The new news 24 thread

[wuvvum]

I've been looking for a larger second car for a few weeks now to replace my immaculate but too small Fiesta, a Focus 1.8TDCi has been top of the list but having viewed a few and watching them every day on da web most of them are either high miles, rough looking or too expensive then today a Focus 1.6 Zetec petrol came up for sale near Norwich, I only do about 4-5000 miles a year so a petrol isn't a bad option and i fancied taking the Rover for a drive so I took the 50 min drive to view it.

 

 

 

 

It was being sold by the brother of the Ford dealers next door where it was a traded in and he sells the best part ex's from his house, the car was spotless and looked really smart in Tango Red, 88000 miles but you wouldn't know, the trader was all over my Rover mind you!

 

It had gone through the garages workshops by his son who had put a new Gates cambelt kit on it and water pump, given it a full service, is putting a new MOT it and 3 months warranty, it was up for £1995 and I offered £1700, he laughed and said look you seem like a nice lad and I love your Rover so I'll do it at £1800! I'm well chuffed with that.

 

Now i need to sell my Fiesta, if anyone is interested it's a 2004 1.4 TDCi Zetec, genuine 35000 miles, my mum had it before me from 2008/6000 miles. It's mint apart from a small crease on the rear bumper and its had a new cambelt, front springs and full service history etc. £1650ono, which is fair for a low mileage TDCi in this condition plus its £30 a year road tax.

 

 

 

 

Not sure I've seen a Mk2 Focarse in that colour before.  Looks bloody tidy for an 06 plate.

[wuvvum]

Just put a join in the brake pipe. I did this on my merc for it's recentish MOT for exactly the same reasons as you've outlined. The MOT man spotted it and said "you cheat!". But it's fine for the MOT.

 

Use a tube nut on the old section of pipe with a single conical flare, then a tube bolt (standard end fitting) on the new bit with a fold-over flare as standard. The foldover flare then fits perfectly in the conical flare and you do the whole lot up tight until it stops leaking. I'll get a picture if it helps, and if you want the tube bolt/nut pair, I have a whole box full and will send you one in the post. Lots easier than changing an entire perfectly good pipe.

The only problem with that is that my cheapo brake pipe kit won't flare steel pipe properly*, and to buy a kit which does will be a lot more expensive than 13' of copper pipe. 

 

 

*Unless I'm not using my kit correctly, which is entirely possible.

[Talbot]

Today I discovered the limit of my own stupidity when it comes to overloading things and shrugging it off as "it'll be fine".

 

I've been using a rather knackered old camping trailer to shift all manner of shit around for the last couple of years. It's been utterly overloaded several times, and I have had to weld on a few extra bits of box section to fix where the original frame has either rusted out or I've overloaded it so badly it's collapsed. It also has larger heavier duty tyres on it to allow for the additional loading.

 

Designed for a mere 350kg originally, the modifications have meant I've been happily shoving up to about 500kg in it without worrying too much. The rate of wear on the tyres is a bit faster than I would have hoped, but it has been absolutely amazing and has shrugged off just about everything I've thrown at it. I may have lulled myself into a false sense of security.

 

Until this evening, when I was collecting 22 3' x 2' x 2" concrete slabs. Not all at once... I wasn't that stupid. I got 10 of them in the first load, and then went back for the second load of 12. Unfortunately, I really didn't realise how heavy they are. Turns out they are 60kg *each*. Bollocks. That means the first load was 600Kg of slabs, and the second load was about 750kg of slabs (there were a few offcuts too) and then I expected it to tow for about 20 miles at 50mph.

 

No surprise then that there was a fucking massive bang as the nearside wheel went from 60psi to 0psi in 0.001s. Shit. I have no spare wheel for the trailer. So what do you do? I shoved 8 of the slabs in the back of the car, leaving the rest at the side of the road (very large grass verge..) and towed the trailer home empty on it's bollocksed tyre. (trailer weighs about 30kg when empty). Halfway through that journey I get a "low hydraulic fluid" warning, and loose all power steering. Turns out the additional pressure needed by the rear hydraulic self-levelling suspension to hold the additional half-tonne of concrete I've just put over the rear axle was enough to blow the repair I did to the pump outlet pipe about a year ago, and hence it spat out all it's oil, leaving the rear suspension on it's arse and no PAS.

 

Fuckity fuck. Just get it all bloody home. Trailer off. Slabs out. Repair the hydraulic pump outlet pipe again, and fill up the hydraulic oil tank with rather murky looking LHM stolen from the Rofflewin Xantia. (same spec oil).

