The new news 24 thread

[High Jetter]

6 hours ago, Fumbler said:

My hand slipped* and I appear to have bought An Car, which should appear in the driveway next month. For anyone interested, here are some 'clues':
It's the obvious choice for a young driver.
It's made by a company famed for superior reliability.

 

I'm rather very definitely excited.
 

Aygo?

[Fumbler]

On the list it goes.

[hairnet]

1 hour ago, Ghosty said:

Who on AS has a bleedin' homologation spec T5-R?! I'm jealous. 

disnae cms huv wan o them?

 

[Ghosty]

CMS? If he does he's kept that bloody quiet. 

They're worth about 30 times more than he pays for cars too... 

[GrumpiusMaximus]

1 hour ago, Fumbler said:

Unfortunately not. The goal was to make sure each part was playable in real life, myself being a pianist and my teacher being a violinist. The other instrument, being a cello, was very easy to make playable. The piece would be marked and then sent off to moderators to give a final grade. Alas, lockdown happened as I was revising parts of the piece, so I took the only two copies (and all my other compositions) from the computers just in case anything happened. Quite lucky really as I got a job and I never returned to complete it!

I've heard far too many A-Level compositions due to previous career choices - but it actually sounds like your's had promise!

[SiC]

2 hours ago, MarvinsMom said:

dunno whats wrong, well, we know there is no spark, so somewhere the lightening has all leaked out.

is it the points? condenser? coil? something else?

Check the condition of the point contacts first. If they're burnt out then very likely it's the condenser. Also check inside the dizzy cap and rotor arm. Don't use a rotor arm with a rivet on. Coils usually fail when hot and then work again once cooled off. Multimeter on ohms across the terminals should give you an indication of its state.

What condenser have you got on it? NOS, modern intermotor/Lucas/etc tosh or something else. If intermotor/Lucas/etc then order a HQ condenser from Moss. Don't forget a new set of points too. 

[Conan]

6 hours ago, Ghosty said:

Who on AS has a bleedin' homologation spec T5-R?! I'm jealous. 

The influence of SVM expanded far beyond Scotland. 🧱

[MarvinsMom]

6 hours ago, SiC said:

Check the condition of the point contacts first. If they're burnt out then very likely it's the condenser. Also check inside the dizzy cap and rotor arm. Don't use a rotor arm with a rivet on. Coils usually fail when hot and then work again once cooled off. Multimeter on ohms across the terminals should give you an indication of its state.

What condenser have you got on it? NOS, modern intermotor/Lucas/etc tosh or something else. If intermotor/Lucas/etc then order a HQ condenser from Moss. Don't forget a new set of points too. 

what sort of condenser? lord knows, its the one that the car came with! 

seriously as the car ran lovely we have just left it alone.

however now that the sparks have leaked away we are going to have to have a  closer look at, and renew as required the ignition circuit.

i cannot wait......

[Cord Fourteener]

9 hours ago, Fumbler said:

Unfortunately not. The goal was to make sure each part was playable in real life, myself being a pianist and my teacher being a violinist. The other instrument, being a cello, was very easy to make playable. The piece would be marked and then sent off to moderators to give a final grade. Alas, lockdown happened as I was revising parts of the piece, so I took the only two copies (and all my other compositions) from the computers just in case anything happened. Quite lucky really as I got a job and I never returned to complete it!

Maybe your after-lockdown project could be to get them played!

[Angrydicky]

1 hour ago, MarvinsMom said:

what sort of condenser? lord knows, its the one that the car came with! 

seriously as the car ran lovely we have just left it alone.

however now that the sparks have leaked away we are going to have to have a  closer look at, and renew as required the ignition circuit.

i cannot wait......

Couple of quick ones to check:

The spade terminal and wire on the side of the distributor, make sure this is nice and tight. The original distributors used a nut and bolt which are usually ok, pattern distributors use a rivet and I had one that worked loose years ago, causing an intermittent loss of current.

Check the points gap hasn't closed up. You'll get some idea by watching the points while an assistant cranks the engine over.

[Split_Pin]

I discovered today that water is getting into the Audis boot space even when the lid is closed so it all had to come out for an assessment.

Some rust in the near side well.

Thankfully just surface.

Painted and waiting to dry.

I think i need a new bootlid as someone has cut a hole in it in the past to get to the lock mechanism .

[MJK 24]

Some right old shite plus a lovely Skoda Estelle and half decent W123.

