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As you may know I have had this GT6 for several years now. It was my daily driver for a couple of years as was my GT6 before it. They really are one of my favourite cars. I prefer Imps in almost every way except the GT6s are nearly always more reliable. I had owned this GT6 for several years in my mid 20's after a rough break up with my missus and felt the need to be a flash bastard. Fantastic car in every way. I owned it for a couple of years but I moved up to Leeds and it did not have a garage so I punted it on and always regretted it. Several years and several cars later I noticed that the cost of GT6s were creeping up. Panicking slightly I went online to see if there were any I could buy quickly before they became too expensive for me. Most were going for about £3-4k but there was one in Lincolnshite going for £2,700. I kept trying to talk myself out of it (well, I say that) but a lass at work said 'ooh, thats nice' and as she is pretty fit, I thought fuck it, YOLO etc. I drove down to Lincs in the Scirocco that several of you will have seen last week at Shitefest as its now owned by Barefoot and had a look. It was tidy enough. It was pretty ropey compared to my old one TBH but was still worth the money considering the current prices. I took it for a spin and it drove okay. As I said in Moogs thread, the sills looked very suspect but they did not worry me too much as its on a chassis. So I paid a deposit and (think) I got the train down a few days later to pick it up - It was a while ago now. On the way back the car was GR12 except for the bonnet keeping coming up at speed. Every now and then the releases on the side would just let it pop up and the whole of the front of the car would start to raise up. This was simply sorted with some pliers on the catches to make the grip more tightly but caused a couple of scary moments. When I got home this is what I had: Anyhow, I had it for a year or so and it did me proud in good weather and in bad: Here is is with the rest of the cars I had at the time. Oddly, Volksy was round my house one day whilst I was welding his Volvo and he commented on the fact my car had been on Autoshite. I had obviously posted photos of it but he explained that someone else had randomly posted a pic of it and it was a different colour. A little investigation came up with this photo: HOW HOT IS THAT! Why would anyone change that colour to what it is now? The must be mad I thought. Anyhow, it was soon after this that my problems started and I started understanding how money worked and why someone would choose a cheaper colour to paint it. Firstly, as the longer serving members here know I did this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx22_M8Cym4&feature=kp Whoops! The damage was not too bad. The exhaust was ripped off and had to be reattached with the electric wire from the fence I had just gone through backwards, the rear bumper was bent, there was a dent in the backside, my seat had been ripped from its guides and I had ended up 3ft back with the fuel tank. All were pretty easily sorted. This however is not the reason its been off the road so long. The reason for that is that I bought a house. Basically I borrowed £36k for a deposit and the got a mortgage. Not all of it needed to be repaid (thanks Dad) but enough of it was to result in me being brassic. So I popped the GT6 in the garage at my new place: Not without a fight though. The ramp up the the garage was so steep, the GT6 grounded out getting in. Simple obstacle to sort though, I just leathered it up the drive breaking the bottom of the garage door frame with the exhaust as you will probably be able to see in the picture. From there the car just languished for several years pretty much acting as a shelf for all the shite I could fit on it whilst I sorted out the Sera, Daf & Lancia (amongst other cars I owned but they actually took some actual work): Interim shite: Here is a pic of a depressed looking GT6 locked away in the garage looking out at my other shite. last year I dragged the GT6 out to properly sort it and get it back on the road. Here it is on a short drive to the pub with the Lancia: The sills and strengtheners were pretty rotten: I had proper sills but was not forking money out on the inside so just used a few slices of metal: I then popped the sill on. (I wish I had taken more photos before I started this there are SO many gaps). I had to also weld up te rear NS arch and the rear OS floor and several other bits. There are still several bits to weld up on the car but there are not test fails (I don't think). Structurally its pretty good. I have since let out my house and moved in with the missus and work has recommenced on the GT6 in the last few weeks. Since it was laid up it developed some electrical problems. For the first time in about 10 years I took a car of mine to a garage to sort out rather than trying to lash it together with chewing gum and foil from fag packets etc. Sadly when I got it back its blowing fuses here there and everywhere. I rang them today and they said they will sort it so I wont name and shame them unless they do me over. They have a good rep though so think it will be okay. The overdrive also does not work anymore. Last time I used it, the overdrive was getting slower and slower to engage. Having never owned a car with overdrive before, I have no idea what this means. Do I need to replace it or is it something else? Is it an easy fix? Fook knows. However, getting it on the road is the priority so that I can then take it straight back off the road to do the cosmetic welding. I think I will update this thread as I go along.

