The new news 24 thread

[nacho man]

I went to a classic vw show today at Stanford hall with my old man in his t4.

 

Not really my thing and full of rat look specials and plenty of dollar motors.

 

 

16v rocco was one of the best for me.

 

 

There was loads of stands selling crap with pics of campers on it. Also there are sooooo many shody t25/t4 vans with crap stuck on.

 

Also people walking around with there newly purchased old Jerry can/ammo tin etc etc

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[HMC]

In common with other shiters at the mo, fleet reduction* is going well**

[Ghosty]

Have you tried getting a willing* volunteer you put their hand over the exhaust when it's cold to see if the tapping gets louder when there's some pressure in the system.

Put a potato/golf ball/etc in it.

[stuboy]

Spent 1 whole pound on some old badges at a bootfair

[richardmorris]

Driving home from newlands corner this morning after a decent walk I did think the car was accelerating rather briskly and then wondered why it hadn't changed down when it was doing 5000rpm at 70mph. I looked down and saw I'd put it in 3 and not D. Doh!

[richardmorris]

Picture for you from newlands at 9 am. Only car related fact, is that it's where Agatha Christies car was found when she went missing.

[egg]

Proof that any old rubbish can look good* when you park it in a nice Kentish village (Hernhill). Excellent pub lunch on Thursday.

[Cheggers]

How do you tell if a seal has gone?

 

 

 

Ask the zookeeper, they know how many there should be.

 

 

 

Coat.

[Ghosty]

 a nice Kentish village (Hernhill). 

 

It's surprising the difference one letter makes.

 

[wuvvum]

Yesterday evening I went round to my mate's to have a go at firing up the A35, which hadn't been touched all winter.  Fuel supply rigged up from a jerry can, Innocenti battery connected up and it started first go and ran as smoothly as ever.  I do love an A-series.  Didn't run it for long as no coolant in it at the moment (I'm going to try putting one of those cooling system flushes in it as it's quite gunked up), but long enough to ascertain that the clutch is still working, which is good.  I'm going to try and get one of the garages that are up for rent over the road, and ince the Renner Six is back on the road (which will hopefully be this summer), I'll repatriate the A35 which will hopefully allow me to get on with it a bit quicker.

 

As it was a nice day today I went for a ride on the Spacy - its first proper run out since October.  Being a sunny Sunday near the coast, there was a depressingly large number of dithering giffers on the road, but the Spacy is actually surprisingly sprightly from 40 to 55 (tails off a bit after that), so getting past them wasn't too much of a bother.  It seems in pretty good fettle, although the exhaust is starting to blow a bit again from where it joins onto the head - I've never managed to make it seal for more than a few miles, so I'm probably going to have to live with it as the exhaust is a right pain in the arse to get on and off.  It's still quieter than it was before my attempt at a fix.

 

Found some more rust on the 164 this afternoon, this time inside the nearside rear door shut on the top of the sill - it's gone through in one place.  I wire brushed and Kurusted it, but it was annoying to find yet another issue with the car.  I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm turning into one of these people we all take the piss out of who have an old car that's slowly rotting into the ground but won't part with it because they're definitely* going to "get it back on the road one day".  The problem is that it now needs so much spending on it (brake calipers and hoses, water pump, alternator, indicator stalk, tyres, plus lots of welding and electrical fettling - and 164 bits ain't cheap) that I'm worried I'm just going to keep putting it off until it's too late.  If I haven't done anything with it by the end of this summer, I'm going to seriously have to reconsider my position.

 

I also singularly failed to find the cause of the electrical drain on the Carina.  I left the multimeter connected all day yesterday, checking it at regular intervals, but it never read more than 30 mA drain, which is what I'd expect from an immobiliser etc - and certainly not enough to drain a 45aH battery in the space of less than a week.  So that might be another thing I have to just live with.  I suppose if I were using the car every day it wouldn't be a problem.

