on the front. At least it's 1.2mm steel so a bit nicer to weld:

Finally got this piece in, which was a bastard to make but I feel like I'm getting marginally quicker at doing stuff like this with funny curves/folds:

I'll be glad to see the back of this wheelarch, it's taken up way more time than I thought. Just a bit more needed to finish the jacking point area, then a few more fairly straightforward flat-ish sections in the arch before I move onto the sill.

Round 2 of get the BX out ready to take for MOT took place yesterday afternoon. Once again @slowsilver was harnessed to help and did his tight squeezing into a car trick and then got the BX to breath in to get it out!
The only issue was my new rechargeable tyre pump was saying the pressure not attached to a tyre was 50+ psi and would not add air to an obviously low tyre. This morning it is reading 0 psi at rest again.
The number plates are a treat for @LightBulbFun  The BX was pre registered by Citroen UK and retains it's original number plates from Sep 1992.

I'd like to officially announce that spring has sprung. The FSO is out of storage as of yesterday.
And it's just as horrible as I remembered it. ❤️






One of my images seems to get flipped on upload. Odd.
 

As this got so much interest on the News 24 thread i thought I'd start it's own one.
During the week a friend of mine messaged me to ask if i knew if anyone in our car club was interested in a Mk1 Astra, he had meet them at Morrisons whilst in his 1940's Austin and they told him about the car that they had since new in the garage but due to old age and poor health it had to go, naturally i jumped at the chance even though i needed another car to a hole in the head.
I popped round and meet them yesterday and learnt the story behind it, whilst staying in a hotel called the Albemarle Hotel in Scarborough in 1982 the receptionist asked if he fancied entering a competition to win a Vauxhall Astra, he filled it in, had a lovely family holiday and forgot all about it. 3 weeks later he gets a call telling him that he had won, he couldn't even remember entering! So they drove back to Scarborough from Ipswich again to collect their prize.

He said the photo was in the Scarborough newspaper and the Ipswich Evening Star, he was so proud that he felt he couldn't ever sell it! Just lovely, obviously i took this opportunity to recreate this photo today!

Such a lovely family, the car hasn't ran for a few years so the battery was flat but my small jump pack and some easy start soon got it firing into life, out of the garage and onto dad's trailer.


It was at this point that it dropped it's water contents! this was the first time i'd seen the car outside and i had already paid for it and if I'm honest i was a little disappointed as the paintwork is a little patchy, i think it's had new wings and the colour match is piss poor and its had some arch repairs that aren't particularly painted well, but for a 40 year old Astra i probably should have expected that.


To be fair it's pretty good really, we found the reason that it lost it's water was because the stat was solid with crystallised anti freeze and so was the water pump so I'll get them replaced.

Shame about the zebartted engine bay but that's what has saved the car. It's only done 53000 miles, only 10000 of them was in the last 22 years!

The interior is really good apart from the dash trim that's popped out, unfortunately the radio doesn't work and the aerial needs fitting but that's no biggy.


and the very rare saloon boot!

Some assorted photos from across the times:

A photo of a photo, terrible quality. Dyson sponsor Bath Rugby and every year they get tickets to watch them play at Twickenham. Andrew James had the contract for their travel at the time, however he doesn't have enough vehicles to transfer the couple of thousand of people from Hullavington to Twickenham. Enter Alexcars, Rover European and Ellisons! Left to Right are ACH 69A, YT60 OTA, ACH 80A, ODW 459, 516 ACH and AH16 ACH. All bar 69A and OTA were execs and because they were without an on board bog we had to make a comfort stop at Reading Services. 69A was driven by my colleague Colin, who was only ever recruited to do school contracts so was a bit out of his depth. So it was a case of "follow me, stick to my ass like glue and don't lose me" sort of journey. Of course, the delay in stopping meant we hit the traffic and only just arrived in time for the start of the match. Still, to see coaches from all the local operators was a sight to behold. Last year Andrew James lost the Dyson contract to Turners of Bristol (a company I have also worked for and will share some photos of in due course) and both Alexcars and Rover European are no more. Ellisons are still operating though.