well heres a short get up to date on my mk1 3 door sierra, my father bought me her as a project when i was 16 as he knew i wanted a 3 door and saw a small local advert in the local paper i knew absolutely nothing about it, we went to view and buy it on fathers day. she started life as a dog rough 1.6 base that was really only fit for scrap but we both saw something in it as it was fairly solid, the engine was screwed the running gear was in dire need of replacement, the interior was mismatched and eaten, the exhaust was a scaffold pole clamped to the front pipe with no brackets along the length of it, but somehow it had an m.o.t the best part of it was the guy had been driving like a knob and smacked the quarter panel into a lamp post smashing the bumper and rear window also pushing the quarter panel in as you can imagine, we pulled up at home with it and my mum nearly had a coronary she asked him what the hell he was playing at buying me a knackered deathtrap, the neighbors curtains were twitching because of the hellish noise of the car of it ticking over at 2000 rpm. i wasnt a big picture taker and have lost a lot over the years the earliest pictures i can find are these, which were taken after i had fixed the body damage and was fitting the sideskirts i put the mirrors safe in the shed when i took them off and my mum dumped them after i had done the mechanical and body work i sent it into the bodyshop for paint please excuse the monstrosity of a spoiler, for some reason i couldnt get a whaletail at the time and was being impatient for it to be painted so my mum bought me it as a gift as it was around the same size lol to be replaced by a whaletail when i got one this picture was taken the day it was back from the bodyshop i unfortunately had an accident in it involving a sprinter (not recorded), i cried like a girl when i looked at the damage because of all the graft i had done on it, then i lost heart with it and blew the engine, i then left it under a cover untouched for a while but couldnt bring myself to sell it for sentimental reasons, eventually i put new wings on it started rebuilding and buying things for her (my mate also gave it a flashover in between for me) , because i had a car anyway she became a labour of love so i only worked on her from time to time spending money where i could, i went through 4 different engines in different state of tune to what it has now which is a very hot pinto with a spec list as long as my arm which i have built, i have spent alot of cash on the spec of the whole car to get it where it is today. i have boosted my mojo for getting it finished so i can drive it again, over the past week i have done any welding it required, just a few parts to order then it can go into my mates bodyshop for paint the back arch and skirt was off in this pic due to me welding a sill back on bought these to boost my mojo to get her finished, they had to have a custom offset to fill my archs and clear my front brakes, but theres not any stretched tyres or camber going on here lol thats 13 years of blood sweat and tears compressed into a couple of paragraphs, i know a cosworth replica isnt really in the spirit of autoshite but i thought id share it, ill try to keep this updated and actually take pictures

I have had a bit of a hankering for van or pick up for a while. It started off with small and harmless stuff like an A35 van and progressed to more hardcore trucks like the A60 pick ups. The idea of a scruffy looking commercial that I could actually use for tip runs and just running around seemed fun. The idea didn’t really take hold until a few weeks ago when I was left home alone when Mrs Alf went away for a while to help our daughter with her new born baby. So there I was home alone with Ebay and alcohol. I know many others have been there.....the trouble I like way too many vehicles. If I ever get rich I will soon be poor. Mrs Alf kept in touch by phone and during one of these calls i mentioned i had bit on a truck and it didn’t seem to go down too badly. Well.........no swearing anyway so I took that as agreement So now the search started properly. I quite liked the 1946 to 52 Chevy half tonners and actually found one via Rods’n’ Sods but the fella was a bit greedy. From there it was a short (virtual trip) to ebay.com. It was here I got my first sight of the AK series from Chevy and I was smitten. I bid on a nice tatty one that was mechanically well sorted but it went for too much. And then I found this.......... A few emails were exchanged and shipping quotes checked –a very quick check with Junkman to get an idea of what to pay and the deed was done. Scarily easy......well so far anyway.It is due here about 5th November. Seems miles away right now and I can't bloody wait.

