dome

I can't find it 😭 My Saab 9000 Aero expired on the way up Glencoe many years ago whilst on a gentle* drive up to Fort William. Somewhere on a hard drive I have a rather fetching picture of it abandoned in a layby awaiting recovery.

This picture makes me grin.

Lovely idea but I'd go LS400 engine and box for a bit more modernity.

Easy one this Opel Manta, coupe of course 400 kit because I'm a certified rally bobble hat Modern running gear from say an mx5 for a bit more poke and reliability, maybe with a capacity increase, 2.5 sounds good. Modernised inside to make it useable and comfortable for long distances with Bluetooth/DAB. Handily just such a beast exists just now👌

Bugger, it'll need the front bumper off to fix that

His English is better than yours😘

Thanks, they're the guys that converted my S4 originally. There's a guy in Kirkcaldy who helped me with the Rangey, I'll try him first as he's more local.

You absolute legend. I've no space which will make avoiding the temptation when it come up for sale a bit easier. You should do a Harry Metcalfe and drive it to the Arctic. https://youtu.be/VIdNcbsgOiM?si=LWPz4xC6myyWwSIJ Or pretend you're the Sheik from Cannonball Run. You just need a set of Cibies, an aerial and the outfit...

Heep gained an extra 6 cylinders today. Fits perfectly! That's handy. Southbound and down today. Tradition, old charter etc... And the engine has been delivered here. Seems like it's came to the right place. They'll strip it down and tell me what it'll take to make it right. They guessed a dropped liner from my description of what happened. I suspected this too, I'm keen to see if it's one of the 2 liners that had been replaced previously though... Slight drama with the Jeep, the lpg system developed a leak as I arrived at Hartech. I did the right thing and left the lpg system off til i got onto the motorway (it seemed to only leaked when being used but I wasn't sure) and then ran it til it was empty. Then had the pleasure of if filling it up with petrol for the journey home 😳

There's no signs of bodgery, it's more just the general condition of the engine and fasteners. We had a few seized bolts and it generally doesn't look great for an engine that was rebuilt 5 years and 7k miles ago. To be fair however those 7k miles were in the north of Scotland and there were no undertrays fitted to the car when I got it which won't have helped.

Speaking of 911s i needed to get the engine stripped down and ready to go off for a rebuild. In case folk wonder how the other half live, here's how us 911 owners like to work on our engines If you look really closely you can definitely* see signs of the £10k rebuild 5 years ago... It's stripped down and ready to go to Hartech in Bolton later this week. Eep

I finally got the Jeep back together. I really struggled to get the new brake line installed, it ended up with me fucking the threads in the first one I bought and having to buy another 😭 Turns out it needs sae flare and not the other kind. Every day's a school day and all that. It's now sorted and has new lines from about the drivers seat back. The place that rebuilt the diff had point out a seized UJ on the propshaft. I toyed with the idea of a second hand prop but decided to get a new joint fitted. Same day service from a local place, can't argue with that! Naw it isnae. After some gentle* persuasion I managed to get my other half to go to the trouble of sitting in the drivers seat and pressing the brake pedal so I could bleed it. All done and back on it's wheels for the first time in well over a month. Stance is about right for one of these, they always sit slightly higher at the rear. It's driving a lot better now, thank fook! I'll soon sort the stance out when I shove the 911 engine in the back to go for its rebuild...

After taking far too long to replace all rear suspension arms, springs, shocks, calipers and some brake lines this thing is finally back on the road and driving much better 👌

An L322 with good tires and healthy suspension will laugh at this sort of weather. I can't think of much else I'd rather weather a storm in.

Excellent choice sir! Hopefully the weather improves. I'm just outside Dunfermline (about 20 miles south of Gleneagles, your last stop?) and the weather can be best described as fucking gash. The winds at least should drop as the day goes on. Good luck, and keep us posted on progress!

If you haven't already then download the Trailforks app, you're spoiled for choice where you are. I'd recommend Glassie Bike Park over by Aberfeldy, I love the trails there.

Looks ace. Furryboots are you? I've put my lights on to charge tonight for a dawn(0840 here) raid on Fife tomorrow morning

As in the ex Gerry Marshall Old Nail?😳

Came back to this to remind myself what I had to do. Made some progress as you can see but struggled with the brake lines-i had to replace a couple of unions and struggled to get the (copper) brake lines flared with my cheap brake pipe flaring tool on the car. Have sacked it off for the day and will get a loan of a decent tool so I can try again.

