38th time lucky: New boot (and panties)

[garethj]

I didn’t realise you had a Peugeot 206.  I went around the Ryton factory with Ian Tisdale and the Tatra Register when they were building them.

Top reporting, as ever👍

[egg]

Damn fine year, old boy. Chin chin.

One day the Heron will fly again.

[barrett]

37-YR OLD MAN DRIVES 93-YR OLD CAR 600 MILES!! YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE HIS ONE TRICK FOR DOING IT!! NEW CAR MANUFACTURERS HATE HIM!! SO DO WOMEN!

Light Car Welsh weekend again and, again, no Palladium, but this is a relatively civilised method of getting from Sussex to Llandod

Fuel was procured

Other cars were admired

Period settings abounded

Fuel was not procured here

No breakdowns or mishaps and I shared the driving this year so not quite as tiring as 2022. Still a long old drive, but well worth it.

Had a great time, but you'd never guess it to look at me! Cheers!

 

[HMC]

Loving the click bait title. Should also contain

”5 REASONS WHY THE EDWARDIANS KNEW WHAT NOBODY ELSE DID”

[mercedade]

46 minutes ago, barrett said:

 

Sorry - this is the coolest anyone has ever looked.

12/10

[vulgalour]

That little blue Mathis Type P (I think, correct me if I'm wrong there) is lovely.

[barrett]

On 6/11/2021 at 9:49 PM, barrett said:

Hey gang, remember this old pile o' wank?

Well, the bumper held together with gaffa tape and only very approximately connected to the rest of the car was really starting to embarass me. It looks great from the rear but when you walk round the front it all sort of falls apart. Anyway, I've had a replacement bumper in stock for ages so I nipped up to the office today (more space to work, lots of tools) to have a crack at swapping them over.

This is nearing the end of an actual SIX HOUR day dealing with this shit! All the bolts were, predictably, rusted solid and without a grinder or anything I was reduced to going to town on them with a junior hacksaw which is not something I'd like to repeat any time soon. Of course, the bolts for these are totally specific to the job so I had to do some major bodging finding 'suitable' bolts - no problem, it's a temporary fix until I get the wings replaced, as both bumper mountings on the sides are way out of alignment anyway thanks to the car having at least one knock on each side and one on the front.

Anyway, looks about a million times better now even though the whole front end is still quite squiffy. I was fucking knackered after all that carry-on but was quite pleased with the result. I also replaced the broken rear exhaust rubber mount and I was feeling flushed with success. Jumped in the car shot off home, and after about 20 minutes of driving a fucking deer jumped out of a hedge right in front of me. I slammed on the anchors but there was no way I wasn't going to hit it, which is exactly what happened. Actually it was more like a 'nudge', and the little fucker jumped up and ran off into the hedge again.

Of course, it's put a great big fucking crack in the new bumper. If I wasn't laughing so much about this I'd be quite pissed off. Why do I bother????

 

Remember when I spent six hours fitting a new bumper to this heap?

Well I had the pleasure of watching somebody reverse smack into it on Sunday evening, causing this to happen

Doens't look too bad, but that's basically dislodged a whole chunk of bumper, knocked off a load of the clips holding the valance on and genrally just fucked it all up a bit. The bloke was an uber eats driver who was 'distracted' by his mate over the road. Didn't feel it necessary to apologise, or offer any solution to the problem, and seemed totally uninterested in the fact he'd damaged my car. I said if he gave me the cash to buy a replacement I'd call it fair, and he took my number and promised to call me and sort something out on Monday. Which he hasn't done. Now, if he had called, I'd decided I was gonna tell him to forget about it because, well, he's an uber eats driver (or Deliveroo or something) and he's an immigrant and really who cares, it's £44 for a new bumper and I don't really feel comfortable taking that off somebody who is probably in a shitter situation than I am even if he was a bit of a cunt about it.

But, he never called, so my altruism is being rapidly exhausted. I have the reg of his car and his number, but not his name. It's absolutely not 'worth' going to my insurers or whatever so I'll have to ring the guy (big CBA) and try and chase the money which I REALLY don't want to have to do. Why is everything so annoying? TBH I'll probably just ignore it and forget about it and never do anything about so I guess none of this really matters. Just fancied a vent!

