The new news 24 thread

[Ghosty]

30 minutes ago, clayts450 said:

There's one of those in my garage full of drill bits or something. An 'A1' one too. 

[artdjones]

18 minutes ago, HMC said:

Yeah, it’s difficult isn’t it. I’d say worth doing a swerve on something like that (with the wood, ahem) as at a distance you either need a straight up and clued up vendor, or run the risk that a superficially good looking traveller back end isn’t all that.
 

Plus there a lot of shiny looking minors out there with quite mediocre “restoration” work lying beneath. Been there with a traveller, done that, would not repeat. 

In 1996 I was asked to go and look at an Almond Green Traveller at Killaloe in County Clare, which was then the best part of three hours from West Cork, especially in a non turbo 1.6 diesel Passat. We got there and the owner wasn't home yet, but the car was parked outside. It looked really good, but the first thing I did was kneel down and run my hand along the bottom of the driver's side sill. I found my fingers disappearing into rust holes. I stood up, told my friend and we immediately jumped into our car and drove home again. 

I wouldn't buy an old car without a set of pictures of all the rust prone areas on that car. And even then I'd want the possibility to reject it when it arrived 

[HMC]

Too right. My problem is also if I end up with a disappointing example it puts me off ever having one. So far only triumph spitfires and said Morris traveller fit into that category.

[Patent]

Put a dining table and chairs online free to good home. A man turned up in a bug eyed Fiat Multipla to collect it.

As he was leaving I complimented his car. He replied with "thanks, I own three of them." What a hero!

[Split_Pin]

I always clean the fleet every week but Spring was definitely  in the air today so after a nice long walk I gave them all a bit of a detail.

Couldn't do the Corsa because the bastarding rogue landscapers have left a tonne of hardcore in the way. I will move this during the week as the Corsa is going for its MOT next week.

[somewhatfoolish]

47 minutes ago, Patent said:

Put a dining table and chairs online free to good home. A man turned up in a bug eyed Fiat Multipla to collect it.

As he was leaving I complimented his car. He replied with "thanks, I own three of them." What a hero!

He certainly qualifies for AS running 3 of those; did you invite him to join the best forum for social misfits that like weird cars?

[SiC]

1 hour ago, HMC said:

Yeah, it’s difficult isn’t it. I’d say worth doing a swerve on something like that (with the wood, ahem) as at a distance you either need a straight up and clued up vendor, or run the risk that a superficially good looking traveller back end isn’t all that.

Glad you have said that as FOMO has been large on this one. It didn't help that it was only 20 minutes drive from here either, so should have been easy to see.

1 hour ago, HMC said:

Plus there a lot of shiny looking minors out there with quite mediocre “restoration” work lying beneath. Been there with a traveller, done that, would not repeat. 

🤔😭

😂

[stuboy]

Whilst looking for the standard 8 keys I found some nighttime reading material and few key rings to hang in cabinets..

[richardmorris]

1 hour ago, Patent said:

Put a dining table and chairs online free to good home. A man turned up in a bug eyed Fiat Multipla to collect it.

As he was leaving I complimented his car. He replied with "thanks, I own three of them." What a hero!

Did you recommend he join the forum?

[rusty998]

3 hours ago, clayts450 said:

Liked, especially for this - something you just don't see rattling around any more...

My Grandad was an Old Holborn smoker so we had gazillions of these around the house. Can't honestly remember the last time I saw one. Aw, reminiscent warm glow.

I've got quite a few tobacco tins now, I use all of them for little drill bits, metal letter punch set, roll pin's, split pin's, small screws, washer's and small fixings, they are very useful little tins 

[SiC]

Had a clear out in the garage today to put the compressor, that Mrs SiC friend gave me, somewhere sensible. Also gave me a chance to clear this area up that was slowly being stacked with clutter.


Clutter like this, that I should really throw away. Run out of places I can fix this together onto.


Ran compressor up and it did compression things. Actually noiser than I expected. I don't think it's that much quieter than my direct drive unit really.


Gave my nibbler a run too. Previously I got about 30 seconds before my small compressor ran out of puff - literally.


While I was clearing out, I thought I'd give the mower a startup


Re-fitted the battery but lost the retaining bar. So in naturally used the bodgers choice of zip ties


Made another rubbish cold start video

Which left a mess on the lawn. No doubt I will get told off about tomorrow when Mrs SiC looks out the window in the morning.

[Patent]

8 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

Did you recommend he join the forum?

Sadly I failed in what would have been the key part of that interaction! Although still have his Facebook details. Might drop him a note and hope he doesn't think it's an insult!