Greetings all. Since the w210 has departed I've had a fairly sizeable space on my drive. Never fear though, you're industrious Fife correspondent hasnt let things slide. Collection will be done this evening, all being well. Updates will follow...

Right... We've had a huge amount of lovely cars and many excellent write-ups on here lately. I find this completely unacceptable and I've decided to do something about it ! I therefore welcome you all to a blog dedicated to my "private scrapyard", as Mrs.Fraud affectionately* calls my collection of... erm... not-so-mainstream classics*. If you don't like awful cars, please move on - there's nothing to see here. But if you do, I'm sure that you'll find my struggle with poverty, hoarding and mechanical incompetence truly fascinating. So let's start... ​ ​ ​

Now that my 1969 Beetle 'Buzz' (kids named him) has finally passed his MOT I though I would do a build thread just to show what I have done. So rewind to 2009 hold on to your pineapples, roof racks and VAG hatred and ill treat you to many pictures and words. I have always wanted a Beetle from about the age 13 but never had the time or space to work on one or enjoy one. I bought Buzz off of Ebay and promptly got an MOT on him ready for the summer. I only used him a couple of times then I took him off the road to restore. This is how he was when I got him. As you can see it was a child of the 90's scene with horrid purple paint, smoothed dash and vile upholstery.

It's 7 o'clock on a Saturday morning and I'm standing at a bus stop. This means one thing, I am planning to return with another vehicle. This time it's further than I've been for a while and the vehicle is uglier than I've had before. I am off to Devon to collect the red Umm. Transportation number 1, bus.

Images fixed up to page 9 I bought a new car. I was after a two door without a sunroof and a petrol engine that was on the small side. This new car is only some of those things. 20150720-01 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr It was an extremely short notice thing. Chompy and I were browsing Gumtree and ringing buyers of cars who had sold their cheapy vehicles or had scrapped them and were just about to give up. Then we spotted this one for £275 with MoT until April next year (and a clean sheet with no advisories!). It was a 2 and a half hour drive away but we took the chance on it. The drive home was entirely uneventful. It might only be a 1.4 kettle but by crikey it's surprising. Did about 130 miles on under £20 of unleaded. 20150720-02 by Angyl Roper, on Flickr The bad bits are restricted to a weeping radiator, a bust electric mirror, finicky remote central locking, loads of lacquer peel and wheels that are jiggly at 65mph. It may also need tracking. There's evidence of K Seal in the expansion bottle but no evidence of OMGHGF and it's done 104,000 miles. The clutch drags a bit when you're doing less than 10mph so that will either need adjusting or replacing. To drive it's excellent, it feels like a forever car because it's such a great fit for me. I do like R8 Rovers and the saloon is the one shape I didn't think I'd get. I am VERY happy with it. Toys include: - electric tilt and slide sunroof - electric front windows - remote central locking (one door doesn't really work) - factory alarm immobiliser that does work, as I found out in the service station - Remote boot and fuel filler flap release - Adjustable steering column - Xplod CD player but the original Rover radio and code too, happily I'm looking forward to giving it the proper clean and showing you the car properly tomorrow. It's been a while since I got quite this excited about a purchase.

