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Off to Grimsthorpe castle in half an hour.The new home of Baston car show.Seems a bit strict with arriving and departure times.Exibiters  free but £8.00  on the gate for visitors seems a bit steep.  Spent a few hours yesterday sprucing the Mercedes up only for the rain to wash most of the bumper and tyre shine off later.Let's see if it was worth it.

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On 7/6/2019 at 7:09 AM, nigel bickle said:

What happened there? Whole piece has been turned on it’s head! They are the engine components from my s2000

Oh well. Apologies for the nonsense. Not retyping.

What's going on with the S2000 Nigel, is broken or is it just a high milage rebuild?

 

How many yellow cars on he fleet now then?

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S2000 is a high mileage rebuild, having covered @220,000.  It had got to the stage that it was burning prodigious quantities  of 10-60, thickest I could get.   It sounded tired and my Mrss was losing faith.  Long discussion on the route forward - she elected to rebuild.  

 

Im not good enough/ well enough/ knowledgeable enough s o we stuck it into the acknowledged s2000 expert in Fleet, with an open cheque book engine resto.   It’s been there since Xmas...

We’ve still got 3 yellow Fiat Coops, but only one in Uk, so that doesn’t count...

Didnt matter too much during winter, the Octavia vRS sorted that - but the damn car is interminably hot inside, even with air on..Hence the SLK

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Not much car wise - lovely morning yesterday so decided to take the x1/9 to waitrose. Jumped in, turned on the ignition and up popped the headlamps. No lights though. Grr. Had to be the switch as I’d had it apart last week to plug the fibre optic lamp back in. Took it apart, looked fine, gave the contacts a wipe and put it back together. Ignition back on and with switch in off position the headlamps drop down. On off, up down all working again. Great.

I am making arrangements to fit the large-bore hand made stainless steel exhaust I bought a few years ago ( a £40 bargain if it works). The idle rattle from the current silencer is embarrassing, although not as much as the brake squeal from the Mercedes. Another thing on the to do list.

 

On to today when I drove up to Sonning in the Mercedes to go for a walk. Got there and parked fine, no problem. But the amount of traffic through the tiny village was awful. All in huge BMWs, audis etc. And it’s where people want to live! Looking on line just now, I’ve walked past Jimmy Paige’s  place, the George and Amal Clooney residence and seen Uri Geller’s estate from the other side of the Thames.

 

Of proper historical interest, was the Wilfred Owen Trail. Apparently it was the squalid conditions of the land workers in his parish, dunsden green, that made him join up.

 

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Been to Ellenroad Engine House Steam Museum today.

Engine was working, only live 10 minutes away but first time I've been.

Worth a visit, oily engine smell hits you as you enter, massive engine, I've stoked the boiler on one in my youth.

 Small Blacksmiths, making Souvenirs, Cafe and group singing.

Went in the Minor. By chance there was a Minor rally in the 'executive' car park.

Gate man asked me if I wished to join them, but I declined.

I'm a stoker in a working mans car, not an executive in a museum showpiece. :)

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Not been on here much lately due to starting work again full time. Well, self employed taxi driver for a local (and fairly upmarket thankfully) well established family company.  

7.30 am until 5pm so no drunk people or pub/club stuff. Mainly taking folk to work, school, then elderly ladies to the shops and back. School run after 3pm. Some runs to Blackpool Victoria hospital etc. Shirt and tie job (my first) with weekly random inspections to ensure the car is clean and tidy. All jobs pre booked so no hanging about in taxi ranks! Just finished my second week (Sundays and Mondays off) and am enjoying it far more than I thought I would TBH. Pay the company the rent for the car ( £47.50 per day ) plus diesel. Making between £50 to £100 per day so far. Not a fortune for the hours put in but pays the bills mostly. Tips have covered the diesel so far. Usually between £10 to £15 per day. (2014 Ford Focus estate)

Somehow having less free time has concentrated my efforts on my chod on the days off so have mostly been getting the Triumph Dolomite ready for the MOT. Quality tinkering time.

 

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Said goodbye to the Duster today.

However I had agreed some weeks ago to replace the shackles on my Wife's friend's Silver Cross pram. It was sitting a bit lop-sided and was bottoming out, not comfy for baby.

This was an arse of a job. First I had to grind out the large rivets holding the existing parts in.

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Went through a few Dremel heads here, Silver Cross don't muck about with their rivets.

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Fitted new shackles and pins which had press-on caps so this bit was easy.

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Done.

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Greased up the pins after cleaning off the old hardened material.

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A quick polish up with some Autosol and a test drive showed nice even and much firmer springing.

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...and a very kind gesture of thanks from my wife's pal's dad. I'm having one now.