 

So the Merc drives again. The Xantia is about 1.5 Litres down on LHM, and there are 4-and-a-few-bits of staggeringly heavy paving slabs to be recovered from the side of the road tomorrow. And hope that the repair to the pump outlet pipe holds this time. And I need at least one new tyre and inner tube for the trailer. Possibly two as I'll bet the other tyre is ready to burst too.

 

What a Dickhead.

[Talbot]

The only problem with that is that my cheapo brake pipe kit won't flare steel pipe properly

Is it the type with a pair of "sticks" that clamp together over the pipe, a threaded "press" which hooks over the sticks, and a die that you put in the end of the tube to form the double flare?

 

If so, you just don't use the die. Use the clamp on the side with the chamfer, and just use the pointy end of the press to form a basic concave flare.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

The only problem with that is that my cheapo brake pipe kit won't flare steel pipe properly*, and to buy a kit which does will be a lot more expensive than 13' of copper pipe.

 

 

*Unless I'm not using my kit correctly, which is entirely possible.

A proper brake flaring tool was one of the best tool purchases I ever made. Five minutes into my first flare with it and I wouldnt have cared if it was three times what I'd paid, it makes a horrible job quite enjoyable.

 

I had one of those cheapy tools before, they aren't capable of giving a proper bubble or double flare without a lot of arsing around. And they won't touch steel pipes either

 

Sent from my F3211 using Tapatalk

[SRi05]

I've been looking for a larger second car for a few weeks now to replace my immaculate but too small Fiesta, a Focus 1.8TDCi has been top of the list but having viewed a few and watching them every day on da web most of them are either high miles, rough looking or too expensive then today a Focus 1.6 Zetec petrol came up for sale near Norwich, I only do about 4-5000 miles a year so a petrol isn't a bad option and i fancied taking the Rover for a drive so I took the 50 min drive to view it.

 

 

 

 

It was being sold by the brother of the Ford dealers next door where it was a traded in and he sells the best part ex's from his house, the car was spotless and looked really smart in Tango Red, 88000 miles but you wouldn't know, the trader was all over my Rover mind you!

 

It had gone through the garages workshops by his son who had put a new Gates cambelt kit on it and water pump, given it a full service, is putting a new MOT it and 3 months warranty, it was up for £1995 and I offered £1700, he laughed and said look you seem like a nice lad and I love your Rover so I'll do it at £1800! I'm well chuffed with that.

 

Now i need to sell my Fiesta, if anyone is interested it's a 2004 1.4 TDCi Zetec, genuine 35000 miles, my mum had it before me from 2008/6000 miles. It's mint apart from a small crease on the rear bumper and its had a new cambelt, front springs and full service history etc. £1650ono, which is fair for a low mileage TDCi in this condition plus its £30 a year road tax.

 

 

 

 

I had a focus in the exact same colour and spec in 1.6 auto flavour. It was a fantastically solid motor, far better than the equivalent astra of the year. But Holy fuck did it drink the gogo juice, that's what made me shift it in the end

[trigger]

I've just bite the bullet and ordered front and rear springs for my SD1 from Rimmer's whilst they have a sale on, I'm now worried that I've cocked up!

 

The back end on mine sits far to high and i hate it so I've bought some GRS143UR front springs which are uprated 30mm ones which give Vitesse height and rear springs GRS141low which are progressive rate 30mm Vitesse ones, from a afternoon of research I found these being right but now looking on a SD1 forum people are saying they can cause it ground out or the springs to drop out and I might have the wrong shocks which are causing the rear to lift too high! I'm completely confused now and nearly £200 down!

[purplebargeken]

I saw a blue Marina van today, in blue, much less spiffing than Trig's Ital though. It was still cool. 

 

Also purple Moggy Traveller in the local Halfords/retail park car park. It was driven by a young lad and his girlfriend looked happy sat in the passenger seat. The car was proper minty too.

[BorniteIdentity]

Today I discovered the limit of my own stupidity when it comes to overloading things and shrugging it off as "it'll be fine".

 

I've been using a rather knackered old camping trailer to shift all manner of shit around for the last couple of years. It's been utterly overloaded several times, and I have had to weld on a few extra bits of box section to fix where the original frame has either rusted out or I've overloaded it so badly it's collapsed. It also has larger heavier duty tyres on it to allow for the additional loading.

 

Designed for a mere 350kg originally, the modifications have meant I've been happily shoving up to about 500kg in it without worrying too much. The rate of wear on the tyres is a bit faster than I would have hoped, but it has been absolutely amazing and has shrugged off just about everything I've thrown at it. I may have lulled myself into a false sense of security.

