The new news 24 thread

[beko1987]

4 pedals is probably the main reason I'd not want a manual XM, especially around where I live! Being an auto negated the need to use it. Dad's 2018 hyundai ioniq uses the same setup too, but in reverse... (although with actual cables which is amazing for 2018...) 

I too only used it for a week before the mot as something fragile and plastic that turns one cable into 2 likes to explode deep behind the engine. 

[RayMK]

I had always liked the idea of owning a 2cv, and when my Reliant obligingly burnt to the ground at about the same time as Citroen tried the 2cv in the UK market again (1975) it was the obvious choice, though funding the brand new price of £1068 required man maths. There's no doubt that they are uniquely practical cars and I enjoyed mine for several years and 98000 miles - up to a point.  The gearchange was very slick, particularly around town where push pull gave 2nd and 3rd. Eventually, the constantly nodding suspension got on my nerves. In 1985 I tried again with a 2nd hand, high mileage Dyane and loved it. I also enjoyed my CX and drove dad's GSA frequently but all the time I really wanted a DS. Back then I could not afford one in reliable commuting condition. Now it's probably too late to chase the dream. I've never been in one either.  Although I've driven many LHD autos in the 'states (mainly US marques) and have driven thousands of miles on the continent in RHD manuals and automatics, I found driving a manual very well worn Corsa hire car in Fuerteventura was initially quite a challenge. Call me stupid, but I honestly thought a LHD manual car would have accelerator, brake and clutch left to right in that order.  That and trying to change gear with the window winder had me for a few kilometres. 

My news: My Tipo has had its clutch slave and master cylinders replaced, so that part of the car is now working fine. Unfortunately, my classic friendly garage said there's a fair bit of corrosion towards the rear of both sills/floorpan, more than he would want to repair and more than he thinks is worth having done. With the MOT being due in December, I'll try to get estimates for the welding before deciding the car's future. My budget is generous i.e. far more than the car is worth, but even I have some common sense lurking somewhere. We'll have to see.

[Spottedlaurel]

3 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Finally booked the Kennedys to come out and regas the Princess.

Dead Kennedys, or Ken and Eddie Kennedy? The thought of the latter has made me smile.....

[hairnet]

kevin

or brian

 

[brownnova]

12 hours ago, SiC said:

With all this talk of 2CVs on here, I'm thinking that I ought to give one a go. I personally don't really like them but I'm slowly convincing myself to not...

Also didn't realise how plentiful and cheap parts are for them. New chassis for under 500 quid to complete shells for only 4k! I guess it helps that there isn't much to them. 

I’ll be very honest... I wasn’t all that keen on 2CVs either. I went to test drive one once years ago, but my ex wife made a right fuss and refused to go out in it as she felt it was unsafe to even sit in!! But they started to grow on me and then I got in one and had a ride. From that moment onwards I was hooked. Now there’s nothing I’d rather drive.

I do agree about there being a lot of difference between 2CVs, my yellow one is very different to drive to my green one. 6-cyls is more like my green one, but still slightly different. 

As others have said give one a go, they’re not for everyone to be fair, but once you’re in, they’re quite addictive. I didn’t believe the lady who we bought the yellow one off when she said we’d end up with more than one... 

Dyane next... or a van... 

[Asimo]

10 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

2CV gearchange usually only causes issues because people are over-thinking. Doesn't take long to get used to it. I agree Six-Cyl's is odd though! 

First. Twist the knob down to the left (anti-clockwise) and pull it out, towards the rear of the car. For second, push it in but with a loose enough grasp that the lever can ping back to the 2nd/3rd plane. Just keep pushing. Third, pull straight out. Fourth, push in but twisting to the right (clockwise). Back to third? Pull it out, let it ping. Second? Push straight in. It wants to go there naturally. First? You rarely need to if you're moving, but don't anyway as there's no synchromesh. Reverse is opposite first, so you must hold it on that plane if you want to select it.