Sounds about right, Gentrys were effectively an auto 1.9 GTi with lots of toys. The french used to be good at luxury small cars, I forget what the posh Renault 5 was but I used to think they were lovely

These are ace. I had a 54k mile J reg 1.9 non sunroof at the turn of the century(!) Was an amazing car. A good one is a very special thing. Seen the Tolman restomod? It looks amazing but is a damn sight more expensive than yours! https://205gti-tolman-edition.com/

A pretty busy year for me this year. Out My Rangey. 2 1/2 years of joy with a sprinkling of trepidation. It never let me down though and was an amazing car to own. Would absolutely have another. As long as it had a supercharger. In and Out It's replacement, a 530d Msport An excellent mile muncher with one of the best diesel engines ever made, sadly flakey electrics and me reaching the end of my tether meant it was fucked off. Random purchase from a friend who was trading this in. Nowt exciting but it gave me something to do getting it through an MOT and made presentable. Tried it as a daily for a while but it was thoroughly uninspiring, as you'd expect. Sold on to be someone's first car. In and fucked Never meet your heroes. After looking at 6 I bought this one. The £10k engine rebuild gave me some confidence it might be a good one. It shat itself big time 2 months later. Engine is out and ready to go to a specialist in the new year. Expect to see this in the "out" column next year. In and still here. Bought after the BMW went and 911 shat itself as a palate cleanser. Has given me back the joys of fixing cars as it's pretty simple to work on. 4.7 V8 on LPG. Has had a lot spent on it but not necessarily in the right places. Busy making it better at the moment. And. Sensible* replacement for the BMW. Ex Kent police Focus ST estate. High miles but well looked after. 250bhp standard but it's been dyno'd at 280😳 No change. Kangoo I'll have had this for 4 years come February. Easily the longest I've had a car van on the road. Practical, fun (2.0 with 182 bhp) and as it's non standard it's good fun to mess around with. Hopefully will get a few more upgrades over the next year. Manta Still with @GingerNuttz who is doing an amazing job of building me my dream car. More updates in the new year on this.

Finally got a chance/could be arsed to start putting this back together. New balljoint fitted to the diff and new upper boomerang/stealth bomber fitted New lower arms fitted New springs and dampers fitted New caliper and disc fitted to the offside. It's all on and needs torqued up. Was a bit of a fight getting it all lined up but got there in the end - the axle has managed to move itself a few inches to the left so it took a bit of finagling to get the upper balljoint in. Still do do: Drop links and anti roll bar bushes. New rear pads which I forgot to order New brake pipe to be fitted to the rear Bleed brakes Torque everything up Take the propshaft off and see how seized it is as reported by the place that fixed the diff. There's a place fairly local that should be able to fix that. Fit new steering damper to the front.

Was marshalling at the RAC rally a couple of weekends ago. We were at a junction and the cars came past us, over a slight crest with a hill and powered downhill out of site of our locations 10 cars through and a mk1 Escort came through. The back end stepped out over the crest and then... Silence And then, 2 very loud bangs 😳 My friend, a trained mountain rescue type, went down to the car, finding it upside down in the middle of the stage. He helped the crew out and checked them over while I went up the stage to slow down oncoming rally cars. Next car along-Oliver Solberg who was leading and going absolutely flat out😳 The crew showed mild signs of shock but my mates 1st aid training kicked in and the guys were soon warm, fed and feeling better. The car was a tad worse for wear though... My friend Kev is a fellow Opel apologist and is working on the restoration of his Ascona rally car. He rallied it years ago but sold it 20 years ago. He bought it back about 5 years ago with it having sat unused since he sold it in all those years ago. We both couldn't help but notice the crew were sporting some rather fetching Opel bobble hats and we discovered we all shared a love for Opels-the Escorts navigator and owner was building a Kadett. Handy as his Escort was now banana shaped😳. The grin? Fast forward a week or so and to say thanks Kev and I received our own bobble hats in the post😍 Big shout out to Roy, owner of the Escort and boss of Ralloy engineering for putting a smile on the face of a pair of hopeless Opel nuts🙂 Hopefully we'll see the Kadett soon, but not as close as we did the Escort😳