DodgyBastard

Spent all day looking at potential cars for my parents after selling their 2008 Audi A3 last night to a dodgy trader. Their criteria for a car was something small, basic, petrol, 5 doors and cheap to run. I went to look at a K11 Micra this morning, then a 1998 Toyota Starlet but didn't buy them. I felt like I had seen everything gumtree and marketplace had to offer when this slightly older A3 Quattro turned up 5 minutes walk from their house. I had a go in it and it seemed to drive fine so just bought it. My Mrs seemed to like it so has taken ownership and lent my parents her Camry until they can find something suitable.

Reminds me of my old 240, wish I'd kept it.

Thinking about buying a cortina estate, I was picking up a spare wheel for my 504 from a local 504 owner and he had a bunch of other cars hanging around including a Granada estate, Amazon estate, MK2 Capri and a couple of 504 pickups. He mentioned having a cortina he was thinking about selling and I had a quick look. I like the look of it so thinking I should sell the Estelle and buy it.

For the oil change I'd recommend parking over a drain to catch all of the oil but be careful not to drop the sump plug in there.

Watched the video, looks like it needs a good long run down the motorway to free things off.

There's an Invacar for sale close to me, I was tempted to buy it and do some real life safety tests with it. Might need a dustpan and brush to tidy up the debris. I would find it incredibly interesting to see how it would fare against a modern car ploughing through it...

I think they did them in blue and white. Mine is supposed to be a more orangey colour but it's been resprayed red.

Toys

Managed to get a flat tyre yesterday, turns out it was running an inner tube in the flat tyre and also in the spare, I removed the tyre and spotted some corrosion next to the valve hole so gave it a wire wheeling, paint and a coat of bead sealer. I went to fit a new valve and the diameter of the valve hole was too big, I'd never encountered wider valves before and was concerned that the wider hole was from corrosion. There doesn't seem to be any alternative wheels in the same 5x140 stud pattern apart from some trailer tyres which tend to be smaller than the 15" wheels fitted to the 504 so finding replacement wheels might be tricky. I went to my local engineering supplies and as far as they were aware they didn't stock anything wider than standard but they found a Transit valve which looked to be wider than standard so I bought a couple of them. The transit type valve seemed to do the trick, I fitted it and the tyre and it seemed to be holding air. I'll check again tomorrow then see about ordering some new tyres.

Not sure how I managed to gain the reputation of having obscure commercial vehicles being sold for bargain prices. It highly unlikely you'd find either of these in a roadworthy condition for less than £2k these days. Anyway, 504 passed its MOT and is going well at the moment.

Mot passed on the 504!

It was in a quarry which had a few scrap cars dumped around it near fort William.

I'm quite happy with the fail list.

Mot time! It's definitely going to fail.

504 booked in for its MOT tomorrow... Oh, what's that? The wheel cylinder which had recently been replaced is burst. I spent a bit of time on the 504 this week, I replaced all of the v belts and fitted a brand new radiator. Hopefully tomorrow's mot fail isn't too extensive...