Schaefft's Bargain Barge Extravaganza - Holidays over, back to Shite

[Schaefft]

The Range Rover is now on the ramp at Birch 4x4, I'm trying to prepare my mind and body for the bills this will produce. Who knows, if they can get it done in time I might be able to pick it up this Saturday on my way back from Bicester (although it looks like they are closed on weekends so not sure yet how that'll work).

I'm still waiting for the ZTT's springs to arrive so I've washed the Millercycle Xedos 9 instead. I hate to admit that it might have been half a year since the last proper wash, at the same time the car didn't really go anywhere either. I need to change that soon, especially with a potential donor car on the horizon.

[DirtyDaily]

The Range Rover is now on the ramp at Birch 4x4, I'm trying to prepare my mind and body for the bills this will produce. Who knows, if they can get it done in time I might be able to pick it up this Saturday on my way back from Bicester (although it looks like they are closed on weekends so not sure yet how that'll work).
I'm still waiting for the ZTT's springs to arrive so I've washed the Millercycle Xedos 9 instead. I hate to admit that it might have been half a year since the last proper wash, at the same time the car didn't really go anywhere either. I need to change that soon, especially with a potential donor car on the horizon.

My fingers are crossed for the rangie!

[IronStar]

55 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

 

What a wonderfull looking car! The design aged so well. I really really need to so something about my 626 sitting sad and rotting. 

[Schaefft]

19 minutes ago, IronStar said:

What a wonderfull looking car! The design aged so well. I really really need to so something about my 626 sitting sad and rotting. 

What year 626 is it? I've said it here before and I'll say it again, Mazda really was at their peak in the very late 80s and early 90s, they didn't design a single bad looking car after 1989 until the Xedos 9 and FD RX7 came out. Even the often forgotten fullsize '92 929 was beautiful.

[IronStar]

1 hour ago, Schaefft said:

What year 626 is it? I've said here before and I'll say it again, Mazda really was at their peak in the very late 80s and early 90s, they didn't design a single bad looking car after 1989 until the Xedos 9 and FD RX7 came out. Even the often forgotten fullsize '92 929 was beautiful.

92, first year of GE model.

[Schaefft]

32 minutes ago, IronStar said:

92, first year of GE model.

My favorite generation 626!

[IronStar]

1 minute ago, Schaefft said:

My favorite generation 626!

Molten spaceship! ❤️

Lovely thing to drive and be in.

[Schaefft]

Range Rover news: Birch 4x4 confirmed what we suspected, e-clutch/bushing failure causing a lack of pressure to properly engage 4th/5th/6th. A common gearbox failure on L322s with the 6-speed (the 5-speeds also fail, don't worry), in case of mine just above 100k miles👌

Hopefully I'll be able to get it back this Saturday, I might have to park it in Liverpool and pick it up Saturday the following week on my way down to/back from Rustival as I'll be in the Infiniti in both cases.

The other Rover product, the ZTT, finally got it's new spring today. This time one that actually seems to be the right size. Despite that I still had to deploy a few death defying tricks to get this strut reassembled...

This actually worked out without me dying:

Yes, the MG was finally back on the ground and ready for its MOT. Even the sun decided to come out again so I decided to take it for a drive.

Life can be beautiful.

 

 

 

Hold on, what's that on the ground..?

So the exhaust fell off.

[vtec-e]

One step forwards, one step sideways ?

[Brigsy]

Free silencer delete for nice v6 noises.

[Schaefft]

13 minutes ago, vtec-e said:

One step forwards, one step sideways ?

Believe it or not, I bought this original owner, 73k miles example in the hopes of it not needing all that much work when recommissioning it. Right now it needs more work than the utterly neglected E39 I bought back in 2014. I'm increasingly glad that the donation I bought this thing with will make it a free car eventually, ignoring what I'm currently putting into it mind you...

1 minute ago, Brigsy said:

Free silencer delete for nice v6 noises.

The KV6 isn't a good sounding engine without exhaust😂

[Split_Pin]

ZT looking splendid.

Your ownership is going better than my ownership:

 

[Schaefft]

30 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

ZT looking splendid.

Your ownership is going better than my ownership:

 

Seen it on FB, sucks but at least its in the right hands to get it all sorted.

