The new news 24 thread

[beko1987]

Agreed. I went from an XM back to a ZX and the headlights were amazing in the zx! 

What's worse is a hydro car with a sticky rear corrector valve. Many dark nights in my xantia I'd get flashed at like I was on fire and have to adjust the suspension at speed to nudge the back up a bit and level the headlights out. Flashing stops... 

In the end I helped a friend move something heavy and spanked it down a country road. Unseized itself then! 

[richardmorris]

The trick with xm headlights seems to be to remove the plastic lens thing in front of the bulbs. Improves them to at least 50% of a 2cv.

 

series 2 cxs with main beam separate were worse than original single lens types too. I’m not too keen on the Mercedes’ Either considering it can do 140mph. Perhaps my night vision is getting worse.

[brownnova]

8 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Agreed. I went from an XM back to a ZX and the headlights were amazing in the zx! 

What's worse is a hydro car with a sticky rear corrector valve. Many dark nights in my xantia I'd get flashed at like I was on fire and have to adjust the suspension at speed to nudge the back up a bit and level the headlights out. Flashing stops... 

In the end I helped a friend move something heavy and spanked it down a country road. Unseized itself then! 

When our Hydropneumatic C5 headlights were out of adjustment we used to get flashed all the time unless we put the suspension in sport mode... 

[artdjones]

My 85 year old mother-in-law has been driving this Corolla for 7 years, in which the only unscheduled replacement was one seized rear caliper.

Over the last year she has been talking about replacing it with something a bit newer, and last Saturday she finally gave me the go-ahead to look for something. I sent her pictures of 3 cars local to me. She chose another similar Corolla, 2007 this time as that was her ideal car, the same one she already had, but as new as possible.

It was at a garage, so on Monday afternoon I made arrangements to see it. When I got there the dealer told me that he had been surprised that he hadn't had a call on the car before me(it had been up for 2 days), but that 2 more people had rung up in the half hour since I had called. The car looked straight, although the previous owner had obviously brushed against a lot of hedges, and there were a few paint chips. And the mileage was low for one of these at 143k Kms.

I took it out for a drive and it drove great, the only fault I could find being that alternator or water pump whine Corollas often have. When I got back to the yard there were two other older Corollas parked with groups of people standing around looking expectantly at the car as I drove in, obviously the other punters had shown up. Which didn't leave great scope for haggling, although I did get €100 off, making the price €2150.  So the other Toyota lovers left empty handed.

I picked it up yesterday, and bought oil and air filters and oil from the garage I sometimes work for on a casual basis, and did a mini service.  They also have a collection of about 20 Toyota touch-up pen sets, so I borrowed the right one and touched up the chips and removed most of the lacquer scrapes with rubbing compound..

I delivered the car today while inter county travel is still permitted in Ireland. It was definitely approved of. Of course at 85 this may be her last car, but I might repeat all this in a few years. She is in good health, and doesn't drive like an old person at all. She has been driving for about 70 years, as her father had a garage in Christchurch, so she was driving before she was old enough to get a licence.

[N19]

Taking advantage of the free congestion charge today, I went for a drive around Central London. Streets were mostly dead although I was surprised to see, at 8.30am, a reasonable level of traffic on the road. All private cars, taxis or minicabs, no buses at all and no delivery vans. 

[Tetleysmooth]

On 12/24/2020 at 9:54 AM, Supernaut said:

This Christmas Eve, I hope you're all ready for Santa to come down the chimney.

 

I also hope you haven't upset the Krampus too much this year.

Love that Krampus picture. It's a sort of grim anti merriment image. Santa must have really pissed the Krampus off. Got the image as my screensaver now. Hope that's ok.

[Supernaut]

53 minutes ago, Tetleysmooth said:

Love that Krampus picture. It's a sort of grim anti merriment image. Santa must have really pissed the Krampus off. Got the image as my screensaver now. Hope that's ok.

Totally, it's not my image! I found it ages ago somewhere on the internet.

[Mike D]

Managed to get an hour on the mini, rear end has now had a thorough coating in dynax UB, just need to ebuild the new subframe and pop it in now 😁

[brownnova]

Roads really were dead yesterday. Did the dart to see my parents (for the first time since August we took advantage of the one day of being allowed out of Wales) which is a 2 1/2-3 hour drive normally. I drove there and did it in 2hours 10, wife drove back, managed 2 hours 20... (I win)

It was the furthest I’ve ever traveled on a Christmas Day... normally I don’t go far at all. 

[vulgalour]

2 hours ago, Supernaut said:

Totally, it's not my image! I found it ages ago somewhere on the internet.

The artist is Stefan Koidl, they do lots of this sort of stuff, they're very good.

[Cavcraft]

[stuboy]

On 12/24/2020 at 11:39 AM, EssDeeWon said:

No, that's the only snag, its in Kent

avoid north. west kent best id south,,,biased

[Volksy]

On 12/25/2020 at 3:22 PM, richardmorris said:

The trick with xm headlights seems to be to remove the plastic lens thing in front of the bulbs. Improves them to at least 50% of a 2cv.

 

series 2 cxs with main beam separate were worse than original single lens types too. I’m not too keen on the Mercedes’ Either considering it can do 140mph. Perhaps my night vision is getting worse.