Look at the steelies on that Skoda!!

 

[N19]

Because I'm sad* and who doesn't love* statistics, I worked out mileages in each car over the last year.

Conclusion - the Capri needs more long trips.

[High Jetter]

34 minutes ago, MJK 24 said:

Some right old shite plus a lovely Skoda Estelle and half decent W123.

Look at the steelies on that Skoda!!

Looks like a delivery for Mr Glover - or maybe it's part of his clear-out?

[vulgalour]

The Maestro can jump start the Princess.  That's worth knowing.  I thought maybe the signs of OMGHGF were my imagination on the Princess since it didn't repeat the bubbles in the expansion bottle at first, then after quite a while idling they appeared so yeah, shame.  Princess also gave me a mild fright by having a bit of a lean, thankfully that was just a nearly flat tyre and not an attack of Hydrasag.  HGF, worn piston rings, and just general wear and tear means the engine is still coming out for a rebuild, it makes sense.  I've got someone lined up to do it, we're just waiting on the world returning to some semblance of normality so that we can get together and get it sorted. On the plus side, everything other than the engine - lights, gauges, gearbox, brakes - all work just as they ought so really the only things left to do on the Princess is the paint (soon, now the weather is improving), engine rebuild, and complete the audio install.  Then it can go back to being a regular car I use regularly.

 

[Zelandeth]

Ugh...This represents basically an entire afternoon of work.

Router used to be in here and this corner was basically just a sea of spaghetti that I'd done my best to ignore for the last five years.  With the router now being elsewhere (hence the hole in the floor) it seemed like a good time to tidy things up a bit.  Not least by making up a couple of my own cables as the original ones were about 10 metres too long in a couple of cases. 

Glad it's sorted, but it really shouldn't have taken a quarter of the time!

[Lankytim]

A week or so ago the handbrake on the V70 suddenly went up 10 clicks instead of the usual 5 or so, this was followed up a few days later by one rear wheel getting caked in brake dust. Uh oh. These Volvo handbrakes are often a total pain in my experience and it’s rare to get one working perfectly. 

Fast forward to today and I take  the chance to investigate. Sure enough both brake linings have fallen off the shoes and were getting ground to dust by the rotating drum. Fortunately I’ve had a set of nearly new brake shoes salvaged from a scrapper and these were fitted along with a pair of manual adjusters to replace the flat metal bar that was previously installed from the factory. Contrary to previous experiences nothing was corroded to buggery and nothing broke, what a bonus! I Adjusted everything up and my feeling of smugness at a job well done evaporated when I found one wheel now had a totally non functional handbrake. Arses. It turned out the “balancer” had unhooked itself from one cable, this necessitated the removal of the centre console to remedy but with it hooked back up I’ve now got a lovely strong handbrake, which I’ve found to be a rare thing on these V70s! 

[dollywobbler]

9 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

Couple of quick ones to check:

The spade terminal and wire on the side of the distributor, make sure this is nice and tight. The original distributors used a nut and bolt which are usually ok, pattern distributors use a rivet and I had one that worked loose years ago, causing an intermittent loss of current.

Check the points gap hasn't closed up. You'll get some idea by watching the points while an assistant cranks the engine over.

The gap on our Mini used to disappear at regular intervals. Condenser failures were fairly common, but it would usually run, just not well.

[Angrydicky]

If the points are worn, a temporary bodge is to file out the hole for the securing screw to allow a bit more adjustment.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

You park a Volvo for five minutes and one of the SVM shows up...

[dollywobbler]

He's branching out from busses then!

[Bren]

I watched tenet yesterday. It was very enjoyable but I would not like to live in the inverse world in the film - a shit would be tricky.

[SiC]

Clio has gone away for the Spring/Summer now - unless one of the other cars breaks and it needs to be pressed into emergency service. MOT in June, so probably pull it out that month too. Speaking to the owner of the yellow T5R in the bay next to me and it transpires he owns a Clio 182. So was chin wagging about Clios for quarter an hour before Mrs SiC turned up and told me to hurry up!

Still debating if it's long term keeper. 

[stuboy]

On 3/6/2021 at 10:54 AM, MarvinsMom said:

so somewhere the lightening has all leaked out.

did you not have a sparks collector?

