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11 hours ago, BorniteIdentity said:

It's a glorious day, so I fully expect a thread full of people interfering with and enjoying their shite old cars today.  Hoping to get both the Sierra and Mini out today for a good old shake down.  Need to make a plan to reinstate heating to the Sierra, replace the leaky hose, price up a clutch and get it ready to go on front line duty from April.

Gah.  Little of this happened.  Neither car got a look in as I took a magical mystery tour of tile vendors in the Cambridgeshire area ahead of our bathroom being re-tiled tomorrow.  However we've made a plan of action to get the Mini through another MOT (expires in 8 weeks) and I did get to drive something a bit different.

My father in law - ever since I met him 17 years ago - has always had Subarus.  Through university and early adult life, he never had a piss to pot in - always making do with whatever he could buy from a pub car park for £50 or whatever.  He was the stereotypical, eccentric Dr of Science - fantastic mind, teribble taste.  My wife remembers a string of shite cars - particularly a brown Datsun (I think 1200) and a Sierra L.  He tells me there was also a Fiat 128 at one stage (well, most of one)

When money eventually found him, he bought an Impreza.  Then an STI.  Then another - and then, 4 years ago, this absolute fucking monster.  I've never driven any of them, but offered to pull it up onto our drive today to load his tools into the boot (he's been helping with the bathroom).  He smiled, passed me the keys and then said "Go on then." 

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Goodness me, they area bone shakingly brutal.  It's 4 years old, and not only as tight as a drum - tight as cramp.  Sorry to sound like an old fart (and I'm nearly half his age) but it must be absolutely exhausting to drive something like this every day.  God alive!

So anyway.  I've come to terms with the fact that I'm now old and my father in law clearly isn't.  

Great, great fun.  But I think I'd rather something more sedate.  Like a mug of cocoa and an episode of Lovejoy.

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2 minutes ago, BorniteIdentity said:

Gah.  Little of this happened.  Neither car got a look in as I took a magical mystery tour of tile vendors in the Cambridgeshire area ahead of our bathroom being re-tiled tomorrow.  However we've made a plan of action to get the Mini through another MOT (expires in 8 weeks) and I did get to drive something a bit different.

My father in law - ever since I met him 17 years ago - has always had Subarus.  Through university and early adult life, he never had a piss to pot in - always making do with whatever he could buy from a pub car park for £50 or whatever.  He was the stereotypical, eccentric Dr of Science - fantastic mind, teribble taste.  My wife remembers a string of shite cars - particularly a brown Datsun (I think 1200) and a Sierra L.  He tells me there was also a Fiat 128 at one stage (well, most of one)

When money eventually found him, he bought an Impreza.  Then an STI.  Then another - and then, 4 years ago, this absolute fucking monster.  I've never driven any of them, but offered to pull it up onto our drive today to load his tools into the boot (he's been helping with the bathroom).  He smiled, passed me the keys and then said "Go on then." 

IMG_3773.thumb.png.fd17927480ea931b35837d91ef865384.png

Goodness me, they area bone shakingly brutal.  It's 4 years old, and not only as tight as a drum - tight as cramp.  Sorry to sound like an old fart (and I'm nearly half his age) but it must be absolutely exhausting to drive something like this every day.  God alive!

So anyway.  I've come to terms with the fact that I'm now old and my father in law clearly isn't.  

Great, great fun.  But I think I'd rather something more sedate.  Like a mug of cocoa and an episode of Lovejoy.

Phooar what a lovely Impreza your FIL has

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Unexpected mouse in the oil aisle today. One of the gaffers was threatening to crush it as he's scared of them, but I managed to get him (or her) into a box and release it into some woods across the road. Stroked it a couple of times and it just lay there looking at me before scarpering off for shelter.

 

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Was speaking to the lad last night,  asked about the Vauxhall (as I always do) to be told that it's fine now after it's major brake malfunction.

Err, what?

Now, a bit of backstory here: the back brake on te divers side has been a tad dodgy for ages, kept sticking on. I suggested to Kyle that he get the thing repaired, I even offered to pay (not that e needs any fiscal help as he is the responsible member of the family with savings - whatever they may be) but he didn't/couldn't be arsed/doesn't care enough about a free car.

He got in the car one morning to go to work, first roundabout, hit the brakes to slow mildly and ... foot to the floor an NO brakes at all! Fortunately no one was on or near the roundabout and he managed to stop the car just after with the handbrake. He limped it about a mile, saw a garage and threw it at them and he got a taxi to work.