A for sale ad for a Micra caught my sons eye the other day,it had been parked up since 2012 and for some bizarre reason he thought it would be a good project to do over a "couple of week ends" and then move on for To be fair it cost very little and fits in the corner of the drive just fine and it helps mask the fact that the expensive 2pac paint job on my Subaru has also faded somewhat after sitting outside all winter. Considering it's been idle for 4 years it don't look too bad,it doesnt need any obvious welding but the paint is really awful. So the dead battery was put on charge for three days and it seems to have come back to life. The fuel gauge was showing half a tank and the oil / water were both present and correct so an attempt was made to start it. Well being typically japanese it genuinely started first turn of the key and after a couple of mins and a few blips of the throttle it came off its auto choke and sat quietly ticking over. The clutch is super light and bites half way up the pedal,even the brakes work well albeit dragging slightly. I was well impressed that this near thirty year old Datsun (i call all Nissans Datsuns it's an age thing i guess) was sitting there purring away on stale petrol after four years sitting idle when it promptly stopped dead and refused to fire up again. It had lost its spark and after removing the distibutor for a closer inspection the problem was clear to The springy bit had snapped on the points but i had an new set gathering dust in the back of my work van that fitted a treat and now the 988cc engine runs even sweeter. I can't see my sons optimistic "two week turn around" happening any time soon and selling it on once it's mot'd for a worth while profit seems remote when nice tidy ones are about for £700. But it's seems to be a happy little thing and so deserves getting back on the road again.

Hi all, new to the forum. Thought you might be interested in what I've got myself into I'd been after my first classic car for a while. If it's big and made in the 70s I'm interested. Looked at few things like P6s, Zodiacs, Victors, SD1s and various other things. Problem was I didn't want to spend a boatload of money on something that looked alright but underneath was actually a total heap. The solution was to buy a complete heap in the first place and spend the money fixing it. So in January I went ahead and bought this from a colleague at work who was moving away and needed to get shot of it. It's a part finished restoration (I prefer not started) and it needs a whole load of help if it's going to stand any chance of using a road again. Pros It's right up my street. Granada Coupes are quite odd and certainly stand out from the norm. It still has the original engine, box, interior and most trim. It came with loads of panels I need to repair it (mostly original Ford stock). It came with so many spares I could probably build a few Granadas and still have stuff left over. It was cheap. Cons Most of the front end has been cut off. Most of the body structure is quite rotten. It's going to take me ages. I work at a restoration company and my boss kindly allows me to keep the car there. So I've got access to all the gear I need to restore it. I've been busy on the car for a while now so will post more pics over the coming days. Cheers

Been looking for a project and finally got one, a Scabrous Saab 96. Excuse the shite photos. It was colleckshuned from a wet place (Wales) a friendly man with a Recovery van was pressganged.

