The new news 24 thread

[EyesWeldedShut]

This about sums up the highs and lows of the past ten days or so:

Freelander pollen filter = high (I set the bar low, as you can tell)

 

Fuckin' Bini alternator + 60mph breeze last night = low
The bonnet never blew away last night but it's still gusting around 50mph mixed with hail so I think cheesey Christmas TV shite for now and revisit the wee beastie tomorrow - start  the Six Million Dollar Man thing  and see if it can be rebuilt by Christmas Day......

 

[comfortablynumb]

Have you seriously only got one extension lead @Rustybullethole?

I must have about 100

Whether I know where they are is another matter..

edit - glad you got it sorted 

Edited December 22, 2024 by comfortablynumb
Additional

[Rustybullethole]

14 minutes ago, comfortablynumb said:

Have you seriously only got one extension lead @Rustybullethole?

I must have about 100

Whether I know where they are is another matter..

edit - glad you got it sorted 

Cheers, it had been bugging me for a while and now sorted for less than a tenner.

Think i'm down to three now. Two MIA one of which is just the cable as the reel broke, not seen either in ages possibly left on a job. 

Only the one on the current job is long enough to reach from the window of my top floor flat to the road. Did consider buying a new one though ruled it out as can wait till it goes in a clients bill. 

Every one i have owned seems to have one inoperable socket which i tape over. They do get battered though. 

[richardmorris]

Rather depressed as usual this time of year. Cold I’ve had since middle of November has made another bid for supremacy too.  Anyway, Washed the car this morning as a tipper truck on Friday straight out of a site sprayed it with muck, that was fine and checking the wiper blades because the left was leaving a weird missing pattern showed it was coming detached from the blade bit. 25,000miles and 3.5 years old. Checked GSF and ECP - £28 both v £38 for Bosch and Valeo.  Ordered Bosch from amazon as I had some books to get too.
 

police delivered posh card from the neighbours - the envelope is heavier gsm than my cards!

 

 

[wuvvum]

I fitted a new stereo to the recently acquired Eos this weekend.  I hadn't particularly been intending to do so, but I was browsing eBay as one does and I spotted a listing for a touch screen stereo to fit various Volkswagens, including the Eos, for a price that was so low it almost looked like a scam - especially when I noticed that other sellers were selling ostensibly the same thing using exactly the same photos and for a variety of different prices.  But then again the price was so low that I didn't really mind losing the money even if eBay buyer protection failed for some reason, so I clicked the buy it now button, and a couple of days later my friendly local Evri driver dropped off a box which, to my mild surprise, contained exactly what had been shown on the listing.

Here it is fitted to the car:

It's a touch screen Android unit - it runs Android 12 so it's not the latest bit of kit but close enough.  It came with a GPS antenna, which I've installed, and a reversing camera, which I haven't - the Eos has parking sensors which do the job well enough.  It even came with a 32gb memory stick plugged into the USB port on the back so I can download choons without clogging up the internal memory.  And, unusually in my experience for cheap Android radios, the built-in sat nav app actually works, which saves having to bugger about logging onto the Play Store and downloading one.  The sound is reasonable as well; the touch sensitive buttons at the bottom aren't the most responsive but they're all duplicated somewhere on the touch screen menus anyway.  For £14.99 delivered I ain't complaining.

While I was playing with the Eos I thought I'd whip the timing cover off to check the state of the belt - the service history suggests that it was done at 60K, but the official interval is 110K, so it's either been done early and not due yet, or I'm playing cambelt roulette.  The belt looks absolutely fine though so I'm going to assume it was done and leave it.

I also had the always joyous* task of fitting a new dipped beam bulb to the Rover 75.  Even though it's a pre-Project Drive car with the access flap in the inner wheel arch liner, it's still an awkward fecker of a job.  It would have been easier if I'd jacked the car up and taken the wheel off, but it was freezing cold and windy and I just couldn't be arsed.

The Merc seems to be driving better since the tracking was done - the steering doesn't feel quite so vague around the straight ahead, although it's still no MX-5.  It's also now pretty much vibration-free at motorway speeds - apparently the front wheels were well out of balance before.  I'd actually quite like to take it to Somerset at Christmas, but that will depend on whether I get time tomorrow to refit the original stereo, as the aftermarket unit in the car at the moment loses its radio signal after about half an hour, which is less than ideal on a 6-hour drive.  I did try to get my iphone to connect to it via Bluetooth so that I can play the radio via the Global Player app, but it didn't want to pair for some reason.  My Android phone pairs with it fine but for some reason I can't download the Global Player app from the Google Play Store without proof of ID - which wasn't required for the Apple Store.  Weird...

[Popsicle]

41 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

For £14.99 delivered I ain't complaining.

Jeez thats crazily cheap, was it a one off or do they have any more?

[High Jetter]

47 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

For £14.99 delivered I ain't complaining.

Linky?

[wuvvum]

5 minutes ago, Popsicle said:

Jeez thats crazily cheap, was it a one off or do they have any more?

They have one left but they've put the price up to £19.99 - still a bargain mind.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/356278984171

[Snake Charmer]

13 hours ago, richardmorris said:

Cold I’ve had since middle of November has made another bid for supremacy too.

That's the George Foreman cold, keeps making a comeback.

[tooSavvy]

1 hour ago, Snake Charmer said:

That's the George Foreman cold, keeps making a comeback.

Ahh... Fury 'fights the flabb' (.. and losing!) 😐

🚙💨

[junkyarddog]

Someone took this rather flattering photo of my 205 yesterday at a local Cars and coffee meet.

😁

[Tenmil Socket]

7 minutes ago, junkyarddog said:

Someone took this rather flattering photo of my 205 yesterday at a local Cars and coffee meet.

😁

That’s a lovely looking thing!

