beko1987

You're not wrong, but she has enjoyed a trip on the train.
Collection has been achieved - it's a cheap old bus but there is plenty of work to be done so , it needed to be really.

This bus is so shit even the windows are crying.
 

Shopping car? Not me guv.
My latest car was the envy of every rep that attended the 1988 National Double Glazing Sales & Installation Federation roadshow, which took place in a Crossroads style hotel somewhere in the east Midlands on a rainy Wednesday afternoon.

Sad day, my 480ES has been collected, but the number of £325 tax cars we have is excessive so some have to go.
It is staying on the forum, but I will let the new owner reveal himself.
Update:
@robinmasters has now revealed he was the buyer of the 480.

I'd say it could be. We could go round blowing the winter off the cars that would take such treatment and clearing drain holes/runs etc! Be easier than kicking my little nilfisk around with power and the generator 

Those carpets might be better done at the house with the pressure washer and vax like we did the rolls carpets on a sunny weekend! 
 
If you could mount a length of wood in the outside of the garage or the house we could use that to hang them up and wash them vertically! Or use the bonnet of the range rover

So the Caddy continues to deliver great service both as a cheap daily (cost me £1200.00 as it stands)  and as a load lugger and functional tool. 
 
Amazingly I saw it early, and bought by it mid October. 
Making it 6 months ago. 
So in doing basic man maths, (which usually includes insurance and fuel) the car as it stands on the driveway cost me £200.00 per month. If you include insurance pro-rated to 6 months and diesel it probably comes to an unscientific £250.00 per month. 
The longer and more  it works here, the cheaper it effectively becomes. 
 
So a tip run to dispose of my two lodger spare room double bed mattresses and two large TV’s, two TV stands, cardboard and polystyrene resulted in me scavenging out of the metal disposal bin (with permission, in the UK where I live, you can be prosecuted for removing a paperclip.) a small rotten kids size cast metal garden bench. 
 
Bench as seen and into the Caddy before I got rid of the mattresses. 
 

 
Back home I quickly unloaded my treasure and took stock of what I had. 
Hmmmmmmmm……?? 
 
Why do I do this every time? 
 


 
Coffee and a digestive, chat with a buddy, check email etc  
Then headed out to go play  
Disassembling with caution as its old and I really don’t like breaking stuff like this  
Also headed into my secret wood store to find some correct wood. Something the right thickness, texture etc  I love old bed frames, IKEA shelving  and such as its already planed, smooth and usually good quality, so the Caddy could pick those up when you drive by  
 


After preparing the wood I cleaned up the rest of the frame and proceeded with etch primer and then painted the parts  
Originally I had some dull blue to use but the can (was 50p years ago on an end of production sale)  kept failing  
I eventually switched to a can of burgundy, which actually turned out to be a good choice  
 


 
Overnight the paint dried nicely. 

So yesterday I continued with assembly 
And this was the loose assembly. 
 

 
And finally completed. 
Looking a lot better than 18 hours before. 
 

 
Stepping back, I noticed that there was more to do. 
 
So another piece of wood liberated from the store. 
 
My £20.00 bootfair router from a weekend away about 10 years ago came out, along with a sander Mickey threw out years ago. 
 
So I made and detailed a name plate for the grandkids. Sally’s, not mine. 
Harry is 5 years old and Alfie 9 months old. 
 
After a quick practice session I free handed the names. 
 


drilled holes in the sides just for detail  
Painted…….
 

 
And finally the 24 hour turn around  
If I were to value my time, this becomes an extremely expensive bench for a couple of kids that are not even related to me  
 

 
Delivered to Sallys place  
Now she wants one in adult size as well  
Looks great with the sand box I fixed last week  
 
Not sure what to do today  

 

Had a lovely day yesterday. Xsara took me to Birmingham to pick up a friend, then Wakefield to a vacuum cleaner collectors mini-meet at a place some of the northern lads rent out and use above a gym (literally the first time in my life I've ever 'been to a gym') 

Someone bought their early 1910's Hoover 103/5 (I can't remember), that was cool to see! 

