The new news 24 thread

[richardmorris]

I need a bilge  pump for the Mercedes

[320touring]

35 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

I need a bulge pump for the Mercedes

Surely just driving such a stylish coupé means that gent need not pump to attract the ladies?

[richardmorris]

34 minutes ago, 320touring said:

Surely just driving such a stylish coupé means that gent need not pump to attract the ladies?

Auto correct! BILGE. It’s got a small but growing fish tank in the footwells.

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, richardmorris said:

I need a bilge  pump for the Mercedes

That's never a fun discovery, especially on a relatively modern car.

Mate has a similar issue in their 2013 Octavia and has asked me if I can look at it.  I politely declined but suggested a couple of areas to check.  That's a can of worms I'm not personally opening!

It might just be a blocked scuttle drain...or it could be the bonded in windscreen coming away from the surround.  Investigation of either involves no small amount of dismantling of things that were never designed to come apart though which is no fun!

If you have a sunroof the drain tubes from that have to be a favourite to check first.

[Six-cylinder]

1 hour ago, richardmorris said:

Auto correct! BILGE. It’s got a small but growing fish tank in the footwells.

I have not been brave enough to check my 200TE, having had it repaired this year. My main problem was welding in the drivers floor.

[richardmorris]

24 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

That's never a fun discovery, especially on a relatively modern car.

Mate has a similar issue in their 2013 Octavia and has asked me if I can look at it.  I politely declined but suggested a couple of areas to check.  That's a can of worms I'm not personally opening!

It might just be a blocked scuttle drain...or it could be the bonded in windscreen coming away from the surround.  Investigation of either involves no small amount of dismantling of things that were never designed to come apart though which is no fun!

If you have a sunroof the drain tubes from that have to be a favourite to check first.

It’s the windscreen / scuttle rather than the sunroof. It is leaking into the car from the centre / heater intake area. Car is parked on a slight gradient with nearside front downhill. So I’m keeping the lake confined to the passenger footwell - carpet is out of the car anyway and mats are in the boot.  Braving the weather occasionally to wring out the cloths soaking up the water.

[captain_cal]

Trying in vain to dry out out the interior of the Porsche. It's not going well

[richardmorris]

30 minutes ago, captain_cal said:

Trying in vain to dry out out the interior of the Porsche. It's not going well

Barn looks dry at least!

[chaseracer]

On 25/09/2020 at 20:53, loserone said:

A68 is a road for pushing on not cruising anyway!

Your 205 enjoyed it on the way home from Scotoshite a couple of seasons back!

[Six-cylinder]

3 hours ago, richardmorris said:

It’s the windscreen / scuttle rather than the sunroof. It is leaking into the car from the centre / heater intake area. Car is parked on a slight gradient with nearside front downhill. So I’m keeping the lake confined to the passenger footwell - carpet is out of the car anyway and mats are in the boot.  Braving the weather occasionally to wring out the cloths soaking up the water.

So you have a beautiful stylish well maintained 320 Coupe and I have a scruffy 200TE.

Forgive me my moment of glee and gloat because it has now stopped raining, I have checked all the floors and they are all dry as a bone. We have had 3 days of rain and the car has been driven in some of it.

Now where is the mouse trap, keeping the car dry has seen a mouse move in by the evidence of chewed plastic under the drivers seat!

[hairnet]

5 hours ago, 320touring said:

Surely just driving such a stylish coupé means that gent need not pump to attract the anoraks?

 

[richardmorris]

37 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

So you have a beautiful stylish well maintained 320 Coupe and I have a scruffy 200TE.

Forgive me my moment of glee and gloat because it has now stopped raining, I have checked all the floors and they are all dry as a bone. We have had 3 days of rain and the car has been driven in some of it.

Now where is the mouse trap, keeping the car dry has seen a mouse move in by the evidence of chewed plastic under the drivers seat!

Well the mouse obviously likes it as it’s dry and not minging wet!

[richardmorris]

31 minutes ago, hairnet said:

 

I take a slight amount of satisfaction in that driving an anonymous old car attracts no attention at all.

[Aston Martin]

Just had to lob a litre of oil in the 4x4.

Leaking somewhere.

[DVee8]

The BBC seem to have put TopGear on BBC1 at 8 tonight..

[HMC]

It’s pelted it down here in Tavistock. Not an ideal location for the famously watertight* passat b5. True to form the scuttle drain was blocked and there was a pool of water sloshing about under the bonnet, with the edge of the pollen filter housing submerged.

After rodding that imagine my surprise that under the carpets its bone dry. Very untypical for these tubs. They usually weigh in quite well at the bridge as the foam backing to the carpet on average holds a million gallons of rainwater.

[richardmorris]

1 hour ago, DVee8 said:

The BBC seem to have put TopGear on BBC1 at 8 tonight..

