The new news 24 thread

[SiC]

17 minutes ago, trigger said:

Treated myself to a late 40th birthday present today. 

I'm mega excited, I've wanted a Sprint since being a kid, especially a yellow one so jumped on this when I was offered it. 

Drove down to Potters Bar this morning to view it and fell in love straight away, it's a million miles away from my old 1500 SE, it's a rip roaring monster which will probably financially ruined me bit it's worth it! 

It's being delivered by the owner on Tuesday as he gets free train travel and it saved me having to insure and going back again. Definitely my favourite car I've ever bought! 

Nice! I envy the lack of rust on your one...

Mine is next up in the queue for some fettling and getting back on the road. Please keep a thread on yours, I could do with a massive Mojo boost and push for mine! ?

[trigger]

I'll try although I don't seem to get on here much anymore, There's a few scabs here and there and it doesn't start very well but I think the carbs need a little attention, once it's running it goes like a train though, stainless exhaust and a K&N makes it sound very angry! Also came with a load of spares too. 

[Yoss]

Loving the burr walnut dashboard. That's not standard is it? 

[Yoss]

Proof, we're any needed, that moderns are getting too big? 

You now need a stepladder to wash a Fiesta. He wasn't a small bloke either (I thought it wise not to include him in the picture). 

[RayMK]

Earlier this afternoon I was forced out of my armchair by my son who needed a 23mm spanner or socket to remove the cassette on his road bike. Being organised* my tools are loosely congregated in the garage, with a concentration of ring spanners and sockets in the boot of my little used 1961 Reliant Regal. A 23mm ring spanner was found in the boot and the cassette swapped to another wheel with remarkable ease. However, whilst in the garage I could smell petrol. It could only be from the Reliant so I went back in to investigate. With barely enough room to lie down between my 1967 Peugeot moped and the Reliant, I lowered myself to a kneeling position using my sticks for support then, with the sticks hung out of the way, cranked myself to a fully face down lying position with a slight twist to have both arms to the Reliant side. Using a small torch, I could see a hanging drip of petrol near the tank mounting and somewhat surprisingly the whole rear chassis crossmember was wet with petrol despite the tank being dry in that area. I satisfied myself that the leak was very minor and will have a better look tomorrow when my son's car is out of the way and my mobility scooter moved. I had suspected that the tank was leaking many months ago but could not find any 'wetness,' just the whiff of petrol on that occasion.  Having got myself neatly lying down, I found that I had insufficient room or strength to pull my left arm from my twisted position in order to heave myself back upright. I was going to phone my son for a hand - he was still in the house fiddling with bikes. From my lying position I could see that I'd emptied my shirt breast pocket and placed the contents, including my phone, about 6ft away. I thus spent another interesting* 10 minutes studying the underside of a Reliant whilst trying to find a way of freeing my trapped arm so that I could get up. Fortunately I succeeded. I'll live to post another day ?.

[wuvvum]

2 hours ago, trigger said:

Treated myself to a late 40th birthday present today. 

I'm mega excited, I've wanted a Sprint since being a kid, especially a yellow one so jumped on this when I was offered it. 

Drove down to Potters Bar this morning to view it and fell in love straight away, it's a million miles away from my old 1500 SE, it's a rip roaring monster which will probably financially ruined me bit it's worth it! 

It's being delivered by the owner on Tuesday as he gets free train travel and it saved me having to insure and going back again. Definitely my favourite car I've ever bought! 

Love this.  Is that Inca yellow?  I reguarly see one that colour in and around Wroxham - driven by an old dear who must be 80 if she's a day, probably had it since new.

These go sideways pretty well too.  Allegedly.

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, trigger said:

Treated myself to a late 40th birthday present today. 

I'm mega excited, I've wanted a Sprint since being a kid, especially a yellow one so jumped on this when I was offered it. 

Drove down to Potters Bar this morning to view it and fell in love straight away, it's a million miles away from my old 1500 SE, it's a rip roaring monster which will probably financially ruined me bit it's worth it! 

It's being delivered by the owner on Tuesday as he gets free train travel and it saved me having to insure and going back again. Definitely my favourite car I've ever bought! 

Oh very well bought, whatever you paid. Looks ace, I'd have to buy one like that if local.

[wuvvum]

Today I have mostly been crawling around underneath cars.  I got the Innocenti up on the ramps first to underseal the inner sills that I'd wire brushed and Kurusted a couple of weeks ago.  It's creeping towards roadworthiness a lot more slowly than I would like - I need to buy it an exhaust and a pair of headlamp mounts, but there isn't enough in the shite kitty to do that until the Tempra goes, and I don't want to start digging into emergency overdrafts etc as that's a slippery slope.  It might well need a couple of tyres on the front too - the ones on there are pretty ancient and starting to get quite badly perished.  There's a limited choice in 145/70x12 these days though - I have a pair of nearly new 145/80x12 in the back of the van but I think they'd look a bit silly on the Innocenti.