[MarvinsMom]

32 minutes ago, stuboy said:

did you not have a sparks collector?

makes a change from the usual -

a long stand or a long wait (weight?)

holes for 6 inch nails,

tartan paint,

glass hammer....... 

other workplace japes at the expense of the apprentice are available!

[puntopaul]

Spent today adjusting the throttle cable on my Uno mk2 today, as I'd had to adjust before to compensate for a crappy idle control valve.  Now that was replaced the idle from cold was pretty awful, so after a bit of messing around I got it running an idling pretty much where it needs to be.  So took the opportunity to put the original battery back on, as I'd borrowed another newish battery off my 1994 Fiat Punto for the Uno temporarily. Since the original Uno battery went flat an needed charging, an had kept meaning to swap it back ever since. So I fitted the original battery back to the Uno no problem, in between I'd fitted the Uno battery to my 1997 Punto. As the battery on that was getting past it's best, so I'd  simply swap the newer battery off my 1994 Punto to my 1997 Punto. As the 1994 Punto this battery came off isn't in the road currently, however when I fitted it to the 1997 Punto. The negative lead wouldn't tighten enough on the battery post? even though it tightened just fine. On the post on the Uno battery 😖 ffs!

Moral of the story, don't swap batteries if you don't have too... So no prizes for guessing what I'm doing tomorrow, swapping them all back 🤣 oooooohhhwww....

[clayts450]

Finally got some time to sort out the alternator on the Streetwise. In my last thrilling* instalment, I had fought the bottom mounting bolt and won, only to be thwarted by one of the two bracket bolts which had rounded to near spherical proportions. Not being able to get this bolt out essentially meant I could not get the old alternator out or, naturally, the replacement in. I left it a few weeks, helped by being crazy busy. Had to take the day off today really (domestic driving regs bollox) so, with the sky blue and the sun warm I set to work.

Various techniques were employed all with no success whatsoever. In the end, due to the amount of rounding that had occurred as a consequence of my continued ham-fisted attempts to budge it, I was able to coax a 9mm one of these onto the bolt and with much trepidation was able to encourage it stay on with a 16mm spanner and all fingers crossed (the problem being there wasn't enough room to swing a hammer to properly force it on). Crack....gotcha ya bastard.

The swap out and swap in was easy peasy by comparison, and had it all back together again in about 10 minutes. Now the moment of truth. Turn the key.....battery dead. FFS.... Remembered there was a recently recharged one in the 420 which I had left untethered, so swapped that in, turned the key and.... boom. No, it didn't explode - the battery light disappeared.

Win. Promptly went for a trip and the urban on-roader is on-road once again.

So three working vehicles (although the 620 is back on the naughty step due to the alarm going on for no fucking reason...again).

[wuvvum]

Well the Trafic now has a fully fitted diesel heater in the back. 

It doesn't work though.    I think the controller is duff, as it's not doing anything much - it'll turn the heater on but it won't turn it off again, the display fades out after a few seconds of the heater running and all the buttons stop responding, and it won't prime the fuel pump so no diesel is actually getting to the heater - so it's just putting out cold air.  I need to message the seller and ask him to send me another controller.  It's not a brilliant installation as I was limited as to where I could put it by the location of the hole in the floor - I didn't want to start cutting new holes when there was already one there from the van's previous life as a camper.  The wiring all needs tidying obvs, but I want to get it working before I worry about that.

The lighting in the back is courtesy of these two LED strips off eBay - £4.25 a pop and they're surprisingly effective - I wouldn't want to read by them for any length of time but for pottering around in the back they're fine.

I went to put the new tyres for the Renault 6 in the back of the Mondeo, but it wouldn't unlock on the remote.  Unlocked it with the key and it turned out the battery had gone completely flat.  Popped the bonnet to jump start it and the bonnet release cable snapped.  Epic.  Fortunately it had the courtesy to at least partially ping the bonnet catch before it let go, so with a bit of heaving and jiggling I was able to get the bonnet open, which was a relief.  I've ordered a new cable off eBay (just the inner, with a screw-on nipple at one end - fuck dismantling half the car to change the whole thing) which I will hopefully get sorted next weekend.  In the meantime I've flicked the catch closed so that the bonnet can't close all the way and get stuck - it's on the emergency catch at the moment so I don't want to drive it too far but at least it's moveable now.

