The new news 24 thread

[beko1987]

37 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Sit rep: Mazda has ftp'd.  Think alternator has died.  Now at Birchanger Green services awaiting the AA. 

Don't forget to make an entry into Decker Daves Services blog whilst you wait

[Tadhg Tiogar]

50 minutes ago, stonedagain said:

Oh dear....

Exactly. Thing is, they have several mm's-worth of tread left so I don't really want to waste the comedy.

On the other hand, the grip's not something to write home about. The exit slip that I use to get from the A1 Great North Way to the Northbound M1 (J2) is an elongated S-bend that the diesel Borat can negotiate at 60mph. The CX is nervous going through at 50 and in addition to the usual body roll, I can actually feel the tyres just wanting to lose what little grip they have.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 hour ago, dozeydustman said:

.....the 21/5 bulb had shorted internally. Worth checking

I'm using Philips Ultinon dual LEDs for the dual-filament function; wonder if they've failed internally?

[wuvvum]

45 minutes ago, stuboy said:

Bugger were u gotta get too

North Norfolk.  Alternator defo dead, tow on its way. 

[wuvvum]

31 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

Don't forget to make an entry into Decker Daves Services blog whilst you wait

Well this one has a train, which must be worth a few bonus points. 

[wuvvum]

And planes. 

And pretty flowers. 

8/10 would break down again. 

[richardmorris]

24 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

I'm using Philips Ultinon dual LEDs for the dual-filament function; wonder if they've failed internally?

Won’t LEDs mess with the bulb failure circuit?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

3 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

Won’t LEDs mess with the bulb failure circuit?

Yes, but conversely the failure light proves that the LEDs work perfectly. Also the Citroën one only triggers whilst the LED is "on". The moment it goes out, the fail light also goes out.

[Split_Pin]

Took the Mrs and my son a run up to Luss today in the Audi 80, roof down all day. Just what we needed as we are all a bit on edge due to my employer creating the longest and most farcical  'at risk of redundancy' period in the history of the Universe and everything.

I forgot how smashing the scenery is around Loch Lomond and Luss was just the right amount of busy today to have a pleasant atmosphere.

The car went well and it was an enjoyable day. More of the same tomorrow I think as the weather is set to be good.

[skattrd]

16 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

Won’t LEDs mess with the bulb failure circuit?

it depends on the LEDs, in my experience, cheap ones yes, expensive ones, usually no.

I think the more expensive/branded ones have a resistor or something in them to fool the system.

[Amishtat]

It's been a beautiful day in East Anglia too so I didn't need any encouragement to use this for the usual Saturday putting about. Bought twenty years ago this week and undoubtedly the best thing I've ever had. 

[BL Bloke]

That's lovely. Nice to see an A99, there can't be too many of those about. 

[wuvvum]

Turns out it was the belt after all.  Second AA man had one that fitted, now on way again. 

[BL Bloke]

Glad to hear it wasn't anything too serious.

[danthecapriman]

1 hour ago, Amishtat said:

It's been a beautiful day in East Anglia too so I didn't need any encouragement to use this for the usual Saturday putting about. Bought twenty years ago this week and undoubtedly the best thing I've ever had. 

That is gorgeous. Proper car!

[dozeydustman]

2 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

I'm using Philips Ultinon dual LEDs for the dual-filament function; wonder if they've failed internally?

Sounds like it. Probably also worth checking that the bulb holder in the car isn't faulty either or the bulb isn't in the wrong way round - it can be done on offset pin bulbs.

[HillmanImp]

Not the normal News 24 topic but theres a horse on the hill. 

 

Will update if I see a train. 

[Skizzer]

2 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Turns out it was the belt after all.  Second AA man had one that fitted, now on way again. 

Glad you’re back in motion Wuvs.

Very ironic that you had an FTP in the first shiny, desirable (not counting on here) vehicle I can ever remember you buying...