[cort1977]

Realised today that despite having a reasonable fleet I am down to one roadworthy car.

Wife's i3 broke a spring today, passat burst a brake hose last week, mx5 is SORN and everything else needs an MOT. So wife is driving my van to work tomorrow, this is causing a cooling effect on our relationship...

[Spottedlaurel]

In between finishing off a 1:24 Skyline kit and doing a bit of stuff in the garden, I made use of the great weather today to spend an hour or so messing about with my old things.

Having already used the '88 Sunny to take Miss SL to work this morning, I reconnected the batteries on the Laurel and 1200 and they both happily started-up. As usual the Laurel's RH rear tyre needed a top-up (it's been like that for 10+ years now), otherwise they seem to have survived the winter OK. My garage looks rubbish, but it's timber and draughty so the cars stay dry in there.

Laurel celebrates becoming tax exempt this year, so I must get on with declaring it as historic. It got MoTed last summer despite technically not needing it, so I can start using it soon.

1200 is taxed all year and I thought I'd make the most of it being MoT exempt to collect daughter SL at the end of the day. It was as charming to drive as ever.

Had already extablished that the LS400's battery is flat. Need to get that off and see if it'll take a charge, but there's no rush until I get an MoT booked, and what's the point in that right now?......

Camry is now out of MoT. The battery on that one had gone flat (well, actually it was the Sunny's battery but I'd swapped them over a couple of weeks ago). It eventually took enough charge to get it started, and it thanked me by throwing up the ABS light. It hadn't done that since having a sensor replaced last year, strange for it to have gone again just before I'm going to put it in for a test. Again, no immediate hurry on that - with better weather I'll use the Nissan/Datsuns, and if I have to make a choice between spending money on the Camry or LS400 then it'll be the latter.

[SiC]

4 hours ago, HMC said:

Plus there a lot of shiny looking minors out there with quite mediocre “restoration” work lying beneath. Been there with a traveller, done that, would not repeat. 

Funnily enough I've just watched Harry's Garage on his Zagato. Makes me feel a lot better than even he manages to buy something that is covered in super thick filler over previous paint and filler. Better but also worried that if he even manages to get caught out...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ12ZqReMBw

[wuvvum]

Got a bit more done this weekend thanks to the far more clement weather - yesterday was a touch windy but today could quite easily have been April.

The Trafic van now has a functioning driver's door lock.  It also briefly had a functioning lock on the back door, but unfortunately the little arm on that lock is made from far more brittle plastic than the one on the front, and it didn't take kindly to being installed on a new barrel and has fallen off into the bottom of the door.  That was an annoyance, but the van can still be secured as the back door can be locked from the inside - it just means I have to climb between the seats to get to the back to unlock it again. 

It also now has a full set of working indicators.  I reversed it up onto the ramps to have a look at the wiring at the back, and I quickly gave up trying to understand WTF was going on - at some stage someone has spliced in a load of extra sections of wire, but they've done it all in one colour, and the joins are hidden in an absolute mountain of electrical tape.  I did notice one wire (which turned out to be copper single core ffs) heading all the way down one of the chassis rails, across a crossmember and into the engine bay - intrigued, I popped the bonnet to see where it came out, and it turns out it's taking a feed from the back of the nearside front indicator.  So that made life easier - I disconnected it from the rat's nest of turquoise wiring, and connected up a fresh wire which I ran across to the nearside rear light cluster.  I then snipped the feed wire for the indicator a few inches below the cluster and joined that to my new wire as well.  It's bodgy as feck but it works, and there was no way I was going to start trying to figure out the existing wiring.  I have no idea who's responsible - whether it was the company who originally converted it to a camper or a subsequent bodge artist - but I wasn't impressed.

I jump started the Renault 6 and drove that down to the house so I could plug in a fan heater to dry it out again - Storm Whateverthefuckitwascalled ripped the cover off the car before depositing several inches of snow onto it, so it'd got wet inside again.  It's all dry again now and the cover is back on - this time held on with ratchet straps rather than bungee cords.  I think I'm going to have to treat the old girl to some tyres this year as the ones on there are getting rather cracked.  There's someone on eBay at the moment selling NOS 135R13s for 35 quid a pair - decent makes too, although apparently the date codes are old - got to be better than the tyres currently on the car mind.

I dug out the 12v jet wash and had a go at blasting the Iveco roof to see if I could clean any of the green off it.  It didn't really do a lot of good, but then I wasn't hugely surprised - even scrubbing away at the roof with a scouring pad I was struggling to shift it.  I really need to get a ladder and get up there properly so I can actually see what I'm doing, but that's not an urgent job.  While the jet wash was out I gave the 75 a good blast underneath to hopefully get rid of most of the salt and crap that it's picked up over winter.  It's started locking itself again, which is annoying as I was hoping it'd cured itself of that - I've taken the fuse out for now but that's not a long term solution as with the fuse out the tailgate won't open.  I might have to bite the bullet and get a replacement BCM, and then find someone who can code it in.

