The new news 24 thread

[vulgalour]

Trying out a local garage on Wednesday since I can't be doing with faffing about with track rod ends.  Spotted the place by chance, they're tucked away and deal mostly with commercial vehicles by the look of things, the Maestro certainly looked very small in the car park next to the other patients.  Bit nervous about it, as I always am when trying out a new place.  I hope the job goes smoother for them than track rod ends normally go for me.  £60 p/h didn't seem too unreasonable for a garage rate either, especially these days.  We'll see what the experience is like come the day it happens.  I'll get them to address the tracking and headlight aim at the same time since they do MoTs and can get that right for me ahead of the MoT in December.  I'm also toying with getting a new windscreen, the current one has two tiny chips and while one isn't inside the swept area of the screen, one is, though it's so tiny I'm hoping its just an advisory since I could do without the expense of getting a new screen fitted just at the moment.

[barefoot]

Buy a windscreen repair kit from eBay and do it yourself for a couple of quid. Even I managed to make it work!

[Asimo]

Passed by an Opel Monza, 85/90 mph, on the A 465 this afternoon.

I haven’t seen one for ages.  It looked tiny and frail amongst modern traffic.

Weird how perceptions change: Monzas used to look as tough as fuck. 

(When the other traffic was mk1 Astras, Metros and Cortinas.)

[Tadhg Tiogar]

I think I have spotted a Doloshite in a side-street on the way home earlier. This requires investigation......

[Soundwave]

One of my friends is selling a car I may well be interested in. Thinking about clearing some space.

[Dyslexic Viking]

Bought a carburetor from Germany on ebay and got a battery gauge instead. Have contacted the seller and wonder how this goes.

[artdjones]

This came over for a timing belt change yesterday.

 

[Liggle]

My new wrench turned up today, on offer on eBay atm - £96 delivered

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164526085712

 

[Asimo]

My "new" wrench turned up yesterday, f.o.c., just lying in the road.

Hilka make, seems to work ok.

 

[Rusty_Rocket]

1 hour ago, Liggle said:

My new wrench turned up today, on offer on eBay atm - £96 delivered

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164526085712

 

I have one of these and use it all the time. Excellent bit of kit. 

[Spottedlaurel]

On 9/14/2021 at 6:04 AM, Spottedlaurel said:

We have at last exchanged contracts on the house, moving day is Thursday! That puts the pressure on moving the last few bits and bobs out of the garage.

Laurel and Lexus are loaded-up with parts and wheels/tyres, good job it's only a short distance we're going as both are now sitting rather low.

DIscovered last night that a 1986 Laurel engine I'd sold doesn't easily fit into an 11-reg Insignia estate. Well, it fitted but he was nervous about the boot floor and suspension so is hopefully coming back today with something else.

Still got two 240K engines, a manual 'box and a load of glass to shift. Think I've got a taker for them, but they're going to need to be stored somewhere temporarily - hopefully we have a van to get them into tonight.....

Have been completely offline and only now catching-up......

After relocation of the 2x 240K engines and a gearbox, the Laurel engine then got collected Wednesday night, the engine crane was finally delivered back to its owner and the glass got put into a borrowed van courtesy of Miss SL's boyfriend.

Moving day did happen on Thursday, it all went very well.

I managed to work it so the Laurel didn't spend a night ungaraged. It was only walking distance from where I'd parked it during the day of the move! It won't be going anywhere in the near future, as it's still full of wheels and tyres, parts etc and stuff is surrounding it, but at least it's at the house. Currently having to juggle who's in what space on the driveway, some important landscaping will take place to enlarge it.

I now have to work out where to put all this lot currently in the 20' container, plus all the models and kits in my office:

Luckily, the steep roof pitch means that I have plenty of loft space.

The RX has been doing a lot of work. On Sunday it was used to move all of the plants across to our new house (our former neighbours had kindly let us leave them there). Yesterday it took around 100 of the 110 boxes we apparently used during the move back to the removals people:

 

There certainly wasn't room for many more. I then used it for collecting 8' long chipboard floor panels for the lofts.