Coalnotdole's Scimitar GTE: Fuel Injecting The Ford Essex I've spent the last two weeks working on the Scimitar, ok I'll be specific: The red GTE (as I do own three of the sodding things.) I've been considering starting a thread about it for a while but I'm no longer sure it really qualifies as autoshite enough...? After all Scimitars are sort of a bit desirable now... well ok, they are not as worthless as they used to be. I've never actually done a thread on the GTE as I had sort of thought it was mainstream and classic car like for the forum, Though it did make an appearance at shitefest 2015 and does feature occasionally in the news thread and has even made it into the calendar! So it is maybe at least a bit AS? Anyway I'll let the forum decide, If no ones interested I'll stick to posting about Rebels and SS1's. I can promise though that this thread will feature the following key elements: A Plastic Shooting brake form the early 70's. Spending far in excess of the value of the car on fixing / modifying it. A reckless disregard for the sensible use of money. The worst paint job in history* An engine tuned up by former Williams F1 engineer, Complicated Electronics that I don't fully understand, Fibreglass work and Welding, A daily diver that only a total masochist would bother with, An opportunity for it all to go spectacularly wrong... I should probably take the opportunity at this point to fill in some background history on the car. I bought it in 2010 as a non running project. I'd never owned an old* car before instead I generally drove end of life modern bangers all of which I'd driven into the ground (some of them literally.) I'd admired the Scimitar since I saw one decaying in a yard where my dad went to get his cars serviced, They slipped from my mind until one day I was in an abandoned foundry in Ipswich and came across a discarded book on cars ( I think it was Clarksons top 100 cars or something like that,) In amongst all the exotica was a Scimitar and suddenly I was reminded of that car I'd seen years before. A few months later my mk4 Astra terminally shit its gearbox and fuel pump in the space of a month, Pissed off with the disposable nature of modern cars I got thinking about the Scimitar. Surely a fibreglass bodied car with a solid chassis and an over engineered British V6 should be the Ideal car? It won't rot, should be reliable and any problems should be fixable with a piece of chewing gum and a bit of string... Naturally at this point I went on eBay and because I didnt know what I was doing (or looking at for that matter) I inevitably bought the worst Scimitar project available. The engine bay had been on fire and badly repaired with steel, the wiring loom was missing, The chassis needed a total overhaul, the suspension was fucked and the brakes only existed as parts in a bucket! Somehow with my mate Dave's assistance we managed to put it back together and against all the odds in 2011 It went back on the road and did become my everyday car. The GTE in 2011 It benefitted from rolling improvements and as an when I had spare cash bits were steadily enhanced to improve reliability. Generally, it was pretty good and fail to proceed incidents were rare enough, certainly rare enough for me to keep my job in any case. By Spring 2016 and suddenly there were a few clouds on the horizon the engine felt tired, it was down on power and had an unfortunate tendency to run hot. It was rough at Idle and Recently the oil pressure has seemed a bit low. In short I sort of suspected it was a bit fucked. (though it was still good enough to get me done for speeding on the M4 eariler in the year...) Here's a recent-ish picture of the car: The engine was the one that came with car when I bought it 6 years ago. Its not original to the car and I haven't done a huge amount to it in that time, save for fitting a set of unleaded heads with roller rockers (as the push fit studs kept pulling out.) and fit a steel timing gear. Its done quite a few miles since then. hard to put a figure on it as the odometer is a bit erratic, certainly more than 60,000 though. Not too bad for a random second hand engine. I'd always known the engine was going to need attention before long and I'd horded a decent amount of tuning bits, as well as 2 complete 3.1 Essex's. I had intended to put together a decent fast road oriented 3.1 but as a project it had more or less come to a halt at the parts acquisition stage. As I started getting the parts together to build up a new engine I found my focus creeping towards trying to get a touch more power out of the Essex. the figure of 185ish ft lb of torque with around 200hp appealed. This is a reasonable enough figure but to get there your probably going to have to change to either a Holley carb or a triple weber setup. My GTE's an everyday car rather than a weekend / track car so the concept of mid teens on the MPG was enough to get me to think twice about going down that route. A few years back I became aware of the Samcor EFI Essex and that begged the question was it possible to squeeze extra performance out of the Essex with fuel injection, with the additional benefits of modern electric control and reliability.... I did consider going down the alternate engine route but ruled it out in the end. Mainly because an alterative engine would have meant having the car off the road for too long while it was fitted. I've noticed that scimitar engine conversions appear to rumble on for years and very few actually result in a car thats actually in regular use. There are exceptions to that but It was enough to put me off an engine swap. Added to that I actually quite like the Essex... controversial I know! in my opinion it suits the car, the torque and power are usefully delivered and the gearing is pretty good. With the engine a long way back the weight distribution is not bad either. Reliant came up with neat enough arrangement in the engine bay, even finding room for the spare wheel. This tidy packaging solution is something that is often compromised once you start swapping engines. Add to this I much prefer the idea of enhancing the original concept rather than binning it off. So as well as acquiring spares for an engine rebuild I'd started planning an EFI conversion, I put out feelers to try and locate a Samcor EFI setup but, given how rare they are the chances of finding one of those seemed remote, so I'd decided to use a triple weber inlet manifold and triple Jenvy throttle bodies. These were to be fitted to a balanced 3.1 with a fast road cam. I even got as far as buying a megasquirt ECU and starting to think about trigger wheels when I came across an engine for sale which was very similar to the engine I was about to build. The engine for sale was a 3.2L Stage 4 Essex, which had done less than 2,000 miles since it was rebuilt. The seller had bought it from Specialised engines and was about to have it installed in his Capri, when he realised it was difficult to turn over. He sent it to another specialist who then rebuilt it a second time This time round The top end was sent to John Hoad , former Chief Technician at Williams F1. He reworked the heads and inlet manifold before the whole engine was put together and fitted to a Capri. The engine was installed and went in to Northampton motorsport for tuning its Triple Carbs. They suggested to the owner that It would run better on fuel injection and so they Fitted triple Jenvy throttle bodies with pico injectors running of a Omex 710 ECU at the end of last year. The entire setup was available complete which was important as on paper at least it should be a bolt on setup. Saving a vast amount of development time compared to building a new engine from scratch to a similar spec. Hence I found myself talking to the seller and was able to put a deal together to by the engine. In the process recklessly blowing the entire respray budget (and a bit more) on engine, fuel pumps, ECU, Loom, coil packs etc....! Here it is on the way home: Heres a few pictures once it was home on the stand… A rough outline of the work to fit this engine looks like this: Fuel Tank modifications, Fuel Pipe replacement, Installation of Fuel Pumps & filtering, Swap the engine to use a front bowl sump & timing gear, Baffle a front bowl sump, Fit the new engine, Installation of a stand alone wiring loom to connect engine / ECU / Coil packs and injectors, Find room in the engine bay for a fuel pressure regulator, coil packs, etc Connect it up and get it working!