On the subject of Renault 6 tyres, I had a look at the date codes of the ones on the car.  The rears are a matching pair of 2002 vintage - they are showing very little wear so will be staying put.  The fronts are 2004 on the offside and 2001 on the nearside - the 2004 one is OK-ish but the 2001 is fairly knackered, with only about 3mm of tread and some fairly serious cracking.  So the shiny new pair of Hiflys will be going on the front.

I also treated the 6 to a halogen headlight bulb in the nearside - I just bought the one initially to make sure they'd fit and work OK, and it's noticeably brighter than the old bulb so I'm going to get one for the offside as well.  The headlights weren't too bad as they were to be fair - certainly better than the Skoda's - but these should make it even more usable at night.

I got the lawn mowed this weekend, thanks to the excellent @Stanky of this parish who sent me a replacement pull start mechanism and a new spark plug and carb diaphragm for the mower - I've only fitted the first two of those so far but it's got the old crate working again - three pumps on the primer and away she went, chewing through 6 months' worth of grass and partially buried cat shit like nobody's business.  It's a pretty basic old mower, but being plastic it's light enough for me to carry in and out of the shed, which is easier than having to manoeuvre it over two quite steep steps.

Then I went for a bike ride up to Hickling Broad - completely deserted other than a bloke fishing, a few ducks and a solitary swan.

[OM646]

Weekend marked by me throwing parts at an electrical gremlin that was caused by a metal tab that fell off a headlight, probably shorting something in the process 

[Zelandeth]

53 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Well the Trafic now has a fully fitted diesel heater in the back. 

It doesn't work though.    I think the controller is duff, as it's not doing anything much - it'll turn the heater on but it won't turn it off again, the display fades out after a few seconds of the heater running and all the buttons stop responding, and it won't prime the fuel pump so no diesel is actually getting to the heater - so it's just putting out cold air.  I need to message the seller and ask him to send me another controller.  It's not a brilliant installation as I was limited as to where I could put it by the location of the hole in the floor - I didn't want to start cutting new holes when there was already one there from the van's previous life as a camper.  The wiring all needs tidying obvs, but I want to get it working before I worry about that.

The lighting in the back is courtesy of these two LED strips off eBay - £4.25 a pop and they're surprisingly effective - I wouldn't want to read by them for any length of time but for pottering around in the back they're fine.

I went to put the new tyres for the Renault 6 in the back of the Mondeo, but it wouldn't unlock on the remote.  Unlocked it with the key and it turned out the battery had gone completely flat.  Popped the bonnet to jump start it and the bonnet release cable snapped.  Epic.  Fortunately it had the courtesy to at least partially ping the bonnet catch before it let go, so with a bit of heaving and jiggling I was able to get the bonnet open, which was a relief.  I've ordered a new cable off eBay (just the inner, with a screw-on nipple at one end - fuck dismantling half the car to change the whole thing) which I will hopefully get sorted next weekend.  In the meantime I've flicked the catch closed so that the bonnet can't close all the way and get stuck - it's on the emergency catch at the moment so I don't want to drive it too far but at least it's moveable now.

On the subject of Renault 6 tyres, I had a look at the date codes of the ones on the car.  The rears are a matching pair of 2002 vintage - they are showing very little wear so will be staying put.  The fronts are 2004 on the offside and 2001 on the nearside - the 2004 one is OK-ish but the 2001 is fairly knackered, with only about 3mm of tread and some fairly serious cracking.  So the shiny new pair of Hiflys will be going on the front.

I also treated the 6 to a halogen headlight bulb in the nearside - I just bought the one initially to make sure they'd fit and work OK, and it's noticeably brighter than the old bulb so I'm going to get one for the offside as well.  The headlights weren't too bad as they were to be fair - certainly better than the Skoda's - but these should make it even more usable at night.

I got the lawn mowed this weekend, thanks to the excellent @Stanky of this parish who sent me a replacement pull start mechanism and a new spark plug and carb diaphragm for the mower - I've only fitted the first two of those so far but it's got the old crate working again - three pumps on the primer and away she went, chewing through 6 months' worth of grass and partially buried cat shit like nobody's business.  It's a pretty basic old mower, but being plastic it's light enough for me to carry in and out of the shed, which is easier than having to manoeuvre it over two quite steep steps.

Then I went for a bike ride up to Hickling Broad - completely deserted other than a bloke fishing, a few ducks and a solitary swan.

If you don't get anywhere with the seller of the heater drop me a PM, happy to send the old controller from mine over to you, it's just been in a drawer in the van since I fitted the Afterburner controller.