It took me back....

[Bren]

As we have had a nice few days I decided to have a go at some of the scabs on my other halfs fiesta zetec.

 

As I do not have the money for bodyshops, halfords rattle cans were used with surprisingly good results - once I have had 2000 wet and dry on the clear coat and given it a polish you would be hard pushed to tell it had been rusty. I am pretty good with these as I have had lots of practice due to the chod I have owned, but I admit to not having used them for quite a while.

 

While I was spraying (and ingesting the wonderful smell) I began reminiscing about when I had my first job and bought my first car - I was always touching up the body with rattle cans.

 

I remember the things that me and my mates used to do - going to scrappies on a saturday and filling our pockets with switches, bulbs and fuses we would never use.

 

Buying car stereos from halfords and argos and fitting them at the side of the road with the tools you kept in the boot.

 

Spending money on K&N filters and peco back boxes and swearing blind they had made a difference when in reality it was all psychological.

 

I feel sorry for the youngsters who try to buy and insure their first car nowadays - the cost surely must take all the fun out of it. I picked up what I know just by tinkering with my own and my mates cars - something else lost to the modern generation.

 

Maybe the fumes from the paint have made me all melanch oly?

[Junkman]

I have been frequently inhaling the fumes of rattle can paints over the past 40 odd years due to being an avid model shite builder and can assure everyone that the side effects of such doing are vastly over-hyped.

 

What makes me melancholic:

 

There is now a whole generation of motorists that have not grown up with anything remotely resembling a nice motorcar. The last real cars were made in 1986, when the history of the automobile was abruptly ended after exactly 100 years. With the utter shit produced since then, which is ever more removed from what the automobile was initially invented for, it is little wonder that most people born and raised since then are unable to establish any emotional bonding with the machines we in this forum cherish so much.

This is most evident in what is predominantly being modified by them, if they modify what they consider a car at all. It's no longer the horsepower, that's the target of their tinkering, it's the watts of the boom box. They don't determine the quality of a car by its ride, or suitability for carrying out certain interpersonal activities, it's rather the ease of operation of the touchscreens, and whether it has enough i-rubbish-somethings that help them to get distracted of such boring negligibilities as the road ahead or other traffic participants.

 

Being among the last people born that still had to deal with breaker points and carburetter settings when they started to drive cars, I'm not trying to say everything was better back then. It wasn't. But a few things for sure were. Our enthusiasm for, and our attitude towards the car, and our love for the freedom it gave us. And yes, I miss that when I'm not on this forum.

[gtd2000]

I'm not sure sure it's that different nowadays compared to the rose tinted memories of years gone by.

 

I ran around on a motorcycle for the first two years of my motoring life simply because in the earlier part of the 1980's, I couldn't afford to run or insure a car.

 

I honestly feel that cars continue to improve over time and reliability and function is vastly superior to days gone by. Sure, some of the cars may well not have the same "character" as some of the older chod but they seem to be better built and last longer as viable transport.

 

Back when I was a lad, a FIAT 126 (NSG916M) was rusted to buggery after 2 short years, it also refused to start during the winter on many occasions (and my dad's Ford Escort estate (KKS429P) had the same trouble with starting and needed a complete bottom end respray in 1979...

 

If a car doesn't last 15 years or more these days, I'd think it was complete junk.

[drum]

The smell of running rich on full manual choke, reaching over to unlock the other doors, tap dancing on the pedals at junctions keep the engine running, parking on a hill just in case, the worry of driving in the wet, overheating in traffic jams, a can of wd40 and a bottle of water in the boot, a10p piece for the telephone,....

 

Proper driving.

[Junkman]

The often cited 'better' reliability of more modern cars is seemingly based on something broadcasted on something electronic with a screen.

 

Coming from a country with real winters, I cannot remember old cars not starting when cold being such an issue, unless they were badly neglected maintenance-wise.

However, with modern cars, this is a very regular occurrence. And if that doesn't happen, they regularily fail their first MoT on the grounds of some control lamps being either on, or off, or both, resulting in something coming out of their exhausts which shouldn't be there. In all cases, this triggers experimentation by obviously technically overburdened after-sales-support, resulting in four-digit-repair bills for what a new set of plugs, points, a condenser, plug leads, a distributor cap, a rotor button, a carburetter tuning, and sticking back on the pre-warmed-air hose solved in the old cars. I admit that to a degree these astronomous repair bills are swallowed up by the manufactureres under the warm warranty blanket, thus narrowing down their profits to a degree that they have to be bailed out with my money in regular intervals.

 

The overwhelming majority of my collegues makes use of a company car purchase scheme and I could write book about their experiences with newfangled shiny shit from Germany within just three or so years from new.

[Shep Shepherd]

Four-speed gearboxes, manual chokes, carburettors, push-button MW/LW radios and wind-up windows

[garethj]

tap dancing on the pedals at junctions keep the engine running

This made me ROFL.  One of my old cars had a sticky clutch pedal, so as well as tapping between brake and accelerator I also had to hook my toe under the clutch pedal to bring it back up.

 

I'm sure there was a guideline amongst us that you could keep driving when the car had up to 3 faults, but anything more made it too difficult.  No idle, slipping clutch and slight overheating was fine, but once you added an extra one like flat battery, you were guaranteed to be walking home.

 

I wonder if this generation will grow up with the heightened sense of smell we have?  Leaking heater matrix?  Oil getting too warm (particularly on aircooled cars)?  Fuel leak?  Wiring about to catch fire?  Your nose can tell exactly what it is in less than a second.

[drum]

I could sniff out a dodgy alternator regulator by the smell coming off the battery. Learned when my polo battery swelled up like a football one day on a long journey.