SCZ 6104 and 516 ACH parked outside the County Ground in Swindon. Not much to say, other than I'm surprised they both still had their wheels given they were left unattended for a whole hour...

Random shot from within the workshop. To the left was one of the Bedford OBs we had. I didn't have much to do with them purely on the basis that if I worked a weekend shift in one of those it would've been a wedding that only paid 4 hours, as opposed to the day trip to London which was a good 10-12 hour day. 

DH66 ACH. A 22 seat EVM minibus based on a Mercedes Sprinter. Good and sprightly to drive, not so great for passenger comfort. Seats are cramped and narrow (2+1 set up with 4 across the back row) but for corporate shuttles it did the job. No luggage space whatsoever though, so an absolute nightmare when doing a school sports and no room for their gear... Last I checked this ended up with Cymru Coaches. This was taken at Cotswold Airport on some corporate Christmas function.

Another yard shot. Y10 RAD. Scania Irizar, but this one had a preselect manual gearbox. 55 seats and holier than Jesus when raining. Went like the clappers and ended up being exported to Zimbabwe. I drove it on a morning school run then bombed it from Ciren to Tilbury Docks with my colleague trying to keep up behind in the VW Transporter behind. We made it back in time for afternoon schools. That one worked right up until the very end. I did a final check for belongings before I handed it over at the docks and found one of the kid's mobile phones. He's very lucky I found that, otherwise it'd have been a long walk to pick it up!

Final shot of it before it was handed over. Just behind it was the man marking the battery isolators with the white pen!
PO16 HTT was a midi coach we had on hire. MAN with Mobipeople bodywork. Same set up as the Iveco Indcars, sit so far forward and on top of the engine. I used this on a 3 day tour of London with the primary school. Nicknamed the burger van. Wasn't all that bad to drive really but by no means the definition of luxury. I think it's since had a PSVAR conversion, no idea where it is now. Glad to see the back of that one. 

Another one bought brand new. BH16 ACH. Yutong TC9, I don't know much about it but it had 32 seats, a toilet and charging points (The only vehicle on fleet to have them). Like the aforementioned Tourino, this was a busy vehicle and was rarely in the yard. Seen here at a steam railway somewhere, possibly in the Midlands? 
 
I think that'll do for now. I hope some of these posts were of interest, I shall dig out some more photos soon from my other employers (including a rather nice OB and some snaps from my brief trip to Shetland!)

When did you last see a Vento?
 

Nice Fiesta

Kind of

I bet these actually go alright with the 1.6 Zetec in them.
 
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/867881121280199

Not one but two Seat Marbellas.

https://www.leboncoin.fr/voitures/2124838780.htm
MAGNIFIQUE et RARE Renault 21 2.0 TXI 140cv du 17/12/1992 ,série spéciale "Olympiques 92" produite pour les jeux Olympiques d'hiver d'Alberville en 1992 . !!!!!! SERIE PRODUITE A SEULEMENT 300 EXEMPLAIRES !!!!!!
 
 

I've been offered a car today, apparently a 1 owner from new, he won it on holiday in 1982 in Scarborough whist staying at a hotel, he's owned it ever since but is now 81 and is too scared to drive it  but I must say the body work is mint. I'm not sure what it's worth or if I really have room for it? .





 

1989 Blue Austin Maestro 1.6 L 5dr for sale for £2,100 in ILFORD, REDBRIDGE (autotrader.co.uk)

 

1984 Green Austin Metro 1.0 City 3dr for sale for £495 in SLOUGH, BERKSHIRE (autotrader.co.uk)

https://www.leboncoin.fr/voitures/2117477362.htm
 

I know exactly where that is! When I made the book it wasn't quite dilapidated enough to be featured, but this one is very close and is a belter - https://www.motorpunk.co.uk/out-and-about/abandoned-ladaprotonperodua-dealership/