[Schaefft]

Another busy weekend. Friday night was finally time to get one of the last cars over to to our new place, the black Lincoln Mark VIII LSC. Similar to the Mazda it's been way too long since the last time this car got a wash, I honestly can't remember when I parked it (ignoring a couple of drives to keep things moving) as it came back from Germany after it's last inspection and was immediately parked up...

A couple of hours with the pressure washer and a bucket earier today and it's looking much better again:

Unfortunately it's doing what most Mark VIII's are doing now, the clearcoat starts failing on the rear quarters (you can see it in the first photo) which would quickly escalate into the whole car needing a respray. If anyone has a good way of getting peeling clearcoat sorted to a somewhat sensible level of quality at home, let me know...

I've also had a quick go at the ZT-T's exhaust. The silencer seemed salvageable so I split it from the remains of the mid-pipe which went better than expected:

No holes whatsoever, in fact it all felt fairly solid so I attacked it with a drill mounted wirebrush and coated it liberally (hence the runs) in RustAnode:

This should slow the rust down considerably. These backbox aren't cheap so it's worth preserving this one while it still makes sense. I'll order the mid-section later so it's hopefully ready for a test sometime next week.

Yesterday however was crazy. My journey to Radwood UK 2025 started at 7:15am, I arrived there 4 hours later (which isn't bad for the 275 mile drive). Once again the Infiniti did well, no issues whatsoever.

The turnout for the show was noticably less than in the previous years, I'm not sure if Hagerty didn't advertise the event as much as previously or whether the close proximity to Fotu and particularly Rustival is to blame. It was great having a look around with @Skcat and his mate though, and see the Crown in person:

It's way larger than I expected it to be, what looks like a compact in photos is anything but in real life. The relativelty tall greenhouse really is deceiving you.

We left the show around 2:30ish but for me Radwood was just he beginning. I recently bought a complete E38 extended leather interior (leather dash, center console and door cards) for relatively little money and planned to pick it up on my way back from Bicester.

Through some kind of magic we managed to fit all of it into the Q45 with room to spare, who needs an estate or fold down rear seat? On a side note, if you need any BMW parts, especially for 80s and earlier cars, I can only highly recommend Tim Pollock Bmw Classic Spares, he's a great guy who's clearly got a passion for old cars.

Anyway, the next stop was Birch 4x4 in Liverpool as the Range Rover was finally ready to be collected!

And what can I say, it's driving like its a new car now! Shifts are imperceptible under any throttle load, exactly as it should be. Another highly recommended garage, if you can call it that. Turns out the company is more or less Stuart operating out of an old warehouse in the middle of Liverpool that he and/or his family have owned long before the area was gentrified (the whole block in fact apparently). They used to do a lot of RR gearboxes and have more or less specialized in rebuilding them. However, the reality is he is slowly starting to wind things down and just wrench on his own cars instead, the warehouse was filled with some pretty interesting stuff including a Maserati 3200GT and a GranSport, which was a great conversion starter with me owning the 4200. Ultimately he is just a car guy buying and fixing cool cars who happens to be great at fixing Range Rovers.

I moved the BMW stuff from the Q45 into the RR and left the Q45 in Liverpool (we'll stop there next Friday night before taking it to Rustival). I got back quarter past 11, doing a total of 600 miles. Naturally the L322 was an excellent long-distance cruiser (so is the Infiniti) but I didn't expect it to be frugal, too!

Excuse me for the continental fuel consumption units there but 10.1l/100km translates to 28mpg (UK). At a constant 75mph in a biturbo V8-powered 2.5t brick that's pretty insane. It's probably lying straight in my face as I haven't done my own napkin maths yet but that's pretty unreal to my petrol-V8 calibrated mind.

[DirtyDaily]

Another busy weekend. Friday night was finally time to get one of the last cars over to to our new place, the black Lincoln Mark VIII LSC. Similar to the Mazda it's been way too long since the last time this car got a wash, I honestly can't remember when I parked it (ignoring a couple of drives to keep things moving) as it came back from Germany after it's last inspection and was immediately parked up...


