Felly Fav and Trum. **New Carpets**

[Yoss]

Popped in this morning and they surprised me again with the amount of work they've done in two and half a days. 

Shiny shiny. 

But not shiny enough apparently, they still have to mop and polish it. I asked if it was lacquered because it obviously wasn't before. Being a straight colour it doesn't have to be and it was obvious with how quickly the shine would wear off that it wasn't. So apparently it's had two top coats then two more of laquer with the colour mixed in to give a glossier finish. 

Door shuts done this time. The last respray was a bit brighter than the original and it showed in the door shuts and engine bay. They've matched it to the brighter colour but with the door shuts done that no longer matters, I preferred that anyway, it's a great colour. 

 

This is the lip that the tailgate seal sits over. This is what it looked like on Wednesday. 

I'd ground it back and covered it with Dinitrol rust converter and was going to plug the holes with Supersteel or the like and prime it before dropping the car off but it kept raining the week before so this was as far as I got. Most of it sits under the seal or behind the bumper so I wasn't that fussed. 

But now it looks like this. 

It looks like new! There's two bits of metal there spot welded to form the seam and then welded in either side. I can't see the joins at all. Only time will tell if it really is done properly, and even then only if I take the bumper off. I'm really pleased with that, well worth the extra £150.

More shiny shots. 

 

Nice colour contrast and Merc in the background. 

 

The Transit wasn't a customer job but a little sideline of their's. I had noticed quite a lot of vans about the place. So they pick them up at auction and do them up as there is a good market for fancy vans.

This was originally a silver panel van. They've fitted the body kit and side windows. The seats were fancy leather affairs with diamond stitches patterns and RS logos. A second row was fitted also in the same style. The rest of the van was lined in carpet ready for the next owner to do what they want with although he says they'd do more if  someone wants it. Like make room for a motorbike with the proper ramp and fixings was the example he gave.

I personally wouldn't want to drive around in this but I was impressed with the quality of the work, there was no sign of any silver paint and the carpet lining looked spot on. If I ever get a Sherpa I know where to take it. 

 

Anyway, Favorit should be ready on Tuesday. 

[500tops]

That looks incredible! So lucky to have found such a talented and thorough bodyshop with such reasonable rates. 

Can't wait to see the finished article!

[Dr_Slow]

Looks brilliant, especially in that colour and with those wheels!

[Dan302]

What a lovely colour, looks great!

[Yoss]

1 hour ago, Dr_Slow said:

Looks brilliant, especially in that colour and with those wheels!

Cheers, they are the original wheels just painted white. They do really suit it being a bright primary colour. I keep looking at other wheels but I don't think anything else suits it quite so well. 

[tooSavvy]

5 Spokes = F.T.W. m8

[Yoss]

Five is definitely the right number. 

[Yoss]

Nothing very interesting today, I'm  putting these here for my own benefit as much as anything to keep it all in one place. I've got about ten thousand photos on my phone so it's easier to find stuff here. 

 

Cleaned up the front fog lights and refitted them today. 

They're an easy fit, a single nut and curved metal plate that holds the shape of the housing and poke the wires through the hole. 

 

Had a message from the seller of one of the new door handles I ordered saying he couldn't find it, so he's refunded me. This means I've only got one new one coming so I decided I'd have to clean the overspray off the old ones. They've turned out alright but I'll still get new ones if I can. 

[stuboy]

i do like a tranny with fetching colour

[Yoss]

The replacement door handle saga is going well*. The first one the seller couldn't find, the second one arrived today...

... but it was a mk2 one. See difference below. 

MK1 has the squarer handle with embossed lines, the mk2 is plain and rounder. 

I double checked the listing and it was definitely for a mk1 so I messaged the seller and he replied within ten minutes, apologised and said he would go and check the warehouse to see if the other one was still there. Replied again less than an hour later, said he'd found it, would post it today and that I could keep the other one to do with as I please which is fine as the mechanism is the same so it might come in handy or I could pass it on to another Favorit owner. So thanks to jjlclassics, excellent service. 

To be fair most people don't even know there is a mk1 and a mk2 let alone what the differences are so it's an easy mistake to make. 

[Yoss]

It's finally back home 

But I've a fair bit of work to do before I can use it properly. And it always takes longer to put things back together than take them apart. 

[Yoss]

Only had a little time after work before it got dark but I got the door seals in meaning I could remove the old socks that were keeping the windows from rattling in their frames. And the door handles. 

Meaning the car is now watertight apart from the screw holes in the tailgate for the spoiler. 

And I took this one simply because you'll never see this bit of paint again now the mirrors have gone back on. 

[schonker]

Looks like a nice paint job.You must be well chuffed

[Yoss]

1 hour ago, schonker said:

Looks like a nice paint job.You must be well chuffed

I am, especially as they did more than they said they were going to. The door shuts weren't originally going to be done but he said the doors come off so easily they decided to take them off to work on them so they decided to do the door shuts as well. That's the good thing with having such a basic car. There are no wires in the doors at all. The rear doors come off with four bolts, two on each hinge and the fronts you just tap the roll pin out of the middle of the hinge. 

They also did the scuttle panel betwixt bonnet and windscreen which looks nice. 

I need to keep it clean under there now. 

[Fabergé Greggs]

Looks great, the colour is amazing! I do miss the rugged simplicity of mine occasionally, the way it could swallow sofas and do 50mpg endlessly. Mine was a mk2 though, and these mk1s are that little bit funkier in every way. 
 

There’s lots about it that I don’t miss too, for some reason this was the only car that made me long for power steering.  The car that followed it was the auto Saab 900 which couldn’t have been more different, and highlighted just how much these Favs are constructed around no fuss, fix anything with a 13mm spanner, go anywhere minimalism. It was my daily for a year or so and it feels great to have been immersed in that approach to car design. Fuck me, do I appreciate luxury now 😂. Anyway, the only thing wrong with mine is that is wasn’t this colour. Keep the pics coming! 

[Yoss]

I think you've summed the cars up nicely there. The steering on the Fav is actually a lot lighter than the Triumph, though that's mostly down to the Sprint wheels having a much greater offset than the standard wheels and me fitting a 13" Mountney steering wheel. So getting back in the Fav is almost like having power steering. 

The other good thing with it is that it has a cracking gearbox. I've driven many Favs and Felicias which all have the same gearbox (more or less) and yet they all feel different and this one is perfect. This makes it a delight for bombing round town. 

Another useful by product of the minimalist approach is the lack of weight and you can really feel that which is something that has been lost in modern cars. Of course I couldn't compare it to a formula one car but to paraphrase the great Colin Chapman (as I can't remember the exact words) 'add lightness and simplify' sums it up nicely. His other well known saying 'adding more power will make you faster on the straights, adding lightness will make you faster everywhere' is probably not quite so apposite with 61bhp.

 I realise the added weight of modern cars is mainly down to safety reasons and I'm not really suggesting everyone goes back to cars like mine but it makes me appreciate this thing more. In a few years when every other car on the road has emergency radar braking and anti collision technology I won't need to worry about it because the other cars will all stop before I hit them. There's some sort of twisted logic in there. 

[Zelandeth]

Are those door handles the same as Estelle ones?  They're very similar unless my memory is failing me.

[Yoss]

Spot on. The mk2 handles are interchangeable but have lost all the character. I assume VW were trying to squeeze some of the individuality out of it and make it more like other cars. That's pure speculation of course and has no basis in fact, I just like to take every opportunity I can to have a dig at VW. 

I think my car would look good outside your house. 

[Zelandeth]

My memory appears to be correct...

[Yoss]

Indeed. So when they said the the Favorit was all new, that wasn't quite true. 

[Zelandeth]

Really sad that I've never had a chance to drive an early Favorit, remember being a bit underwhelmed by the later one.  It *drove* nicely, but just felt a bit bland.  The early cars though just look so much better I think.  I love how the same styling cues run through everything from the dash to steering wheel even to the heating elements in the rear windscreen.

Plus I still maintain that the warning lights on the Mk I dash are one of the coolest looking designs I've seen.

[Dan302]

You've probably already seen this but if not it's quite good.

 

[Faker]

8 hours ago, Dan302 said:

You've probably already seen this but if not it's quite good.

 

Marvellous 

[Yoss]

Thanks. I have seen it but not for a very long time so it was worth watching again. I assume it was aimed at potential dealers? It's too long for an advert and your average punter would have lost interest before it even got off the boat. 

I was just looking at  it looking for differences to mine, it's three years older and obviously one of the very first. I've never seen those seats before and it's a sort of mid spec with sunroof and alloy wheels but without the rear spoiler or tacho. The good thing about the tacho is that the giant clock is replaced with a small digital one in the roof between the sun visors. Not practical but looks cool. 

It's not up there with the Tatra 603 publicity film, that's the best thing on the Internet, (can't do links on this this phone, just Google Tatra 603, happy journey) but still very watchable. 