 

I went for a bit of a hoon in the 200 VI today.  It's still using a little bit of coolant, but nowhere near what it was, and the temp gauge isn't moving above half.  I think I'm going to take it to Marham, bring a couple of gallons of water with me and hope for the best.  Unless I can find something fast and ridiculously cheap in the meantime, but that's not looking very likely - there've been a few rusty 1.7 Pumas on the Bay for not much money, but they've always been miles away.

 

I also went for a hoon in the Transit van, which was surprisingly enjoyable.  It's only a 2 litre engine so it's not fast in a straight line (top speed seems to be about 85), but it clings to corners surprisingly well - it actually feels much more planted on the road than the Ducato / Boxer, although obviously not as good as the Scudo - and was actually quite good fun to punt down my favourite back roads.  Doesn't feel quite as stable under hard braking from speed as the Movano, but then it's a much shorter van.  I'm actually growing to quite like it - it may be rusty and have a crack in the windscreen, but it's really quite pleasant to drive and seems pretty good on diesel so far as well.

[dome]

Driving home from newlands corner this morning after a decent walk I did think the car was accelerating rather briskly and then wondered why it hadn't changed down when it was doing 5000rpm at 70mph. I looked down and saw I'd put it in 3 and not D. Doh!

Did that once in one of my V8 Rangeys. My wallet still hasn't recovered.

[dugong]

Bit of a unit update y0: this is the storage area that I share with my Kelsey m9s. 

 

Here you can see a TOP QUALITY ALUMINIUM (steel) pushbike in front of the Piazza and other rammle we keep indoors. 
MGF is off the road and being a massive bell-end ATM - the temp sender's on strike and reckons the engine's about to kettle (it isn't) 
and the genius Pektron / Red Robbo / Longbridge Misery immobiliser has killed the battery stone dead and bent the plates after 
sitting around. Pissed off I have to get another battery for it TBH; I can see why the immobilisers get ripped out / the car scrapped because of their low values. 

You can just see the nob_van and the stunning 25 diesel I picked up from also_mike last week. 



JDM Handling By Lotus grille turned up for the Piazza - it has some weird tensioned lugs holding it in. 
Like everything else on the car it'll be held in by 73,000 JIS screws and the remains of the battleship Yamamoto.  
It's got a new headlamp eyebrow on as well - the IPTOC had one left in stock.  The mechanism to raise it up and down is really over-engineered with 
brass bushes; no wonder Isuzu didn't even break even on them. 



Speaking of the 25, it's now living where the Charade did (it's finally in the hands of its new owner). 
Picked said R3 up from also_mike last week; all was going swimmingly till it cacked its aux belt about 300 yards down the 
road from the unit. As the brake servo booster and PAS is driven off one belt I lost assistance for everything, 
limped it back in and the battery managed not to completely shart itself. 



Left it on charge; as you can see, it's recovering quite nicely. 

Have to say, I was really impressed with the 25 and will be getting it back on the road as soon as funds allow. 

[HH-R]

Those Pektron BCUs are shite. For Lucas being laughed at and being called prince of darkness etc, the 3/5AS units didn't give much trouble.

[RayMK]

I've been using the 205 auto for the last couple of days to try to provoke the suspect head gasket to do something definite and worth the garage investigating (i.e. by taking the head off).  Apart from a scummy expansion bottle and a very slight loss of coolant over the last 300 miles, the sodding thing is continuing to run very nicely.  It has however developed another fault, or rather, something it has done from the day I bought it over a year ago now occurs more regularly.  The diagnostic/catalyst warning light has recently been coming on and staying on for a few minutes several times on each trip. Nothing else untoward accompanies the warning and I don't think it is anything to do with the possibly leaking head gasket.  Sometimes when idling the revs rise and fall slightly as though I am playing with the accelerator pedal, though this does not necessarily coincide with the warning light being on. Could it be caused by a failing/dirty sensor or dicky sensor connector?  I'm not sure what sensors would be fitted to a 1994 Peugeot, but assume it may have a crankshaft sensor and a lambda sensor.

