I'm an AX wielding maniac - I see you baby, shaking that ass

[Craig the Princess]

Had a long overdue play with the Princess yesterday. Hung the misshapen exhaust, the middle join doesn't really fit so the rear half is about an inch and a half to that back.

 

 

http://imageshack.com/a/img922/6909/1de59Q.jpg

 

 

 

Jack helped

 

 

Then tried to start the car, would try on easy start but not on petrol (fresh from a can) so will clean up the plugs etc next time. I need to find an ignition lock/barrel as jamming the wires together under the dash is sub-optimal.

[Craig the Princess]

After the robins flew off the rest of the garage came down.

 

 

Will need to be dug out before the base is laid so I've been reading the garage base thread with interest.

[Craig the Princess]

7am alarm call to help a friend pick up yesterday's eBay purchase starts with 1986s finest EMU

 

[Craig the Princess]

In other updates arrival of junior the princess has pretty much stopped progress on the garage base, were have been moving hard-core into the first half of the base and hope to finish that this week.

 

Car wise the white Rover 414 is giving reliable service apart from the drivers for mirror glass falling out at the hospital and if you put out back in it falls out.

 

Brown Metro and Yellow Allegro are back up vehicles at present. I helped my dad MoT his Vectra last week, and air filter and spark plugs combined with a run passed the emissions that it originally failed on. He has also given me his blue bubble shape Rover 200 which is having an MOT this morning. Will see if/how that fits in at home, if it doesn't that it is a potential roffle prize

[Craig the Princess]

Train 2, no picture because I had to run for it.

 

I normally drive that way, very strange to turn off to the right.

 

[Craig the Princess]

Why is the music people play out of phones always dreadful dance music?

 

So tempting to play The Darkness out of the phone in retaliation.

[Craig the Princess]

Arrived at Stevenage, guess the tow car for this collection

 

[Jim Bell]

Ill take the middle one.

[Craig the Princess]

Trailer collected

 

[Jim Bell]

Youre either collecting a microcar, or a motorbike?

 

Or is that trailer just far away?

[Craig the Princess]

Not a Father Dougal trailer but one of these odd limited wheel vehicles.

 

[Craig the Princess]

 

Collected and on the way home

[Jim Bell]

Have you been all the way to Checkuslivakia for it?!

[Craig the Princess]

Worse, Romford!

 

So he has bought a French registered but Nova'ed Yamaha YBR125. Having passed his CBT recently HHR took the advise of the staff there to use a 125 far a few months before doing the Direct Access course.

 

Rather than the dubious pleasure of a new Chinese bike he has taken a punt on this which are uncommon in the UK but apparently plentiful in France. I think I looks good for a 125 and am jealous as I'm never going to get a bike.

[Craig the Princess]

On and the blue Rover 200 failed it's mot on two tyres and a CV boot which is not a bad result.

[Craig the Princess]

The reason the bonnet was up on the Astra was it was low on power and had started flashing it's EML. Cured by a new air filter and more importantly replacing the most clogged up set of plus I've ever seen.

[LostnotFound]

What rubbish, they were in such good condition it was hard to tell the new ones apart from the old ones......

 

Craig has now fixed my other half's astra, I'd been too weedy worrying about breaking the plugs off in the engine that he needed to tell me to MTFU. Didn't stop it towing around the m25 mind....

 

I will start a new thread (for the bike) and try and tap into what must be masses of 2 stroke knowledge on this board.

 

 

[Craig the Princess]

As September has ended the Yellow Allegro had come off the road for the winter. This has many the clearing out of it's space in the garage which had been filled with mower and small trailer.

 

MGF needed to be jump started first

 

Then the former banger rally car pushed into the corner space, requiring a 14 point reverse park.

 

 

[Craig the Princess]

Following the MGFTP on Saturday as seen in the news thread, yesterday it was the turn of the Rover 414 to decide it wanted a ride of a recovery truck. After not needing one for over three years it is two in three days.

 

This time it was on the way to work so Mrs and Junior the Princess brought me the Metro and waited for the truck while I went to work. When the truck got back the dog had escaped (chewed his way out of the cat flap) and when the recovery driver opened his door the dog got in.

 

It seems that this time I lost timing belt roulette, the new noise that I started ignoring last week may well have been the tensioner breaking up. The Rover went off to the storage barn behind the trusty rusty LDV 400.

 

 

So, at the cost of another taxed car in October and £53 to swap the last 20 days of insurance, I'm using my dad's previous car an R3 Rover 214.

 

 

It seems to drive well, it MoTed at the start of the month needing only a CV gaiter and two tyres. Going to do an oil and filter change as it is very noisy when cold and knowing my Dad it won't have been done in years.