[Skizzer]

3 hours ago, Amishtat said:

It's been a beautiful day in East Anglia too so I didn't need any encouragement to use this for the usual Saturday putting about. Bought twenty years ago this week and undoubtedly the best thing I've ever had.

That A99 is gorgeous.  I didn’t even know these existed until just now, as they only made them for about five minutes (1959-61 according to Wikimisleadia).  Yum.

[LightBulbFun]

Just now I heard noises that indicated someone was working on their car, yes at 10:45PM so I poked my head out the window and this was going happening on the main road...

 

does this make me a curtain twitcher? LOL! (I was secretly hoping it was my neighbour with the SD1 so I could introduce myself and make friends )

[cort16]

Here’s a free top tip if our pished and in a tikki bar don’t  accepts a bean tin full

of pineapple and battery acid

[Pillock]

Ladies and Gentlemen it's Savvy16!

[wuvvum]

Aaand home.  Fark me that was a long day.

Started off smoothly enough.  Trains were all on time, had a bit of hassle getting my phone to pick up a GPS signal for some reason but then found my way to the car easily enough.  The lass was selling it as she'd been using it to commute to Bluewater every day but had found a job in central Maidstone so she didn't need a car any more and it'd just been sat on her parents' drive.  I dealt with her parents as she was at work - nice old couple, offered me a cold drink as I was a bit warm after walking over from the station in the heat.  The car fired straight up and I set off, squirted some pez in and then hit the motorway.

Getting towards the Dartford tunnel I noticed the battery light coming on and off intermittently.  It then went off again for a while so I carried on.  Once I hit the M11 it came back on permanently, and shortly after the junction for the A414 it was clear that all was not well.  I nursed it up to the next junction intending to try and get to Birchanger Green services.  It nearly made it, although it was down to about 30mph by the time I got to the junction.  I stopped at the lights on the roundabout and it wouldn't quite manage to pull away again when they went green.  Then it stalled and obvs wouldn't start again.  I started to push it into the services, but after a minute some Irish gentlemen pulled up in a Transit and pushed me with their front bumper all the way to the petrol station, from whence I called the AA.  It wasn't until I stopped that I realised I'd forgotten to turn my lights off after exiting the Dartford tunnel - had I done so I would probably have made it to the services with ease.  Oh well.

First AA bloke was there within 25 minutes.  He had a play, initially diagnosed a shagged alternator belt (in fact it snapped when he was levering it off the pulleys).  He tried replacing it with the PAS belt, but that was slightly too short.  He rummaged in the back of his van and came out with a belt which was the right length but an old-style toothed V belt - he turned it inside out and fitted it on the car, but the multimeter was still only reading 12.3v (with his jump pack on the battery) so he decided the alternator was shagged and called for a tow.

The next AA bloke arrived just over an hour later, during which time I'd done a bit of trainspotting, watched the Ryanair planes landing at Stansted, and had my eardrums very nearly perforated by a double sonic boom.  Second bloke was unaware he was supposed to be towing me - he thought he'd come to fix the car.  His initial intention was to put a fresh battery on the car and then follow me back, until I pointed out to him that there was no belt so the water pump wouldn't be turning.  He then rummaged in the back of his own van and found a belt of the correct ridged type for the Mazda's pulleys.  It was a little too short, but after some grunting and swearing (and assistance from two other AA patrols who had also pulled up to assist with other breakdowns) it was eventually on.  Started the engine and the multimeter reading shot straight up to 14.5v.

So I set off for home with AA bloke following me to make sure all was well.  It was fine from a charging / cooling point of view, but it had developed a missfire under hard acceleration at low revs.  So he had another fiddle and on taking the plugs out, three were a nice pale beige and one was completely black.  So it looks like it needs a new plug - I'll treat it to a full set, I'll take that over an alternator replacement any day.  I reckon the plug was getting towards the end of its life anyway (the car had been stood for ages which probably didn't help) and all the farting and spluttering the car did when the battery was running out was enough to put the final nail in its coffin.

Funnily enough, out of the four FTPs I've had on eBay collection missions, two have been mid-1990s Mazdas bought from Maidstone.  I think there's a moral in there somewhere.

