The new news 24 thread

[wuvvum]

I actually only got stuck behind one truck over the whole length of the road, and I got past him on the long uphill two lane bit.  To be fair, he wasn't hanging about - I could see him in my mirrors for quite a while going down the other side - but I wanted to look at the scenery rather than the back of an artic.

 

I came home via the motorway though - there are some quite steep bits on that road, and I wasn't sure whether the Mondeo (or I)would enjoy dragging the Austin up them.

 

Here's a couple more pics.  It is rough, bless it.  Underneath and floorpans don't seem too bad though.  I didn't do much with it yesterday as it took me 11 hours to get it home (5 hours driving each way plus half an hour each end for loading / unloading) and I was knackered, but I've ascertained that the clutch works, the handbrake sort of does and the footbrake doesn't.  It has no lights but the rear indicators do work, as do the wipers and the heater blower.  The engine turns over happily and the oil light goes out after a short while, so hopefully it will be healthy enough once I get it fired up.  The gearbox may have issues though.

 

 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I saw this horrendous reg plate in B&Q car park yesterday. What is it that makes people so utterly desperate to have their name on their reg plate I wonder? Hopefully they'll get a fine soon anyway.

 

 

A virtual pint to anyone who can fathom out what the actual reg number is.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

oh i get it now, its T111ABF

[JohnK]

I think it's to warn any lasses off that it's Tina's boyfriend driving ...

[Bren]

Never had a car wothy of a private plate.

 

I may change my name to VE07WOV.

[Pillock]

I dunno, I found a £250 plate that spells PILLOCX or something which is amusing. I'd definitely have one that was a rude word but to spend twenty minutes drilling enough holes to make a shit plate read a word is daft.

[Slappy]

It's OFFICIAL*, the Volvo 340 is now cool*. A hipster just drove past me in one, so that makes it as good* as fully grown but slightly pointy beards, gourmet burger restaurants and "American style" craft lager (not to be confused with the piss that's made by Budweiser).

[trigger]

Well today has been a load of wank, left home at 9.30am to go and look at this Granada near Barnsley, 370 miles later I've just got home without it... 

 

I turned up at the sellers garage to first be confronted with a Renault Master minibus that had just been painted in the yard and looked like it was melting with all the runs and then saw the Granada next to some portacabin.

 

I walked over and the first thing i saw was the 2 tone bonnet with the paint peeling off, then i saw the bottom of the doors which were 2" thick in filler with bubbles pushing through, onto the rear arches which had been hand painted over rust, the base of the rear screen again was rusty and been painted over and the front valance was full of holes behind the bumper and again full of fiberglass and aerosol spray.

 

By this point I'd had enough but my mate who came with me to look it said we should look under the bonnet, this was a mistake as i nearly took my eye out on the abysmal welding on the patch on the inner wing, the engine bay again was covered in overspray and the engine was dripping in oil.

 

Inside the car was quite tidy but it was very grubby with missing switches and buttons, I asked the seller if i could start it but it wouldn't start as he couldn't even be bothered to charged the battery, by this point i was proper pissed off, I told him there wasn't a chance in hell that it was only a 35000 mile car, it was easily on the 2nd time round, he started going on about how the MOT history says it was 31000 miles in 2006 and how the family of the last owner wouldn't have lied about it.

 

I told him it wasn't even worth £700, by this point he walked off, fucking time waster, £50 in diesel and a sunny day wasted and all i had to show for it was a Burger king. Joy.

[HMC]

^ shame about that Granada trig, I'd already pictured it next to the cortina in the fleet.

 

Speaking of fleet shots...

 

 

Had a productive weekend welding the x member and replacing the front brake pipes on the land rover, had to shunt cars about to get it in the garage, so thought I'd take a pic.

[Six-cylinder]

Trigg sorry to hear the Granada was a washout, I was looking forward to seeing it as I had a couple when they were young cars.

[cort16]

That's a pisser especially when you've travelled so far . It looked good in the pictures too.

[RobT]

Just got back from Austin Morris day at Brooklands, which was awesome as usual with all the BMC/BL tat to perve over. Spent a lot of the day chatting to Angrydicky which was good, as it always helps having a friendly shiter to chat to at these events. Group shots of our cars in all their Champagne Beige loveliness...

 

 

 

One of my favourites there was an early Maestro HLE in Cashmere Gold (I think), sorry no pics but it was a corker. I had the chance to buy it a few years back as I know the previous owner and he offered it to me, but like a twat I didn't. Dicky was rather taken by it too.

[Bren]

Nothing worse than having your time wasted.

 

It sounded like it will end up on the oval.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Sorry to hear of your wasted day Trigger, it reminds me of buying cars in the olden days when you saw an ad in Motoring News or Exchange and Mart and drove all over the country wasting time and fuel , when you hadn't even seen a grubby b&w picture . There were lots of ebay wankers long before computers were invented.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Tells you a lot that the guy hadn't even bothered to charge the flippin battery up, what a massive shitehawk.

