--

[UltraWomble]

.... and that was your mistake, right there. Unless a prole actually asks you a direct question, you should never attempt verbal communication. 

One of the joyous things about wearing hearing aids is I can be more deaf than I actually am.

 

Ive had a lifetime of ignoring people who are being twats simply by "not hearing" them and am rather good at it. Then just turning around and saying "sorry, did you just say something to me?" and wandering off.

[DSdriver]

She probably thought that being an executive, in an Executive car, you should be taking it to a main dealer rather than getting your own hands grubby.

[Semi-C]

Much marvellous Mazda, top work.

 

Must be something about car parks with ceilings that brings out the weird in folk. Brace yourselves. (to your relief, my brief was brief. Brief? Good grief)

 

After finishing a shift at my previous place of employment I decided to have a go at resurrecting the heated rear window of my Cortina beneath the fluorescent lights of the covered car park we shared with three other companies.

Boot open and tools in hand (fnarr yip etc) I was engaged in allegations by a pro-conflict, self righteous, conclusion jumping twentysomething female strain of tosser.

 

Her: OI... (I ignore)

Her: Erm...What on earth are you doing?

Me: I'm trying to...

(she interrupts)

Her: Get away from that right now.

Me: I beg your pardon.

Her: I mean it, get away from that NOW.

Me: What on earth are you on about?

Her: Get away from that car right now.

Me: Oh, you mean my car?

Her: Ha, I hardly think that's YOUR car...

Me: Yeah it's mine.

(she looks my scruffy ass up and down)

Her: I don't believe you, I'm calling the police.

(Inexplicably, my reaction was to bore her into submission with a barrage of facts about my car, delivered in what I imagine to be a military style)

Me: registration number HYX 370K, Built December 1971, Registered 1/1/1972. 2000 L. I can't verify if the underriders this car is sporting are original fitments but they were available as an option. Whilst the HRW I was fixing before you interrupted is an original fitting, the rear wiper is not. A rear wiper was available on facelift models....And I've got the key for it here if you want to see?

(as I gestured for her to witness the key I had in my hand, I can only imagine she feared the hoodlum before her was preparing a physical attack of some kind as she shrieked and called for a distant colleague)

Her: Graham!

(who was a bloke I'd chatted with several times, about my old car, in the 6 months I'd been parking it there)

Me: How y'getting on fella?

Him: Alright mate, how are you?

Me: I wouldn't steal my own car would I?

 

Oh how he laughed.

 

She fucked off sharpish.

[garethj]

If you have people bothering you in car parks like this, please write in

I don't think it's a carpark thing (although the posts above show it can be), it's a "twats are everywhere" thing.  That's why rules are just a tedious waste of time, there should be one law and it should be: don't be a twat.

 

Banning things doesn't work, banning twats will.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

In 30 years as a chauffeur I've lost count of the number of times someone ,usually a security guard , Has told me I can't leather/polish/whatever my car in car parks . My usual response was 'Fuck off!' , so much easier when the car you're messing with belongs to the chairman of the company .

These days I don't do it so much, mainly because Romanians were invented.

[Spottedlaurel]

Yeah I know having a working sunroof in December is pointless, but at least if/when the sun ever comes out again I'll be ready.

 

Surely ideal for a trip to Blackpool illuminations?

 

These are the sort of fiddly jobs I'd never get round to doing, so well done you.

[cort16]

I love a sunroof too. They sort of died out with the general roll out of aircon in new cars.

One of the things you learn early on with old cars is when you buy them and you're driving home at night for the love of god don't open the sunroof!. Only open the sunroof when you've the time and daylight to be able to fuck about trying to close it when it invariably jams after not being opened for 7 years. I can think of at least 2 seperate occasions I found myself gaffa taping a bin bag over an open sunroof aperture before going to bed after picking up a car.

[DSdriver]

It took over a year before I plucked up the courage to try the sunroof on the XM. Encouraged by a weather forecast for a long dry spell. It worked perfectly. 

Probably it was just lulling me into a sense of false security and will jam open as a heavy thunderstorm springs up out of nowhere. It is a Citroen after all.

[binhoker668]

Great purchase chief.  Great to see ye back lurking around here too...

I REALLY would like to purchase my old 323 back sometime. 

That was a terrible time for cars and money, and a grievous mistake on my part.

[Jon]

I'll harbour to your shameless desire for comments and say I'd like to see a video of your car. However, please make one of it during the daytime, as I'd like the full effect of Wakefield in January to set the scene. Musical accompaniment I trust will come from the cassette player. As a penance to this, if you don't produce a video, I'll threaten to update my spotting thread with further worthless waffle (shameless plug for my thread to boot).

 

Don't let me down.

[strangeangel]

It took over a year before I plucked up the courage to try the sunroof on the XM. Encouraged by a weather forecast for a long dry spell. It worked perfectly. 