Next up on the ramps was the V70 - I wanted to give it a quick look over to check for any obvious MOT fails.  I didn't spot any - everything looks solid, the brake pipes are good, the pads have plenty of meat on them etc - but obviously that doesn't mean that MOT man won't find owt.  I need to get the tyre I bought for it fitted before I take it in - the MOT place now has a part worn tyre fitting bay, but I don't know if they only fit their own tyres or if they'd fit one I provide.  If not the tyre place in the village will fit it for a tenner, but they are usually booked up quite a bit in advance so that may slow things down a bit.  I also cut away a bit of the rear bumper using tin snips - the tailpipe is a larger diameter than standard and had been resting on the bottom of the bumper and slowly melting the plastic.

Then I put the Renault 6 up for its annual poke around underneath to see how much worse things have got since last time.  The driver's side front floorpan is pretty much as it was (fucked) - I'm actually going to have a go at chopping the loose bit off and then putting something over the hole as a temporary cover until I can get it welded.  It's a double skinned floorpan and the inner skin is rock solid so the car isn't about to snap in half...  I also noticed a bit on the nearside by the anti-roll bar mount which is going to need a plate.  One of the rear brake lines looks like it might need replacing soon (although it's not that bad at the moment), and the gearbox mount also looks tired - which could explain the banging noise from under the bonnet if I come off the throttle too suddenly.  It also appears to be leaking gearbox oil, so I'm going to have to check the level of that before I undertake any long journeys in it.  On the plus side, I tried the handbrake for the first time in over a year and it's absolutely fine - holds the car brilliantly and releases as it should.  Oh, and driving it back from my mate's late at night last weekend I discovered that it has one of the best heaters in the fleet since I fixed the valve, putting out warm air within about 3 minutes of a cold start - a bit of a waste as I don't drive it in the winter, but good to know.

Didn't get a lot done on Saturday as the weather was pants - I just had time to pull the intake hoses off the Mondeo to check if it's still oiling itself up (it doesn't appear to be - there was still a bit of oil in the intercooler pipes but that might just be residual oil I didn't manage to flush out - the turbo outlet pipe was clean as a whistle) and then it started chucking it down and didn't really let up for the rest of the day.  So I sat at the dining room table and stripped and cleaned the Spacy carburettor - I'm going to try and get that running as soon as I get a spare couple of hours, although annoyingly it now appears to need a new front brake cable as well.

[brownnova]

We’ve been frequenting a local coffee and cake hostelry since the easing of lockdown to allow outside eating a few weeks back... yesterday we weren’t the only classic there. 

It belongs to the cake chef who also owns an Austin A35 van. 

[Eyersey1234]

1 minute ago, brownnova said:

We’ve been frequenting a local coffee and cake hostelry since the easing of lockdown to allow outside eating a few weeks back... yesterday we weren’t the only classic there. 

It belongs to the cake chef who also owns an Austin A35 van. 

I thought for a moment you were going to say it was Smoll_Brownnovas new car ?

[Austat]

13 hours ago, trigger said:

Treated myself to a late 40th birthday present today. 

I'm mega excited, I've wanted a Sprint since being a kid, especially a yellow one so jumped on this when I was offered it. 

Drove down to Potters Bar this morning to view it and fell in love straight away, it's a million miles away from my old 1500 SE, it's a rip roaring monster which will probably financially ruined me bit it's worth it! 

It's being delivered by the owner on Tuesday as he gets free train travel and it saved me having to insure and going back again. Definitely my favourite car I've ever bought! 

Brilliant! I do love a Dolly myself. Looks like something straight out of a BL dealer purchased during Superdeal 80:

 

[EssDeeWon]

My 75 is with British Legends having a few bits done.  They kindly lent me this for a couple of days.  

[bunglebus]

I got called out to help my mate's dad's Corsa that has caught a case of gingivitis.

It's probably only going to see one or two more MOTs as he's in his 90s and a not the best driver anymore. Both sides of the rear valance needed to be replaced using guesswork as the where the bottom lip goes, as there was nothing but air left. Had to plate both inner arches at the back too, no idea why they go there unless condensation gets trapped against the rear panel.

I didn't bother doing it "properly", just cut out the grot and made plates to cover the holes. Paint and underseal should see it last a few years anyway

[Split_Pin]

That looks a good job. My Corsa went there although I caught it before it was as bad as that.

They all go there.

Speaking of Corsas, I'm getting mine back on Wednesday. It's nearly finished but the chap doing the work said he wants to give it a second coat of underseal after letting the first dry overnight so I'm happy to wait one more day. It's likely being fitted around more mundane jobs and is even more likely to be an unpleasant one so I'm not grumbling about the slight delay. This also means that the rust wasn't beyond economic repair which is grand.

[bunglebus]

11 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

That looks a good job. My Corsa went there although I caught it before it was as bad as that.

They all go there.

The valance I can understand but the inner arch is a bit of a mystery. Ah well, done now, although I think the rear of the inner/outer sills will need a tickle too.

That will have to wait until Wednesday, tomorrow will be chopping the bulkhead out of a steel hull boat, I have acquired a 9" angry grinder for this, wish me luck...