[worldofceri]

As it was sunny yesterday I wound the window down all the way so I could pick my Mum up from the station looking 'like a Boss'.

 

Big Mistake.

 

Got home and it wouldn't flippin' go back up.

 

I reckoned the best place to start was with the switches.  I pulled them out of the centre console where they sit next to the handbrake and had a fiddle about swapping them around, but this made no difference to anything, i.e. rear windows work fine, passenger window is stuck closed, driver's window stuck open.  I decided to take them apart and clean them up anyway as they were bound to be gummed up with crud and I've previously managed to fix the 'leccy windows in Mr_Bo11ox's Argenta by this simple but fiddly expedient.

 

 

As expected, this made no immediate difference either, but after a bit more random fiddling the stuck-open window sprang into life.

 

So I closed it, packed my tools away, and vowed not to open it again until I have at least a full sunny weekend in which to figure out what's actually wrong with it.

[EssDeeWon]

Its always the further you travel the worse the POS is that your going to buy...

 

I travelled from Essex to Doncaster last year to buy an SD1 2600 VDP, one owner since 1988, garaged and serviced annually without fail etc etc...

 

Well what a disappointment that was, I turned up cash on the hip preparing for the long ride home...The thing was tatty, interior was just filth, no service history whatsoever, so I know the feeling Trigger, and despite all the modern digital photography it still hides all the bad bits.

[trigger]

Yep, I've been there before when after encountering a 4 car pile up on the M11 and writing my car off, the next day i get a lift to Nottingham from Oldford of here only to find that the car was hanging, That was a bad weekend.

 

I wish i had paid attention to all the alarm bells i was hearing, normally i have a 6th sense for these things but i fucked up this time, Still I've found a nice Audi 200 Quattro that's local which i've arranged to view. 

[dollywobbler]

Well, it's a danger we always face. Mind you, most of us pay so little that we can accept something that's hanging! Not what you want if you're looking to pay decent coin for something advertised as being actually nice.

 

I'm eyeing up a potential purchase at the moment actually, and there's very little chance of me seeing it before buying. S'pose I could make my train ticket a return...

 

With the 2CV going off the road next month, we really do need another little runaround. A very cheap little runaround. The challenge is to find something I actually like for £300 or less. 

[wuvvum]

Audi 200 Quattro is a superb bit of kit.  A bit clinical in the usual Audi manner, but devastatingly competent, and with that nice snarly 5-pot.  Can I have a go if you buy it?

[stuboy]

made a start on fixing the bumper

[Anglevan]

Aye up trigger, pity about the grandad. If you had time I was 20 mins up the road and I'd made thee a nice cup of tea my mates grandad is way better than the description of the red one but it's a wankamatic and I'd read you're after a manual stick thing....

[trigger]

I wish I'd known, all i got to show for the trip was a rubbish Burger King! A cup of Yorkshire tea would have done down well! I was ideally looking for a stick model as I've done the whole auto thing with the 190E although i wouldn't say no to an auto if it was the right price and condition.

[JohnK]

Just buy the 190E back Trig, will save the hassle of finding something else decent and save you some pennies as well.

[trigger]

Ha! Thanks but no, I've been there, It would be like dating an ex girlfriend again after some other bloke has been shagging her!. Have you got it running yet?

[JohnK]

Yeah I fucked the immobiliser off and it fired straight up. Got the MB Tex seats in and new centre piece around the handbrake etc so just need to get it cleaned up and taxed.

[R9UKE]

Bought another Renault Avantime!

 

UK car number 330, epic plate and LPG conversion included.

 

This will be the lady's daily drive when she's done with the Vel Satis (or it breaks)

 

 

 

 

 

[hairnet]

100% garlic munching madman

 

how bout ye

[vulgalour]

Took a look at the 6's engine today to see if I could get some movement and achieved very little.  Got the end plate off so see if I could turn the crankshaft and was met with a singular odour, signs of dried out emulsified oil and a completely jammed camshaft sprocket with no way of turning it.  Camshaft is fine and turns freely, chain still looks good.  After telling Mike of my findings when I got home we came to the conclusion it's possible that the engine has overheated (no temperature gauge on the 6) and blown the head gasket leading to stuck pistons.  It's possible to strip it down and clean it all up and repair it for not a lot, need to see what will come apart first.

 

I'm flat broke at the moment otherwise I'd be tempted to buy one of the many 6 engines I've been offered, one of which is even running and comes from a Rodeo.

 

Taking the engine apart should be easy but guess who hadn't drained the oil out before removing the engine from the car... thought it would be a simple matter of lifting the engine with the crane, popping the drain pan under it and letting it drain overnight.  Instead I managed to lift the engine, one strap slipped and the whole thing tipped gearbox oil, the thin oil we'd put in the bores, the horrible stinky emulsified oil and some quite black oil all over the floor and any attempt to right it just resulted in more mess.  Only just enough cat litter at the unit to create a dam so the unit didn't get covered in the gunk and I sacked the whole thing off as a bad job.

 

Today, I failed at engines.

[stuboy]

sanding in the dark..