It was a shame I didn't have the Camry estate* available for the move. It certainly had a longer, more useable loadbay than the RX, although I have to admit the latter has it beaten when it comes to taking weight (ideal for when I move the magazines and brochures back home).

I had to take a load of asbestos to a disposal place last week, another last-minute, pre-move activity. After that had been uploaded, with just me and a box or two of stuff on board it still weighed 2300kg. I must have been adding several hundred kgs more on each container run, but it wasn't immediately obvious.

 

*A DVLA check suggests it has been scrapped. RIP faithful old thing.

[SiC]

4 hours ago, Liggle said:

My new wrench turned up today, on offer on eBay atm - £96 delivered

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164526085712

 

I've been eyeing up the similar Milwaukee kit. Will be interesting to see how they compare. 

[stuboy]

20 hours ago, Liggle said:

My new wrench turned up today, on offer on eBay atm - £96 delivered

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164526085712

 

i have the autoshite brand one...

[wuvvum]

I went for a drive in the Volvo 164 today.  Not very far, just round the estate - probably only about a mile all in - but it was the first time it's been out of my road under its own power in over 10 years.  It's not running 100% - it's a bit spluttery under power, I think it might not be getting enough fuel - but it drove OK considering.  The heater works too, started putting out heat within a couple of minutes of starting the car.  I only got up to about 35mph but that was enough for the gearbox to shift up into third, and the 'box doesn't seem to have suffered from its long dormancy (it's a BW35 so would probably survive a direct nuclear strike).  The brakes are still working and stop the car well enough, although it really needs a pair of discs on the front.  The alternator still isn't charging so I didn't dare take it too far for fear of running out of electricity (the battery isn't in the first flush of youth), but it was nice to drive it again after so long.

I went to see a mate this evening in the Caliber, which he had previously taken a fancy to.  The Caliber ended up staying there, and I came away with a slightly dented K12 Micra and a bit of cash.  Not sure how long the Micra will be staying - it's a nippy bugger for a 1.2, and would be useful as a commuting machine, but it's not really my cup of tea.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

9 hours ago, wuvvum said:

.... I came away with a slightly dented K12 Micra and a bit of cash.  ....

The art of barter is not dead.

[brownnova]

Thought of your 164 @wuvvum when I saw this at my local car night last night: 

 

Other highlights included: 

a brown Cortina

And a 205 Rallye

Loads more too but spent far more time chatting than taking photos. 

[barefoot]

It's not really news, but when I was a kid I was given a lift up to EMA to have a look at the Spitfire by non other than the director of the place, the father of a lad I was at school with. He collected me in a Volvo 164 automatic. I'd never experienced anything as smooth and fast before. I was then whisked over to his house for tea, but when he brought me home it was in his wife's car an NSU Prinz thing. In a day of firsts, this was the noisiest, jerkiest car I'd ever been in!

[vulgalour]

Maestro dropped off at the local garage.  Feel weirdly not-anxious about it.  Nothing serious, just alignment jobs really, not something I can do accurately at home.  Hoping they're good, would be nice to have a decent local garage to depend on.

[Zelandeth]

Wow...I think I have just uncovered the worst case of camshaft wear that I have ever seen...much less on a running engine.

I give you the number 3 exhaust valve cam lobe in the engine of my Merc S123.

That's a good 5mm of the camshaft lobe tip just outright missing.

Edit: Derp... that's an intake valve.  Oops.

[juular]

14 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Wow...I think I have just uncovered the worst case of camshaft wear that I have ever seen...much less on a running engine.

I give you the number 3 exhaust valve cam lobe in the engine of my Merc S123.

That's a good 5mm of the camshaft lobe tip just outright missing.

Wow! Oil starvation? Or very tight valve?

[vulgalour]

That's impressive, for all the wrong reasons!

[Tadhg Tiogar]

41 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

.....I give you the number 3 exhaust valve cam lobe in the engine of my Merc S123.

That's a good 5mm of the camshaft lobe tip just outright missing.

Just as well you have a better* spare to replace it.

[Zelandeth]

29 minutes ago, juular said:

Wow! Oil starvation? Or very tight valve?

Reckon there's been a serious oil starvation issue at the top end and the engine being badly neglected.  There's so much carbon buildup I can't pull the bolts out of the rocker assemblies in several cases.