 

I'm also trying to smarten the appearance of my Stellar so that it is not too much of a disgrace when parked near mat the cat's beauty, assuming we both make it to shitefest as planned.  The alloys really need redoing.  One of them has shed most of the paint that I applied 4 years ago.  The others are ok and may clean up, though I can't remember what shade of gold I used last time, so may have to do all 4 (or none, if the weather and my car fixing enthusiasm delay the process).  Its MOT is due a day or two after Shitefest.

[Barry Cade]

After weeks of intensive research, I haz facts.

 

The car most likely to be used on the road illegally is a Peugeot 306.

The car most likely to be involved in something more serious is a VW Bora.

The car most likely to be used illegally on foreign plates is an Audi A4

The car most likely to end up in a ditch is a Ford Focus Mk1

 

The above cars are cheaper than insurance.

It takes longer to make stickers for a breakdown truck,than it takes to make a breakdown truck

It is very difficult to break into the rear of a Mercedes Vito.

Classic FM can be received quite clearly in parts of Scotland which do not yet have electricity.

[Ghosty]

A4s are definitely cheaper than insurance, it's all the idiots that drive them, foreign plates or not. Our early quattro was £1150!

[BorniteIdentity]

Great day yesterday.

 

Got to meet Trigger at Felixstowe Car Rally. Even more handsome and charming in the flesh!

 

Inherited Dad's mower. We bought this together in 1994 when it had just been refurbished. Huge sentimental value and my challenge is to get it running. Dad seemed delighted I was interested.

 

[SiC]

Trying to be diligent, I put the Renner through a pre-mot check yesterday. And now there is a to do list. But the most worrying thing is that, on yesterdays performance, it will completely fail on emissions, unless a new set of plugs and an air filter have a miraculous effect. A suggestion made by the tester was that some fuel additives might clean up the emissions a bit too, but I have no prior experience of this. If I do all the other work required but it's still unable to pass on emissions, I guess it'll either be off to the bridge (which I can't really come to terms with) or I'll be in the market for a 2.0 FaRT engine out of a goona II and an extra project that I hadn't bargained for.

Depressing...

Not tried a Italian tune up?

 

Can't remember what car you have now. But if cat equipped then driving it hard to get the cat super hot should scrape it thru, unless really far out on the emissions.

[wuvvum]

Off on a collection mission - pretty much obligatory on a bank holiday. Nothing hugely exciting, but it does apparently have a 'slightly' leaky water pump, so I'm going to be keeping a close eye on the temp gauge on the 100 mile drive home.

[Supernaut]

After weeks of intensive research, I haz facts.

 

The car most likely to be used on the road illegally is a Peugeot 306.

The car most likely to be involved in something more serious is a VW Bora.

The car most likely to be used illegally on foreign plates is an Audi A4

The car most likely to end up in a ditch is a Ford Focus Mk1

 

The above cars are cheaper than insurance.

It takes longer to make stickers for a breakdown truck,than it takes to make a breakdown truck

It is very difficult to break into the rear of a Mercedes Vito.

Classic FM can be received quite clearly in parts of Scotland which do not yet have electricity.

Erk, I've owned 2 306s and an A4!

 

I'm also on the hunt for another 306 (once I can shift the land yacht).

[trigger]

Got to meet Trigger at Felixstowe Car Rally. Even more handsome and charming in the flesh!

 

Oh crap!, I sound like a right twat now but i didn't realise that was you! I run a car club you see and i keep getting people come up to me saying Im so-n-so with the Sierra/Fiesta/Maxi whatever and I'm like oh yeah how you doing and then spending the next hour trying to work out who they are!

 

I'm really sorry, I would have spoke to you about the Sierra had it of clicked!. Glad you had a good day, It's a hell of a event, Next year i expect to see a Sierra there!

[vulgalour]

Mr Reno over on Clementine's Garage (a Renault 4 Forum) is a fucking ledge.  He's only gone and dug out a pair of excellent condition headlights for the 6 in proper RHD flavour and doesn't want £MEGACOIN for them.  He's holding on to them until I've got all the jobs done so if there's anything else I need and he's got he can post the lot together.  And now, I'm off to the unit to see if I can get the front suspension back together on the 6 and get him back on his wheels.

