The new news 24 thread

[sdkrc]

Genuinely surprised at the number of kids you can fit in an A30. 

1 across the back shelf and a couple more lengthways and that's a proper mini MPV 

[Borsuq]

Left the Polonez with a mechanic friend today to have a belt change done. Car was still on its 25 year old original cambelt so I thought it was worth doing. While he was in there the guy was supposed to replace the main seal and the camshaft seal, because there was some oil seepage from under the timing belt cover. When I picked the car up he'd only done the cambelt and the accessory drive belt since he reckons the seep from under the main seal isn't big enough to worry about. Hopefully this won't bite me in the arse down the road.

Luckily there might be a 2nd opprotunity to do the seals as I'm planning to convert it to a newer style cambelt from the Daewoo-FSO era, which is much less likely to jump teeth than the older one. Just need to find the newer style pulleys, which I guess would have been much easier 10 years ago when scrapyards were chock-full of those cars.

At least for now I've got the peace of mind that the timing belt is much less likely to snap on me.

[Split_Pin]

Back in the 60s my dad's pal had an A30. He used to pick him up plus 2 other guys to go to pipe band practise, together with all of their instruments. Quite impressive!

[GBJ]

1 hour ago, Borsuq said:

Left the Polonez with a mechanic friend today to have a belt change done. Car was still on its 25 year old original cambelt so I thought it was worth doing. While he was in there the guy was supposed to replace the main seal and the camshaft seal, because there was some oil seepage from under the timing belt cover. When I picked the car up he'd only done the cambelt and the accessory drive belt since he reckons the seep from under the main seal isn't big enough to worry about. Hopefully this won't bite me in the arse down the road.

Luckily there might be a 2nd opprotunity to do the seals as I'm planning to convert it to a newer style cambelt from the Daewoo-FSO era, which is much less likely to jump teeth than the older one. Just need to find the newer style pulleys, which I guess would have been much easier 10 years ago when scrapyards were chock-full of those cars.

At least for now I've got the peace of mind that the timing belt is much less likely to snap on me.

The original belt lasted 25 years but you want to change for a different type?

[Lankytim]

Picked up a beautiful set of slot mags for the Volvo 145 today, the guy I bought them from is restoring  a late Capri and apparently parts are really hard to get hold of. He had to have a bottom pulley for a Pinto specially made which I found amazing. 
 

I managed to fit a set of part worn tyres using only washing up liquid and a couple levers.. in fact one tyre was fitted just by standing on it.

I still need to track down a set of wheelnuts so I can actually fit them, plus a pair of centrecaps , any pointers? 

[andy18s]

The ML270 has had an elusive cold start issue for a few months,occasionally needing a good few churns on the starter but always ended up starting 

No codes logged,nothing amiss with the heater plugs and fuel pipes not showing any air bubbles,it drove fine as well

Untill yesterday anyway when it started surging at idle,dropping to less than 500revs or so then picking itself back up to 800ish. Managed to get it home where it refused to idle at all

Bit of investigation led me to think the fuel pressure regulator had died so managed to get 1 at a local parts suppliers. 

Sharing the part with the Sprinter van meant loads of brands on offer,from £40 chinesium to a proper Bosch for £90.

Changing it was a piece of piss,probably took longer to remove the engine plastics than swap the fpr itself. 

Started 1st time after it self-bled and it even sounds a bit smoother as a bonus

 

[Borsuq]

9 hours ago, GBJ said:

The original belt lasted 25 years but you want to change for a different type?

The newer type is just better. Even though in my case the older type cambelt lasted 25 years, the car's only done 35 thousand kilometres during that time. The biggest problem with those older type cambelts is they're prone to jumping teeth, which is why the newer style was introduced in the first place.

[rob88h]

Fixed the headlight wiper motor this morning. The hopeless synchronisation really enhances the AutoShite appeal. 