[Fabergé Greggs]

2 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Thanks. I have seen it but not for a very long time so it was worth watching again. I assume it was aimed at potential dealers? It's too long for an advert and your average punter would have lost interest before it even got off the boat. 

I was just looking at  it looking for differences to mine, it's three years older and obviously one of the very first. I've never seen those seats before and it's a sort of mid spec with sunroof and alloy wheels but without the rear spoiler or tacho. The good thing about the tacho is that the giant clock is replaced with a small digital one in the roof between the sun visors. Not practical but looks cool. 

It's not up there with the Tatra 603 publicity film, that's the best thing on the Internet, (can't do links on this this phone, just Google Tatra 603, happy journey) but still very watchable. 

I’d forgotten about the clock up there! On mine it was made by TESLA, presumably not the same TESLA unless Elon Musks master plan started with clocks for Skodas 

[Yoss]

10 hours ago, Fabergé Greggs said:

I’d forgotten about the clock up there! On mine it was made by TESLA, presumably not the same TESLA unless Elon Musks master plan started with clocks for Skodas 

I can only assume that the estate of Nikola Tesla didn't copyright his name or whatever it is you have to do to protect it. Hence a small Czechoslovakian digital clock manufacturer and a despot hell bent on world domination can both use his name. We visited Zagreb a few years ago and the gift shops were full of his stuff but then he was Croatian. Or was it Serbian? Former Yugoslavian anyway. 

 

A quiet day today as it rained most of the afternoon but I did go and get these back. 

They sit in a little recess in each corner of the bumpers. 

Like so. 

But when trying to undo them three of them just went round and round so I had to cut the bolt heads off. I took them round my friend's house to have the remaining stumps drilled out. He has a knack for drilling straight that I don't possess. So I went back and collected them today so not entirely unproductive. 

And I got one small job done before the rain set in properly. 

I found these side repeaters on ebay

New one on the left. They are reproduction, probably Chinese. They are shared with Estelles but even so I'm surprised there is enough of a market for repros. They were available in clear, orange or smoked so I went with the clear I already have. You have to put your own spades on the ends of the wires so I've used the original units and just used the new lens, rubber backing and shiny screws. 

 

The wires go through this hole in the inner wing and plug in here. 

There is a rubber grommet attached to the wires to plug the hole but it was getting quite wet by then and I need to get up under the wheel arch to squeeze it in so that can wait for a dry day. 

 

It beads up well now. As you would expect of course. 

[Rusty Pelican]

OOOF , Much like from me , cracking looking car

[LightBulbFun]

9 hours ago, Fabergé Greggs said:

I’d forgotten about the clock up there! On mine it was made by TESLA, presumably not the same TESLA unless Elon Musks master plan started with clocks for Skodas 

 

21 minutes ago, Yoss said:

I can only assume that the estate of Nikola Tesla didn't copyright his name or whatever it is you have to do to protect it. Hence a small Czechoslovakian digital clock manufacturer and a despot hell bent on world domination can both use his name. We visited Zagreb a few years ago and the gift shops were full of his stuff but then he was Croatian. 

 

Tesla was the former state run Lamp manufacturer of the former Czechoslovakia  (and perhaps they did other electrical items?)

id love to get one of their lamps in the collection someday, but as you can imagine they are not particularly common over here!

they produced some pretty interesting lamps and for an eastern block lamp manufacturer, showed quite the technical prowess

heres some examples

http://lamptech.co.uk/Spec Sheets/D SHP Tesla SHC400 Nb-cup.htm

http://lamptech.co.uk/Spec Sheets/D SHP Tesla SHC70 Monolithic.htm

http://lamptech.co.uk/Spec Sheets/D MHQ Tesla RVIZ400.htm

http://lamptech.co.uk/Spec Sheets/D MB Tesla RVLB125.htm

 

 

lovely to see the the attention the Favorit is getting, its looking splendid, to be fair it looked splendid even before the Respray!  

[BorniteIdentity]

19 hours ago, Dan302 said:

You've probably already seen this but if not it's quite good.

 

Steve Rider in an oversized leather jacket. What’s not to like!! 

[Yoss]

52 minutes ago, BorniteIdentity said:

Steve Rider in an oversized leather jacket. What’s not to like!! 

It would have been more convincing if he sounded like he meant it and not like was reading a script given to him by Škoda. 

Also, watching that just makes me wish I had one of those torches. There is a recess for it to sit in but no bracket or wiring for it that I can see. Allocation of torches seems random. Mine is a high spec car but doesn't have it but I've seen base cars with it. I've also seen newer cars with them so it's not as if they were discontinued by the time mine was built.