[stripped fred]

Spent a few hours doing a 'vulgalourising lite' on the 406. Cleaned and tcut the paintwork and gave the inside a good clean. Feels much nicer to drive and looks a lot better. Also sprayed some contact cleaner in the drivers window switch as it had started playing up again and it is definitely better.

 

Also took apart the centre console on my mr2 to wire in a new lighter socket so I can charge my phone. The new one doesn't quite fit as the standard one is a smaller diameter so it sits proud but it'll do. Also cleaned and de-rusted the battery tray. Happy with my bank holiday progress!

[wuvvum]

Home.  102 miles and seemingly not a drop of water used, which is good.

 

Pez station shot:

 

 

The picture doesn't really do it justice - it's absolutely hanging.  Not rotten, just cosmetically hideous.  Drives OK though - this is my first DI (it's my seventh sloping front Transit, but the others have all been either petrol or turbo diesel) but I've driven a few before, and it seems quite a decent one - starts easily and pulls well enough - it's a bit slow and thirsty after the new-shape Transit, but that's to be expected really.  It'll sit at 70 happily enough, although I kept the cruising speed down to an indicated 65, which seemed to be its sweetest spot. 

 

It has the usual problem with the door locks being a PITA to unlock, and it's going to need a nearside front tyre pretty soon, but mechanically it seems healthy enough.  I don't know how long it's going to stay in the fleet though as I don't really have a particular need for it - I'd already luzzed a bid on it by the time I got the second chance offer through on the other Transit, and I don't really need both.  I know this is risking excommunication from some on here, but I actually prefer the newer Transit to drive - but then the DI is probably going to be more reliable long term.  Decisions, decisions...

 

Disappointingly little chod on the roads today given that it's a dry and warmish bank holiday, but I did pass Daverapid in his green S110R on the A505, and I saw a lovely old de Havilland Dragon Rapide coming in to land at Duxford, which was an unexpected pleasure.

[Supernaut]

Battered primer grey transit van for the win! Extra bonus points for the beacon and roof rack!

 

The sound those old DI engines make is truly unmistakable.

[Urko]

 

, and I saw a lovely old de Havilland Dragon Rapide coming in to land at Duxford, which was an unexpected pleasure.

Dunno if it's the same one, but there was one doing pleasure flights last time I was at Duxford (>5 years ago) - while I was there the fire engine raced out to it as it was taxiing in - turned out to be nothing serious but an engine fault ended that day's fun  They are beautiful looking things aren't they?

[Urko]

Battered primer grey transit van for the win! Extra bonus points for the beacon and roof rack!

 

The sound those old DI engines make is truly unmistakable.

Are they as unburstable as they seem?  I have known loads of people with them where they have questionable maintenance regimes but they only ever seem to die of rust - or have I just got rose-tinted specs?

[Supernaut]

I dunno. My only experience of driving a DI was working for a local van hire firm for all of a month.

 

We mostly had modern transits but had one scabby DI for the 'blacklisted' customers. I.e. the ones we knew would trash it, so they got a shitter anyway.

 

I used to abuse it too, I remember exiting a roundabout in it a bit enthusiastically once, it went a little (quite a lot) sideways and a little bit of pee came out.

[meggersdog]

I remember a few years ago chap over the road had the cambelt snap on his Di Transit.Whipped the rockers off,pulled the push-rods out and straightened the bent ones with a hammer on the curb.Timed it up and fitted a new 'belt.Job jobbed.Don't think he even set the tappets after.

[Tayne]

 

already luzzed a bid on it by the time I got the second chance offer through on the other Transit, and I don't really need both.  I know this is risking excommunication from some on here, but I actually prefer the newer Transit to drive - but then the DI is probably going to be more reliable long term.  Decisions, decisions...

 .

Paging Cavcraft!

Paging Cavcraft!

 

Cavcraft to the beige curtesy phone please.