Datsuncog's Heaps: Sept 2023 - Another Year's T-Met Exemption Certificate...

[hairnet]

38 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

Well, a good long lie-in occurred yesterday, while I allowed my somewhat broken self to recuperate from what was rather more of an adventure than anticipated...

TLDR ffs its like our tune

It's been a weird couple of years, and I've pretty much gone nowhere and seen no-one since late 2019 in an effort to 'do my bit' and avoid spreading viral shiz around the place, so I think travelling and decision-making and being far, far out of the constrained little orbit I've been moving through for the past 20 months kinda took rather more out of me than I'd expected.

OLD.

But, overall, it was maybe a good thing to do. If I'd simply needed basic transport, I probably could have found something locally, but on some level I reckon I needed to prove to myself that I still retained the wherewithal to devise, activate and pull off a convoluted sequence of events.

you wanted bling and land of potato didnt cut it

wtf?!!?!?! wallet train ticket and snax only shurely

 

Given that these are components that don't seem to last any length of time no matter what the price, is there any compelling reason not to fit cheap ones and basically consider them to be annual service items? Or should I steer clear from ECP's finest and get something elsewhere?

just buy the chape wans

MrsDC seems enthused, and drove it back from the retail park last night. After checking it out fer shappin

I still haven't gone through the weighty history file and found any fivers

More to come, doubtless...

madness

[JimH]

54 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

though sadly at some point the tonneau cover's stepped out for a walk and never returned.

Bollocks. The bloody thing is in the store and I'd completely forgotten about it. 

[beko1987]

Nice! 

I'd throw the cheapest and quickiest to obtain Droplinks on and just drive it, they'll only be clonking in a year again anyway, bloody roads

 

[hairnet]

22 minutes ago, JimH said:

Bollocks. The bloody thing is in the store and I'd completely forgotten about it. 

extra 50 for you now

 

[JimH]

A quick look says it isn't going to be much less that fifty quid (£40.39 with Royal Mail) to post the sodding thing. Bums.

 

[Dave_Q]

Try senditnow,  it's an online front for parcelforce so you can drop off at a post office or have them collect, and they do take longer parcels than most standard services for reasonable prices. 

https://www.senditnow.com/

[Split_Pin]

Starline bits are OK, they were recommended to me when I was looking for suspension parts for my Clio 172.

[mintwth]

3 hours ago, JimH said:

A quick look says it isn't going to be much less that fifty quid (£40.39 with Royal Mail) to post the sodding thing. Bums.

 

Have a look at Paisley Freight. https://www.paisleyfreight.com/

[Datsuncog]

On 11/8/2021 at 1:01 PM, JimH said:

Bollocks. The bloody thing is in the store and I'd completely forgotten about it. 

Ah, never worry - it's the usual thing, finding something just as the tail lights vanish over the hill...

Royal Mail have really shot themselves in the arse with whacking up their carriage rates - a few years back I was able to send some Renault roofbars over to a fellow-shiter for only £13. Couldn't do that now.

Couriers are often cheap enough on the GB landmass when compared to RM, but quite spendy once they factor in getting stuff across the water.

I may be better just finding a cover locally from a breaker, so please don't worry about it!

[Datsuncog]

Any road, yesterday morning saw me having a lovely* time of it, waiting for CarTakeBack's locally appointed contractor to come and remove the Forester's mortal remains from the Mechanic of Choice's premises.

It was as dismal as a semi-abandoned industrial site can be at 8am on a wet Monday morning in November.

The potential for additional fun* was noted, since there was now a VW Scirocco parked in front of the Forester - and no-one around to move it.

I'd gone down at the end of last week to remove all my bits and pieces from the Forester's interior, and take a few final pictures.

Creepily, the Forester did not appear to like this one bit. The camera on my phone glitched and glitched and glitched, and I could not take any complete photos. 

And it's really not a glitchy phone at all.

Eventually I managed to get this:

And that's about the best I could manage, in terms of commemoration.

