Not sure what the market for these are now as the seem to be priced all over the place,
Anyone care to put a value on this pile of old shite
I bought it with good intentions but decided to buy the hippo instead so this is now just sitting doing nothing
it drives really well with a nice tight gear change, engine starts first time and runs really nice,
it has chassis rust (don't they all) mainly back cross member, front driverside outrigger, and rear shock mount area,

Being two of the resident American-auto lickers on here, danthecapriman and I have been having some PM chatter about possibly going abroad and bringing one back.  Here's one that we fancied quite strongly until Dan realised his passport had expired...

So you see the sort of thing we like!
Well... then this one appeared in the ebay thread...

Dan and I discussed it at length (when was the last time you had a PM conversation run to 8 pages?) and decided I should bid on it.  We set a ceiling, because neither of us wanted to be involved in a bidding war even though we would be watching when it ended.
And we were outbid.  Fair enough.
Then I got a Second Chance Offer.  Winning bidder turned up, declared it wasn't for him, and scarpered.  The seller liked the car so much he almost didn't send me the Offer, and when it took me a while to reply (consulting with Dan) he almost wanted me to turn it down so he could keep it.  But I didn't.  Consultation showed that we both still thought it was a good buy, so I accepted.  Arrangements had to be made, money drawn, directions printed, etc etc.
So yesterday my friend Roger arrived, a mere three hours later than we had arranged.  Immediately he declared his 2006 Fabia wasn't well and he didn't fancy it all the way to Derby and, crucially, back.  So ok, we went in my Saab.  He liked that, a lot.  Derby is almost 200 miles from Barrow, in case you wanted to know.  You know what my Saab looks like so you don't need pics of that stage of the trip.
So, here we are at the seller's farm.

Let's take a minute to explore some of his other toys...









...and believe me, these are only highlights!
So, now let's look at the Cadillac in a bit more detail...












Don't worry, I do have the bonnet mascot!  Seller removed it at my suggestion, because the car will live outside on the street.  I don't want to lose the ornament!
So, we set off to drive home, after one of the compulsory-element pics...

Seller directed us to a gas station and a chippy...


(I might cross-post that one to Cars AndGirls...)  The girl in the white shirt is one of the chippy staff, she just couldn't get enough of the car!  I took a load of pics on her phone of her sitting in it, admiring it from outside... then finally we could have our tea and get back on the road.  We stopped at a couple of services, not least because driving at night with no instrument lighting is pretty stressful!  Especially when you have motorway roadworks for mile after mile, with a 50 limit and cameras.

So we finally arrived in Barrow at 1.00am, having listened to Ken Bruce covering the Eurovision most of the way up.  Yes, the Cadillac has its original factory AM/FM radio, and it works!
This morning I thought I'd better do something about the lack of door-locking, that the seller pointed out to me.  The car has 4 keys, all slightly different!  One for trunk, one for ignition... er...
A little consultation with Dan brought forth the suggestion that the power-lock actuators might be at fault, and upon dismantling the driver's door, this was indeed the case.

I disconnected the actuator from the lock and all was well.  One of the "other" keys was found to fit the doors, so now I can lock and unlock them manually.  Good enough.  When I took my dog out, I couldn't resist grabbing this shot...

And then I decided it needed a clean, so I swept it out, found a carpet offcut for the trunk, and washed the thing.  It does look better.

Several of my neighbours have come to have a look, and gone away impressed.
 
What happens now?  Well the immediate plan is just that I should (and will!) drive it, as much as possible given that I don't have anywhere off-road to keep it.  This is at least partly why we went for a mechanically-sound car (which it certainly seems to be) with cosmetic issues.  One worries less about a fresh ding, you know.... To this end I'll be going to work in it tomorrow, and stopping at the Post Office on the way home to get the tax in my name.  This car is the right side of 40 years old, so I get free tax.  Lovely!
What happens in the further-distance remains to be seen.
 

I really need to unload some of the cars.
 
Doesn't matter how much I try and justify it to myself, I've just got way too many at the moment.
 
This is a large problem that became very apparent when I started looking at moving workshop to somewhere larger to consolidate where I keep my stuff and hopefully make some headroom.  The realisation struck me that I've got enough work to keep me going until retirement, and it's simply not worth it.  I need to cut some stuff out and make a clean break I think.
 
Current list.
 
1972 Beetle 1200 restoration (keeping and finishing, it's Sarah's car so probably doesn't count, to be fair I've done a fair bit on this)
 
2000 beetle 2.0 (Sarah's car, needs a battery and some welding doing, but given she's not driving it's fine, and it can be quickly made into a car again.  I really need to keep this one too.
 
1984 Caravelle restoration (keeping and finishing, had this forever and can't part with it.)
 
1974 Subaru Beetle (can't really sell this one, made a promise on it and need to see it through)
 
2006 Mondeo ST 2.2 Diesel (I'm keeping this, as it's my daily driver)
 
So that brings us to the stuff I really need to get rid of.
 
2002 Mondeo ST220 in Infra Red (I bought this because nothing appreciates like a fast ford, it's a project but an easy one, and I've not touched it for three years now.  It's in a dry garage, this can be for sale.  I keep missing the guy with the garage access to get the pictures done
 
Here's one from just before it went into storage.  I can't imagine being that it's sat in a dry garage it looks a lot worse.  Battery will be shot, needs a window reg, they're about £20, I might have one.  It had a bit of a sump weep and needed discs and pads, and probably tyres too.  I don't remember seeing any rot in there, but it may have started to go a bit by the front wings.
 