Hi all i thought i would share this with everyone after my friend triplerich posted his granada coupe. i bought this about 2 years ago after selling my dolomite wanting something with a bigger engine. the person i bought this off collected various cars and had about 20 rover p6s on the same bit of land.when i first saw saw it looked bad it had been sat in grass up to the sills for about 4 years and had been of the road for 10. the drivers footwell was full of water and had moss growing on the carpet as well the in the boot. the headling was hanging down full of mold and mouse nests, but it started with a bit of petrol down the carbs and ran ok. so i went back about a week later bought it. the first pictures i took when it arrived home on trailer. it wasnt too bad the sills were soild and the floors looked good, it had some rust in the rear wheel tubs and the boot floor had some big holes in it but it was better than my dolomite. me and triplerich did some youtube videos of getting it ready for the road here is the link. it is now having a full restoration as my boss kindly let me have some space at work. thanks for looking Ryan.

Been a busy 6 months on my old Range Rover that I own 50/50 with Fathathastag Bit of background first.. We bought it March 2015 just as genuine early Range Rovers were starting to get noticed. Alas not early enough that we could have got it for a couple of hundred quid. The car had been owned for decades by a Land Rover enthusiast and this particular car retained a lot of features unique to pre 1973 Range Rovers. Sadly he died a few years back and the car was left outside the front of his house. I spotted it on eBay and arranged with the owners widow to view. There were no bids and my offer was good enough to take the auction off. The engine had been part way through a top end strip down when work stopped, I had no idea even if the car would move. But rented a trailer and relocated it from Watford to North Devon where fathathastag has a barn suitable for storage. The project is on the right, we towed it into the field and pushed it into the barn In May 2015 I got to do an assessment of the car. body wise most outer panels were ok, the inner wings looked ok, it clearly needed some work but was unsure how much at this point. main objective was to see if the engine was a runner. Found that the gearbox and axles were original to the car, but the engine was from an earlyish SD1 while the seat covers are not original some of the plastic kitkat seat coverings are underneath, the rear seat especially The head has some nasty corrosion very near the fire ring seal, When I refitted the head one of the bolts tore the thread out. bastard but not entirely uncommon with the alloy blocked RV8

I have an increasingly rare night off tonight, so I went out to have a prod around the 205 to remind myself what needs doing. It stills amazes me how utterly rust free it is, certainly the bits I can get at with it on the ground anyway. Minor grump about discovering the rear drivers side wheel has been rubbing on the inside, but I'll see to that in time. There's not much else to say right now, so have a photo of it before it was off the road! And another!