Oh well. I have better pics.

I don't know why, but I find the process of clearing out a car to be rather depressing, especially when I know it's going to be scrapped. Maybe it's all the unguents and potions accumulated to keep it on the road, which have now been proven laughably ineffectual against the inevitability of time, and rust.

At about a quarter to ten, a call came through from the collection driver. He was lost.

I managed to talk him round to the industrial estate entrance, and before long he hove into sight.

A fucking Iveco, for maximum insult.

With the garage still showing no signs of life, at least I was able to climb into the Forester for the last time and reverse it down the grassy embankment behind, and thence out onto the road. If there'd been a fence there, I would have been kinda snookered.

The turbo whurble-whurble was just as intoxicating as ever, though there was some whirring and whining from the disconnected driveshaft as I negotiated the kerb drop. The steering was also making some odd noises, indicating that while the support bar welded to the busted control arm was keeping things more or less in position, there was unhappiness lurking.

I got out, and stood in the lashing rain while the scrappie lad did his stuff.

 

It drove up onto the bed, no winching needed. At least it wasn't a hi-ab; I'm not sure how I'd have felt if he'd lifted it with chains, and then crushed the roof down with the hydraulic arm to keep it in place.

Hard to believe it's so far gone, but it is.

I really will miss this thing a lot. Seeing one of my cars leave always gives me a pointless sense of sadness, as it's always in sub-optimal circumstances.

Night night, little one.

I wasn't the owner you deserved.

And that was that.

 

It was only later in the afternoon I realised that he hadn't asked me for any ID, utilities bill, or all the other shite they'd insisted on me having to hand during collection.

For a while I pondered whether I'd been scammed, but quite late on I received a notification from my bank that a payment had arrived from CarTakeBack.

Closure, of sorts.

 

Still, there's other things to focus on now.

Like drop links, Bilt Hamber protection, and idler pulleys.

Life goes on. Chod goes on. And I'll get back there, soon. Just need a minute, mebbe...

[Split_Pin]

I don't know many people that would be sad in a situation like yours but I am one of them and it's a bit of a comfort to know that there's another out there.

As you say though, it will pass after a short time, especially as you have a new car to be getting on with.

[beko1987]

It's never nice watching an old friend bring driven away on the back of a scrap truck 😭

When ASM took the rolling shell of my blue laguna it went on the back on an A frame. Wasn't until about 20 minutes after he departed I remembered the front bumper was just laid onto the front, I'd removed it to take parts off it to sell and just laid it back on, spotted onto its mounts but no fixings 😂. 

Kept half an eye on the m40 twitter page for the next hour but saw no massive accident caused by a front bumper flying off at 70 so it was probably alright. 

Topped only by driving it to death, then having to walk past it on the way out as the v5 goes in the shredder and the keys into the bin  in the office never to be put into the ignition again... 

[bunglebus]

I know how you feel. We somehow got my first car, upside-down, into a box trailer behind an XR4I and videoed its last journey and unceremonious grabbing by the claw in the scrap metal yard. If I owned it now the rust repairs it needed would be pretty easy for me, but I was 20 and there were thousands of other MK1 Fiestas to choose from...

[Tadhg Tiogar]

4 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

.... all the unguents and potions accumulated to keep it on the road, which have now been proven laughably ineffectual against the inevitability of time, and rust.

...

I didn't know marzipan could be used as a patch repair. Must note that down for future reference....

[RoadworkUK]

2 hours ago, beko1987 said:

....the v5 goes in the shredder and the keys into the bin in the office never to be put into the ignition again.

The very thought of that has me breaking into a cold sweat, the thought of car keys suddenly being actual rubbish, in the bin with the spent teabags and used coffee filter papers.

I felt the same when I took a dead DVD player to the tip. Put it in the recycling cage and placed the remote control gently on top of it, because "they belong together".

 

[Noel Tidybeard]

34 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

I didn't know marzipan could be used as a patch repair. Must note that down for future reference....

i'm guessing the Victory Vs are for dropping in the header tank if the coolant is murky

[beko1987]

43 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

I didn't know marzipan could be used as a patch repair. Must note that down for future reference....

It didn't work, hence the new car... 

[somewhatfoolish]

5 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

I really will miss this thing a lot. Seeing one of my cars leave always gives me a pointless sense of sadness, as it's always in sub-optimal circumstances.

Night night, little one.

I wasn't the owner you deserved.

And that was that.

It'd bring a tear to a glass eye.

 

[Datsuncog]

Well, there's been precious little in the way of updates on the Outback, kids, and for that I apologise.

After all the thrills 'n' spills of the collection from deepest Volvoshire, it's hard to imagine how I could top that.

Broadly speaking, things are going not too badly with the other Subaru.

Back in December I forced myself to change the front drop links, as the thumping and banging from the front every time I stopped or steered was becoming quite alarming.

This was a job I'd never carried out before, as I've either had cars too old for such suspension fripperies, or I've been able to ignore it for longer.

Of course, carrying out these jobs in the winter twilight as rain runs down one's collar only adds to the general fun.

Despite being fitted relatively recently, the failed set of links were fairly well rusted on and just didn't want to come off.

So, after many hours of swearing and knuckle grazing, it took the tender attentions of the angle grinder to finally persuade them to come off.

Fitting the new set and torqueing them down was comparatively easy - but I was slightly perturbed that the knocking and banging continued.

It wasn't the top struts, as there was no noise when travelling over road bumps at speed - but putting the wheels on full lock would guarantee a loud, visceral 'thump' from the front end, as would the act of braking to come to a halt at a junction.

I torqued the links up a bit more, and there was some improvement, but still a bit of banging. Some online sleuthing advised that Outbacks of this era are rather prone to their front anti-roll bars making various horrid noises, once they get past about ten years of age or so.

I was pricing up ARBs and idly wondering just how badly I could fuck this job up, when the noise just... stopped. And I haven't heard it for about eight weeks now.

Oh well.

What has been a bit less helpful has been the array of disco lights on the dash.

JimH was totally upfront about the ABS light and 'ERR 55' code, which was flashing at the point he sold it to me. This had been potentially traced to a faulty front offside sensor lead, a new one of which was helpfully supplied ready to fit. 

Of course, I haven't fitted it yet. The idea was to swap it over when sorting the drop links, but this proved to be such a ballache that I forgot all about it until after I'd dropped it back down off the axle stands. So the light's still glowing away on the dash, though does occasionally switch itself off for a while.

The yellow EML also popped on one evening on the motorway, much to MrsDC's dismay. A quick tickle with the OBD2 dongle and Torque Lite shows the same lambda sensor fault code the Forester sporadically gave me, indicating an imbalance somewhere or other. As before, it may represent a duff sensor rather than a fault with the engine, but it can't help cause a sinking feeling - especially with MOT time drawing close.

The EML tends to turn itself on and off every few hundred miles, though while doing a few pick-up/ drop-offs around Belfast last month I did wonder if the exhaust fumes smelled a bit rich and fuelly - there seemed to be quite a bit of smoke coming from the twin pipes, and I couldn't be sure if it was just the cold morning causing the vapour to condense.

Hmmm.

Lastly, there's The Squeal.

I understand the belts and everything were changed last year as part of the herculean recommissioning of this car, but while guddling under the bonnet I'd noticed a slight squeak, apparently coming from the auxiliary belt idler pulley that runs the aircon compressor.

One of the belts appeared to be a smidge slack, so I'd tried my best to tighten it a bit using the hex adjuster, but this only seemed to make matters worse, with the belt then screaming like a demented banshee pretty much all the time.

So I slackened it off a little, but now it swings wildly between absolutely silent or else shrieking long and loud each time I change gear.

Weird.

So, with the MOT coming up, and there being many other pressures on my time, I've opted to farm these niggles out to the Mechanic of Choice, who no doubt will be delighted* to see me rock up in another teenaged Subaru tomorrow morning.