FB_IMG_1548892719181 by davedorson, on Flickr
 
it's infra red, I've got some good part worn tyres I can sell with it for the right money, needs re-commissioning.  Plate is N99 JLM,
 
 
 
 
1999 Golf S 1.9 TD estate.  That's the one that was meant to go last week.  All working now, just needs me to put some coolant in it and get a battery, the chap was meant to bring one, then let me down, MOT'd till March 29th.  Might just get this re-MOT'd and park it down the unit as a spare "pool" car.  NOW SOLD
 
IMG_20181215_100535522 by davedorson, on Flickr
 
W124 300E (m103 3.0), ex David Bailey car apparently.  Lost all the paperwork, probably worthless, refuses to run right, I suspect the K-Jet is shagged.  I just can't find the motivation to do this.  It's fairly solid, I've got new discs and pads in the boot for it.  Really should just get rid of this one.  if anyone wants this please get in touch, and I'll do some photos for you. 
 
2018-08-09_09-18-46 by davedorson, on Flickr
 
It won't come on the 17's, as they're valuable on their own, I've got some original wheels, but I need to sort them out with tyres, I'll try and do that and get some updated ones.  NOW SOLD
 
S124 200TE, rusty.  Currently at a friends in Corby who's been apparently doing the welding on it for me.  I'm yet to see evidence of this.  I've basically written it off as a bad experience.  If anyone wants this please get in touch.  It does drive, but it's rough as arseholes due to degraded ignition bits and very rusty, although it might be less rusty now.  I dunno, I'll arrange some photos if I can.  Reg is G878ERP if you're curious, as you can see, off the road for ages!  NOT MOVED SINCE I STARTED THIS THREAD, ANYONE FEELING BRAVE?  MESSAGE ME!

Rather than starting a topic for every car I reckoned it might be better if I just dumped my motory musings in here.

The fleet is rather unexciting these days, currently consisting of the camperised ex-roofer's van Hiace and the ex-Cavcraft/dieselnutjob Rover 420.

First off, the Hiace, it's absorbed a fair amount of my life (and income) in the last few months. I've managed to turn it from a tatty, scruffy old roofer's van to a slightly less tatty basic camper van.

It had a thread here:
http://autoshite.com/topic/26065-hiace-shenanigans/page-4

Which I had completely forgotten about. It started out like this...







And now looks like this...





Radical difference, I know. Two proper windows professionally installed and a set of hubcaps plus a new towbar socket and a bit of cleaning. Most of the changes are on the inside, I will eventually gather all my photos together for the work done to line and insulate it and do a proper post if anyone's interested.

So, the Rover - bought with suspected HGF due to a problem with coolant bursting out of the header tank every time it warmed up, no wipers and a broken door handle, it has been perfectly reliable since after replacing the ill-fitting aftermarket header tank lid with a proper one and changing the knackered wiper mechanism. It has a brief thread here...

http://autoshite.com/topic/29568-ex-cavcraft-rover-420-t-series-not-k-series-available-probably/page-2

Mostly all I have done is make it dirty and add over 800 miles to it. Finally, this weekend it was time for some maintenance. First off, a trip to the local tyre centre and the slow puncture was repaired by re-sealing the wheel.



Investigation underneath showed nice newish brake pads and discs on the front and very little rust underneath. They confirmed that the noisy, rattly exhaust is down to a blowing manifold gasket and broken up rear silencer and cat insides. Most of the noise can be reduced with a new gasket and back box so I'll get around to that eventually, it's not bad enough to be a real problem yet.

I had a spare hour so started to get servicing bits sorted, it hasn't had one since 2014 so it's long overdue.



New spark plugs and air filter...





Plugs didn't look too bad but shiny new ones are an improvement. Next up, cam cover gasket which seems to be the source of most of the oil caked onto the block.



Finally, the thermostat needs changing as it never gets above 1/3 on the gauge and takes a long time to get there. This is where things went wrong. I took the housing pipework off and was greeted by this...







There is a thermostat wedged tightly into the rubber pipe, causing it to bulge, and nothing in the housing. It doesn't look right to me and the 'stat is properly wedged in there, I couldn't get it out. I think I'm going to have to replace the pipe in its entirety which is annoying, unless I'm barking up the wrong tree here. More annoyingly, I removed the plastic bleed screw on top of the pipe to see if it would help in pushing out the stat but it didn't and now the screw won't go back in - it seems to have been threaded onto a nut inside which has now dropped into the pipe. Bugger.

This is the new thermostat I have, which I now think is wrong for this model (it is the same one as correctly fitted the older 220SLi).



I suspect I need this one...

https://www.dmgrs.co.uk/products/rover-t-series-thermostat-pel10017-fits-620ti-a-c-and-420i-gsi-gsi-turbo-with-a-c

Any thoughts on that? Anyway, with the screw not going back in, it's stranded on the driveway for now until I can sort that particular little issue out.

To finish the job, it needs an oil and filter change plus a full coolant flush as the stuff in it now seems to be mostly brown water. The lumpy idle hasn't been fixed by the new plugs so I'll also change the ignition leads as they're possibly the originals and are caked in oil where they're attached to the ignition module. Removing and cleaning them seemed to improve matters slightly but it still sounds crap. That said, it revs cleanly and pulls very well, with plenty of power and smooth delivery so it drives extremely well despite this.