The new news 24 thread

[Ghosty]

5 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

amazing stuff! I look forward to reading about your wafting adventures in it  

truly winning at life in the car department!

is it insured via a classic policy with your Volvo as the main car on a normal policy or is it set up differently?

It's on a conventional policy as classic insurers won't touch me on it - the cheapest insurer for me is always Admiral. I I haven't been able to get a classic quote on anything A plate or newer, and never on a Jag - however a Y suffix plate S3 Daimler Sovereign 4.2 (the exact same car with different equipment) I could have insured for a bit less. Some older cars I looked at  (a non-running Dolomite Sprint and a fucked mk2 Granada where the seller didn't understand eBay auctions properly - a story in itself) were offering sub-£300 classic insurance, but the cars weren't right. At £450 I'm happy with a conventional policy though, even my Civic cost more than that to insure. 

I did view another S3 before this one - the Daimler I eluded to above, but the colour wasn't as nice, and despite being described as 'rust free' the sills were rotten and the windscreen had cracked supposedly driving off a kerb(!!!!). The seller offered £250 off the price of the car before I'd even laid eyes on it as 'that's how much a windscreen and seals go for on eBay'. It also wouldn't start - probably due to the inertia triggered fuel pump cutoff going off, a typical injection XJ/XJS quirk, but the seller didn't know about it despite owning the car three years. I didn't bother telling him as I'm not buying a car with a cracked windscreen, saves the test drive. Also, the glovebox didn't close properly (right above the cracked screen) and the seller wouldn't close the bonnet, I have to wonder if the shell was twisted and he was trying to hide that. As the car wouldn't start the seller left it at that and sent me on my way promising he'd get it running. I said I'd been advised the cracked windscreen could be serious and I never heard from him again. It's still for sale, cracked windscreen undisclosed... 

Meanwhile the seller of my Jag couldn't have been a better person to buy from - he worked for Jaguar Heritage and knew the car back to front, despite not having had it more than a few months - he'd bought it to use at a wedding.  For added win, he lived off Browns Lane in Coventry, and took it round to the factory on the test drive. Further to that, the car has a Coventry reg - it's not the original though, the original is B42TVX, which isn't on the DVLA database, but would have been a Chelmsford reg.   B42XVH, a Huddersfield reg, that has since disappeared into the aether.  The car was re-plated a long time before it came to Coventry as I understand from the history, so I like to think someone at the DVLA was being nice, giving it another two digit plate, and a Coventry one at that. 

It doesn't need anything doing to it immediately, except it wouldn't idle and stalled every time you stopped or tried to park it. I was going to adjust the idle as it was too low (600rpm), but it transpired the throttle cable was so slack that the butterfly valve in the throttle body was fully closed. Tensioning the cable means the car now idles well at 950rpm, and only stalls occasionally. 
 

[Fumbler]

Land Cruiser MPG after Chumley travels: 18! Yes! We're doing better than the Range Rover by a magnificent 1 MPG!

[LightBulbFun]

16 minutes ago, Ghosty said:

It's on a conventional policy as classic insurers won't touch me on it - the cheapest insurer for me is always Admiral. I I haven't been able to get a classic quote on anything A plate or newer, and never on a Jag - however a Y suffix plate S3 Daimler Sovereign 4.2 (the exact same car with different equipment) I could have insured for a bit less. Some older cars I looked at  (a non-running Dolomite Sprint and a fucked mk2 Granada where the seller didn't understand eBay auctions properly - a story in itself) were offering sub-£300 classic insurance, but the cars weren't right. At £450 I'm happy with a conventional policy though, even my Civic cost more than that to insure. 

I did view another S3 before this one - the Daimler I eluded to above, but the colour wasn't as nice, and despite being described as 'rust free' the sills were rotten and the windscreen had cracked supposedly driving off a kerb(!!!!). The seller offered £250 off the price of the car before I'd even laid eyes on it as 'that's how much a windscreen and seals go for on eBay'. It also wouldn't start - probably due to the inertia triggered fuel pump cutoff going off, a typical injection XJ/XJS quirk, but the seller didn't know about it despite owning the car three years. I didn't bother telling him as I'm not buying a car with a cracked windscreen, saves the test drive. Also, the glovebox didn't close properly (right above the cracked screen) and the seller wouldn't close the bonnet, I have to wonder if the shell was twisted and he was trying to hide that. As the car wouldn't start the seller left it at that and sent me on my way promising he'd get it running. I said I'd been advised the cracked windscreen could be serious and I never heard from him again. It's still for sale, cracked windscreen undisclosed... 

Meanwhile the seller of my Jag couldn't have been a better person to buy from - he worked for Jaguar Heritage and knew the car back to front, despite not having had it more than a few months - he'd bought it to use at a wedding.  For added win, he lived off Browns Lane in Coventry, and took it round to the factory on the test drive. Further to that, the car has a Coventry reg - it's not the original though, the original is B42TVX, which isn't on the DVLA database, but would have been a Chelmsford reg. The car was re-plated a long time before it came to Coventry as I understand from the history, so I like to think someone at the DVLA was being nice, giving it another two digit plate, and a Coventry one at that. 

It doesn't need anything doing to it immediately, except it wouldn't idle and stalled every time you stopped or tried to park it. I was going to adjust the idle as it was too low (600rpm), but it transpired the throttle cable was so slack that the butterfly valve in the throttle body was fully closed. Tensioning the cable means the car now idles well at 950rpm, and only stalls occasionally. 
 

 

Very cool stuff! (or at least to that 3rd part ) 

interesting on insurance, I figured anything older then 20 years old a normal insurer wouldn't touch it, I might have to try a regular insurance company on the Invacar for a laugh when I get to the point of having to insure her

I looked up the reg  based on what you mentioned I wonder if it spent some time as a NI car? 

because I only see this NI reg as a previous registration and it comes up as first registered in NI here https://cazana.com/uk/car/B38TRW

but its not the first time I have seen shenanigans like tho tho, I know of an Invacar Mk12 thats like that, LVX293J, comes back as first registered in Derry and has a bunch of NI plates shown as previous VRM's but I know on that Invacar, LVX293J is its original registration and not an age related plate from the DVLA so go figure that one out!

or it could be some weird DVLA database nonsense!

I know if you ask the DVLA via V888 they can tell you the previous Registration marks your car has had

[Ghosty]

My mistake, it was B42XVH, just checked the history. It's a northern car!  

I have some old MOTs and the service book - in the 80s it wore the plate 2 MRM, then it received B38TRW as non-transferrable, then TIA6473 was on it from about 1991-2000. Presumably as a vanity plate, it's never lived in NI. It was originally sold from Rocar Huddersfield to a Doncaster advertising company, before finding its way slowly south then back north again.

[egg]

14 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

interesting on insurance, I figured anything older then 20 years old a normal insurer wouldn't touch it,

AFAIK, there's no cut-off as such. Both Mazda/Mondeo (24 and 26 respectively) are on standard policies - and at the moment they have to be as I do multi-site business journeys, and normally classic policies only cover social and domestic + possibly some routine commuting.

[LightBulbFun]

11 minutes ago, Ghosty said:

My mistake, it was B42XVH, just checked the history. It's a northern car!  

I have some old MOTs and the service book - in the 80s it wore the plate 2 MRM, then it received B38TRW as non-transferrable, then TIA6473 was on it from about 1991-2000. Presumably as a vanity plate, it's never lived in NI. It was originally sold from Rocar Huddersfield to a Doncaster advertising company, before finding its way slowly south then back north again.

interesting  its a shame it was not reissued with its original plate when the private plate was taken off, I wonder if you could put in a request with the DVLA to have its original plate stuck back on?  (unless it was stuck on retention by someone for some reason?)

 also interesting how the site I used does not show the previous plate 2MRM maybe the records it has access to don't go that far back, I have wondered if there was a limit and now I know it looks like there is,  handy to know!

 

8 minutes ago, egg said:

AFAIK, there's no cut-off as such. Both Mazda/Mondeo (24 and 26 respectively) are on standard policies - and at the moment they have to be as I do multi-site business journeys, and normally classic policies only cover social and domestic + possibly some routine commuting.

I didn't mean like an official thing, But i remember hearing that as you go past the 20 year mark things start getting a bit difficult, but happy to hear thats not too much of a thing it seems

[Isaac Hunt]

11 minutes ago, Ghosty said:

My mistake, it was B42XVH, just checked the history. It's a northern car!  

I have some old MOTs and the service book - in the 80s it wore the plate 2 MRM, then it received B38TRW as non-transferrable, then TIA6473 was on it from about 1991-2000. Presumably as a vanity plate, it's never lived in NI. It was originally sold from Rocar Huddersfield to a Doncaster advertising company, before finding its way slowly south then back north again.

Nice Jag (Dailmler).  it reminds me of the forum bike, looks as though it wears some slightly different shades od burgundy red, not unsurprising given the age.

[Ghosty]

1 minute ago, Isaac Hunt said:

Nice Jag (Dailmler).  it reminds me of the forum bike, looks as though it wears some slightly different shades od burgundy red, not unsurprising given the age.

It has had paint, there's an appraisal from a Jag indie called KWE in 2005 that observed the roof's been done, also one of the wings has been replaced (but has rotted out around the headlamp again) and one of the rear doors has a very iffy ridge (filler?) just under the coachline. It needs close scrutiny to look bad, though - not nearly as bad in person. 