Jobs are:

- make the ABS light go away
- make the EML go away
- stop the belt squeal on the aircon loop
- tighten the handbrake a bit, as there's a fair bit of travel and it doesn't always hold.

Provided these issues can be attended to, and nothing else untoward is uncovered, then I can put it in for its MOT with total* confidence!

Or something.

Stay tuned.

[Datsuncog]

^^^ Pics now added, so that you may all share my pain the better.

[EightMegs]

On 11/6/2021 at 7:27 PM, Datsuncog said:

And we're on board... So this may be the last post 'til Norn Iron.

The Mk1 Cavalier's a few places behind the Outback, and looks bloody good, actually. Clean, but patinated - a survivor, rather than a recent renovation.

There's only about twelve cars and vans loaded tonight, so that priority boarding was definitely* worth it.

On the positive side, the exclusive Stena Plus lounge is... very shiny.

There's free coffee and free Tunnock's Caramel Wafers, so I might as well see what sort of a dent I can put in them before we dock.

And there's tapas.

Well, sort of.

It might make anyone from Catalonia cry, but it'll do me rightly.

Oh, and as we strike out into the inky depths of Loch Ryan on this wild and windy night - from three decks below, I can just about hear, sounding over and over...

WEEEEEEEoooooooowWEEEEEEEoooooooowWEEEEEEEoooooooowWEEEEEEEoooooooow

Lord help me, I never learn.

I think I'll see if I can get an upgrade to Stena Plus at the desk when I'm emigrating in two weeks time.

[Datsuncog]

17 hours ago, EightMegs said:

I think I'll see if I can get an upgrade to Stena Plus at the desk when I'm emigrating in two weeks time.

It's worth a try - though I saw someone try it when I was boarding, and they were told it was an extra £30 payment to access the Plus lounge on the day.

I don't think even I could have ploughed through £30 worth of crisps and Tunnocks Wafers, despite a valiant attempt.

Best of luck for your move!

[Datsuncog]

So, the deed was done this morning - the Outback was left down at the petrochemical wonderland that's the semi-abandoned ICI factory, which this morning had its ambiance enhanced by being partially on fire (demolition work, apparently).

A list has been provided of work needing done, and I'm hoping that nothing else major comes to light while it's up on the four-post.

Return transport was provided by my longstanding pushbike, which I've owned for as long as I've been a car owner.

The guy at the bike shop must have thought I was a right stroppy bastard when I came in with my dad to pick this, but the truth of the matter was that I'd just collected my first car the night before and I really wanted to be at home playing with the Cortina's rusty bits (of which there were many).

The fact that this bike, a cheapie non-brand 'Shogun Hard Trail', has outlived every one of my cars with only minimal maintenance is not lost on me.

It's still on the original 26 year-old tyres, FFS.

 

Now, the waiting game commences...

[Datsuncog]

12 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

I'm hoping that nothing else major comes to light while it's up on the four-post.

Hear that?

 

It's the sound of fate being tempted.

 

Do I even need to elaborate, really?

Connect the dots: teenaged Subaru - lifetime in Scotland - optimistic idiot.

Ah well. I can't say I wasn't warned.

It's been nice while it lasted, though. Especially those heated seats.

On the plus side, there are a good few more cars for sale locally than there were back in November, including a couple of promising-looking V70s in the sub-£1000 category.

Or I could just throw caution to the winds and buy the legendary Montego 1.3 estate...

[320touring]

Ah fuck man, sorry to hear!

As you say - on to the next wan😁 I reckon your alter-ego would do a fine review of the Montego, or (dare I suggest it), a nice solid Toledo?

[somewhatfoolish]

Is it aff to live on a farm then?

[JimH]

Oh...

[Datsuncog]

Ah, it's nobody's fault - I was well aware that @TrabbieRonnie's garage had condemned it over a year ago, and if it weren't for the efforts of @Minimad5 to get it welded up and fit other needful bits, it would be bean cans already.

