The new news 24 thread

[wuvvum]

Well the Innocenti now has a shiny new exhaust.

It took some finagling and some more angry grinder action (stainless steel is hard shiz, I'd still be out there now if I'd tried to hacksaw it) but it's all together and refitted now.  I took advantage of being under there to clean up some slightly rusty looking brake pipes.  Other than the bit of grot I already knew about, it's still remarkably solid under there. 

No progress made on getting the brakes to where they should be.  I need to run it up to my mate's at some point as he's a bit of a brake bleeding expert and will probably be able to figure out what's going wrong.  I did find out that the slightly binding nearside rear brake is due to the handbrake mechanism sticking - I don't think it's the cable as that seems fairly free, I think it's the mechanism inside the drum.  Unfortunately I was unable to verify this as the pin which holds the cable end onto the lever on the back of the drum is rusted solid, and I couldn't get the drum off to look from inside, at least not without a level of hammering which I was unwilling to inflict on the neighbours.  Besides, it kept bloody raining.

The new exhaust mounts have arrived for the Renault 6, but I haven't been able to get the remains of the old ones off - one of them the lower "bolt" is just spinning and there isn't enough of a head to grab hold of properly, and the other one the top retaining nut is little more than a blob of rust having been sat on the rather damp floorpan for Lord knows how many years.  It's far too tight to get the grinder on it, so I ordered a 240v dremel off eBay (I have a rechargeable one but it's shite, it grinds to a halt as soon as you put any load on it), and remarkably despite the delivery being entrusted to Hermes it arrived intact and two days early.  So that's tomorrow's job, weather permitting.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

Low mileage for 16 years on the Golf.  Especially considering that I've put over 100K on in the 5 years I've owned it.  Just ticked over yesterday.

[dean36014]

I fixed the Vel satis window, it now goes smoothly up and down. Was bugging the hell out of me.

[Cord Fourteener]

Look who I met!

 

@Sunny Jim came over for a quick drive. 

It was brilliant to meet your new car and great to see you as always. 

[omegod]

Current project has sat for 4 yrs and it seemed the fuel pump had seized, I popped the top off the tank and christ alive, the fuel is bright green, stinks and has dissolved all of the rubber piping within the tank to a sticky sludge, even the strainer on the pump has liquefied 

Research shows there is a bacteria that can flourish in petrol under the right conditions , never heard of it nor seen such thing before, I'm so looking forward to siphoning it out and replacing it all  .  Fortunately the pump being seized has stopped this shite getting sucked up to the fuel rail. 

Not sure how to dispose of the 20-30 litres of contaminated fuel as the local tip won't take it, any ideas  ??????  

[Tadhg Tiogar]

11 minutes ago, omegod said:

....how to dispose of the 20-30 litres of contaminated fuel as the local tip won't take it, any ideas  ??????  

Is the local arsonist at a bit of a loose end?

[omegod]

3 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Is the local arsonist at a bit of a loose end?

Lol, It's questionable if this green shite would even burn 

[chaseracer]

On 03/07/2021 at 13:41, worldofceri said:

Walsgrave Transport, earlier:

What is IT, AL? 😉 

 

[wuvvum]

9 minutes ago, chaseracer said:

What is IT, AL? 😉 

 

I thought his name was Cer...

 

Oooooh.

[Timewaster]

Obligatory collection pez shot 

[stuboy]

13 hours ago, omegod said:

Not sure how to dispose of the 20-30 litres of contaminated fuel as the local tip won't take it, any ideas  ??????  

use a weed killer....lol

[stuboy]

Another trip to Isle of sheppey to  clear some more of the villa, but I found a 1999 car brochure ... thought I'd share some pictures

[worldofceri]

1 hour ago, chaseracer said:

What is IT, AL? 😉 

 

No no. The redacted car is not a Morris!

[Split_Pin]

26 minutes ago, stuboy said:

Another trip to Isle of sheppey to  clear some more of the villa, but I found a 1999 car brochure ... thought I'd share some pictures

The prices of the 2nd hand cars then are about the same as good examples nowadays!

[MarvinsMom]

how do you make a small car look even smaller?

park it next to a bloody HUGE one!

this Lincoln Town Car is equipped with a 460 ci big block (7 and a half litres) with 13 mpg's.

the mini is 61 ci, that been 998cc, and does  considerably more mpg's.

we also saw this chopped chevy pickup while out and about. its very nice too

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, omegod said:

Lol, It's questionable if this green shite would even burn 

Strike a light? (Then run. Fast)

[dozeydustman]

Tired out after collection caper. Suzuki isn’t going to be roffled immediately as I need to do a couple of jobs to the C2 before we can consider pushing it into daily service. Cam belt roulette isn’t a good game to play and a new backbox is also in order.

And a service. Madam’s Mini could also do with a service.

[High Jetter]

8 minutes ago, dozeydustman said:

And a service. Madam’s Mini could also do with a service.