A couple of hours with the pressure washer and a bucket earier today and it's looking much better again:


Unfortunately it's doing what most Mark VIII's are doing now, the clearcoat starts failing on the rear quarters (you can see it in the first photo) which would quickly escalate into the whole car needing a respray. If anyone has a good way of getting peeling clearcoat sorted to a somewhat sensible level of quality at home, let me know...
I've also had a quick go at the ZT-T's exhaust. The silencer seemed salvageable so I split it from the remains of the mid-pipe which went better than expected:

No holes whatsoever, in fact it all felt fairly solid so I attacked it with a drill mounted wirebrush and coated it liberally (hence the runs) in RustAnode:


This should slow the rust down considerably. These backbox aren't cheap so it's worth preserving this one while it still makes sense. I'll order the mid-section later so it's hopefully ready for a test sometime next week.
Yesterday however was crazy. My journey to Radwood UK 2025 started at 7:15am, I arrived there 4 hours later (which isn't bad for the 275 mile drive). Once again the Infiniti did well, no issues whatsoever.

The turnout for the show was noticably less than in the previous years, I'm not sure if Hagerty didn't advertise the event as much as previously or whether the close proximity to Fotu and particularly Rustival is to blame. It was great having a look around with [mention=29118]Skcat[/mention] and his mate though, and see the Crown in person:

It's way larger than I expected it to be, what looks like a compact in photos is anything but in real life. The relativelty tall greenhouse really is deceiving you.
We left the show around 2:30ish but for me Radwood was just he beginning. I recently bought a complete E38 extended leather interior (leather dash, center console and door cards) for relatively little money and planned to pick it up on my way back from Bicester.

Through some kind of magic we managed to fit all of it into the Q45 with room to spare, who needs an estate or fold down rear seat? On a side note, if you need any BMW parts, especially for 80s and earlier cars, I can only highly recommend Tim Pollock Bmw Classic Spares, he's a great guy who's clearly got a passion for old cars.
Anyway, the next stop was Birch 4x4 in Liverpool as the Range Rover was finally ready to be collected!

And what can I say, it's driving like its a new car now! Shifts are imperceptible under any throttle load, exactly as it should be. Another highly recommended garage, if you can call it that. Turns out the company is more or less Stuart operating out of an old warehouse in the middle of Liverpool that he and/or his family have owned long before the area was gentrified (the whole block in fact apparently). They used to do a lot of RR gearboxes and have more or less specialized in rebuilding them. However, the reality is he is slowly starting to wind things down and just wrench on his own cars instead, the warehouse was filled with some pretty interesting stuff including a Maserati 3200GT and a GranSport, which was a great conversion starter with me owning the 4200. Ultimately he is just a car guy buying and fixing cool cars who happens to be great at fixing Range Rovers.

I moved the BMW stuff from the Q45 into the RR and left the Q45 in Liverpool (we'll stop there next Friday night before taking it to Rustival). I got back quarter past 11, doing a total of 600 miles. Naturally the L322 was an excellent long-distance cruiser (so is the Infiniti) but I didn't expect it to be frugal, too!

Excuse me for the continental fuel consumption units there but 10.1l/100km translates to 28mpg (UK). At a constant 75mph in a biturbo V8-powered 2.5t brick that's pretty insane. It's probably lying straight in my face as I haven't done my own napkin maths yet but that's pretty unreal to my petrol-V8 calibrated mind.

Wahey. Glad he turned out to be a decent garage. 28mpg if true is very good and glad the drive went different to the first trip. RR envy intensifies.

[Schaefft]

2 hours ago, DirtyDaily said:

2 hours ago, Schaefft said:

Another busy weekend. Friday night was finally time to get one of the last cars over to to our new place, the black Lincoln Mark VIII LSC. Similar to the Mazda it's been way too long since the last time this car got a wash, I honestly can't remember when I parked it (ignoring a couple of drives to keep things moving) as it came back from Germany after it's last inspection and was immediately parked up...


A couple of hours with the pressure washer and a bucket earier today and it's looking much better again:


Unfortunately it's doing what most Mark VIII's are doing now, the clearcoat starts failing on the rear quarters (you can see it in the first photo) which would quickly escalate into the whole car needing a respray. If anyone has a good way of getting peeling clearcoat sorted to a somewhat sensible level of quality at home, let me know...
I've also had a quick go at the ZT-T's exhaust. The silencer seemed salvageable so I split it from the remains of the mid-pipe which went better than expected:

No holes whatsoever, in fact it all felt fairly solid so I attacked it with a drill mounted wirebrush and coated it liberally (hence the runs) in RustAnode:


This should slow the rust down considerably. These backbox aren't cheap so it's worth preserving this one while it still makes sense. I'll order the mid-section later so it's hopefully ready for a test sometime next week.
Yesterday however was crazy. My journey to Radwood UK 2025 started at 7:15am, I arrived there 4 hours later (which isn't bad for the 275 mile drive). Once again the Infiniti did well, no issues whatsoever.