[Mr Lobster]

Theres a lad down the road from me who I frequently see with a car up on axle stands or with the bonnet up having something or other done. Him and his mates run an assortment of Saxos and MX5s and seem to be enjoying it.

 

Theres a danger of running down the old 'all new cars are shit' path here. They're not. Yes some go wrong but so did the old stuff.

[eddyramrod]

Four-speed gearboxes, manual chokes, carburettors, push-button MW/LW radios and wind-up windows

 

You just described* my current daily!   Big thanks to Mr Duke, it's a lovely entertaining little tool.  I enjoy it more and more.  MoT tomorrow so wish me luck...

 

*OK, no manual choke, and the MW/LW radio doesn't actually work, but you get the idea...

[Spiny Norman]

I used to love the smell under the bonnet  of my old Amazon as the worn SUs helped themselves to more of OPEC's finest that was strictly necessary.

I'm a shit mechanic but under-bonnet tinkering with the carbs and ignition system was good fun and sometimes I even convinced myself it ran better afterwards.

The other smell that always does it for me is the interiors on old BMWs and Mercs. I don't know if it's the horsehair or flax they use inh the seats but they all have a very distinctive 60s smell that's quite different to the moo & tree scent of an old Jag or Rover.

[warren t claim]

It's the whole attitude to motoring that I miss. I can remember common sense traffic and parking enforcement when car owners weren't just seen as some sort of cash machine for the treasury.

[RichardMoss]

The "old days" are not gone - you just need to look a bit harder.  For example, I came to work in this today - whilst it may be 1995 built, it's 1980s design and can be looked at/looked after the same way as a mk1 Golf GTI.

[barefoot]

Anyone else remember the smell of a hot vinyl interior (Morris Minor for example) that, as a kid made you want to vom with much violence before you even got in?

[Junkman]

No. I liked the mixed aroma of leaded petrol and vinyl in my mom's 'trelle.

[Micrashed]

It makes me despair that my son thinks the K11 is a "Vintage car" and that it would be a giggle to drive one when he is older.

 

He starts a mechnikery course at college in September so I hope to god they give him something more interesting to get dirty on.

 

It also drove me off my tits when I tried to replace the faulty radio/tape player in the Berlingo with a Sony jobbie only to have the car throw its toys out of the pram and the immobiliser fuck up. I mean WTF?

[Junkman]

"Immobilisers" actually contradict the fundamental idea behind the automobile.

If you want something 'immobile', buy a garage.

[Junkman]

The "old days" are not gone - you just need to look a bit harder.  For example, I came to work in this today - whilst it may be 1995 built, it's 1980s design and can be looked at/looked after the same way as a mk1 Golf GTI.

I followed your philosophy.

 

 

I'd still trade it in without a millisecond of hesitation if something older was offered to me.

[Justin Case]

Oh for the good old days. No electronics, no computers, and anyone with a screwdriver and a set of ever larger hammers can solve any problem!

 

Just a little bit before my time but I spent part of yesterday helping to try and get this improbable vehicle running

 

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8485/8182671188_91de6b67ce.jpg

 

All you have to do after about 20 years of it standing around is to just remove the rocker cover, to check that you have ignition just as both of the valves for one cylinderare closed (none of this 16 valve ohc nonsense); check the plugs leads are connected 1,3,4,2 and adjust the timing by loosening the distributor and twisting it gently by hand. Fuel is checked and is ok, the pump driven by a lever operated by the camshaft is doing its stuff, and the choke on the Zenith carb is fully closed. This probably takes less time to do than to describe  Further precision adjustment will be carried out next week using a strobe light and the timing marks on the dynamo pulley (if anyone can remember how to use one )

[RichardMoss]

I followed your philosophy.

 

 

I'd still trade it in without a millisecond of hesitation if something older was offered to me.

My eldest daughter is as bad as me - all she wants is a nice mk1 MG Metro.  To be a bit more sensible, we actually bought her a 1996 Rover 100

[Junkman]

Sensible would have been to buy her what she wants.

[Wilko220]

If only all our dads were like you, junkman...

[drum]

If this is the thread for a nostalgia trip, have these

 

[Junkman]

If only all our dads were like you, junkman...

Up to the point when mine wants me to buy her some of this post-1986 shit.

 

No.

Fucking.

Way.

 

And just because my dad is like he is, it doesn't mean I have to be like him.

[explosive-cabbage]

The smell of running rich on full manual choke, reaching over to unlock the other doors, tap dancing on the pedals at junctions keep the engine running, parking on a hill just in case, the worry of driving in the wet, overheating in traffic jams, a can of wd40 and a bottle of water in the boot, a10p piece for the telephone,....

 

Proper driving.

 

Hit the nail on the head. That's why I love my Lada Samara!

[Junkman]

If this is the thread for a nostalgia trip, have these

Hounddog Taylor and the Houserockers in the 8-track must sound bloody awesome from those £1.25 speakers while driving a Les Dunham Corvorado to a Honky Tinkers gig.

Fugg yesssss!

 

Why was everything nicer and better in ye goode olde dayse?

[Richard]

A lot of things were nicer and better but those speakers would have been dreadful.

 

You can browse through old copies of the Glasgow Herald and Evening Times for old car adverts. I think they are the only two UK titles on Google unfortunately.

[barefoot]

Thirty three pence postage!

[Junkman]

A lot of things were nicer and better but those speakers would have been dreadful.

Yeah, genuine Lo-Fi. Fuggin rocks.

[warren t claim]

Why can't designers bring back foot operated dipswitches? They're so ergonomically perfect.