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It's grim up north....tales from the Primate House


NorthernMonkey

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Just been over to Aldi in Clitheroe for a couple of bottles of wine and stopped for some gratuitous pics on the way home…

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Sheep were distinctly uninterested…

 

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And finally for tonight, a (very small fraction of the) fleet shot.

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It comes to something when I now consider the 124 my modern… 🤔🤨

 

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4 hours ago, NorthernMonkey said:

May replace the little black bits on the nearside rear arch with red oxide, just for that 80s giffer look.

That's the most Autoshite observation I've read on here for years.  Splendid acquisition by the way!

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  • 3 months later...
4 hours ago, Matty said:

Clean as it looks?

Only just got back having dumped it and the trailer in the unit but it looks it.

Certainly, the interior is in good condition and the paintwork seems very good indeed.

Full service history and a pretty exemplary mot history, along with new tyres, battery and brakes all round just a couple of weeks before the belt said goodbye to some of its teeth are just the icing on the cake.

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5 hours ago, NorthernMonkey said:

Only just got back having dumped it and the trailer in the unit but it looks it.

Certainly, the interior is in good condition and the paintwork seems very good indeed.

Full service history and a pretty exemplary mot history, along with new tyres, battery and brakes all round just a couple of weeks before the belt said goodbye to some of its teeth are just the icing on the cake.

Is it auto or manual?

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  • NorthernMonkey changed the title to It's grim up north....tales from the Primate House

Welcome to the latest arrival…

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Got up on Sunday morning at whatever time it was thanks to the clocks going back and whilst stood on the patio supervising the Springers, took a quick look at the forum.

Hmm. A Bini convertible. A very cheap one at that. By the time the dogs have sussed out the overnight wildlife movements around the trailer, a message has been sent.

Despite owning a succession of Beetle convertibles, Mrs NM has always considered trying out a Bini ragtop as they are equally ‘funky’ enough in her opinion. I’ve tried many times with many different soft top Audis, BMWs and MBs but nothing has been deemed suitable and we’ve always ended up with another Beetle, but this piqued her interest enough to be pestering me every five minutes on Sunday morning as to whether or not a reply had been received.

Several hours later, once @groovylee had woken up, we were on the M6 heading south. It wasn’t until we’d exchanged details on WhatsApp that we both realised we’d had previous dealing’s earlier in the year!

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Anyway, we arrived in deepest Buckinghamshire (I think) around teatime and were back home watching the F1 by 22.30 with a can of Elvis Juice (not a euphemism, google it)

So what have we got? Basically a very late mark one Bini with the best of both worlds, a tritec engine and a later gearbox that actually works…the combination that many would argue BMW should have stuck with rather than the notoriously reliable* Prince engine from those great bunch of lads in Hams hall, Birmingham (no, not THAT great bunch of lads)

Up on the ramp for a quick look and all is good…

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The front subframe will benefit from a wire brush and a coating of Lanolin but that’s purely a preventative maintenance type of job…it’s absolutely solid.

The test advisories mentioned a bit of wear on the front tyres and a minor oil leak but that’s extreme arse covering…the rubber still has a good 3mm right on the inner edge whereas the rest is around 5mm and the oil leak is just a bit road dirt around the bottom of the sump area…neither would merit a mention from my tester tbh.

Did I mention it’s also got a bloody sunroof mode?! 😂

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Lee mentioned the EML which had cropped up earlier but had since cleared itself. This actually reappeared at Newport Pagnell services on a coffee stop but had no perceptible effect on the driving and was basically ignored by Mrs NM who by this point had thrown the XC90 keys at me and positioned herself in DiDi, as it’s since been christened by myself due to its colour. Work it out.

One very strange issue appeared when investigating the light yesterday afternoon…it refuses point blank to communicate with my various scanners, ranging from a basic obd reader to a top end Autel clone tablet.

In the end, I dug out my old SnapOn Solus pro with the loose identity keys and it found it straight away!

Doing a bit of digging reveals that this era of Bini has two different lines of communication between the port and the various ecus. Most readers these data use a dedicated data bus line which on this car appears to be corrupted, but there’s also a standard can bus high and low which the Snap on will connect through quite happily, so that’ll merit further investigation.

In the meantime, the eml appears to be down to an intermittent misfire on cylinder one…

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Swapping plugs and leads around made zero difference so a new coil pack has been delivered by my factors this afternoon for £22 and will be changed in due course as Claire is working from home tomorrow so I stand a fighting chance of getting my hands on it in the morning…by the time I got up today, it had disappeared from the driveway whereas her Volvo was still where we left it last night post Aldi…

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