It required: new caliper, new pads and discs (£288 all in, not bad I thought) as it had spat the old pads out and worn the piston down until it fell out along with all the fluid!

My son may, just 'may' be an utter twat at times.

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1 hour ago, Cavcraft said:

Unexpected mouse in the oil aisle today. One of the gaffers was threatening to crush it as he's scared of them, but I managed to get him (or her) into a box and release it into some woods across the road. Stroked it a couple of times and it just lay there looking at me before scarpering off for shelter.

 

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No pics soz, but one of a very, very early brood of Crested Tit's had a lucky escape this afternoon. I wondered what my almost 13yr old Border Terrier was sniffing around on the track when out walking her and the springer earlier, it was the young bird. I'm amazed she didn't have it down her throat! Even a few months ago she was still taking rats out. 

The wee bird just flew up to the nearest branch and sat looking at us. Whether it survives this early in the year is another matter entirely!

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Got a text from the wife as the 323 (1) was having an FTP after her work and she was stranded in the car park.

Said it wouldn't start (checked she was in P/N) but no obvious telephone based resolution so a drive it was...fortunately, she's 5 minutes drive away and  323 (2) hasn't yet gone for MOT so I ripped the battery off that and headed over.

Tried without battery swap first, dash lights on but all went out and not even a whimper form the starter when I went to crank - so second battery on and it fired up.

Took a good few turns before it caught and fired, she swears she hadn't left lights on or anything, my theory is maybe door not fully shut and the interior light has goosed her.

We shall find out tonight if there's a phantom battery drain or something else.

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Had a look at the reported corrosion on the Clio tonight. I started on the offside.

I was under the impression that it was advanced and on the brink of being terminal.

This was the strut tower.

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This was the chassis leg.

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This was behind the headlight.

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This is what the strut tower looked like after a few minutes of sanding with my bandfile. The other areas looked the same after sanding.

Now all coated in Vactan and I'll paint later in the week.

Unfortunately my aux belt, which isn't due to be changed until October, already had some crazing. Its a Gates belt. Bit dissappointed that it has gone like that after 2 1/2 years. 

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Used all three of my road legal older cars for various dad's taxi duties yesterday. Camry in the morning when it was wet and horrible, then ye olde 1200 later in the day after I'd had time to swap the Laurel's battery onto it (secured with cable ties) then free the clutch off, and finally the Sunny.

Laurel needs MoTing, leaving that until next month.

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Got a few bits done on the fleet over the weekend.  Attempted a repair on the HRW of the 45 - one of the feed wires had come adrift, they appear to be bonded on, so I invested in a millilitre of graphite electrical glue at a hugely inflated price.  It doesn't seem to have done much good - there is now electricity reaching the heating elements, but there's not much in the way of demisting going on, so not sure what's happening there.  I did manage to fix the loose nearside front exterior door handle with the aid of some leftover glue from the last split CV boot I bought - bloody strong stuff, better than "normal" superglue.  Then I got the car up on the ramps to see what things looked like from an MOT perspective.  I couldn't find any obvious fails - one of the CV boots is rather perished but doesn't appear to be leaking yet - so I'm going to book it in for a test and see what happens.  It'll probably be sold on after that as I need to raise some funds.

Fixed the horn on the Mondeo - I'd previously checked the fuse and that was fine - I was worried that it was the switch inside the steering wheel that had gone and I was going to have to start removing airbags etc, but pressing the horn when it was quiet out I was able to hear the relay clicking, so evidently the switch was OK.  Next stop was the horns themselves - getting to them involved taking the offside headlight out, although this needed to come out anyway so I could take the back cover off in an attempt to get rid of the condensation inside.  Unplugged the connector to the horns and it was full of water - a good dry out and a generous spray of contact cleaner had it going beep again.  It'd also randomly brought the TCS light up and gone into limp mode the last time I used it so I plugged the laptop in, but it didn't come up with any stored faults.  It's not done it since so I'm not going to worry too much about it.  I've ordered it a new power steering reservoir too - it has whiny power steering, which has been diagnosed by our resident experts as a blocked filter in the reservoir (TADT,S apparently) so that's a job for the next decent weekend we get.

While I had the ramps out I stuck the Innocenti up on them to have another go at patching up the exhaust.  It really needs a new section, but the problem with having the only example of a car in the country is that I can't just pop down to my local Kwik Fit and get them to fit a new one (not that I'd do that anyway).  While I was under there I noticed a couple of the brake pipes were getting a bit crusty, so I attacked them with a wire brush - they look sound enough now the loose rust has been taken off, so I'm going to leave them for now as they're one pipe from front to rear so replacing them will be a bit of a PITA. 