[andyberg]

Fixed the 12v sockets on the Alfa today. I bought new ones, and after taking part of the dash apart it still didn't work ? Because the hand book says the Radio uses the same fuse, the radio works so it cant be the fuse, right? No. Because Alfa the hand book is wrong, the sockets have their own fuse. replace fuse, working sockets. Oh joy. Glad I went to check after only replacing one.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

Finally got round to extracting the pollen filter from the diesel Borat - Jaysus the state of it, after five years - and slotted in a spare one that had been hanging around. Wish these things were easier to change without skinning your fingers.

[anonymous user]

18 hours ago, Lankytim said:

Picked up a beautiful set of slot mags for the Volvo 145 today, the guy I bought them from is restoring  a late Capri and apparently parts are really hard to get hold of. He had to have a bottom pulley for a Pinto specially made which I found amazing. 
 

I managed to fit a set of part worn tyres using only washing up liquid and a couple levers.. in fact one tyre was fitted just by standing on it.

I still need to track down a set of wheelnuts so I can actually fit them, plus a pair of centrecaps , any pointers? 

VOLVO 145???  Is there a thread, I  have missed this.

[jonathan_dyane]

My new MIG gas solution is now good to go

[vulgalour]

We've been getting a lot of tiny brown moths in the living room lately.  We'd been trying to find where on earth they were coming from to no avail until today when we spotted a little hole in the bottom corner of a run of wallpaper.  Turns out, the moths, or the caterpillars, maybe both, had been living behind the wallpaper in the corner where there was an air gap.  On the plus side, we now know the wallpaper in the living room is going to come off really easily at least and hopefully now we won't keep having a dozen or so moths wobbling around the place every time we turn the light on.

[Royale80]

Afternoon all, problem with my Senator this morning. After coming down a long steepish hill, started to drive up a long pull. Car seemed down on power-then I could smell brakes overheating. Pulled in expecting a sticking caliper, but discovered all calipers and wheels were extremely hot and a bit of smoke about! The brakes were on. Turned engine off-gave the Master cylinder a wack and drove it home about 7 miles-seemed ok-although wheels still hot but no lack of performance or smell. Dodgy master cylinder??

[hairnet]

pedal box fucked pushing the brakes on?

[cort16]

I made a feeble attempt to move the Granada out it’s lockup today to my lockup with power and toole . The battery is deed and I had ordered a legit flat post battery from eBay but they cancelled my order so to some weak sounding excuse to do with my postcode .

I attempted to jump start it from my Citroen but  don’t think the shite leads I have are man enough for the job as it cranked slowly and the leads got really hot. I just about did a hernia blood vessel combo pushing it back in the garage 
I then went to get the Megane as the DS has a really shit setup for jump starting but found it was blocked into the garage . 

I then went home and ordered a normal round post battery and a square post adaptor.
 

out the house 2 hrs achieved the square root of fuck all.

 

[BeEP]

2 hours ago, Stevebrookman said:

Dodgy master cylinder??

Or dodgy servo.

[wuvvum]

7 hours ago, andyberg said:

Fixed the 12v sockets on the Alfa today. I bought new ones, and after taking part of the dash apart it still didn't work ? Because the hand book says the Radio uses the same fuse, the radio works so it cant be the fuse, right? No. Because Alfa the hand book is wrong, the sockets have their own fuse. replace fuse, working sockets. Oh joy. Glad I went to check after only replacing one.

Yes, the fuse guide in the 166 handbook bears little resemblance to the circuits which are actually protected.  Or rather they sort of do, but some circuits can have more than one fuse, and you have to take a stab at which one it's going to be.  Only other car I've had with the same issue was an Audi A3 - the speedo didn't work when I bought it, I checked all the instrument-related fuses and they were fine.  The reversing lights weren't working though so replaced the fuse for those and it brought the speedo back to life.

[Out Run]

Spoiler

 

I broke this toe in November. As the nail has been growing out, part of it has doubled up, and there was a physical gap between the two layers.

The top layer separated from the side, just before. So I thought it wise to remove it, before my socks do.
 

Enjoy your supper.

 

 

[Ghosty]

Why did you have to post that? 

???

[Out Run]

6 minutes ago, Ghosty said:

Why did you have to post that? 