The turnout for the show was noticably less than in the previous years, I'm not sure if Hagerty didn't advertise the event as much as previously or whether the close proximity to Fotu and particularly Rustival is to blame. It was great having a look around with [mention=29118]Skcat[/mention] and his mate though, and see the Crown in person:

It's way larger than I expected it to be, what looks like a compact in photos is anything but in real life. The relativelty tall greenhouse really is deceiving you.
We left the show around 2:30ish but for me Radwood was just he beginning. I recently bought a complete E38 extended leather interior (leather dash, center console and door cards) for relatively little money and planned to pick it up on my way back from Bicester.

Through some kind of magic we managed to fit all of it into the Q45 with room to spare, who needs an estate or fold down rear seat? On a side note, if you need any BMW parts, especially for 80s and earlier cars, I can only highly recommend Tim Pollock Bmw Classic Spares, he's a great guy who's clearly got a passion for old cars.
Anyway, the next stop was Birch 4x4 in Liverpool as the Range Rover was finally ready to be collected!

And what can I say, it's driving like its a new car now! Shifts are imperceptible under any throttle load, exactly as it should be. Another highly recommended garage, if you can call it that. Turns out the company is more or less Stuart operating out of an old warehouse in the middle of Liverpool that he and/or his family have owned long before the area was gentrified (the whole block in fact apparently). They used to do a lot of RR gearboxes and have more or less specialized in rebuilding them. However, the reality is he is slowly starting to wind things down and just wrench on his own cars instead, the warehouse was filled with some pretty interesting stuff including a Maserati 3200GT and a GranSport, which was a great conversion starter with me owning the 4200. Ultimately he is just a car guy buying and fixing cool cars who happens to be great at fixing Range Rovers.

I moved the BMW stuff from the Q45 into the RR and left the Q45 in Liverpool (we'll stop there next Friday night before taking it to Rustival). I got back quarter past 11, doing a total of 600 miles. Naturally the L322 was an excellent long-distance cruiser (so is the Infiniti) but I didn't expect it to be frugal, too!

Excuse me for the continental fuel consumption units there but 10.1l/100km translates to 28mpg (UK). At a constant 75mph in a biturbo V8-powered 2.5t brick that's pretty insane. It's probably lying straight in my face as I haven't done my own napkin maths yet but that's pretty unreal to my petrol-V8 calibrated mind.

Wahey. Glad he turned out to be a decent garage. 28mpg if true is very good and glad the drive went different to the first trip. RR envy intensifies.

I'm not sure how well known they are in the Range Rover community but I couldn't think of a better place to take mine to. Super approachable, helpful and price wise hard to beat. He turned that job around in 3 days without any waiting times, that unheard of for anything remotely as complex as this job. Time will tell but I'm very happy with how things went, I wish there was a guy like him for any car I own!

[Schaefft]

A long overdue thing I wanted to get done on the black Mark VIII - polish the cloudy headlights!

Yeah, every second post seems to be about removing the cataract from faded plastic lenses but it's an often neglected thing and makes all the difference to the appearance of your car. See for yourself:

The driver side headlight actually turned out a bit better than the other side that was only partially faded. I've used the turtlewax kit I had in the car for 3 years. Sometimes things take a little longer around here...

[yes oui si]

Directional wheels on the Lincoln? Nice. 

[Schaefft]

7 hours ago, yes oui si said:

Directional wheels on the Lincoln? Nice. 

Yeah, most of the wheel styles for them were. Properly directional as well so the spokes point in the same direction on both sides. I hate it when manufacturers cheap out and use the same casting for driver and passenger side.

[yes oui si]

1 hour ago, Schaefft said:

Yeah, most of the wheel styles for them were. Properly directional as well so the spokes point in the same direction on both sides. I hate it when manufacturers cheap out and use the same casting for driver and passenger side.

The real heroes are the manufacturers who do directional wheels that are staggered front and back - four castings for one car! 

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, yes oui si said:

The real heroes are the manufacturers who do directional wheels that are staggered front and back - four castings for one car! 

Like who, as a matter of interest?

[Schaefft]

19 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Like who, as a matter of interest?

I would have said Lamborghini, Audi RS models etc. Anything where a wider rear tire makes sense (even just visually). Oddly enough even on more recent stuff directional wheel designs aren't as common as I would have expected.