It seems like it's time to have a new thread dedicated to the on-going progress (or otherwise) of the Beige BX, without people having to trawl through pages of stuff about the original purchase. All that malarkey can be found here. The new thread will make it easier to change the title as required, too. For works completed to date in the old thread go here. Today's progress at SF17 was MEGA. Much work was carried out on the fuel system by Joe and many of the assembled Shiters; the fuelling problem finally being cracked when Joe fitted one of the Pleasure Wagon's clear fuel filters! There was a stuttering journey down the ramp... Fuel was added... and it ran! A quick ride round the campsite revealed that the spheres are completely shagged, as the suspension was entirely bereft of travel. On the plus side, there are two new spheres in the boot. Dead chuffed to see it run, and have a go at piloting it across the field, though It's headed back to Castle_Cleland after SF, after which we need to have a think about the best way to go from here.

I have had my 1 Series BMW on Scumtree this last week, it's been a difficult sell due to the mileage I think. It's got nearly 250k and no one seems to be up for a car with that mileage showing, even though it has extensive history and has been serviced every 10k in the last 6 years. I have a guy coming over to look at it tomorrow but he has a 2003 Cooper Bini. This might be a good little thing for Mrs T, what to look for and what goes wrong though. Any experience anyone? Thanks in advance!

Train tickets booked from a train station 30 miles away to save £9 on the recommendation of the Mrs Mrs booked and primed ready to drop me off at said train station. Mobile tool kit primed and ready, missing almost every vital component due to EU regulations about leccy tape and screwdrivers on trains (I left them all at my mums house yesterday). If I do break down, I should have something to listen to while I work out whether I'm with the AA or RAC or none of the above. Not pictured: pile of cash

Hope there is some interest on here for my old Slaaaag Bought it 2 April 1994 and have maintained a love / hate relationship since. Two engine rebuilds 2 and a half body restorations and much shenanigans in between. Story starts 1 April 1994 towards the end of an evening of light refreshments, consisting mainly of 20 Marboro Red and about 12 or so pints of Flowers Bitter, down at the Hogsmill Tavern in Ewell where I used to live. One of the lads was whinging about getting married and buying houses and raising money. He mentioned he had a Stag part restored which he didn’t really want to sell and I kind of said “yep i’ll have itâ€. To be honest I don’t actually recall saying that I would have it but he called me next morning in the midst of a thumping hangover to arrange a visit. I walked round to his house and he had it outside his garage. I checked it over and the body was sound but the mechanicals and interior had been loose fitted together. Here are some of his piccies of it as he bought it and then some of his body restoration stuff For some reason it ended up being test driven back to Ma and Pa thestags house, Ma was out but Pa looked over the car and nodded. He agreed it could be stored in his garage on two conditions; He be "allowed" to stump up half of the £4k asking price (complex financial support story for my Siblings) All mechanical oily work be done by a mechanic – the drive and garage were at this point littered with bits of Moggie Minors, 105E Anglias and P6 Rovers. How could I refuse, hands shook and Lloyd walked home happy while I wandered what the fuck had just happened. Here it is on that very day Note not only the complete lack of cars parked on the road but also the quality of mid 90s chod