???

To share my professional grooming tips.

[Robson3022]

14 minutes ago, Out Run said:

I broke this toe in November. As the nail has been growing out, part of it has doubled up, and there was a physical gap between the two layers.

The top layer separated from the side, just before. So I thought it wise to remove it, before my socks do.
 

Enjoy your supper.

Nice that ? 

[Out Run]

Just now, Robson3022 said:

Nice that ? 

Cheers, it does feel better.

[Lankytim]

4 hours ago, anonymous user said:

VOLVO 145???  Is there a thread, I  have missed this.

I don't remember doing a thread, maybe once I can get stuck into it i'll create a thread for it. 

[N19]

Bluebird didn't go for an MoT in the end. The tester looked it over and identified a few labour-intensive bits which would need doing to get a new ticket, and rang to ask if I wanted him to go ahead and fail it.

It needs new discs and pads, new rear brake lines, anti roll bar bushes, rear shocks, in addition to the starter, reverse light switch and nsr brake cylinder that I already knew it needed.  Nothing *too* difficult I shouldn't have thought (tho the brake lines need the tank to be dropped, and I'll probably do them all at that point) - I think they thought it'd be uneconomic to do based on the age of the car and difficulty in obtaining spares.

Current plan is that when the Capri goes off for bodywork in October for a while, get the Bluebird into the lockup, do the work on it then (except the suspension which I'll get the parts for and get them to do and then put a ticket on it (hopefully)).

[hairnet]

2 hours ago, Lankytim said:

I don't remember doing a thread, maybe once I can get stuck into it i'll create a thread for it. 

MAKEA WID DA TRED FUCKS SAKE

[PhilA]

I now own this. And the rest of what it's attached to.

 

I'm going to leave the calculation of how large the engine is up to y'all. I know it makes me smile.

 

Phil

[dozeydustman]

Been to 2 socially distanced birthday bbqs this evening. Just got home. 19 plate Prius taxi brought us back with 128k on the clock.

 

is this a record?

[wuvvum]

Slightly more productive day of fettling today - the 75 now has working towbar electrics and the Mondeo has a working high-level brake light.

The problem on the 75 turned out to be the live feed not being up to the job.  I'm not sure why as it's a pretty hefty wire I nicked the supply from (it powers the passenger heated seat so should be up to flowing a decent amount of current), so I'm going to put it down to "because CANbus".  I took the fusebox out and had a poke around behind it to try and find a permanent live, but the only one I could find that looked chunky enough for the job was the wire for the injector pump, and I didn't fancy hacking into that just in case.  So I ended up running a wire direct to the battery live terminal, expertly* routed up through the wing.  It works, and the towbar electrics can now cope with incandescent bulbs - before they would only manage LEDs.  I put an inline fuse in the circuit a couple of years ago when I was first attempting to get the electrics working, so the direct battery feed shouldn't kill any nuns or kittens.

The fix on the Mondeo involved running a live feed from the nearside brake light live wire up to the third brake light in the tailgate.  Conveniently, someone had already spliced into the live on the nearside light cluster - a wire had been soldered in but then cut off, presumably as an abortive attempt to wire up the trailer plug.  So there was a couple of inches of redundant live wire available which I could join onto - which saved pissing about with Scotchlocks, which is always a bonus.  I've fed the wire through along roughly the same route as the main tailgate loom, so it's behind trim for most of its run - the only bit I couldn't do is get it through the rubber boot 'twixt tailgate and body, so I've run it along the outside of the boot and cable tied it in place.  The LED bulbs I bought from eBay turned out to be utter shite, so it's currently running three normal 5W 501 bulbs and two LED bulbs - it seems to be coping OK with the extra load on the primary brake light circuit.

[wuvvum]

37 minutes ago, PhilA said:

I now own this. And the rest of what it's attached to.

 

I'm going to leave the calculation of how large the engine is up to y'all. I know it makes me smile.

 

Phil

About 6.4 innit?  Based on the 6.6 in my old LTD being 400ci.