So, in summary, you only need to actually twist the knob for first or fourth. The rest of the time, you're just letting it ping back to the central plane.

Like many gearchanges, much more natural in LHD cars?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 hour ago, brownnova said:

I’ll be very honest... I wasn’t all that keen on 2CVs either. I went to test drive one once years ago, but my ex wife made a right fuss and refused to go out in it....... 

Probably explains why she's an "ex-"....

[N19]

Coolant woes continue. Checked the Mondeo and it appears to have leaked out overnight which is very odd, especially since nothing appears to leak when the car is running. 

Could be that there's a slight weep from the hoses going into the temperature sensor housing... Although I'd have thought they'd leak under pressure rather than of their own accord. I think I'll have a shifty and put new hose clips on and inspect the ends of the hoses anyway. 

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, N19 said:

Coolant woes continue. Checked the Mondeo and it appears to have leaked out overnight which is very odd, especially since nothing appears to leak when the car is running. 

Could be that there's a slight weep from the hoses going into the temperature sensor housing... Although I'd have thought they'd leak under pressure rather than of their own accord. I think I'll have a shifty and put new hose clips on and inspect the ends of the hoses anyway. 

Had this on the Cappuccino.  I bought it with a known knackered water pump.  It would dump about a litre of water overnight...but oddly didn't lose a drop when the engine was running.

[N19]

9 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Had this on the Cappuccino.  I bought it with a known knackered water pump.  It would dump about a litre of water overnight...but oddly didn't lose a drop when the engine was running.

The odd thing is that it has had a new temperature sensor, water pump etc all fitted recently. It's costing a bob or two but I'm hopeful that's all the bills and service parts sorted for a while.... Ha!!!! 

[LabRat]

The mg6 is due it's first not under my ownership next month, so of course, it's started with a faint knock on the front suspension and an accompanying squeak when you lean on the driver's side wing to check... 

Everything looks ok as  best as I can check at the side of the road, so it's either an anti roll bar link at £44 or the lower control arm and bushing at a nice £234.43 + postage.

Of course, it could also be because it's an mg6 and TADTS. Let's see what the nice man at the garage says.

[HMC]

Golf v5: level unlocked

[gadgetgricey]

4 motion?

[HMC]

2 motion

[willswitchengage]

22 hours ago, Mally said:

You fit right in!

Get willswitch's bought. You'll not lose money on it.

Yeah, I am not very good at pricing am I...

[wuvvum]

The fact that £3,600 is now considered cheap for an MOT'd 2CV depresses me immensely.

[juular]

47 minutes ago, HMC said:

Golf v5: level unlocked

I love these, both in the Golf and the seat Toledo. Something addictive about the offbeat out of tune warble you get from an odd number of cylinders. 

[HMC]

I won’t but a Passat w8 would be a nice stablemate.

Then maybe an A2 3 cyl TDI then a Touareg v10. It’s like they thought let’s see how many left field combinations we can churn out, or presumably because f. Peich grabbed a subordinate by the lapels and demanded it, or his head on a spike. By the following Tuesday.

[Mally]

22 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

The fact that £3,600 is now considered cheap for an MOT'd 2CV depresses me immensely.

Me too when I got a Moggy for £950.

[dollywobbler]

23 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

I sold these new in 1987 but I guess it has been too long to remember how they felt compared to mine that I have had for 5 years, how is it different?

Is the gearchange because it is broken, modified or just different because it is a late car? 

I'm not sure why the gearchange is off. Might be from a different car as different A Series had different crank angles.

[barefoot]

My 944 failed & passed its MOT today.

The headlamp surrounds are decaying but the alignment was succesfully adjusted, the rear fog lamp is on the nearside, the left hand side, and has been since 1987 when it was built. Chap failed it, but when I pointed out there was no wiring, bulb holder or anything on the O/S he relented and it passed. 

[egg]

10 hours ago, N19 said:

Coolant woes continue. Checked the Mondeo and it appears to have leaked out overnight which is very odd, especially since nothing appears to leak when the car is running. 