Xsara smashed the lot at either 30, 50 or 80. Bar a couple of times the turbo didn't kick in occasionally it took the drive and the hellish journey back into brum at 7pm to drop my mate back off. 

Although over the years my fleet has included Aspen, LX, GLX, Si and Ghia models there are a few gaps that are triggering off my OCD. The fact that I've never owned a V6 isn't really that surprising due to my use case. After all, no sane driver would ever consider renting a V6 from me to do 50,000 mostly urban miles a year.
I never owned a Ghia X TD either. There's a logical reason for this though. If I wanted a Mondeo with leather seats I'd have just bought a set of hide seats from a salvage yard and fitted them to a lower spec car. Other than the leather trim the only bonus of having a Ghia X is having both sunroof and aircon as the Ghia X in TD spec didn't come with cruise control. 
The only saloons I owned were a couple of Aspens and one solitary GLX TD.
The biggest gap in my Mk1/2 CV is the fact that I've never owned, hired or rented out an estate. There's no logical reason for this as estate cars rent out easily. I've got nothing against estates. After all, I've had about half a dozen Mk4 estates, it's just that no estate appeared when I was Mondeo shopping.

Oh wow, I've done hundreds of deliveries down to the Airbus/GKN site at Filton over the years and seen this many times outside one of the stores.

I'd believe the advert story to be true, it very rarely seemed to move and often looked a bit unloved, but it always looked straight and tidy underneath the dirt. I mentioned to the lads in the stores to give me a shout if they ever found out it was being let go, that went well for me! To be fair I've not worked since November last year so it would be a bit unfair to moan at them.
 

Back in the yard now. 1030 miles over the weekend with the trailer. I’ve still got 20 miles to get back home but I’m leaving everything as it is until tomorrow and I’ll just take one of the vans home for tonight. 
 

I turned it round on the trailer for weight distribution but it caused another issue that I thought might happen.
The wind got under the pop up roof and lifted the rear end of it. I had to stop on the hard shoulder and lower it again and even though I thought I’d locked it down it came up again within a couple of miles.
I managed to get a couple of small camloc straps tied round the inside roof mechanism and through seatbelt buckle which kept it in place the rest of the way back. 
Will have a good look round it next week and decide on my next move. 
if I keep it then I’ve some better seats to replace what I think are Rover SD1 ones. 
There are many more jobs that need doing first but it’s always nice to change something to make you feel a bit better, 

Loaded and about to head north. 
 

Happy to bring the petrol pressure washer along to a future FoD gathering (or on request) if it's useful.  

Had a lovely day yesterday. Xsara took me to Birmingham to pick up a friend, then Wakefield to a vacuum cleaner collectors mini-meet at a place some of the northern lads rent out and use above a gym (literally the first time in my life I've ever 'been to a gym') 

Someone bought their early 1910's Hoover 103/5 (I can't remember), that was cool to see! 

Xsara smashed the lot at either 30, 50 or 80. Bar a couple of times the turbo didn't kick in occasionally it took the drive and the hellish journey back into brum at 7pm to drop my mate back off. 

Had a lovely day yesterday. Xsara took me to Birmingham to pick up a friend, then Wakefield to a vacuum cleaner collectors mini-meet at a place some of the northern lads rent out and use above a gym (literally the first time in my life I've ever 'been to a gym') 

Someone bought their early 1910's Hoover 103/5 (I can't remember), that was cool to see! 

Xsara smashed the lot at either 30, 50 or 80. Bar a couple of times the turbo didn't kick in occasionally it took the drive and the hellish journey back into brum at 7pm to drop my mate back off. 

You drove many miles to a vacuum cleaner meet? That sucks!!

Had a lovely day yesterday. Xsara took me to Birmingham to pick up a friend, then Wakefield to a vacuum cleaner collectors mini-meet at a place some of the northern lads rent out and use above a gym (literally the first time in my life I've ever 'been to a gym') 

Someone bought their early 1910's Hoover 103/5 (I can't remember), that was cool to see! 