Oh, and the driver's window runner rusted itself off, maing it impossible to open/close the window. Seemingly impossible to find this part without buying a whole bit of glass which is annoying so who knows wtf I'll do about that!

[vulgalour]

Contact the delivery company and explain what happened, that you'd rather not have to go through insurance, and you only want £pittance to fix your Classic Car.  Suggest it would be a shame if you'd have to take to social media over such a trifling matter.  Seems to be the way to get fair compensation for stuff like that these days.

Bit of a shitter, all the same.

[Back_For_More]

Put his number up.....  Messaging may then commence 😁

 

[Andyrew]

Yep. And Put the price up now for being a cunt. 

Probably doesnt have insurace like most of them around here. 

Friends audi that is absolutely hanging ,  was hit buy a take away driver and that fucked off sharpish. 

Neighbour came over and told him who it was.  Mate when down there and the driver ended up having to cough up 350 notes (iirc). Mate said if he had just knocked on the door and told him he would have just said not to worry about it. As the car really is fucked. 

 

[barrett]

Hot on the heels of the 205 incident, I thought I'd check on the prgress of my Rover P6. Back in January I took it to a garage to have a couple of jobs done. Wipers not working, some sort of seal in the diff to stop it leaking oil. Took it to a guy I know a bit. He runs a 'normal' garage mostly doing servicing etc but he looks after another P6 for somebody and knows them quite well, runs old cars himself and is generally sympathetic etc. Only had good experiences with him before. I told him there was 'no rush' so wasn't too surprised I hadn't heard anything back, but today thought I'd ring and check progress.

"Hi, is Guy there?"

"No, he doesn't work here any more."

"Oh, I thought he was the owner"

"He sold me the business. Can I help?"

"Yeah, he was supposed to be fixing my Rover"

"Oh yeah, can you come and pick it up?"

"Has it been fixed?"

"I've got no idea"

 

WHY IS EVERYTHING SO DIFFICULT???

[Datsuncog]

Feeling your pain, fella.

Take it the garage's new owner has no interest/ confidence in having a go at the necessary repairs?

[martc]

On 3/27/2023 at 4:41 PM, barrett said:

Had a great time, but you'd never guess it to look at me! Cheers!

 

Where's the Linwood Road bridge in the background?

(one for our older readers)

[AxWomble]

1 hour ago, Datsuncog said:

Feeling your pain, fella.

Take it the garage's new owner has no interest/ confidence in having a go at the necessary repairs?

With a reaction like that, I’d be a bit scared to leave it in his hands. What a shame to lose a good mechanic like that  

[hairnet]

report 205 crashu idiot to the cops for likely no business insurance

[warch]

7 hours ago, barrett said:

Hot on the heels of the 205 incident, I thought I'd check on the prgress of my Rover P6. Back in January I took it to a garage to have a couple of jobs done. Wipers not working, some sort of seal in the diff to stop it leaking oil. Took it to a guy I know a bit. He runs a 'normal' garage mostly doing servicing etc but he looks after another P6 for somebody and knows them quite well, runs old cars himself and is generally sympathetic etc. Only had good experiences with him before. I told him there was 'no rush' so wasn't too surprised I hadn't heard anything back, but today thought I'd ring and check progress.

"Hi, is Guy there?"

"No, he doesn't work here any more."

"Oh, I thought he was the owner"

"He sold me the business. Can I help?"

"Yeah, he was supposed to be fixing my Rover"

"Oh yeah, can you come and pick it up?"

"Has it been fixed?"

"I've got no idea"

 

WHY IS EVERYTHING SO DIFFICULT???

Picking out the positives at least it is still there and intact. A friend of mine (now emigrated to Australia) had a narrow squeak with his Honda VFR, which needed the digi dash repairing. The owner of the garage had gone bust and the debt recovery firm had apparently seized all his* assets including all the bikes he was working on. The bike came back (in bits and dead as a doornail) but he could have had a fight on his hands to get it released.