[Six-cylinder]

Trouble is if you follow Mrs6C you will end up with two!

[Ghosty]

11 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

interesting  its a shame it was not reissued with its original plate when the private plate was taken off, I wonder if you could put in a request with the DVLA to have its original plate stuck back on?  (unless it was stuck on retention by someone for some reason?)

 also interesting how the site I used does not show the previous plate 2MRM maybe the records it has access to don't go that far back, I have wondered if there was a limit and now I know it looks like there is,  handy to know!

 

I didn't mean like an official thing, But i remember hearing that as you go past the 20 year mark things start getting a bit difficult, but happy to hear thats not too much of a thing it seems

It wore 2MRM from about 1985 to 1989, I imagine it probably just about predates the computerisation of records, hence its loss. It was MOTd twice in 1989, presumably to account for the change of plate. 

 

The newest car I've owned is an M plate, so late 1994 Rover 216 and I've never had an issue with insurance. Most conventional insurers will insure pretty much anything, I've found. 

[Amishtat]

Hardly anything is as nice to waft in as a good XJ6, well bought! Nicest colour for an S3 too in my eyes. 

[Lord Sterling]

After the IoW trip saga, I finally got back last night at 10pm, picked up some tyres and then went to work today. On the way back home I dropped into a local tyre place and the Vectra got shod its newer front tyres and had its tracking done;

Seems to be a repeat of;

Which also had some new tyres and tracking done as it was shedding its tread.

Vectra B by the way, in case anyone was wondering, has sold and gone to a new owner (not on Autoshite as far as I know) hence the usage (and negotations of buyage) of the Vectra C.

[5speedracer]

"Very cool stuff! (or at least to that 3rd part ) 
interesting on insurance, I figured anything older then 20 years old a normal insurer wouldn't touch it,"

In the area of "America's Team" if you know your NFL. Saw a TV and for mechanical insurance and they'd cover cars up to 20 y/o. Probably charge the worth of the car each year right enough.

Sent from my Redmi 4 using Tapatalk

[wuvvum]

So after my failed attempts at the weekend to find the source of the MG Express's's's' power loss, this evening I went for a drive to my favourite local stretch of straight, flat A road armed with my 0-60 app to see how bad things really were.  The best I managed was 16 seconds dead.  Oh dear.  That's nearly 6 seconds longer than the book time, and only half a second ahead of the Maxus.  Something is seriously amiss there.

Just for LOLs I then took the CX up the same bit of road.  Best time that managed was 16.8 sec, which is only marginally ahead of the published time for the NA diesel.  So something also amiss there.  When the turbo is actually blowing it pulls fairly well, but the turbo doesn't kick in properly until about 3,000rpm, and the engine then starts to run out of puff at about 4,000, so keeping it on boost going up through the gears is more or less impossible.

[Ghosty]

Vacuum/intake piping etc alright?  

First thing I did on the T5 was replace all the hoses, made a big difference.

[MorrisItalSLX]

Well, it turns out I have a fecking gigantic huntsman spider living in my drivers door.

 

Got to love Australia.

 

[MorrisItalSLX]

As detailed in the Chumley thread, I've got a series 3 XJ now. Sovereign 4.2 no less.
Wasn't cheap, but it's solid in all the right places, has full service history, refurbed wheels, rebuilt engine and gearbox, lightly breathed on suspension and steering, and it drives like a dream - a previous owner spent an obscene amount on it - however the tyres are date stamped 2002 so might be worth replacing them. It's an absolute dream and I'm over the moon with it.
Cheap to insure as well!

Welcome to the under 25s Jaguar XJ6 SIII Owners Club! Your membership card is in the post and comes with one (1) complementary recovery*.

Well done Max, that looks like a real gem. You are truely a member of the executive class. Just so you know, my door is always open for any queries.

Happy Wofting!



*Only valid in Australia

[Tam]

1 hour ago, wuvvum said:

So after my failed attempts at the weekend to find the source of the MG Express's's's' power loss, this evening I went for a drive to my favourite local stretch of straight, flat A road armed with my 0-60 app to see how bad things really were.  The best I managed was 16 seconds dead.  Oh dear.  That's nearly 6 seconds longer than the book time, and only half a second ahead of the Maxus.  Something is seriously amiss there.

Just for LOLs I then took the CX up the same bit of road.  Best time that managed was 16.8 sec, which is only marginally ahead of the published time for the NA diesel.  So something also amiss there.  When the turbo is actually blowing it pulls fairly well, but the turbo doesn't kick in properly until about 3,000rpm, and the engine then starts to run out of puff at about 4,000, so keeping it on boost going up through the gears is more or less impossible.