Watching. Seems to have moved prime ministers question time back up to quality journalism

[wuvvum]

Didn't get a great deal done today due to the poxy bloody weather, but it did dry up for long enough for me to have a quick poke around the Skoda.  It looks remarkably salubrious underneath - both sills are dented near the front, presumably where some plonker has tried to jack it up in the wrong place, but there's little evidence of grot.  There was a bit of bubbling in the paint at the front edge of the offside sill which worried me slightly, but after a poke and scrape with the screwdriver it doesn't seem too major - once it dries up a bit I'll slap some Kurust on it but it should be OK.  A couple of the brake pipes could probably also do with a wire brushing, but none of them looked too bad.

It's going to need a centre exhaust hanger, and a hole in the rear silencer patching up (it's on the end plate so not bandageable but I'll slap some gun gum on it for the test).  The lights all work but a couple of the indicator bulbs will probably need replacing as they've lost their orangeness.

I drove it to Norwich and back this evening and the headlights are pants, especially on low beam - the aim seems very low which isn't helping, and the self levelling doesn't seem to do anything.  Also the dashboard illumination is going to need looking at - the rev counter is vaguely lit (which would be great if the rev counter worked) but the speedo is in complete darkness.  I think someone's had the instrument cluster out before as it felt a bit loose when I was setting the clock yesterday, so shouldn't be too hard to whip it out again and see if I can get some bulbs working.

Overall though, first impressions are that it should be quite feasible to get it through another MOT - obvs I can't comment on things like emissions and brake balance, but all the obvious bits look OK.  Which is good.

 

[Carlosfandango]

I “may” have posted this before but worth it again if I have. Blame the wine.  Just took this pic recently in local village to me (Dublin). Slammed ‘73 Imp with my humble ‘90 (previously from this parish) in the background. 
For the record, the Pug is now on 15” steelies with nice tyres and has had further suspension work to improve d’ride.. Still going like a bomb and may have some exhaust work soon.

CFD 

[vulgalour]

Been floating about in the sub-£500 end of the shite pool with half a mind of picking up a Winter Beater.  I've got two broken cars, what's one more?  Thing is, I'm hedging my bets in case when the head comes off the Princess the OMGHGF is something more involved than just a bad gasket.  A case of keeping the options open.  Trying to find anything local (less than 100 miles away) that's sub-£500 is one thing, trying to find it with an MoT is harder still, and trying to find something that has even a tiny bit of anything interesting about it without it being something I'd fall in love with makes things almost impossible.  Still, so far I did find these potential candidates.

Peugeot 106 XN Zest.  The idea of the Winter Beater is not to acquire something I'm going to get attached to and spend money on, but also something that I'm not going to be bored by.  This, unfortunately, would end up being a keeper because of the colour scheme and how much fun they are to chuck about at totally legal speeds.  I would definitely get attached to this so I'm not allowed to buy it.

Nissan Almera from 2005.  This would be the newest car I'd ever owned going by date of manufacture, to date the newest car I've ever owned was a 1997 Ledbury Maestro.  This is a pretty good candidate really, It's a nothing car that will likely be 100% reliable, in a colour I like, so by the time I was ready to be rid of it, I'd probably be bored of it.

Purple automatic 1.4 Astra.  Miserable.  However, a VERY long MoT and still has rear arches, a set of wheel trims or just chucking the ones on it and running on bare steels would make it a million times better.  I do like this era of Vauxhalls, it's one of my favourite colours for these Astras and it's probably only the automatic gearbag that would stop me from getting attached.  Tempting.

Then I sit back and think about how much this cheap winter beater is actually going to cost.  Purchase price, plus tax, plus collection, plus insurance... well by then I'd be as well paying someone to fix the Princess for me and that's proven itself a perfectly adequate winter beater several times in the past and at least I know how that's going to go wrong if it decides its going to.  I'm not really looking for another project, or another keeper, but I'd rather not drive at all than be totally bored by a silver appliance.  It's just boredom browsing, isn't it?  I have an empty parking space and feel obliged to fill it with something.  I've also learned I'll forgive a car a LOT if it's an interesting colour, except for that metallic pink Ka that needed sills, I'd totally drive around in a metallic pink Ka, it's a great colour and they're fun to drive, but I draw the line at rusty sills.

 

 

[egg]

10 hours ago, wuvvum said:

I drove it to Norwich and back this evening and the headlights are pants, especially on low beam - the aim seems very low which isn't helping, and the self levelling doesn't seem to do anything

Probably worth deleting the switch to avoid an MOT fail. Quick google suggests it is a TADTS

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/83783-skoda-felicia-headlight-adjustment/

[wuvvum]

Hydraulic headlight levelling?  FFS. I thought this was going to be a simple car to work on. 

Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a go if it ever stops raining.

[paulplom]

At lidl. