The new news 24 thread

[EyesWeldedShut]

Had a fun* day doing multiple oil changes.  For some reason the Lidl special oil suckee-suckee pump will not fully drain the Boxer/Bini. Anyways - got that sucker running on the CLK and went over to do:
Boxer: went fine and dandy - 6.5 litres of Mannol's finest 5W30. Great to work on something far enough off the ground that there's no need to jack/ramp, oil change in about 10 minutes. No idea why the FreeLander had the oil filter in such a wanky place when Sevel hasn't?
Bini     : less fine - filter is a little bit hidden and it also needs  jacking to reach the sump plug. I think the sump really needs pulling off and resealing but, then again, I've thought that every year since 2018. 4 litres of the same 5W30. 

CLK : the suckee-suckee is slow but will eventually get just over 6 litres out. 6 litres 5W30 goes back in but then - fuckit. I have, once again, ordered the wrong filter. 100% my fuckup and I have no idea what I was thinking of at the time. The proper one will be here tomorrow  . 

So that's about 17 litres of liquid gold gone - according to the delivery sticker I bought the stuff in 2024. Time flies.

Anyways - all the above is just a blatant plug for this......

 

[Joey spud]

This is my old welding cart I made years ago so I could drag everything off-road stylee from the shed up the far end of the garden out on to the driveway at the front of my house. Ive now moved to my new abode with an adjacent workshop so something more compact was required.

Step forward the cheapest cart on eBay.  Weirdly it comes with a small pair of woolly gloves to aid its assembly.

For £39 it's a cheap enough solution to trying to make something from scratch.

Much better I think although the angled shelf design means you can't hold your gas cylinder securely upright without adding a block of wood behind it (I think I'll paint the wood black so it irritates me less).

[wuvvum]

This afternoon I extracted the Renault 6 from its hibernation in the garage.  There was an initial moment of panic when I couldn't find the keys, but it turned out that I'd left them on the passenger seat .  The battery was rather flat, not unexpectedly, so I did my usual trick of pulling the car out by its back bumper until I could get close enough with the Rover and the jump leads.  

The second setback then happened when one of the clamps fell off the negative lead of my long jump leads, so I had to find my shorter set and join them together to make a negative lead.  Then it cranked over fine but wouldn't start - it turned out to be out of petrol, the little that was in the tank when I put the car away either evaporated over the winter or the slight slope outside the garage was enough to make it run away from the pickup in the tank.  Handily I had enough in a can in the boot of the Carina to get it fired up and round onto the car park.

I've decided that buying a replacement chassis for it is not really a viable option, but I am going to buy some bits to get it a bit more solid underneath and also to reattach the nearside rear trailing arm, as the car isn't really usable until that's done.  A full replacement nearside floor, rear box section and trailing arm mount come to just under 300€ with delivery (but not including VAT / duty) - that should be enough to get the worst bits solid again, and is a lot more feasible than paying 2000€ for a complete chassis which I'd then have to take a van to Germany to collect.  I might not need the full floor section - the centre bit of the floor is OK and replacing the whole thing involves removing the torsion bar which I don't fancy doing if I don't have to - but the full panel was only about 25€ more than the front and rear repair sections, which didn't look quite big enough to replace all the grotty bits.

Then I chucked a bucket of soapy water over the Maxus as it's been stood most of the winter and was going a bit green in places - not too bad but it was noticeable close up.  I really need a telescopic brush though as I can't get to the sides of the roof at the moment without standing on something, which is too much faff.  I'm going to clear it out at the weekend now that the garage is empty, then I'm going to try selling it again.  Hopefully the fact that I won't be able to rely on it for storage next winter will also force me to pull my finger out and sell most of my unnecessarily large collection of bicycles, and throw out some of the crap I've been hoarding.

[SiC]

13 hours ago, Joey spud said:

This is my old welding cart I made years ago so I could drag everything off-road stylee from the shed up the far end of the garden out on to the driveway at the front of my house. Ive now moved to my new abode with an adjacent workshop so something more compact was required.

Step forward the cheapest cart on eBay.  Weirdly it comes with a small pair of woolly gloves to aid its assembly.

For £39 it's a cheap enough solution to trying to make something from scratch.

Much better I think although the angled shelf design means you can't hold your gas cylinder securely upright without adding a block of wood behind it (I think I'll paint the wood black so it irritates me less).

I have the same welding trolley. I ended up welding triangle braces on the bottle side as over time is sunk in the middle.

Otherwise it's been great and far cheaper than trying to make my own. 

[Snake Charmer]

3 hours ago, SiC said:

I have the same welding trolley. I ended up welding triangle braces on the bottle side as over time is sunk in the middle.

Needs an L200 badge. 😁

[Joey spud]

11 minutes ago, SiC said:

I have the same welding trolley. I ended up welding triangle braces on the bottle side as over time is sunk in the middle.

Otherwise it's been great and far cheaper than trying to make my own. 

That's a good idea. Is it a full size cylinder you use ?

[SiC]

28 minutes ago, Joey spud said:

That's a good idea. Is it a full size cylinder you use ?

It's had various sizes. I think its the rolling around and going over bumps when I've used it outside/etc that the weight of the bottle bouncing on the back bit slowly did it's back in. 

[Split_Pin]

To cheer myself up I polished and waxed the Saab. I haven't done this on a car in several years now and I remembered why once I'd started the job. A weekly wash is enough effort on the cleaning side of things these days thank you very much.

Still, looks nice for what was a £300 car that had lingered in someone's driveway and out of MOT for 7 months.

I will polish the 75 when it comes back however as it had practically a full respray last year so the new paint deserves it.

[Wibble]

With the weather being so nice, I couldn’t put this off any longer:

Also first time using this:

Much easier!

