The new news 24 thread

[bunglebus]

  On 26/12/2024 at 19:02, artdjones said:

If it's lasted this long it's one of the good ones. Fiat 131s were very inconsistent from the rust point of view. There used to be 12 or 15 year old ones around that had had normal use, with on street parking , but had never been welded. And others that had half the floor replaced along with all the door bottoms at 7 or 8 years old. 

I think the steel used was of very variable quality. Some excellent, some made up of 50% oxide from new.

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It's got its fair share of bubbles here and there, but it's always at local meets. 1400 though?

[artdjones]

  On 27/12/2024 at 10:44, bunglebus said:

It's got its fair share of bubbles here and there, but it's always at local meets. 1400 though?

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Looks like it. Other than the rust problems it was a nice car, as good as other medium sized saloons and estates, and better styled than most.

[Snake Charmer]

  On 27/12/2024 at 09:44, Rustybullethole said:

Be this off road or sexy fun time stay safe and have a great day. 

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Broken the front prop pulling a Defender off a tree!

[Hawkeyethenoo]

Sticking with my 3.0L OM642 diesel. Friend dropped off at Heathrow t'other day. 800 mile round trip 42mpg, avg speed 57mph, fuel stops 1. Fuel cost £100, with third of a tank remaining.

[Yoss]

  On 27/12/2024 at 13:53, Snake Charmer said:

Broken the front prop pulling a Defender off a tree!

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That's impressive. 

[hairnet]

  On 27/12/2024 at 15:39, Hawkeyethenoo said:

Sticking with my 3.0L OM642 diesel. Friend dropped off at Heathrow t'other day. 800 mile round trip 42mpg, avg speed 57mph, fuel stops 1. Fuel cost £100, with third of a tank remaining.

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closed all sctsch airports?

[JJ0063]

Decided whilst off work for a few days to pull my work desk out and put a bit of colour on the wall. Haven’t done any upstairs decorating since we moved in 2 years ago.

Also spent a couple of days painting strippering the bannister hand rail back to bare wood and sanding it ready to put some sort of varnish / wax on. Also started to paint the rest black - not to everyone’s taste I know, but our whole house is a bit alternative and it’s our style. 
 

 

forgot to take a before pic but you can see it here..

 

And here courtesy of Rightmove, was white with a pale blue hand rail 

[Wibble]

  On 27/12/2024 at 17:59, JJ0063 said:

Decided whilst off work for a few days to pull my work desk out and put a bit of colour on the wall. Haven’t done any upstairs decorating since we moved in 2 years ago.

Also spent a couple of days painting strippering the bannister hand rail back to bare wood and sanding it ready to put some sort of varnish / wax on. Also started to paint the rest black - not to everyone’s taste I know, but our whole house is a bit alternative and it’s our style. 
 

 

forgot to take a before pic but you can see it here..

 

And here courtesy of Rightmove, was white with a pale blue hand rail 

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Think I’d go with a clear wax on the bare timber. Will give lovely, easy to maintain finish. Looks great in my opinion.

[Snake Charmer]

  On 27/12/2024 at 16:00, Yoss said:

That's impressive. 

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Weak link in a strengthened drivetrain unfortunately. Easily replaced and not too difficult to repair with a stronger piece of tube then rebalance as the joints are still good. 

[mat777]

Funny how things go.... last weekend with predictions of motoring armageddon, I drove 450 miles to the West Country and back just fine. Today when the entire population is supposedly on the couch full of cheese and wine, a simple trip to Derby was traffic hell in both directions... 
Aaanyway, that's the Insight dropped off for a little "rejuvenation holiday" with RichardK, where it's currently the ultimate "2001 Honda Lifestyle Brochure" I'm partnership with his HRV😎 

First time towing with the 120hp, 4 speed slushmatic Discovery made me realise how spoiled I've been in recent years with a slew of modern 200hp, variable turbo'd, 8-speed trucks.... 

[Sigmund Fraud]

The Visa of many Shitters was collected earlier today, and is now safe* at Chez Fraud.

It was a real pleasure to meet @Stinkwheel, to whom I owe a public "thank you" not only for the car but also for all his work getting it back on the road !!!

[HillmanImp]

Met a mate at the pub today. 

The new wheels in question:

He said its the nicest car he's ever bought for under a grand and absolutely loves it. 

[Vince70]

Today I did a 500 mile round trip in my freebie 2.3 V5 Golf and although it gets very  little use, it didn’t miss a beat and the car was driven for 11hrs non stop apart from stopping for a quick coffee and 15 minutes too pick up a lovely Romanian rescue dog called Coconut.

It achieved on average 35mpg and just glided along with the cruise set, but what was most disheartening was my  car was the oldest car I saw on the road apart from a classic Lotus and a Lancia Delta, But I did see though quite a few moderns on the hard shoulder and most seemed to be older wet belt Fords and newish electric vehicles.

Also I found a Golf parcel shelf can take the weight quite easily of an overweight little barrel of a dog with a big body and small legs,  as it seemed coconut liked laying flat on the parcel shelf of a MKIV Golf.

 

[Stinkwheel]

  On 27/12/2024 at 20:30, Sigmund Fraud said:

The Visa of many Shitters was collected earlier today, and is now safe* at Chez Fraud.

It was a real pleasure to meet @Stinkwheel, to whom I owe a public "thank you" not only for the car but also for all his work getting it back on the road !!!