Then I decided I'd had enough of chod fettling for one weekend, and I dug the road bike out for the first time since October and went for a ride up to the coast, which was lovely, if a little* busier than during the last lockdown.  Spring is definitely in the process of springing.

[ChinaTom]

Re: XJ40, when you changed the fuel pump, was it a new one (cheaper to buy another XJ40!) or was it a recon/used part? People with more knowledge than me say these pumps have 100k miles in them at best and so it came as no surprise to my knowledgeable friends that a used one transplanted into mine lasted a few hundred miles before conking out. How ironic that the FTP that finally caused the owner to call the scrap man was not the sensor, not the leads, not the dizzy cap, not the throttle body, but the fuel pump that requires a team of contortionists to get the tank out. Car scrapped, I come along and buy the bloody fuel pump...

[brownnova]

Our one little permitted pleasure of lockdown has been to visit a local cafe and get takeaway cake on a weekend.

For the first time in a while I decided to take the 2CV... there was something very nice and normal about piling the family into the 2CV and going for a Sunday drive... 

[dome]

11 hours ago, ChinaTom said:

Re: XJ40, when you changed the fuel pump, was it a new one (cheaper to buy another XJ40!) or was it a recon/used part? People with more knowledge than me say these pumps have 100k miles in them at best and so it came as no surprise to my knowledgeable friends that a used one transplanted into mine lasted a few hundred miles before conking out. How ironic that the FTP that finally caused the owner to call the scrap man was not the sensor, not the leads, not the dizzy cap, not the throttle body, but the fuel pump that requires a team of contortionists to get the tank out. Car scrapped, I come along and buy the bloody fuel pump...

It was a brand new unit-I wasn't taking my chances with a used one with the work involved in changing it! also new lines, filter and the tank cleaned out

I went back last night and the XJ40 started fine from cold and drove perfectly on the mile drive home.

Symptoms when it started to die were that applying more throttle would cause the rev counter to fluctuate and the car to misfire. Last time a new crank sensor cured it and I did 300 miles with no troubles. 

[Bren]

15 hours ago, ChinaTom said:

Re: XJ40, when you changed the fuel pump, was it a new one (cheaper to buy another XJ40!) or was it a recon/used part? People with more knowledge than me say these pumps have 100k miles in them at best and so it came as no surprise to my knowledgeable friends that a used one transplanted into mine lasted a few hundred miles before conking out. How ironic that the FTP that finally caused the owner to call the scrap man was not the sensor, not the leads, not the dizzy cap, not the throttle body, but the fuel pump that requires a team of contortionists to get the tank out. Car scrapped, I come along and buy the bloody fuel pump...

We had an iron that worked fine except for a mains lead - frayed to fook. Mentioned this to my dad who told me had kept the lead from an old iron and I should swap it.

I fitted new lead and fuse promply blew. My dad had chucked out a perfectly good iron - and kept the part of it that was fucked.

[N19]

Managed to find a window regulator for the Bluebird online which hopefully should arrive later this week to fit at the weekend. 

Trust me for saying that things had been reliable recently...... 

[DodgyBastard]

Given these are worth a reasonable amount now, the closer to stock it is, the wider the potential market there is for it. Thus more potential for higher value and thus profit. 

I'm not sure there would be any profit in it, it's £2k and needs a shit load of work to return to standard.
I've had a long hard think about it over the weekend and decided not to go through with buying it which means I'll probably lose the £200 deposit on it but probably better than losing £2k on a car I may never get roadworthy.
Instead I've been looking at a roadworthy 505 gtd auto at £2500 which is roadworthy, I think in the long run I'd be happier cruising around in that than rattling around in the other one with its incredibly stiff suspension trying to avoid being beached on speedbumps.

Sent from my moto g( power using Tapatalk

[loserone]

This is sad because I really can't see anyone but you rescuing that one.  But also, probably a wise decision.

[junkyarddog]

My 205 was getting difficult to start from cold,so I decided to fit the new glow plugs that I had lurking in a drawer.

3 came out fine,one decided to do this...

Marvellous!!

Tried to weld a nut onto the broken stub,and the initial signs were good,but every time it went more that a few degrees the nut would shear off.

So,another method was needed.

You can buy a kit to remove them, but that's money I didn't want to spend.