[barrett]

Went to pick up the Rover yesterday. Asked the new garage bloke to charge the battery, which he did, and it very reluctantly started after lots and lots of churning. Couple of flat tyres, totally caked in grime, wiper motor partly dismantled in the passenger footwell. A real mess, basically. Oh, and now none of the lights work, which is good. Assume matey was messing with fuses and stuff so that's one more thing to have a look at.

Drove it home, and then to the office this morning, where I'll dump it until I can get it sorted. It's really a sad old heap, but when you're bombing along at 55mph in top gear its a really nice place to be, actually. After work I gave it a quick wash, polished the bonnet (which had gone toally flat) and polished the chrome etc, looks a bit less disgusting now (from a distance).

I've booked it in to another place next month so I hope that'll just be it sorted. The 205 is currently my only working car, but the 206 is booked for an MoT on Friday. Must find somewhere dry to put the Heron at some point...

[barrett]

Pro tip: book your car for its MoT at the start of a bank holiday weekend

Now, I'm definitely not saying the garage was trying to clear the decks asap before shutting shop for a few days, but I'm also saying that when you apply the brakes for the first time each day nothing happens at all until it's 'warmed up' a bit, and that every slight touch of the pedal results in an horrific graunching sound from the threadbare pads and ridged discs making unhappy contact. So I reckon that's a result, although it's a little surprising a car of this age is already rusting, particularly one that's been garages most of its life.

[brownnova]

By some ridiculous oversight, I hadn’t read this thread in about 4 years! Just before the first Palladium trip! 

My admiration for your car purchasing is exceeded only by my admiration for your epic adventures in pre war tin! 

[barrett]

On 4/29/2023 at 6:41 PM, brownnova said:

By some ridiculous oversight, I hadn’t read this thread in about 4 years! Just before the first Palladium trip! 

My admiration for your car purchasing is exceeded only by my admiration for your epic adventures in pre war tin! 

Well guess what?

It's 'drive a tiny car to France' time again

300 miles in two fairly relaxed days of driving, with a cruising speed of about 38mph. Other unsuitable cars were seen, wine was drunk, food eaten etc, all lovely stuff

Managed 100 miles on the way back before this happened

which sadly ended things, as it was only barely driveable like that. Cadged a lift back, car still in France awaiting recovery. Not a bad effort though.

In other news, this happened a couple of days ago...

Not sure WTF happened there, it just spontaneously shattered. Brings the total number of working old cars down to zero, and the total number of working cars whatsoever to one (The exhaust has also fallen off my 206 - must be a Peugeot thing) which is annoying, but I guess everything'll be sorted at some juncture, can't get too stressed about old cars not working, eh?

[brownnova]

Is that a propeller car!?! 
Legendary! 

[wuvvum]

Is it an actual genuine Leyat?  Fuck me!

[barrett]

5 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Is it an actual genuine Leyat?  Fuck me!

No, there's only two genuine ones, a saloon in private ownership and a torpedo in a Paris museum - this is a recreation Jeff Lane had built a few years ago which I think lives in France at least some of the time. Was pretty amazing seeing it just driving about on the road - ditto the 1893 Salvesen steamer which was also on the same event. Both make the Peugeot look pretty sensible

[barrett]

These are the real ones, but there are several replicas around. A guy I know has a wonderful, very authentic-looking replica down in Surrey

[barrett]

Some footage of the weekend including Leyat on the road here

 

[somewhatfoolish]

Is the steamer a real one or a pastiche? I find it impossible to tell as vehicles that old often look like they were cobbled together by some bloke in a shed because that's how they were built, whether in 1895 or 1995.

[barrett]

Yeah it's a proper thing!

[Matty]

20 hours ago, barrett said:

Some footage of the weekend including Leyat on the road here

 

Put a smile on my face that has Barrett. 

[egg]

11 minutes ago, Matty said:

Put a smile on my face that has Barrett. 

+1, everyone seemed happy, an escape from modern life, cyclecars everywhere, entente cordiale, makes FoTU look a bit 'mainstream'.

[egg]

I see this month's Automobile will have a festival of Slowth article - penned by your own hand SB?