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I mean it was sad to see it go but I’m very happy it was in the right hands. 
was great to meet you @Sigmund Fraud and can tell you will enjoy it when you start using it.

hopefully not too many bad Visa related family flashbacks were  roughy to mind for anyone 

 

[Yoss]

  On 27/12/2024 at 22:23, CGSB said:

Where is the photographic evidence of said chunky dog on a parcel shelf please? 🔍

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Yes, plus one on that. Picture of dog or it didn't happen! 

[lesapandre]

  On 27/12/2024 at 22:49, Yoss said:

Yes, plus one on that. Picture of dog or it didn't happen! 

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If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it still make a sound? 😂

[Lord Sterling]

Not much to report here. 

Now, I'm unsure if anyone has been messing with the Vectra or whether it's just coincidence that a numberplate screw on the front was missing and that the passenger-side front tyre was low (less than 10psi), this town has a lot of nimbys whi don'tlike you parking on "their" road or whatever.

However, on the other hand, there are a lot of potholes and I do try to avoid them where I can but certainly along where I work, the service road is very bad so I can imagine the tyre has probably taken a bit of a battering along there.

I refitted a number plate screw with surround and fitted a battery jacket as the original one off mine seems to have gone awol. It's winter so some sort of protection for it is a bit better. 

I haven't used the Vectra for about 10 days now, I've been wanting to get the tracking done but every time I see an opportunity, a bill/something I need to buy happens. Every time.

I've been using the Jag more this week and last, we've had a short week at work due to Christmas. Everything seemed fine until yesterday when I heard a grinding/dragging noise from the rear passenger side of the car. Couldn't see anything underneath the car, the noise comes and goes. It disappeared for while yesterday only to return today as I entered into my town. I suspect it's possibly a brake disc shield or something as it doesn't affect the running or driving of the car.

I need to invest in an extendable wheel nut wrench as I appear to have lost the one I had some years ago.

[Snake Charmer]

  On 28/12/2024 at 00:20, lesapandre said:

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it still make a sound? 😂

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Woof.

[barefoot]

  On 28/12/2024 at 00:20, lesapandre said:

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it still make a sound? 😂

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I read somewhere that not only does it fall silently, it also causes minimal disruption around it and retains the energy that would normally be released, making it far more thermally efficient when burnt as fuel.

[Volksy]

  On 27/12/2024 at 21:11, HillmanImp said:

Met a mate at the pub today. 

The new wheels in question:

He said its the nicest car he's ever bought for under a grand and absolutely loves it. 

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To be fair, we spent an evening trawling through all the for sale sites and it literally was the best we could find. 

It does look clean and pretty well looked after.

[wuvvum]

  On 27/12/2024 at 17:59, JJ0063 said:

forgot to take a before pic but you can see it here..

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Heh, that bannister (the bit that isn't black yet) is identical to the one in the house I lived in in the late '80s.

[wuvvum]

  On 27/12/2024 at 13:53, Snake Charmer said:

Broken the front prop pulling a Defender off a tree!

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I did something similar once to the propshaft of a 635CSi, racing a Punto GT away from the lights on the Norwich ring road.  I would have had him too.

[Vince70]

  On 27/12/2024 at 22:23, CGSB said:

Where is the photographic evidence of said chunky dog on a parcel shelf please? 🔍

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I didn’t take a picture as I was driving at the time lol.

But I’ve the paw prints and dog hair too prove it lol.

Not that I was too worried as I’ve a complete spares car that has a good parcel shelf.

[SiC]

Pulled this out

Put this away for now (I think I might sell this really soon)

Greta will be angry

Because I live in Somerset, we have these sort of things going on. So we gave it a watch.

Went for a drive. Found someone* with a similar #wankerplate

Satisfying mileage.

 

 

 

* My parents, it wasn't that much of a coincidence.

[Split_Pin]

  On 28/12/2024 at 14:50, SiC said:

Greta will be angry

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I've been making her angry since last year with my 2 DPF-less diesels 😅 Rather less cool than a Porsche though!

 

[grogee]

  On 27/12/2024 at 19:19, mat777 said:

Funny how things go.... last weekend with predictions of motoring armageddon, I drove 450 miles to the West Country and back just fine. Today when the entire population is supposedly on the couch full of cheese and wine, a simple trip to Derby was traffic hell in both directions... 
Aaanyway, that's the Insight dropped off for a little "rejuvenation holiday" with RichardK, where it's currently the ultimate "2001 Honda Lifestyle Brochure" I'm partnership with his HRV😎 

First time towing with the 120hp, 4 speed slushmatic Discovery made me realise how spoiled I've been in recent years with a slew of modern 200hp, variable turbo'd, 8-speed trucks.... 

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Everybody was on the m5 yesterday. 

Everybody. 

A three hour journey took me five hours. 

[wuvvum]

Yeah, M4 wasn't great either.  First half of my journey back from Somerset yesterday was something of a chore.  Second half was fine other than having to go via Northampton as the A421 was closed.

[comfortablynumb]

A1 was playing silly buggers, worse than usual, between WGC and Stevenage, went via knebworth and wasn't too bad, and then had to deal with the abomination that's the black cat roundabout 🙄

Did find a cutoff through St Neots tho, so wasn't on the queue 

[wuvvum]

Black Cat wasn't too bad on Christmas eve, somewhat to my surprise, but the roadworks aren't helping.

[beko1987]

  On 28/12/2024 at 17:02, wuvvum said:

Black Cat wasn't too bad on Christmas eve, somewhat to my surprise, but the roadworks aren't helping.

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Christmas day at 9.30am it was dead 👌

Boxing day afternoon going home it's always slow on the approach southbound, but far better than I've seen it before!