So,it was carefully drilled out and I luckily had a the correct M12x1.25 tap to clean up the threads.

The remains of the plug,the rest was turned into swarf

I used plenty of grease on the tap to catch the metal chips as it cleared up the thread.

4x new Bosch glow plugs later and we're back in action. 

Finally the new one screwed home.

It did start on 3,but the new Monark brand plugs I had fitted didn't like the extra voltage and burned out after about 4 starts.

You can see the tip is swollen (ooh-er missus)

Hopefully the 4 Bosch ones will be fine.

What a ballache for what should a simple straightforward job.

🙄

[richardmorris]

Signs of spring today.

[SiC]

3 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

Signs of spring today.

Theres been lambs here for a good few weeks now, even with the sub zero temperatures. These guys were at the end of the garden until last week. I suspect they might have gone off to be served next to mint sauce.

[clayts450]

Hopefully today will be my last day of non-couriering as the Combo visits the local indie for a new coil spring first thing tomorrow. No doubt it'll take all day, but not necessarily a bad thing as I have a few incomplete jobs I'd like to kill off.

Streetwise alternator - well, it's nearly out, finally got the lower mounting bolt loose by creating some room (hitting the outgoing alternator with a hammer to knock it forward, enabling me to get a much bigger ratchet in to attack the bolt. Yielded with an almighty crack and the bolt was out. The alternator is still stuck in there rigidly, so will need  a pry bar to lever it out. However, that's only half the battle - I still need to get the alternator out of the engine bay. Ideally, it's a case of removing the top alternator mounting bracket, leaving plenty of room. Naturally, another bolt, this time a wee 10mm beastie is locked solid and is now rounder than the Magic Roundabout. Buggerbollox. It was getting dark so downed tools for now to allow for WD40 penetration and to locate my mole grips.

Front garden hedge long overdue trim:

before (yes that is a nest - long abandoned : woodpigeon believe it or not !)

after

Very satisfying three hours work, very therapeutic.

Only trouble is, that's only a third of the hedge, still the other side of the path to do, which bends round to the side of the house. 

My arms look like I'm self harming as the hedge, which I planted myself many years ago, has hawthorn in it. Ouch.

[MarvinsMom]

finally got the Rover home after having the alternator, belts and thermostat replaced.

it had been at George's in town for the last fortnight getting that done. it would have been sooner, had York Road Motorfactors sent the right alternator belt first time, and not sent the wrong one twice before managing to send the right part. 

all those jobs are a proper pain on a diesel 75, requiring both o/s engine mounts to be removed and the engine manipulated one way to get to the alternator, and then back to get at the thermostat, and back again to get at the belt tensioners.

luckily only one of the 4 bolts holding the stat on broke, George did get the remains of it drilled and tapped, before getting it all  back together.

the car runs mint, and the flickering on the lights, something the car has done for all  of the 5 and a half years that i have owned it, is no more! though seeing the temperature gauge sit at the 9 o'clock position is alarming, i dunno when it last did that, no seriously i don't remember when it last did that. it must have been sometime ago.

obviously this isn't cheap, with the bill been more than frankly the cart is worth, what is a 20 year old Rover 75 worth, with 205,000 miles on the clock? bugger all realistically, though as George said, its in pretty good nick,  all told

And, its a good old bus, its never let us down, and even when its broke, it hasn't left me or Kerry stranded, its not too bad on the derv, its a nice place to sit and i like it both to drive and look at, it is the perfect work horse.

plus i feel i got off lightly, in the yard next to it was a 16 plate Renault Scenic, the owners of which will be left with a £3-4k bill! that has suffered some sort of electrical melt down, they have apparently been driving it for sometime with a bust ignition switch, so busted that when George took the cowl  off it all fell to bits (£500-odd to buy, exchange, except this one won't be,cos its in bits) and a new steering rack (Renault don't stock them, its getting a 2nd hand one) which is out of a scrapped 17plate one with a borked engine. you gotta love the DCi engine,  still shit after all these years..... well this had been in the breakers for a couple of days, and the carcass was already well  picked over!!

next over Georges pit is another 75, this one too wanting a new thermostat. Wilco-Motorsave in town had tried to change it, they have snapped 3 of the bolts, and mutilated the 4th one before declaring to the owner that the car is now scrap, no wonder then that both Kerry and myself are both very particular about who looks at our cars!!

 

[High Jetter]

Sounds ok...i think?

[wuvvum]

8 hours ago, DodgyBastard said:

Instead I've been looking at a roadworthy 505 gtd auto

That's a car that always intrigued me.  A turbocharged Indenor mated to an auto 'box is an unusual combination.