Xsara smashed the lot at either 30, 50 or 80. Bar a couple of times the turbo didn't kick in occasionally it took the drive and the hellish journey back into brum at 7pm to drop my mate back off. 

Pah I did that for shitefest_Scotland in a £150 laguna 2! And slept in it, and it jump started a green goddess
My balls are bigger than his... 

Had a lovely day yesterday. Xsara took me to Birmingham to pick up a friend, then Wakefield to a vacuum cleaner collectors mini-meet at a place some of the northern lads rent out and use above a gym (literally the first time in my life I've ever 'been to a gym') 

Someone bought their early 1910's Hoover 103/5 (I can't remember), that was cool to see! 

Xsara smashed the lot at either 30, 50 or 80. Bar a couple of times the turbo didn't kick in occasionally it took the drive and the hellish journey back into brum at 7pm to drop my mate back off. 

The Royale had a 2.8 — the facelift ones had a choice of 2.5 or 3.0, by which time they were all Vauxhall Senators and the Royale badge was reserved for a burger with cheese.
The 3.0E Opel probably was worth the extra, tbh, but to me the Royale was better looking with its chunky bumper overriders and neater rear end treatment (fnarr).  The facelift ones are even more handsome of course.
Have a couple of bonus pics of my Royale.

Will give that a try.  I definitely wouldn't be throwing the original one out anyway given I know a lot of people are very particular about originality on these cars, so it would always have been kept in a box in case someone wanted to use it for something later.  
 
Actually had a bit of a hiccup in the Trabant couple of days back.  Was about a mile from home, came to a stop at a junction and found it bogged down when I applied throttle.  Was able to coax things back into motion by adding choke, suggesting to me a fuelling issue.  I immediately headed for home (which thankfully was mostly downhill so little engine power was needed) keeping the revs kept as low as possible.  Knowing how quickly a lean condition can become catastrophic in an air cooled two stroke, this wasn't something I was taking chances with.  Car was parked up and I grabbed the Partner to continue the tasks I was heading out for.  I was working around other appointments at the time so didn't have time to immediately investigate.
Later on I checked the screen in the fuel outlet at the tank (pretty clean), and confirmed there was good fuel flow to the carb.  Next step was to pull the cover off the float bowl (which you can *just* do in situ), to confirm the needle and seat were working properly and to see if there was any crud in there.  
There was a little bit of sediment in the bottom of the bowl but nothing particularly major.  What I don't know (and this does make me kind of wish I'd pulled the carb) was whether there was possibly a bit of water in there as that could definitely have explained it prior to me cleaning it out.
With everything put back together normal service appears to have been resumed.  I do need to actually look up a proper diagram for this carb anyway as I'd really like to turn the idle speed up a touch, it  has always felt like it's a little on the slow side.  Especially if you've got the lights on.
Today I had another crack at changing the gearbox oil.  I jacked the car up a bit this time to give me better access to the drain plug, and was successful in getting it removed this time.
What came out both looked and smelled like absolutely ancient EP90.  Which given that the correct HLP68 fluid is a light golden colour isn't great.  Definitely well overdue a change either way.  A little bit of swarf on the drain plug magnet, but nothing I'd not expect and certainly no chunks.


Area around the filler was cleaned up to ensure no chunks of anything fell in during refilling.

I really do need to go to town on this thing with the degreaser and pressure washer one day as the entire power plant of this car is a greasy slime ball at the moment.  This is pretty common for these cars, but I'd like to get it all clean at least once so I've got half a chance to see where any new leaks are coming from in case they do need attention.
Getting to the gearbox filler required me to remove both the hot and cold air ducts for the heater to make access easy as it's otherwise a bit buried.

Have only been fora brief run out today, but it definitely feels like the gear change is cleaner, changing down into second in particular it feels like the sycro is having an easier time of things.  Is it any quieter?  Maybe?  Still sounds like a tumble drier full of marbles at idle, but I get the impression that's not exactly unexpected.