Sounds like classic MAF sensor fucked! Disconnect it and see if it improves. Lots of options nowadays. Probably best to look up CJL Tuning on Facebook and get a Mafless tune. Some of these things are running silly horsepower but do seem to implode a bit. Basic tune with a couple of sensible upgrades will cost similar to replacing MAF any way!

[Split_Pin]

I can't ignore the knocking ball joints on the Audi any more. They are £8 per side from Autodoc. I'm going to buy a separator and give it a bash myself, I need to get my shiting mojo back!

[wuvvum]

12 hours ago, Ghosty said:

As detailed in the Chumley thread, I've got a series 3 XJ now. Sovereign 4.2 no less.

Nice work!  I had a (pre-HE) Daimler Double 6 when I was 19 - got it as a swap against a Saab 9000.  It was a gorgeous thing to drive, but fuel consumption was comical, and I might* have been caught driving it slightly* too fast along the Norwich bypass and lost my licence for a period.

4.2 is probably a more sensible option...

[dollywobbler]

That CX is definitely not right. Didn't sound like a boost leak, so maybe it's just not generating it. Still loved driving it...

Anyway, Invacar is back out for pre-MicroCar Rally prep.

Think I'm going to remove the unOfficial Pace Car stickers now. They've served their purpose.

[Supernaut]

3 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

I can't ignore the knocking ball joints on the Audi any more. They are £8 per side from Autodoc. I'm going to buy a separator and give it a bash myself, I need to get my shiting mojo back!

So you pick an absolute arsehole of a job to try and get your mojo back?

I hate anything that involves the use of balljoint separators.

[Split_Pin]

After research, it's a pinchbolt arrangement so no separators needed. Apparently an easy job.

'Pinchbolt' is of course a euphemism for 'spherical blob of rust'.

[LightBulbFun]

1 hour ago, dollywobbler said:

That CX is definitely not right. Didn't sound like a boost leak, so maybe it's just not generating it. Still loved driving it...

Anyway, Invacar is back out for pre-MicroCar Rally prep.

Think I'm going to remove the unOfficial Pace Car stickers now. They've served their purpose.

going to finally fit some new headlamp trim rings?  (or dare I say some polished hubcaps! well the wheels could do with a clean up at least!)

happy to see TWC out and about regardless tho 

[wuvvum]

8 hours ago, Tam said:

Sounds like classic MAF sensor fucked! Disconnect it and see if it improves. Lots of options nowadays. Probably best to look up CJL Tuning on Facebook and get a Mafless tune. Some of these things are running silly horsepower but do seem to implode a bit. Basic tune with a couple of sensible upgrades will cost similar to replacing MAF any way!

I'll give that a bash.  A DIGIMAFAM off eBay is 60 quid so that might be an option if it is the MAF.  Second hand MAFs are available for less, but might turn out to be a complete waste of money.

10 hours ago, Ghosty said:

Vacuum/intake piping etc alright?  

First thing I did on the T5 was replace all the hoses, made a big difference.

Intake piping is all good - much of it is metal, and I've replaced the rubber bits with known good ones off the other Rover.

[dollywobbler]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

going to finally fit some new headlamp trim rings?  (or dare I say some polished hubcaps! well the wheels could do with a clean up at least!)

happy to see TWC out and about regardless tho 

I can't get the old rings off, so they're staying. I only have one hub cap. I have removed the lettering though!

[LightBulbFun]

24 minutes ago, dollywobbler said:

I can't get the old rings off, so they're staying. I only have one hub cap. I have removed the lettering though!

according to the workshop manual you lever a screwdriver in between the lamp unit and the bezel at the bottom of the lamp to release a spring clip that lets you remove the bezel

if it makes you feel any better REV also currently only has 1 hub cap fitted (although Luckily I do have spares so ill sling a second one on in time)

[brownnova]

Went to view a car yesterday. Slept on it, and it was pretty much the first thing I thought about when I woke up. So I’m buying it- that’s my winter project sorted... 

I shall keep its identity under wraps until collection day. As long as I can find a trailer or A frame for the 8 mile trip home. 

Off to look at another on Thursday... but that’s Mrs_brownnova’s shite purchase... Honest... 

[taxi paul]

Today's job on the vectra was to get some carb cleaner and clean it out. Miles better now , no longer that little delay. ABS light comes on now and again, hopefully just a sticky whatever. Also ground out rust spots and seamlessly * repaired and primed them. 

[dome]

Top buyage Ghosty. I loved my Series 3.  I've got a couple of bits lying around in the garage from it, door seals and a transmission filter from memory if they're any good to you?