[UltraWomble]

I own a Q plate (or to be precise Mrs Womble does) 

Never owned a Q plate before. 

Novel!! 

[High Jetter]

17 minutes ago, UltraWomble said:

Never owned a Q plate before. 

Why is it on a Q?

[UltraWomble]

3 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Why is it on a Q?

Because I couldnt prove the year of manufacture. 🤷

[Gaffer]

I was going to post how Golf life is all champagne and blowjobs BUT this little fucker decided to shat its clutch slave pipe 5 miles from home. Least it did it then and not 70 miles away in Manchester airport where I’d just driven it from.

Looks like my weekend is going to involve fixing that instead of a brief rest and recharge before flying back out again on Monday!

Least it looked somewhat cool in the car park beforehand I guess…

[richardmorris]

On 15/03/2026 at 18:53, richardmorris said:

And it’s the car photographed in Stephen Bayley’s book CARS.

Deal agreed. He’s keeping the roofrack which is fine as I didn’t want it. @Three Speed will be annoyed though.

[Three Speed]

39 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

. @Three Speed will be annoyed though.

Pleased you’ve done the deal. Maybe I’ll have to talk to Helen about the roof rack .

well done - will we see it at Blackbushe tomorrow?

[richardmorris]

7 minutes ago, Three Speed said:

Pleased you’ve done the deal. Maybe I’ll have to talk to Helen about the roof rack .

well done - will we see it at Blackbushe tomorrow?

He said he was keeping it for sentimental reasons but possibly someone offered a lot of money? I think he is trying to get a bit more money out of the car, disappointed that values have weakened.  It’s the market though, 50s cars of all sorts .
 

No will be in 2cv tomorrow, car still at theirs while he charges it and Peter goes and does the handbrake and points. Going back over to darkest Worcester park next week snd will sort out insurance . Tax obviously free, but don’t know if that can be done online or not?

[SiC]

10 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

Tax obviously free, but don’t know if that can be done online or not?

Is it already free or does the class need changing? If already in historic class then just do the tax like any other car with the green slip off the V5 and the cost will come to £0. 

[richardmorris]

Just now, SiC said:

Is it already free or does the class need changing? If already in historic class then just do the tax like any other car with the green slip off the V5 and the cost will come to £0. 

Already historic. Just so long since I’ve bought a second hand car I’m not sure if it has changed. 

 

[D.E]

A bit of dust...

When the test expired I wanted to do a bit of work and have this back on the road soon. "Soon" somehow became "several years" due to other commitments and admittedly a bit of laziness, so this one was pushed back to the back of the unit and gradually used as a storage shed. Yesterday I took all rubbish out and put it all sensibly in racks like I presume normal people would do, and had a look at what is needed for roadworthiness. 

- front left cv boot has a hole. I know I have a new one somewhere already, but I can't find it atm.

- brakes are a bit stuck, front left especially

- the tyres have a good enough profile left and I can't see any obvious cracks so they will pass the test, but they're very old. The previous owner just had them fitted when I bought this car, which was in 2011...

- the cambelt doesn't have a lot of kms on it, but is now quite old as well

- befiore this was put away in storage it developed an issue in which it would start immediately if started a few days after last being driven, but leave it for a week or more and it takes a lot of cranking before finally firing up. Fuel related issue maybe.

[egg]

Who owns this now? Ex @Zelandeth

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, egg said:

Who owns this now? Ex @Zelandeth

@Grey the Floydian Sergal has this now, it's who picked it up from me a while back and been patiently picking away at getting her back on the road.  Has put up quite a fight in a few areas but the car is now on the road and just pretty much in the bug fixing stage it seems.  Looks so much better with the right rear bumper on!

I'm looking forward to seeing it again one day.  I'd have loved to keep it but knew I didn't have the time the car needed available.  Recommissioning a BX ain't a job for the faint hearted!

Still one of those odd cars which actually to me looks really GOOD in beige.

[Morris 63]

Decided not to ask this bloke at my local station for the number of his quality* bodyshop.

[EyesWeldedShut]

The correct oil filters for the C220 diesel engines rocked up so I could finish the simple* oil change jamboree. 
Had to test drive a car just because. And the sun was out. So didn't try a diesel  

 

[Remspoor]

After a "flying" visit to the UK, now back in The Netherlands and tomorrow heading back to Spain.

In the UK I wanted to visit the house where my dad was born and grew up in. I too grew up in the same house.The rather intrusive questions applying for ULEZ exemption put me off.So headed for Ely. I like the city. Harwich old town was nothing to write home about. However, very good fish and chips with this view on a sunny day was bliss.

[richardmorris]

9 hours ago, Morris 63 said:

Decided not to ask this bloke at my local station for the number of his quality* bodyshop.

PUF the crappy Audi.

[Mr Livered]

12 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

PUF the crappy Audi.

PUF the crappy Audi

Lived in the town

And frolicked in the autumn mist

When he wasn't breaking down.

[richardmorris]

From this morning ....

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Mr Livered said:

PUF the crappy Audi

Lived in the town

And frolicked in the autumn mist

When he wasn't breaking down.

PUF felt the impact hurt him

and limped over to the side.

His driver put some tape on it

Which really hurt his pride,

Oh, Puff the crappy Audi...

[MondeoBlues]

12 hours ago, Morris 63 said:

Decided not to ask this bloke at my local station for the number of his quality* bodyshop.

Christ on a horse! That's more gaffer tape than most Mondeos see in a lifetime. 

 

[Angrydicky]

On 20/03/2026 at 12:12, SiC said:

I have the same welding trolley. I ended up welding triangle braces on the bottle side as over time is sunk in the middle.

Otherwise it's been great and far cheaper than trying to make my own. 

I’ve got the same trolley and mine started collapsing there after 6 months of use, it’s clearly a weak point on them.