 

 

Years ago djimbob very kindly lent me an Opel Rekord estate which used nearly as much oil as it did petrol. With the car came a foot-long screwdriver: "Don't lose that" he said "You'll need it for three things" - bridging the iffy starter solenoid*, getting the tape out of the stereo and retrieving the sunroof - it opens but won't close. I never tried.

 

*it was while doing this that I discovered that it was possible to start the thing in Drive

[andrew e]

Has the Volvo got the miniature reading lamps built into the rear grab handles?

[Bren]

Dutch built swede. My mate had one on a G plate.

 

His mechanical ineptitude showed when he assumed that there was a fault with the lights being on all the time. Much fucking and butchering of the wiring took place.

 

He had the water pump replaced but was too tight to buy anti freeze.

[Spottedlaurel]

Where did you get the trim rings, or did they come off something else in your collection?

[Lacquer Peel]

I like the 440, I used to clean my neighbour's similar one, she was a retired doctor who commuted between England and her cottage in the north of Scotland, the 440 had about 300k on it by the time she retired from driving. They are well up to traditional Volvo mileages despite the mongrel heritage.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

That's just made me think about when attitudes to Renaults changed.

When I was a kid in the 70's they were seen as solid middle class transport, on a level with Peugeot and Audi, below Volvo and Lancia perhaps but much posher than Ford, Vauxhall and most BL offerings, although that's another can of worms.

By the 80's the Germans were moving ahead, but even then something like a 25 was seen as a competitor to the Audi 100 and 5 Series and marketed and priced accordingly.

Come the 90's and as Hirst pointed out the 19 was a much better car than the contemporary Escort and probably the private buyers choice ,along with the ZX, R8 and 306. Leaving the fleets to Hoover up the Astras and Escorts.

So, what happened? The first Laguna,Megane and Scenic were ok, I had a Mk3 Espace diesel ( not di) and it was great.

But this was when 80%,of private cars were still petrol( statistic made up,but you know what I mean) and just before Renaults 5* NCAP obsession started.

 

Conclusion : La Regie was fucked over by Rudolf Diesel and Ralph Nader.

[Lacquer Peel]

I like the effort* they've gone to with the Jazz radiator. Improvising a totally different radiator is better than throwing the whole car away I guess.

Is the proper radiator hard to find?

[junkyarddog]

Love these little 323's,

 

My first decent car was one of these,an '89 with the bigger bumpers in very dark metallic blue.

 

Yours looks very decent indeed.

[Ratdat]

323's are our default usable car because they are so utterly dependable. We've had a couple of BF hatchbacks and an Executive saloon as well as a BD model GT which I should have kept as it was ace. Bernie has a thing for 323's as she had an X reg BD for her first car. We did get a lovely 323F (Lantis shape) for her back in November but it didn't even make it home from purchase before some cockend in a ScS truck changed lanes without looking and rammed her off the road, writing it off for her. 37k from new, one owner car too. Shame.

 

 

The only thing I've known to go wrong on the BF 323 is the ignition module which on one of ours packed in without warning. That car did get mega neglected though. From around 65k it covered another 35k without even a service or oil change! When I finally serviced it before selling it on it was like it suddenly had double the power!

[wuvvum]

Basically it was a half-knackered radiator off a late 90s Jazz

I didn't realise the Jazz had been about for that long.  Always thought of it as a "modern" car.

[Lacquer Peel]

I saw late 90s and Jazz but thought you meant Logo.

[junkyarddog]

Mine was just a lowly LX with the honeycomb grille and big bumpers.

 

It had a slightly updated engine with the timing belt as opposed to the earlier chain driven engines.

 

Will try and find a pic of it,have some somewhere.

[Bstardchild]

What a great thread - thanks for sharing

[mat_the_cat]

Do you think 'normal' people actually look under the bonnet?

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I fitted a new length of duct hose between the manifold heatshield and airbox. It was in a special size I had to order in (40mm) and it was completely missing. Why are they always missing? I know they deteriorate, but they're about £3 to replace. Bloody skinflints.

 

 

I wonder if Nyphur's Colt still has the one I made out of tinfoil and cable ties. I didn't even check to see if they were available, just straight to Blue Peter. Spending £3 on that car was as inconceivable to me as winning an Olympic medal or eating a salad.

[RoadworkUK]

......So far it's had (including previous owner):-

- General servicing including a snazzy K&N filter

- Headlight (old one had a hole in it)

- Rocker gasket

- Centre box

- Set of half-hubcaps

- Set of trim rings

- Fanbelt

- Radiator and thermo-switch

- Heatshield ducthose thing

- 2x Dunlops

 

That's a ground-up restoration in my book. The Flying Scotsman guys have nothing on you.

[dollywobbler]

That's some pretty impressive watch action. How inferior do I feel with my mere F-91W?

[Jim Bell]

42%

[Spottedlaurel]

155/80x13", the tyre size of winners. Sunny has the same and they do a perfectly good job for a family hatchback.

[Dave_Q]

Amazing, does it actually work if you connect a digibox or something?