I'm hoping (read: praying) the bottom end of the engine is in better shape.  Camshaft is "last in the circuit" as far as lubrication is concerned and I've never had an actual loss of oil pressure so there is some hope.

I do have a good (as far as I know!) spare head at least...so that being scrap isn't a huge disaster.  Pain yes, disaster, no.

[juular]

May have been a pickup seal or something similar. Enough pressure to lube the bottom end but not quite reach the valvetrain.

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, juular said:

May have been a pickup seal or something similar. Enough pressure to lube the bottom end but not quite reach the valvetrain.

This picture tells the story of this engine really.

It's caked on about 1/8" thick everywhere under the rocker cover.

We've always had acceptable oil pressure in the time I've had the car - I've started this investigation as I'd noticed a slight drop in the pressure at a hot idle - but it's worth noting that the spray bar that sits above the camshaft was about 70% clogged when I got the car.  We've definitely got good flow there now but I think it was already mortally wounded years, if not decades ago.

Oil is absolutely pouring out of the front and rearmost bearings on the camshaft.

Not surprised...you generally shouldn't be able to stick a finger nail down between the shell it sits in and the bearing surface.  There's at least 0.5mm of clearance there.

The fact that there's enough clearance that significant varnish has built up on several of the bearing surfaces says a lot about how much clearance there is.

  Depending what I find when I pull a couple of caps off the bottom end we *might* get away with a head swap.

Maybe.

If we're really, really, really lucky.

 

[stuboy]

After many weeks I finally retrieved the 10mm that escaped for freedom when I fitted the spoiler...

[vulgalour]

Back from the garage and almost all done.  Bit weird that it was booked in for tracking when they don't actually do tracking (doubly so for an MoT garage) but there's another garage around the corner that does tracking and I'm booked in there for tomorrow afternoon.  Headlights aren't cross-eyed now, and the slight wooliness in the steering has gone so that says the old track rod ends were probably shot, as suspected.  The mystery clonk seems to have gone away too, so I wonder if that was actually track rod ends rather than brake related now.

[Zelandeth]

"Just drop the sump" I said.

Ah.

It goes back to here... possibly further.

Several bolts completely obscured by that cross member plus an engine mount attached to it.

Yep... consulting a manual and may come back to it tomorrow... though unless I've missed something really obvious I can't see how this would come out without lifting the engine quite a ways.

First job I've come up against on this car which has made me swear at it, so it was overdue I guess!

[stuboy]

Neighbour got this... he mods his cars up like drift machines... I hope he don't wreck it..

[puddlethumper]

On 9/15/2021 at 9:07 PM, puddlethumper said:

I had a slight accident earlier this evening. Urban dual carriageway, Dudley by pass, where they are doing some resurfacing. Right lane coned off coming up to a round about. I was in the left lane behind a line of cars waiting to get to the round about and numpty comes up the right lane and decides there is enough room between the cones and me to barge in. Unfortunately there wasn't enough room and my offside corner met his rear arch. Big shaven headed guy jumps out and starts shouting and generally being aggressive. I thought, look out road rage. He tried to open the passenger door, mines lhd, which was locked, coz I don't have any friends and therefore don't carry passengers. Starts to come round the other side so I locked the door. I thought he was going to attack me. After a bit he calmed down enough that I got out, keeping my distance just in case. He had a minor scrape on his rear arch area and I had no damage. Can't beat a 305 steel bumper. I took photos and exchanged details. I have never made a claim or had one against me in 50 years of driving so I was well pissed off. 

I'll give everyone one guess what make of car he was driving.

Further developments to this incident. My insurance has put it down as knock for knock. Serves him right for being a nobhead.

Had a phone call today from, I presume, his garage guy who said it would cost me £250 and that I hadn't informed my insurance company. Load of bollox. Then he tried to tell me having a Ford badge on the front was illegal. Not as far as I know. I did tell him that his mates number plate was definitely illegal whereupon he went a bit quiet and I rang off. Insurance has a very good pic of his number plate. What they do about it I don't know. I may take a hit on this next time I renew although I might have paid for NCD protection. Will have to check.