Ooh! You are awful!

[Kiltox]

Have a feeling I might be needing this shortly 😂. Had let my policy lapse because the MG and Kangoo both have cover 

[Matty]

On 7/2/2021 at 1:54 PM, Jamie said:

It's a mate of a mate. He's only in his late 20s. He's got an Aston Martin vantage as a daily lol. He breaks bmws for a living. 

So do I pal. So do i

[wuvvum]

As mentioned elsewhere, the C2 headed off today to its new home in sunny Chichester (funnily enough that's where I bought it from).  I spent most of the day buggering about with the Renault 6 - I got the new exhaust hangers on, but that was no thanks to my new dremel which turned out to be utterly fucking useless - or rather the dremel itself is fine but the "cutting" discs it came with seem to be made of dust held together with Pritt Stick and last about 5 seconds in use - I barely managed to make a dent in the nut. 

Fortunately a few days ago I made the long overdue decision to invest in a half decent pair of mole grips, having made do with cheap shite for years, and they managed to get enough of a purchase on the <1mm of rounded bolt head that was sticking out the top of the remains of the old hanger, to allow me to hold the bolt still and wind the nut off.  The other hanger which had been slowly rusting into the floorpan actually came away quite easily, to my surprise, and all the nuts turned out to be reusable, which was handy as the new hangers didn't come with any.  So the exhaust is now nice and secure again.

The next job was to fit a flap wheel to the angle grinder and have a go at the driver's floorpan inside the car, to see just how much metal will actually need replacing.  To my surprise, the bit that is actually rotten is a fairly narrow strip - maybe 4" wide - the central section of the original floorpan still being solid and the outer section having already been replaced with a bit of metal that still seems fairly intact.  I was able to get back to nice shiny metal fairly easily on quite a bit of the surrounding floor, which should make welding in a new bit rather more straightforward.  Unfortunately the interior of the car is now covered in rust thrown up by the grinder, so I'm going to have to clean that at some point - fortunately the seats are vinyl so should wipe clean.

I haven't got a great deal more done on the Innocenti beyond yesterday's update, but I did go around checking all the essential bulbs - the nearside front indicator had stopped working because the bulb was corroded tae feck, so that's been replaced with an LED bulb - the car has an electronic flasher unit so fitting LED bulbs doesn't make it go mental.  I also replaced the main beam telltale in the dash, which involved taking out the instrument cluster - that was relatively straightforward, but when I put it all back together I realised I'd managed to pull the speedo cable out the back.  The cable wasn't long enough to reach with the cluster out of the dash, so I had to refit it, then pull off the radio blanking plate and shove my hand in behind the dash to try and wangle the cable back into place.  I got it in (not without getting covered in grease) but I'm not sure it's gone in quite right - the speedo works but the needle flickers, which it never did before.  So I might have to have another crack at it at some point, but that's rather a long way down the priority list at the moment.

The Toyota's brakes continue to baffle me.  I had the drum off again and as far as I can see everything is moving as it should, so I have no idea why it's suddenly decided to start binding on.  I might end up having to admit defeat and hand it over to the garage to sort.  I fugging hate brakes.

[High Jetter]

Did you know that Mole was a brand of adjustable vice-grips?

[wuvvum]

I did not.  Every day is a school day.

[Carlosfandango]

Test passed in the Benz 

 

CFD

[Ghosty]

Sunken cost fallacy.

[New POD]

On 03/07/2021 at 08:31, artdjones said:

This is why everyone needs an estate:-

The rest of us would have to smash it up to get it to the tip....

 

[New POD]

9 hours ago, omegod said:

. 

Not sure how to dispose of the 20-30 litres of contaminated fuel as the local tip won't take it, any ideas  ??????  

I have a few full containers of old engine oil. I also have a few containers which have nothing in.  Come and take them all and fill them 50/50 oil/petrol. Take them.to the tip, (Sefton meadows) and pour them in the waste oil container.  Technically it's all a byproduct of crude oil.

Or. Get some old paint tins. Put them.in.the paint recycling bin. Its all solvent. Right. 

 

Alternatively, get some milk bottles, and rags, and start a riot. 

Or take it down the sand dunes and when it's dark, draw a picture with it in the sand, and set fire to it, photo it as art. 

 

Other legal and more environmentally friendly ideas may be available. 

[bobdisk]

5 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Did you know that Mole was a brand of adjustable vice-grips?

Yes.  Did you know that Hoover was a brand of vacuum cleaner?

[New POD]

4 minutes ago, bobdisk said:

Yes.  Did you know that Hoover was a brand of vacuum cleaner?

And of washing machines. 

Hence why I Hoover my clothes. 

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, bobdisk said:

Yes.  Did you know that Hoover was a brand of vacuum cleaner?

My parents never hoovered when I was a kid. They had an Electrolux, and vacuumed the carpets, the term I still use today. 'I'm just going to henry the bedroom' doesn't sit right, to me.