 

Until this evening, when I was collecting 22 3' x 2' x 2" concrete slabs. Not all at once... I wasn't that stupid. I got 10 of them in the first load, and then went back for the second load of 12. Unfortunately, I really didn't realise how heavy they are. Turns out they are 60kg *each*. Bollocks. That means the first load was 600Kg of slabs, and the second load was about 750kg of slabs (there were a few offcuts too) and then I expected it to tow for about 20 miles at 50mph.

 

No surprise then that there was a fucking massive bang as the nearside wheel went from 60psi to 0psi in 0.001s. Shit. I have no spare wheel for the trailer. So what do you do? I shoved 8 of the slabs in the back of the car, leaving the rest at the side of the road (very large grass verge..) and towed the trailer home empty on it's bollocksed tyre. (trailer weighs about 30kg when empty). Halfway through that journey I get a "low hydraulic fluid" warning, and loose all power steering. Turns out the additional pressure needed by the rear hydraulic self-levelling suspension to hold the additional half-tonne of concrete I've just put over the rear axle was enough to blow the repair I did to the pump outlet pipe about a year ago, and hence it spat out all it's oil, leaving the rear suspension on it's arse and no PAS.

 

Fuckity fuck. Just get it all bloody home. Trailer off. Slabs out. Repair the hydraulic pump outlet pipe again, and fill up the hydraulic oil tank with rather murky looking LHM stolen from the Rofflewin Xantia. (same spec oil).

 

So the Merc drives again. The Xantia is about 1.5 Litres down on LHM, and there are 4-and-a-few-bits of staggeringly heavy paving slabs to be recovered from the side of the road tomorrow. And hope that the repair to the pump outlet pipe holds this time. And I need at least one new tyre and inner tube for the trailer. Possibly two as I'll bet the other tyre is ready to burst too.

 

What a Dickhead.

At least you didn’t leave the trailer in a lay-by, thinking you’d return to it the next day. Imagine what the ‘massiv’ would have said about that?(!)

 

I’ve no idea how much I ought to sling in my little trailer, but fear I’ve been over cooking it too. Thanks for the word from the wise, and hope you get it patched/bodged up soon.

[twosmoke300]

The only problem with that is that my cheapo brake pipe kit won't flare steel pipe properly*, and to buy a kit which does will be a lot more expensive than 13' of copper pipe.

 

 

*Unless I'm not using my kit correctly, which is entirely possible.

If the steel pipe keeps slipping back through the tool instead of flaring then degrease the inside of the tool well then put a small amount of valve grinding paste where the pipe goes . This can give enough grip to flare the pipe ok

[Talbot]

At least you didn’t leave the trailer in a lay-by, thinking you’d return to it the next day. Imagine what the ‘massiv’ would have said about that?(!)

That did occur to me while I was heaving the slabs from trailer to car at the side of the road! Difference here being I could not give two shits about the trailer. Both it and it's contents were free, so not *quite* in the same league.

 

I was somewhat scathing about mr Golf/trailer/ford model A, so maybe this was karma biting me in the arse. Or maybe I was just being a knob. I'm going to have a look at the exploded tyre today and see if there's any sign of the mode of failure, as my initial assumption was that it had overheated due to overloading, but when I checked the other side tyre (same pressure, same load) it was barely warm.. certainly no more than 40°c and nowhere near as warm as other tyres I've checked in the past.

[wuvvum]

I overloaded a trailer once.

 

 

[Talbot]

Always an issue with twin-axle trailers. Unless the towbar is at the right height, you can very easily overload one axle (usually the rear one) as it ends up taking the lions share of the load. Exactly the same as what happened to me with the trailer/Mk2 granada combo I had to abandon on the hard shoulder before now.

[Talbot]

I might have the wrong shocks which are causing the rear to lift too high!

Are they gas pressurised shocks which naturally sit at full extension and have to be compressed to fit? If so, yes they can cause a vehicle to ride higher than usual as some of the load is being taken by the damper. Usually makes 10-15mm difference, depends on the car.

 

If not, and they are standard oil-dampers which you can extend and compress by hand, and stay where you leave them, then they have absolutely no effect on vehicle ride height.

[trigger]

I couldn't tell what shocks they are, there's no way of telling. It would have originally been fitted with Nivomat self leveling shocks but they must have failed at some point and been replaced with a standard set up.

 

It sits 5 1/2" high and doesn't look right.