The dipped beam on my C180 are crap also, it doesn't even have the normal* frosted lenses. 

Main beam is like a death ray however. 

 

[egg]

redbubble have 20% off everything today (no affiliation from me etc) if you have a few pennies from a great aunt to spend after Xmas.

https://www.redbubble.com/

[Supernaut]

2 hours ago, egg said:

redbubble have 20% off everything today (no affiliation from me etc) if you have a few pennies from a great aunt to spend after Xmas.

https://www.redbubble.com/

Aye, if a few folk could look at the 'what I make' link in my signature that would be grand!

[Craig the Princess]

6 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

Aye, if a few folk could look at the 'what I make' link in my signature that would be grand!

For those on phones who can't work out how to see a signature can you put the link in a post?

[Supernaut]

1 minute ago, Craig the Princess said:

For those on phones who can't work out how to see a signature can you put the link in a post?

https://www.redbubble.com/people/supernautbb

[stuboy]

Splash of rain in the air at work..

 

[omegod]

Early morning walk and discovered a Mk2 k reg MR2 T-bar sitting in a car park of some local flats, flat tyres and not MOT's since 2018. MOT history shows mega corrosion failure's in 14 and 15 but last 2 were clean ................was major welding completed ???  Should I pursue it???? Damn right I should !!!!!

[EightMegs]

3 hours ago, omegod said:

Early morning walk and discovered a Mk2 k reg MR2 T-bar sitting in a car park of some local flats, flat tyres and not MOT's since 2018. MOT history shows mega corrosion failure's in 14 and 15 but last 2 were clean ................was major welding completed ???  Should I pursue it???? Damn right I should !!!!!

https://www.fensport.co.uk/pages/fensport-corolla-sr-3s-gte

Even if the body is unsalvageable, it would make an interesting donor car.

[egg]

This guy - 205hp - is worth following on Instagram for stuff like this.

 

[N19]

An actual day off without any pressing householdy jobs to do, and no big desire to sleep all day. Tidied up in the garage and got the Capri jacked up ready for oil/points/plugs tomorrow, fitted a new battery to the Bluebird (still not firing, need to do some looking at) and topped up the power steering fluid and coolant on the Mondeo. The latter should never really need routine coolant changes since it seems to continually leak and therefore gets topped up plenty. I can't identify any leaks at the moment but it seems to have lost some. Hmm. Sigh.

[Mr Laurence]

I got an electric polisher for Christmas, so I spent Boxing Day detailing the MX5. It’s amazing what a difference it’s made. It’s hard to believe it’s done 164000 miles; it practically looks like a new car again!

[SiC]

1 minute ago, Mr Laurence said:

I got an electric polisher for Christmas, so I spent Boxing Day detailing the MX5. It’s amazing what a difference it’s made. It’s hard to believe it’s done 164000 miles; it practically looks like a new car again!

You need to get the headlights polished up. I find crystal clear headlights make a massive difference to the freshness of a car. 

[Mr Laurence]

3 minutes ago, SiC said:

You need to get the headlights polished up. I find crystal clear headlights make a massive difference to the freshness of a car. 

Yep that’s the next job on my list! I did them with some T cut when I first bought it at the start of the year, but they’ve started yellowing again. Is there anything you’ve used that’s worked well?

[SiC]

3 minutes ago, Mr Laurence said:

Yep that’s the next job on my list! I did them with some T cut when I first bought it at the start of the year, but they’ve started yellowing again. Is there anything you’ve used that’s worked well?

I've used Meguiars headlight cleaning kit which did the job but do the same thing of having no UV protection still. I believe a thin coat of clear lacquer paint helps a lot. Also even just regular car wax can slow down the effect too. 

[vulgalour]

Last night's rain and wind has destroyed another fence panel (who needs money anyway), and blew the cover off the Maestro.  Thankfully, the issue with the cover is that the stitches gave up on one corner and the strap pulled out, an easy repair since it was just the stitching that had failed, not the strap or the cover.  Unfortunately it did mean enough rain had got into the car that I could have probably kept sticklebacks quite happily in the boot, not quite enough water for goldfish, you see.

[brownnova]

33 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

Last night's rain and wind has destroyed another fence panel (who needs money anyway), and blew the cover off the Maestro. 

Similar here, fence panel down and cover of the Mazda... first time I’ve seen it in a couple of months.

After looking at a potential replacement a couple of weeks back I realised that I would really miss the MX5, so I made a pact with myself that I will have the Mazda back on the road for spring... plan is to get it to a local MX5 garage next month to have a good look at what is up engine wise add see if it is fix or replace time. 

[wuvvum]

1 hour ago, Mr Laurence said:

Yep that’s the next job on my list! I did them with some T cut when I first bought it at the start of the year, but they’ve started yellowing again. Is there anything you’ve used that’s worked well?

I used some Turtle Wax headlight restorer stuff in a green bottle.  It seems to have done a decent enough job on the 75's headlights - it got rid of the cloudiness and appears to be keeping it at bay a couple of months down the line, which is more than T-Cut could ever manage. 

[eddyramrod]

I don't know where else to put this but since I was talking about him in the grim cars thread...

Today would have been my dad's birthday.  His centenary in fact.  December 27 th 1920 he arrived, and was 84 when he died.