[cort16]

I went up a hill in a yellow car

turbo whistling 

tyre spinning 

clutch slipping

 

[Split_Pin]

The engine must be in rude health if it can still spin the tyres with a slipping clutch!

[cort16]

its weird you really need to be lugging it in 4th at full throttle for it slip

[320touring]

34 minutes ago, cort16 said:

its weird you really need to be lugging it in 4th at full throttle for it slip

Needs MOAR BOOOOOST!

[Cord Fourteener]

It turns out, when your car won't start, and when, if it does, it runs as rough as a very tough thing, you should not panic and assume either the fuel pump relay you fitted new two years ago has packed in, the fuse blown or the new fuel pump had died but rather just check you actually have petrol.

Oops. Commenting for a friend*

After I put petrol in my 924 I discovered there is nothing wrong with the FPR. I mean my friend did*  with his 924*

[Pat Earrings]

Finally got around to fitting my Bluetooth/dab stereo. Bloody hell what a massive faff Japanese cars are. Took me almost 2 hours as the Lexus amp was extremely fiddly to get to and fit the bypass lead, along with setting up the stereo in the new cage and wiring the mic and aerial. Sounds so much better and finally I've got some Bluetooth music and dab to enjoy.

[stuboy]

took me nearly 2 hrs to arrange the insurance on the new mondeo, which cant start till friday as id added the old one to start then, all went well till the operative started putting me on hold to speak to his seniors, then he cocked it up and then got cut off, he didnt ring me back, so i restarted and rang back, got through to a nice lady who sorted it all out inc the fact the previous put value at 7.5k for christs sake.. so now both cars and my toygirl insured for 66 quid a month

[phil_lihp]

1 hour ago, cort16 said:

I went up a hill in a yellow car

turbo whistling 

tyre spinning 

clutch slipping

 

 

Can I join your mid-2000s hot hatch club? 

It's been up some hills today but nothing very scenic.  Mine also comes with turbo whistles and a shagged clutch, although it's allowed as it's on over 199,000 miles and counting.  It's having grumps for the first time in 18 months of ownership with hesitation and rough running when starting from cold, my generic ODBC says it's fine, no engine management light on and I have changed the aging coil packs for OEM-spec new ones which helped a bit but not much.

Might be the coil pack wires which are known to degrade but they looked OK to me, I scooshed them out with electrical contact cleaner when I changed the coils anyway.  Will try unplugging the MAF, next weekend's job is to finally get around to pulling the slightly pointless secondary air pump out and either bypassing it with a resistor in the plug or replacing the broken rivets that hold it together with bolts to stop the 45 seconds of loud, high-pitched whining which accompanies every cold start and has been getting progressively more loud and annoying in recent months.  Bit of a TADTS on the VAG 1.8T apparently, I love this car to bits but if it has a fault it's being a product of its time, far too many sensors, wires and things that go bong and beep.

[Coprolalia]

@phil_lihp, I have a £30 Chinese pattern secondary air pump arriving next week. Will let you know if it's any good. I heard replacing the rivets was a bit of an arse as it can all warp and expand.

Apparently the resistor mod works, but you have to map out the EML as otherwise it throws the P0441 (or summat) code for secondary air flow out of range.

[captain_70s]

On 7/26/2020 at 9:34 PM, trigger said:

 

Inca Yellow, O/D gearbox. WINRAR.

Pretty late example on a V reg too. The difference between my 1300 and 1850 was night and day, that'll be another kettle of fish compared to both of them... Watch the tail end on damp roads, I managed to put mine backwards through a fence with just 90bhp, I imagine 120bhp won't improve things in that regard. ?

[LightBulbFun]

14 minutes ago, captain_70s said:

WINRAR

LOL that made me laugh more then it should have  

hopefully its more than just a 30 day free trial in this case!

(tis very nice btw  )

[Ghosty]

14 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

hopefully its more than just a 30 day free trial in this case!

WinRAR trials last forever! 

(WinRAR is only on a 'trial' so if businesses need to buy a licence they can, as they can't use freeware for some reason - it's intended that casual users never buy a licence). 

[Borsuq]

Seat came out so I can take it to an upholstery shop. Unfortunately, going by the stuff on the floor, it seems like the sponge that makes up the base of the seat has started crumbling. I don't think there's a proper fix for that (other than getting a new seat base, which I can't find) so I'll have to live with a seat that's disappearing.

[barefoot]

A decent upholsterer should be able to re-stuff it for you.

[RayMK]

Yesterday was too wet to investigate the suspected fuel tank leak on the Reliant.  Today I had a closer look and the result is inconclusive.  Whereas two days ago the tank area had a strong smell of petrol and looked slightly wet with the stuff, today it all looked as dry as a bone and there was no trace of a smell or sight of a leak. I've cleaned the tank exterior  and the rear chassis cross member as best I could without putting the car on ramps and will have a look again tomorrow.  I may even get it out of the garage for a checkover and go for a drive if it co-operates.

The photos show the car slightly less blocked in - I moved my mobility scooter which was also piled high with tool boxes and spares for other cars. I need to go on a training course for 'How to keep garages tidy.'  The following photos show the tank before and after I had wiped it over with engine degreaser.