 

He spent actual money on it a few years ago when it only had 20k miles. It has now been used by him and my brother so is very dented and used inside and has 60k. Biggest issue is the driver's window mechanism broke so the window is propped up with a bit of wood.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Want to re-home your 400? I am wondering what to do with my cabrio, would be good to lob its honda DOHC engine and all-round discs under a better shell.

[Craig the Princess]

That sounds like a good plan except the 400 was Mrs the Princess's grand father's from new so she wants to keep it and get it fixed. One day. Eventually.

[Jim Bell]

That sounds like a good plan except the 400 was Mrs the Princess's grand father's from new so she wants to keep it and get it fixed. One day. Eventually.

Where possible, this is always the correct option.

[Craig the Princess]

The MGF has been fixed this afternoon. Beige1100 remembered some posts on here (by Bren we think) about MGF gear linkages and securing them with a jubilee clip.

 

After lifting the wheelarch to get the jack under it soon became clear. The jubilee clip fix had been done but it had been pushed off the cable when the car hit the ground. This allowed the linkage to go forward though the bracket then stick when first great was selected.

 

 

In the air the cable could be pulled back allowing all gears to be selected. The clip was taken off, cleaned with wd40 as the thread was stiff then the clip put back on. The test drive was ok so hopefully a cheap fix.

[wuvvum]

I (re)did the jubilee clip fix (was already on there when I bought the car but came off when I went for third gear a little too enthusiastically whilst definitely not engaging in a traffic light GP with a Celica).  I'm impressed it's lasted that long tbh.

[Craig the Princess]

I'm sure it would still have been fine without the contact with the concrete. It does feel slightly more tight now so perhaps it needs nipping up every so often.

[Craig the Princess]

I made the mistake of taking the MGF to work. It was a beautiful drive in despite roadworks on the A10, the rain just held off and it really is a fun car to drive with the roof down and the Pet Shop Boys on the CD player.

 

The way back was less good. I got out of Cambridge but after overtaking a lorry and looking in the mirror I couldn't work out of if I was on fire or it was the expected coolant steam you half expect with a K series.

 

Being that it was coolant it seems that there is a leak down the left (if looking from behind the car). So after buying a £1.75 bottle of water (which was cheaper than using the pay for water machine, thanks BP) and then checking again at the next garage (with free water, thanks BP) I made it home watching oil and water temperature gauges. It seems that under 50 there is no steam so I can't quite understand that.

 

To investigate I'm going to have you remove the panel above the engine, any tips in doing that?

[Barry Cade]

Unclipped the hood clips along the rear window and lift the back of the hood up and prop it or use a bungee. Lift out the carpet and sound deadening, then undo all the 10mm headed bolts on the silver panel. Left hand side is opposite the water pump, so may just be a hose hopefully.

 

Tip: warm the car interior first if it's a bit chilly, saves the rear window cracking if it's a plastic one, roll up a towel and put it in the fold to stop the window folding in a crease.

[Craig the Princess]

Cheers Barry. I took your advise and had a look earlier.

 

 

Didn't take too long to get access to the engine compartment. A managed to find a bit of rope to keep the hood up. Managed to remove the rusting engine panel (the pain in the arse bolts under the seat back were already missing) next to the very rusty fuel tank access panel.

 

 

So a very rotten coolant house is certainly leaking (also seems to be leaking further down) which is strange as it wasn't losing coolant. It is impressively knackered, I've seen better ones on 'barn find' Allegros. So a set of hoses are needed.

 

Also had time to slightly percussively adjust the LDV back door, the sliver panel need to go towards the back of the van.

 

 

[Craig the Princess]

Welcome to the Volvo 940 Wentworth, bought so Mrs the Princess can sit in the front without dog licking Junior the Princess for the entire journey.

 

 

A couple of issues were present, the first one to be looked at was a bodge to bypass the heater matrix with a welded up bit of copper pipe. We hadn't been told about this so the three hour drive home was in the horrible cold.

 

 

After pouring in a few litres of water no obvious leaks were apparent so the copper pipe was removed and pipes reconnected to the matrix.

 

 

Engine was run up to temperature and the heater gets warm, no sign of leak in the car, the lower of the two pipes has a very slight weap so that needs to be nipped up later. It did become apparent that notch 5 doesn't work and that the direction control does nothing. Still much better warm but uncontrollable than freezing.

 

Then a stray wire was cable tied out the way, we still need to get a kick panel to replace the missing one.

 

A spare wheel was added to replace the missing one, need to swap the tyre from a 195 to a 185 to match those in the car. Also need to find a jack and brace.

 

Also the dog kept falling off the rear facing seat so a board was made to go over the spare wheel to stop this.

 

 

 

That said he was happy in the Rover at the time

 

 

The main remaining problem is the intermittent problem with instrument gauges going on strike. How hard is the soldering repair that the internet advises is needed?

[Rocket88]

Smacking instrument binnacle used to work for me..............BTW, percussive adjustment is now in my lexicon of car fixerating terms