Anyway, I haven't had a chance to have my post-purchase poke around yet, so I will have to do that tomorrow.  I am expecting to find lots of rust.

 

[EssDeeWon]

26 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

Just now I heard noises that indicated someone was working on their car, yes at 10:45PM so I poked my head out the window and this was going happening on the main road...

 

does this make me a curtain twitcher? LOL! (I was secretly hoping it was my neighbour with the SD1 so I could introduce myself and make friends )

 

Ooohh an SD1 in London is a rare sight, is it that red one that Hubnut found the other week?

[cort16]

9 minutes ago, Pillock said:

Ladies and Gentlemen it's Savvy16!

Fugginnl potatoed bllllllz

[LightBulbFun]

1 minute ago, EssDeeWon said:

 

Ooohh an SD1 in London is a rare sight, is it that red one that Hubnut found the other week?

indeed it is  my neighbour has owned it since before I was born, and I have never seen it move, but it does get fairly regular MOTs and I have seen him work on it from time to time, I have been meaning for sometime to make friends with the neighbour and ask him what the story behind it (but im a bit anxious about how randomly knocking on someone's door and asking about their vintage car might go) I know the owners wife quite well, but I dont know the husband at all

 

[EssDeeWon]

Its very red.  I am assuming its a Vitesse.   Its not one I have seen spotted before on the car spotting community on Flickr, fair amount on London bods on there to.

[LightBulbFun]

10 minutes ago, EssDeeWon said:

Its very red.  I am assuming its a Vitesse.   Its not one I have seen spotted before on the car spotting community on Flickr, fair amount on London bods on there to.

indeed the owner has a matching red van that goes with it, I think the van is his "daily" and its changed a couple times, but the rover remains  (he used to own a ford I think van of some kind that was impressively pogweezled ) 

if you check out the knitting and cars thread on the open forum, it was papped by some random Hipster on instagram matching its colour to a ball of yarn, so I took the lightbulb picture in response to it here on AS

I personally dont know what trim it is, but according to various "reg goes in info comes out" websites, indeed it shows up as a Vitesse

(first registered near oxford interestingly enough)

[MarvinsMom]

today we have mostly been pulling the Rover to bits, so that the n/s wing mirror could be changed for a much less broken one, and that the b-post finisher could be changed for one one much less rusty.

now that wing mirror has been loose for some time, well i've had the car for nearly 4 years and i'm thinking it was loose when i bought it. 

same with the b=post finisher, its had a rust bleb coming through for sometime. and it must have been hanging around in th eboot for 3 year, maybe more?

so having battled on all day taking the bloody thing to bits, i got the car back together. and it works too!

the multiplug in the old mirror was rusted into the mirror, and one of the old pins broke off inside the plug, so we had to cut it off and use the one on the replacement mirror instead. i saw kerry merrily cutting off the old one before i asked if she knew where each of the wires went. what with there been a green wire, a black wire, a grey wire and 3 white wires....... well the mirror does work properly. well after we cleaned up in the contacts in the switch pack.

so we got those jobs done, along with getting the exhaust adjusted so that it no longer bangs on the underbody when driving, which is nice. now just to sort out the none functioning rear washwipe, parking sensors and hope (prey?) that it'll go through it test without too much trouble. its still i think a great old bus, even after the 5 years and 90,000-odd mile i've done it its done 180,000 in total! shame that the back ends of the sills are starting to get crusty. well it is 18 years old now.

and the reason for some extended tinkering today? well the Rover 75 club has a stand at a car show in Sedgefield tomorrow. 

too which of course we are going . in the black Mini 1000...........

[EssDeeWon]

Thats interesting because my NS chrome bullet mirror on my 75 has been broken for ages, had tape around it since like forever.   So how much of a pain and what DIY skills are required to remove the old one and replace with a non broken unit?  Does the door card have to come off?   I only ask that as I read somewhere once that it did if you wanted to replace the door mirrors.