@JimHand @Supernaut were able to give me a fair appraisal, noting it was rough but not yet utterly hanging underneath, and I took a punt on it because there was really nothing else for sale locally back in early November.

Since then, it's put in sterling work as a tip hauler and furniture mover as we've been preparing the house for a move, and has only cost me in petrol and a pair of drop links. I've put a few thousand miles on it over wintry, salty roads and it hasn't let me down. A hire car for three months would have cost me rather more, so overall I'd call that a win.

 

So, The Mechanic of Choice rang late-ish last night, sounding somewhat worried.

He said he wasn't sure how to tell me this, given the previous Subaru larks, but - with a great degree of tact - the condition of the Outback's underside led him to believe that this did not appear to be a car worth spending large sums of money on.

He'd managed to get the belt nipped up, so it no longer squealed - the least important, but probably the most annoying issue with the car - and had checked over the fault codes to see that the lambda sensor does appear to be screwy. He told me that he'd replaced a similar Subaru sensor on another customer's car recently, and it was quite a pricey item - surprisingly so.

The ABS/ brake issue seems to involve the calipers, all four of which seem to be quite corroded and now a bit stuck - which probably explains the low-grade rubbing noise I've noticed over the past week while cornering at low speed - and the rear discs seem to be on their last legs too. Ideally, all four calipers and back discs need replaced.

But while under the car, he clocked the condition of the front crossmember - while it's recently been welded, in his view it now needs further repair to satisfy an MOT tester, or else replaced. He also mentioned the section of floor behind the rear wheels, which "simply isn't there any more", with the exhaust hangers now hanging free. If those were the sole problematic elements, then welding might be an option. But there's a fair few other crispy bits poking through.

Overall, it's a fair appraisal - he said he didn't want to carry out a shedload of work and bill me for it, only for the car to immediately fail its MOT in spectacular fashion. And I appreciate his honesty.

So, the situation is slightly nuanced. In his view, there's no realistic way for it to pass a Northern Ireland MOT (which is a bit more stringent than those in GB, from experience) without spending a lot of money and a lot of time welding. Inevitably, more welding will soon be needed, and I think that's pretty much how it goes with Subarus (and hey, this doesn't come as a surprise to me).

The current MOT expires next week, but right now there's an enormous backlog for tests at the small number of Driver Vehicle Agency test centres throughout Norn Iron.

I applied for my MOT a while ago, and the earliest date they could give me was... 17 May.

Arrangements are in place for vehicles whose MOT has expired while waiting for a test to continue driving.

Book, view, change or cancel an MOT/ vehicle test | nidirect

Quote

As the Driver and Vehicle Agency (DVA) is experiencing high demand for its testing services, you may not be able to get an appointment before your existing MOT expires.

If this is the case, you must book the earliest available test appointment for your vehicle. DVA have consulted with the PSNI and the Association of British Insurers (ABI) to make them aware of the current situation.

The PSNI has agreed not to penalise drivers whose MOT has expired so long as:

• your vehicle is in a roadworthy and safe condition
• your vehicle is properly insured
• you can prove (by showing an MOT appointment notification/ reminder, either in electronic or paper form) that a test appointment has been booked for your vehicle

I've asked the Mechanic of Choice to try greasing up the brake sliders to see if that improves the brakes and knocks out the ABS light.

It may yet give me a few more months of use...

[dave j]

This thread has taught me that if buying a Subaru, make sure it has 12 months MOT so you can get a few months use our of it before it completely dissolves!

I guess your next car may not be another Subaru?

[Minimad5]

Jesus christ, those drop links look like they've lived in the sea.

Sorry to hear that this has also been bitten by the rust bug. Shame as the interior, engine and gearbox are all pretty good.

Just glad collectively (we the Autoshite folk) have been able to keep it on the road for so long. If i had another shell I'd be tempted to buy yours for the engine alone.