Could be that there's a slight weep from the hoses going into the temperature sensor housing... Although I'd have thought they'd leak under pressure rather than of their own accord. I think I'll have a shifty and put new hose clips on and inspect the ends of the hoses anyway. 

Was the stat changed? I think an OEM gasket is recommended?

[RayMK]

I took the Tipo on a 70 miles jaunt today. It was a pleasure to have a decent and consistent clutch action with the new slave and master cylinders fitted yesterday. My trip included driving around RAF Halton married quarters where we lived in 1964-66 and again in 1972-75. It felt quite strange because the place had hardly changed, and I could vividly recall setting off to RAF Bruggen, Germany, in the back of Dad's Vauxhall Victor FB estate in July '66 for our next posting. I also drove past the church in the village of Halton where my Dad and Mum were interred in 1986 and 1992 respectively. Dad was born on 17th September 1921 and would have been 99 today. Now I'm nearly 71 ..... enjoy life whilst you can, it does fly past!

The road surfaces around Aylesbury and in Bucks generally were atrocious. If I had used my Mitsubishi Mirage it would have been unbearable. The old Tipo is good over rough roads but I still had to slow down even in that.

[Split_Pin]

Hopefully I have fixed my 75s water ingress problem. Strangely, despite the previous owner telling me that the sunroof drains had been rebuilt with straight 13mm pipe, the passenger side drain exit behind the wheelarch liner still had its original duckbill end, which had sealed shut with crud and the water was backed right up to the sunroof.

After snipping the end off, manky water gushed out and it ran clear when tested. 

Shame that the lovely leather smell inside the car has been ruined, it now smells like wet dog. The same thing happened with the Audi though, when the fusebos seal was leaking into the driver's footwell and the tyre fitter commented last week on the lovely leather smell inside so I guess it will return!

[vulgalour]

On 9/16/2020 at 7:06 PM, vulgalour said:

Finally booked the Kennedys to come out and regas the Princess.   I do hope... that the car doesn't throw any toys out the pram about it.

Me and my big mouth.  Head gasket shat itself AGAIN.  Brown coolant, bubbles in the expansion bottle, lumpy idle.

Before you ask:

• I have checked the head bolts, none were loose, all were at the relevant spec
• It was fine the last time I took it out, the coolant was still blue
• No I haven't done a compression test
• No there isn't signs of water in the oil
• Yes there is signs of oil in the water
• The quantity of bubbles increases the longer the car is running

What to do.  If it were the first failure that's easy, just bob it all back together again, job done.  Thing is it's not the first failure and I've already spent quite a bit of money on trying to fix it previously which kinda says something is wrong.  Maybe the last head skim wasn't as good as it should have been, maybe the head gasket was bad, maybe the block is damaged, maybe I did something wrong... I just don't know.  What I know is it's a repeated failure and as much as I love the car and don't want to let it go, even if I fixed it I'm not sure if I feel like I could trust it at this point.  I'll have a think about it and figure something out.

[N19]

Capri has an MoT! Rear seat belts confused the NT, as he couldn't find the exemption for them in the manual... He just put down "child seats fitted"...! 

[vulgalour]

I have made a decision and ordered a new gasket set.  Maybe I'll get lucky and it was just a bad gasket, I won't know until I pull it apart and have a look.

[egg]

Sorry to hear your woes, Vulg, but you're the kind of chap who can solve it!

I was parked up today and I saw a man in cowboy boots leaning very close to the fuel flap of his R-reg XJ Jag. I didn't think this was odd, probably checking for fumes or something, it's a an old Jag after all (in appropriately scuffed condition).  Then he did it again, and I realised he wasn't leaning over it - he was KISSING it and then he proceeded to kiss the rear window frame a couple of times too and wandered off.

That is a true story.

[doug]

Unreliable pile o shite.

Sent from my SM-J330FN using Tapatalk

[HMC]

^ was that the sump?