Also had a play with the Tempra, and discovered that a Tempra SW rear wiper motor doesn't fit a Tempra saloon - the motor assemblies are the same but the spindle on the saloon tapers much further down.  The only saloon motor assembly I can find on eBay is in Germany and the seller wants 140 quid for it, so that's been put on hold indefinitely.  I then spent some time pondering the fan belt trying to work out if there is actually a way to adjust the tension single-handed without taking half the engine out, but I couldn't see a way so it's going to have to be a two-man, battery disconnected job as I'd previously suspected.  In the meantime I've fitted some cheapo eBay LED headlight bulbs to lighten the electrical load in an attempt to stop the belt squealing.  They're OK-ish - they're not like some of the cheap bulbs which have a cluster of LEDs around a massive cylinder, these have thin lines of COB LEDs roughly where the filaments would be on a halogen bulb, so they're not perfect but you do get something resembling a beam pattern. 

Then it started pissing down with rain, because of course it'd be asking far too much to have a whole weekend without the bastarding weather turning to shit.

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11 hours ago, Ohdearme said:

Got a text from the wife as the 323 (1) was having an FTP after her work and she was stranded in the car park.

Said it wouldn't start (checked she was in P/N) but no obvious telephone based resolution so a drive it was...fortunately, she's 5 minutes drive away and  323 (2) hasn't yet gone for MOT so I ripped the battery off that and headed over.

Tried without battery swap first, dash lights on but all went out and not even a whimper form the starter when I went to crank - so second battery on and it fired up.

Took a good few turns before it caught and fired, she swears she hadn't left lights on or anything, my theory is maybe door not fully shut and the interior light has goosed her.

We shall find out tonight if there's a phantom battery drain or something else.

Started on the button this morning.

My money says she left a light on or didn’t shut door properly.

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1 minute ago, N19 said:

I'm not sure whether to be proud or horrified at this fix. Bluebird wouldn't start and cranking over very slowly. Found the battery clamp slightly loose and the bolt to tighten it very rounded. Tinfoil wedged in place and it started fine. This is definitely a temporary* fix. 

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I used to carry an emergency KitKat for just such occasions until they changed the packaging.

Bravo, Sir.

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On 3/8/2020 at 10:07 AM, HillmanImp said:

Meant to be raining later so was up early doors putting the new light in. 

Fixed it in with Butyl tape. The old sticky stuff on this one was really soft compared to the near side one and came off easily, no heat gun or owt, just peeled away and then needed cleaning. 

It didn't leak into the car before I replaced the light so inevitably it will now that I've fucked about with it but the old lens was cracked so it needed doing. 

£45 seems a bit steep for a tail light lens (but having said that I've not bought one)

Are you aware of PM Sportscars? https://pmsportscars.com

They're within walking distance of here and I've known Paul for years. He's running the business down a bit now, but if you can get hold of him, it's normally his sidekick Mike on the phone, he's a lovely bloke. The last things I've bought include a complete torque tube for £150 - it weighed a metric fuck tonne & the complete arse end of a convertible for about £500 when I had some unobtainable rear quarter panels replaced on mine. Seats, in the past I've paid £90 a 944 pair & had a filthy pair from a 928 for free. Ask for barefoot discount!

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Severe case of Can't be Arsed in the last few weeks.  Works taking its toll. I'm a bit tired but I've had a few days off and it's getting better. 

Went outside to have a look at the annoying rattly arb drop link on the C5. Having only replaced one side 18 month ago and the other in October I wasn't too impressed. Turns out it'd had only come loose. Torqued it up and silent hydropneumatic wafting resumes. I'll get some service bits this week, it deserves an oil change. 

Haven't driven the Jimny in the last 10 days, the comfyness of the C5 and the 100 had me wafting to work. Just as well as it's MOT expired last week without me realising it. Just as well I checked. Didn't want a fine or anything. Annoyingly, local MOT station is booked up until next week. Something else to sort. Sadly I think it'll be up for sale once I get it MOTd. It's a lovely clean example that I've put lots of money into but I don't think I'll get it all back out of it. Chassis sealing and new tyres are nice to have. Even got treated to genuine filters the last service ?

But needs must and I need my savings back for a potential house move during the summer.  It's the first time I'll have been reluctantly selling a car and I think I'll struggle to find a clean one like it again.  Kinda sad as it's a lovely little jeep. Oh well 

 

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