[Dyslexic Viking]

Great Wall pickups seem to age surprisingly well but my favorite about this is the comment on this from one that a Transit of this mileage is probably on the 3 or 4 engine which this one isn't so these are better than a Transit? It is at least less rusty than one.

 

[Dyslexic Viking]

There has been a lack of snow this winter but we got a white Christmas in the end.

[tooSavvy]

Xmas has, indeed, arrived = turkey crown has just come out for 'defrost'! 🍗🧑‍🎄👍

🚙💨

[andy18s]

Uh oh....

[IronStar]

ERMAHGERD SNER!!!!111ONE in Belgrade. In December! Unheard* of! This rare* occurrence has caught winter road maintenance services off-guard, and now there's snow on the road everywhere. It was an absolute shitshow when I was getting home last night.

Apparently, LSD conversions are not just amazing for going/cornering fast, but can also get you into a garage that didn't have its entrance cleaned and has a layer of ice under the snow much much easier than if you didn't have it. 

[Back_For_More]

On 22/12/2024 at 18:14, Rustybullethole said:

Cheers, it had been bugging me for a while and now sorted for less than a tenner.

If you geet stuck for battery operated gear or tools I'm not far off matey as you know.... Just drop me a line and I'll pop over if I'm around. 

Could've saved you some grief - open offer as always 

[Yoss]

Happy Christmas to me! As mentioned in the grumpy thread a couple of weeks ago I did a really stupid thing. But today a big heavy package covered in Škoda Díly stickers arrived. 

Full of these. 

 

And this. A complete head with valves, springs and oil seals! 

The piston and liner set were €87 and the head €207! Okay, it says they are made in China on the website but they are packaged as Viká who are a well respected aftermarket company. I've used their stuff before with no issue. And anyway I have no other option. 

 

 

[grogee]

30 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Happy Christmas to me! As mentioned in the grumpy thread a couple of weeks ago I did a really stupid thing. But today a big heavy package covered in Škoda Díly stickers arrived. 

Full of these. 

 

And this. A complete head with valves, springs and oil seals! 

The piston and liner set were €87 and the head €207! Okay, it says they are made in China on the website but they are packaged as Viká who are a well respected aftermarket company. I've used their stuff before with no issue. And anyway I have no other option. 

 

 

Happy Christmas! That's simultaneously expensive and a bargain. 

I do know it's 100 times better than any Xmas gifts I'll get this year. And I don't even own a Skoda (yet). 

[richardmorris]

37 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Happy Christmas to me! As mentioned in the grumpy thread a couple of weeks ago I did a really stupid thing. But today a big heavy package covered in Škoda Díly stickers arrived. 

Full of these. 

 

And this. A complete head with valves, springs and oil seals! 

The piston and liner set were €87 and the head €207! Okay, it says they are made in China on the website but they are packaged as Viká who are a well respected aftermarket company. I've used their stuff before with no issue. And anyway I have no other option. 

 

 

It’s like adult Lego for Christmas playing.

[Sigmund Fraud]

1 hour ago, Yoss said:

Okay, it says they are made in China on the website but they are packaged as Viká who are a well respected aftermarket company.

I initially thought that it was a reconditioned head, and was looking for the winged arrow logo on the side... Took me a while to realise it was a new casting !

Are port sizes, valve sizes and compression ratio as per Fabia spec ?

[tooSavvy]

Skoda 136 head, I had an engine swap done but the 'swap' must have been run with plain water as the gasket went pretty soon after using my Estelle....

My local Skoda guy took it off and sent it along to the engine reman place he used... They said 'cheese alum' and massive corrosion around the face = not put off, nonetheless they welded up the holes/redremmeled the cut outs + aggressive skim....

It ran [... Very Well 🤣] 🙄

Never Say Die.... 👍

🚙💨

[Yoss]

2 hours ago, Sigmund Fraud said:

I initially thought that it was a reconditioned head, and was looking for the winged arrow logo on the side... Took me a while to realise it was a new casting !

Are port sizes, valve sizes and compression ratio as per Fabia spec ?

According to their website it just says it is for the Favorit and Felicia. I don't know how different the 1.4 Fabia engine is, I'm not sure what they did to it when they uprated it. 

They don't list a head for the 1.4 on the Fabia section although they do have two OHC heads listed. 

[Yoss]

2 hours ago, tooSavvy said:

Skoda 136 head, I had an engine swap done but the 'swap' must have been run with plain water as the gasket went pretty soon after using my Estelle....

My local Skoda guy took it off and sent it along to the engine reman place he used... They said 'cheese alum' and massive corrosion around the face = not put off, nonetheless they welded up the holes/redremmeled the cut outs + aggressive skim....

It ran [... Very Well 🤣] 🙄

Never Say Die.... 👍

🚙💨

The old head has a large pitted area on the flat face as well as the damage to the combustion chamber. That's basically what made me go for the new head. 

[aldo135]

Good day for these 2, the Laguna made it itself useful with a Christmas tip run and picking up last minute shopping. Then got a phone call late morning to say my BMW had passed its MOT. Pleased and a bit surprised as its been pissing oil… they offered to top it up but I politely declined and did it once it was back home 😂 Merry Christmas everyone 🎄

[Split_Pin]

The stains are still dotted about the parking spots around my house from that BMW 6 months later 😂

[loserone]

I flipping love that Laguna.  Fancy a brightly coloured cabriolet in the summer @aldo135?

[Yoss]

Somebody's having a good Christmas. 

We don't get many interesting cars going past what with us being in a cul de sac. 

[aldo135]

On 25/12/2024 at 03:37, loserone said:

I flipping love that Laguna.  Fancy a brightly coloured cabriolet in the summer @aldo135?

Never say never, though if I was changing it I should be looking at something more van/estate shaped…