Mayfair Lady

[Craig the Princess]

Had my first day tinkering with cars in ages today, starting with checking fluids on the stalwart Rover Coupe, still working as the everyday driver now up to 138,600 miles. Still doing the wierd starting thing when left overnight, it seems worse when damp so need to have a look under the bonnet when it is doing it to see if any sparks are escaping. Still love driving this car, I would like to try another everyday driver (I've had this six years and 75,000 miles) but can't afford to buy another car any it has never let me down. Relax it is a Rover.

 

Then Mrs the Princess came home and said the brown Metro was putting on it's alternator light and also misbehaving by chugging when pulling away.

 

Alternator stolen of the ex-Romania rally Allegro until we can get anothe one

 

 

Then alternator removed from the Metro, the gap between inner wing, radiator, screenwash bottle and hoses is slightly smaller than the alternator but with a bit of rotating, pushing and swearing it came out

 

 

Broken alternator by The Prince of Darkness, looks like new but is between 10/15 years old. The replacemnt looks a lot older but worked 4 years ago. So must still be fine, right?

 

 

All back together, fired up and the alternator light came on and went out like it should so fingers crossed. Then to check the points gap to see why it was chugging, in an Allegro a piece of cake, loads of room. Metros not so much, so it is easier to remove the slam panel and grill to get some access, even then the radiator gets in the way

 

 

 

Points gap was fine so changed the condenser for a new one. Broke the wire off the new one. Fortunatley Beige1100 was on hand (as I was at his house) and fixed it back together. Pissed about trying to get the sodding screw which secures the condenser on in again. Fired up and seems ok, took it for a test drive and all seems well

 

With Beige1100's K-series Metro

 

Was then shown Beige1100's Allegro estate (a rare series one estate) which has ust had a load of welding downa nd has come back in fresh paint. Helped him to reattach the massively (bottom six inches all new) rebuilt driver's door

 

 

 

Other fleet news (mainly so I can see where I was when I turned 32)

Earlier this year the Saab was swapped for a Vectra with Eddyramrod which was then given to my Dad and recently passed an MoT without needing work.

Yellow Allegro Estate - All good, still needs the petrol overflow pipe replaced after stopping on the M62 when the pipe split and the overflow pipe was taken to get us on the move

Green Allegro - Stored for winter, working

Red Metro - Stored for winter, working

Citroen AX - Stored, needs CV joints, bonnet and driver's door painted and ideally a MK1 AX interior

Rover 414 - Stored, needs recommisioning but should be close

Princess 100 Club - Needs the exhaust to be fitted, hopefully next Saturday. Then make it run again and fix the ignition barrel. Then work out what to do to the 4 wheel arches.

Red Ambassador - Needs a full exhaust system

Brown Ambassador - Needs a lot of work

Purple Allegro - Needs respray and recommisioning

Lagoon Blue Allegro A - Needs welding

Lagoon Blue Allegro B - Needs a shit load of welding

Russet Brown Allegro - Needs a metric shit load of welding (it is a Belgian built one)

Antique Gold Allegro - Might be ok, was fine when it came off the road 5/6 years ago apart from a diff whine

Ex-Romania Rally Allegro - Needs it's carburettor and alternator back, should be ok, maybe

Ex-other Rally Allegro - Needs it's passenger rear door back, needs some work

[Spottedlaurel]

Blimey, just a few to keep you busy there. How do you prioritise jobs on them all?.......

 

Good to see the Suffolk reg on that Allegro Estate. Would be interesting to know where it was sold new.

[Craig the Princess]

The daily ones (Rover Coupe, Brown Metro) and the useable Allegros (Green and Yellow) take priority.

 

The useable Allegros do get rotated from time to time on a whim, the Yellow Allegro hadn't been on the road with us before last year when we decided to take it on a trip to Ireland. The Princess 100 club and red Metro are being worked on (but slowly, life has got in the way a bit this year). The others are sort ofbeing neglected but are all indoors in the dry and I doubt many would do anything with them as they are all quite sheddy (apart from the Rover 414 and Red Ambassador).

 

It was a Mann Eggerton car, orignally the company car of the Uncle of a friend in the Allegro Club.

[Jim Bell]

I think the premise of an Allegro rally car is pretty much the best premise.

[Craig the Princess]

I think the premise of an Allegro rally car is pretty much the best premise.

 

I think the Ukranian border guards thought the same, which is why they wanted to look at it for four hours on the way into the country.

[Craig the Princess]

Four weeks ago we took the Applejack green Allegro to a BL/BMC event at Cowley to celebrate 50 years of BL.

 

We got taking to ritchieg about the Aconite Allegro we've owned since 2004 but never had on the road. We did lots of work to it in 2005, then had welding done to get an MOT in 2009. The car drove back from the MOT station and waited while I rubbed down the bonnet and roof as the paint was falling off.

 

Anyway we decided to try and get it on the road. Massive thanks to beige1100 for doing the mechanical recommissioning. I rubbed down the bonnet (needs at least one more coat of paint) and painted the roof (needs more rubbing down and mopping).

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Craig the Princess]

The old but little used Clarke 25 litre compressor did a much better job than I did (and I expected).

 

And it made it to Gaydon fur the Allegro Club national only losing a bit of clutch fluid.

 

 

It drives really nicely (with an occasional burning smell of pushing on) and is tax exempt now. Really pleased with it, even if it still looks a bit crap.

[vulgalour]

mmmmm Aconite.

[Craig the Princess]

Despite being off the road since 1991 it covered the 230 miles without fault. Sadly the round trip was 240 miles, the last ten felt like running out of petrol despite still having fuel. After pulling over with no load on it we managed another couple of miles before doing it again.