 

 

[bub2006]

That certainly has got a bit of a tilt going on. Has it got a tow bar? If it's been used for towing in the past then gas filled shocks as mentioned above would be used for such reasons?

[fordperv]

What's that you say trig

 

[320touring]

I'd remove one and test s per Talbot's suggestion.

 

Looks suspiciously like the gas shock holding the car up.

[trigger]

I've probably just spent £200 when I didn't need too!

[trigger]

That certainly has got a bit of a tilt going on. Has it got a tow bar? If it's been used for towing in the past then gas filled shocks as mentioned above would be used for such reasons?

I thought that but there's no evidence of one being fitted.

[xtriple]

I have got to recommend 'Premium Choice' insurance company. I had the Mazda insured with them for 3 years and every year, the price came DOWN! It started at under £200 and ended up at £112, classic policy so no 'no claims'. Just rung them to cancel and because I have recommended others to them (New owner is also now insured with them!) they waived the cancelation fee and gave me a £10 bonus for saying they were great!

 

I am the first to slag off insurance companies for being money grabbing arses, but they have been fab' so it is only fair that you commend when it is due.

[trigger]

I've cancelled the order for the springs and ordered a new pair of rear shocks now instead, I'm now thinking that I probably shouldnt have cancelled the rear springs either... My head hurts.

[richardmorris]

Sunny this morning waiting for the funeral, so thought I’d get the fiat out for a run.

[RobT]

Since collecting the 623 from Bo11ox exactly one month ago I've managed to cover 1,900 miles, so it's now on 162,000.  Good job my classic policy is unlimited miles!  940 of those have been in the last 7 days with a trip to France, coupled with a trip up to Worcester this weekend (caring for an ill father-in-law which was tiring but necessary).  After all that I still like it, which is a good thing as I want to keep it for a while.  Famous last words I know...

 

I took a wrong turn in Le Tréport and ended up in this underground car park.  Worthy of a pic I reckon seeing as the place was deserted.

 

 

Next up is another pair of tyres so it's got four new ones all round, which is a rare thing.  Can't remember the last time I had a car with a full set of new rubber.  LUXURY.  I'll also consider getting the AC fixed in time for summer, although I think there's some pipework missing last time I looked.

[wuvvum]

I've probably just spent £200 when I didn't need too!

I've just bought an entire car for less than that.

[Cleon-Fonte]

I couldn't tell what shocks they are, there's no way of telling. It would have originally been fitted with Nivomat self leveling shocks but they must have failed at some point and been replaced with a standard set up.

 

It sits 5 1/2" high and doesn't look right.

 

 

 

It looks to me like the standard springs are still fitted but the Nivomats have been replaced with conventional dampers. The normal SD1 rear springs don't have any bearing on ride height so the arse end of the car will tend to sit too high if the Nivomats are replaced with something else.

 

Those Rimmers 30mm lowered springs are also designed to be fitted alongside Nivomats (despite what the Rimmers website says) and usually cause the rear of the car to sag on its bump stops without them (as I found out when I fitted them alongside a set of Koni dampers).

 

There are springs you can buy that will work without the Nivomats, or if you have lots of spare cash new Nivomats can be bought from the SD1 Club for something like £450 each.

[bramz7]

Stilo is running a bit iffy suddenly. I'd thought the gearchange was a bit stiff and the clutch a bit heavy, but yesterday the engine fault light came on, stayed on, and then went off. Weird. 

It also sounds like the rear axle wants to break through the boot at times. 

 

Otherwise it drives fine....

[louiepj]

Running an aunts car in for mot

 

Fulvia 3 anyone? Or gtv6

 

Sent from my F8331 using Tapatalk

[trigger]

It looks to me like the standard springs are still fitted but the Nivomats have been replaced with conventional dampers. The normal SD1 rear springs don't have any bearing on ride height so the arse end of the car will tend to sit too high if the Nivomats are replaced with something else.

 

Those Rimmers 30mm lowered springs are also designed to be fitted alongside Nivomats (despite what the Rimmers website says) and usually cause the rear of the car to sag on its bump stops without them (as I found out when I fitted them alongside a set of Koni dampers).

 

There are springs you can buy that will work without the Nivomats, or if you have lots of spare cash new Nivomats can be bought from the SD1 Club for something like £450 each.

Hmm... So do you think I should have ordered standard rear springs for it too or will the ones already fitted be ok?

[Talbot]

the arse end of the car will tend to sit too high if the Nivomats are replaced with something else.

The Nivomats can actually pull the vehicle *down*? Against spring tension?