As many of you might have read on the grin thread and my thread about yank headlights on Volvo 740's, I should have acquired myself this one. I've just got a few pics of said Volvo pre rescue as it sits. For those who don't know, it's an 88 740 estate in 2.3 auto GLE spec (my favourite!) which was owned by my sisters boyfriends grandad. He passed away this year and the cars just been sat unused since mid 2015. The family are clearing the property and I was told the Volvo and others were going to most likely go for scrap. I said I'd take the Volvo and asked for a price only to be told I could have it! The Wolseley 1300 apparently is already spoken for so hopefully that will be saved or at least donate some parts. The Volvo should become mine at some point but the caravan and Omega will probably get weighed in. So here are the few pics I have to go on. IMG_0331 by Dan Clark, on Flickr IMG_0332 by Dan Clark, on Flickr IMG_0329 by Dan Clark, on Flickr IMG_0333 by Dan Clark, on Flickr The Volvo looks ok from the little I can see and having run an MOT history check it seems a good one. It's a low miler at 90k and seems to of only done a couple of thousand miles between tests. Most of the fails seem to be for stupid stuff. So the plan at the moment will be to try to get it running and moving then try to get it back home. At the moment it's a 100 miles or so away. To be continued...

Few weeks ago I realised that I haven't done anything completely and utterly daft of late. Subconsciously I decided to act before I forget how to do stupid things. The thing arrived yesterday evening. As standard, when you get a project car from PBK, it comes with some surface rust and at least one panel prepared or in need of painting. Few things are missing still need sourcing and the whole thing recommissioning (I never thought I would use this word again in my life) Don't worry people, this project will never get finished so expect no further updates until it's back looking for new owner.

So to recap. After a painfully long time (well a month) I finally bought a MGB GT. I've always fancied one and after seeing one at a local garage (which turned out to be a bit shit) the urge sprang up again. Anyway after a lot of searching I ended up with this. Seems pretty straight and underneath don't appear to not been welded too much. Worst point that I've found in the leaf spring mount. I'm not going to cover all the different things and stuff just yet as its already in the thread, so I shouldn't make this too long! I've not owned a car this old and never something with a carburettor. So I don't quite know what I'm doing with a lot of this, and will have plenty of questions! Part of the reason why I bought it was so I had something that I could fiddle with and learn on. As the other thread got a bit long, I thought it would be a better idea to split and start here.

Part two of the replacement for the modern is being collected tonight! Not a very long collection, but it will lead me to my new piece of shite for commuting purposes because commuting in mrs_brownnova's KA was ruining my street cred and giving me backache. So what am I getting? It's got headlight wipers (a personal ambition of mine).... Comfy seats.... A big boot.... I've wanted one since the mid 90s.... ...and it isn't a Volvo. Place your bets!

I thought I'd start a thread for this as I'll probably end up asking all sorts of questions, given that this is my first 'proper' Citroën. So... the ground clearance lever won't go all the way to the highest setting (all others work), which is bad 'cos the book says I need it to do that in order to check the LHM level. It feels like something's seized, so I don't want to force it. Any ideas for a plan of attack would be much appreciated. Next up are the wheels. I now have a set of 205 pepperpots that have just gone off for powder coating & I need to get some tyres for them. The handbook says the car should have 165/70R14s on, the wheels came with 185/65R14 on. Any thoughts about what size I should get please? Cheers.

Calling all AS MOT testers and real mechanics! Sorry it's not proper Autoshite, but just Autoshit. Just took the 2005 Honda Jazz in for it's annual safety inspection - NCT - because Ireland. The tester has failed it on front suspension top mounts, both sides: 05KE16448_NCT_2016_04_25_001 by E Honda, on Flickr However, came home and in doing a quick Google to see if it was a common problem, I stumbled across the NZ equivalent of "Matters of Testing" and found this: WOF NEWS - 2010-12 - Issue 15 - Honda Jazz GD Front Suspension by E Honda, on Flickr What's the opinion on this? I will go out and check them myself, but I've a feeling that the items have be incorrectly tested and I need to go through the rigmarole of an appeal.