One of the cars that always offended me the most as the wheels were pointing in the wrong direction on the passenger side:

 

[Supernaut]

1 hour ago, High Jetter said:

Like who, as a matter of interest?

The original Dodge Viper comes to mind.

[Surface Rust]

1 hour ago, High Jetter said:

Like who, as a matter of interest?

I think Saab had a set like that on the 9000.

[MrBig]

Nothing to add other than the Xedos and the Lincoln are just superb. I have a weird penchant for 80's/90's Americana, maybe because that's what was around when I first went there (have I said this before?!?) so things like the Buick LeSabre, Chevrolet Caprice, Ford Taurus, XJ Cherokee are well up on my want list. It's so frustrating that I could get something for $2-3k stateside, but it would owe me £6-7k by the time it landed.

Anyway, I have digressed. More curvy barge content please!!

[yes oui si]

2 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Like who, as a matter of interest?

Other than the ones listed above, Corvettes often had them. 

[Schaefft]

6 hours ago, MrBig said:

Nothing to add other than the Xedos and the Lincoln are just superb. I have a weird penchant for 80's/90's Americana, maybe because that's what was around when I first went there (have I said this before?!?) so things like the Buick LeSabre, Chevrolet Caprice, Ford Taurus, XJ Cherokee are well up on my want list. It's so frustrating that I could get something for $2-3k stateside, but it would owe me £6-7k by the time it landed.

Anyway, I have digressed. More curvy barge content please!!

In my case its been the movies of the time. Presenting these cars perfectly and regularly putting them in the spotlight, back then still as relatively new and desirable cars, really seems to have left an impact. Whoever sat in the marketing department and got these product placement deals lined up has done an excellent job, unfortunately about 10-15 years too early😂

Anyway, a quick debrief on how things went over the last weekend. Our journey to Rustival started on Friday afternoon, we planned to stay in Liverpool since the Q45 was left behind there a week earlier when I picked up the Range Rover. Fortunately it was still there:

We set off a little late on Saturday morning and arrived at Rustival around 12ish. We still managed to catch up with a few fellow shiters and see everything displayed at the show before it started to pour down. My personal favorite was this '95 Chrysler LHS in a great shade of maroon. I belongs to someone I've been following on Instagram for a little while.

It probably comes as no surprise that I wanted one of these for a few years now. A friend of mine back in Germany hoards these for some odd reason. I got close to buying its sibling, the Chrysler Vision (euro variant of the Eagle Vision Tsi) a few times but it never worked out for one reason or another. Maybe I'll own this one one day?

As mentioned elsewhere the event was great, I wish I had more opportunities to talk to people about some of the other cars I loved seeing there but maybe next time. We stayed another night near Loughborough and had a look around Leeds on our way back to Newcastle.

Meanwhile, the BMW E38 managed to pass its test with no advisories. Rimmerbros finally managed to send me the center exhaust section for the ZTT so today was the day to swap the cars around. Protip: Just don't drive one of these without silencer. I don't know how the cat or center boxes can have so little effect on the noise levels of a car, it was borderline deafening inside of this thing😬 It also boggles my mind that Rover engineers thought that 4000rpm at around 80mph in 5th is acceptable in a car like this.

The oil change for the 7er was long overdue, without knowing for certain how old the oil was (I never really put any significant miles on it) I avoided giving it the beans until now. With a fresh service done I blew its cobwebs off on the way back. The 2.8l M52 doesn't have the torque of a V8 but still propels this fairly large car forward sufficiently enough to get up to speed fairly quickly. Its an oasis of serenity and relaxation compared to what I endured earlier.😂

It also looks great after a wash. I'll see if I start replacing the interior with the extended leather one I picked up last week soon. The nights are getting shorter rapidly now so I won't have as much time after work as I had before and there's still plenty of other cars waiting for their turn.

[Snipes]

20 hours ago, yes oui si said:

The real heroes are the manufacturers who do directional wheels that are staggered front and back - four castings for one car! 

Lotus failed us!

[Asimo]

On 01/09/2025 at 20:45, Schaefft said:

95 Chrysler LHS

The ex - mercrocker car. 

https://www.thedarkwob.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=30574

[Schaefft]

2 hours ago, Asimo said:

The ex - mercrocker car. 

https://www.thedarkwob.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=30574

Never registered on there so I can't see the thread unfortunately.