A positive end to what could have been a negative day.

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Had my dad look over the MX5 to work out what's knocking. I have three sets of wheels and tyres for it so the next job is to swap them and see if the knocking persists, as it doesn't seem to be coming from the front. 

 

But I had an 'I wonder' moment - the knocking feels to be in the middle at the front - is it at the rear and being transmitted up the propshaft? Dad did say something about CVs needing regreasing or something.

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On 7/4/2019 at 11:49 PM, brownnova said:

Best part of the UK by far! I was up the horseshoe pass in the 2CV on Sunday, Marina will be fine! Will keep my eyes peeled over the weekend and might see you at the Caerwys show on Sunday! 

Please explain... this sounds interesting for mine too... 

Took girlfriend to the Caerwys car show last year. When we arrived, she thought the carpark outside was the show.. "this isnt very good"

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The girlfriend just bought an PT Looser as of 30 mins ago (It’s 5pm in Oregon state). To be fair it was cheap(for her part of the US) and has a lot of work done of late with paperwork and such to prove, from the photos she’s just sent me it looks clean enough considering she’s on the coast. 

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Also for the distance and use she needs it it’ll do the job fine. Sadly I have to wait till October for the pleasure of driving it.

It can’t be any worse than the Ford Explorer she has right now that’s for sure! 

 

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34 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

John the mobile AC guy has just been round to diagnose the merc's non-working ac. It has gas still, but the compressor electrics are open circuit. So that will be a new compressor, belt and receiver dryer time. £££

Can the clutch coil be replaced in situ?

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2 hours ago, SiC said:

Can the clutch coil be replaced in situ?

Possibly but access is not good. So I think the old one has to come out even if it's not repairable.  He's going to price up a new compressor. He said they used to rebuild them all the time when prices were very high, but it's not cost effective now that new ones are cheaper.  Then since the system is being worked on it makes sense to do other work at the same time.

Apparently it was the third clutch electrics gone this week. it's the heat sink he says when they're getting on in age. Working one-day and not the next.

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Went to see the new car storage I've got today. Another guy was there also getting two spaces.

Late twenties, to early thirties guy. Massive six pack, fabulously tanned and beautiful looking.

He is back from Sri Lanka after selling his cocktail bar business. Decided to take a break and go travelling for a bit.

Currently owns a Porker 993, Ferrari 348 and a BGT. BGT was an accidental purchase on eBay and only bought it because it had a massive whale tail spoiler on the back.

I felt a bit like I've failed at life at that moment!

I'm sure my Laguna II will feel right at home in there... (To be fair, there is a Pug 107, Simca and other such cars in the barn too). 

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Actually got a few bits done at the weekend, unexpectedly.  Had a brief spurt of motivation with the Y10 on Saturday, so between rain showers I dismantled and cleaned all the air intake gubbins, including the air flow sensor thingummy.  I'll give you three guesses as to whether it made any difference to the running or not.  I've ordered a fuel filter for it, which should hopefully be here by the weekend - if that doesn't work then I'm going to dump it in a corner and forget about it for a while.

Still can't get the Raleigh to start.  I reckon it's the carb that's the issue, as it seems to be seeping petrol out from various places.  It's odd though as it was running fine on that carb before.  I can actually get a brand new genuine carb from eBay for 45 quid - if I was 100% certain the carb was the only thing preventing it from being usable I'd probably go for it, but it's a lot of money to fork out speculatively, especially on what was supposed to be a cheap project.

Got my welding mate to weld up the little hole on the Carina's sill, so that should be ready for a test now - I'll try to book it in at the weekend.  It might need the exhaust gun gumming up again but that shouldn't take long to sort.  It'll be good to have it tested as I'm rapidly running out of road legal cars at the moment.

Gave the 164 a wash and then drove it up to the layby at the top of the road to take some photos in case I do decide to sell it.  It's only about 150 yards each way but it's the first time the Volvo has been driven further than on and off the drive in about 5 years.  I didn't go very fast because of the lack of braking (although it does actually have a vaguely functioning footbrake - I didn't think it did, but it does slow the car down and combined with the handbrake the car can be brought to a stop fairly quickly, at least from the 10-15mph I was doing - although at the expense of some interesting grinding noises from the badly rusty discs).  I spent several hours the previous weekend clearing all the crap out of the car - some of which had been languishing at the bottom of the boot for 10 years or more - so it's closer to saleable condition than it's been in a while.  I just need to pull my finger out and make a decision as to what I'm doing with it - it's largely sentimentality that's making me hold on to it as I haven't actually got any benefit from owning it for a very long time now.  But at the same time it'd be a wrench to get rid after what must be 15 years of ownership.

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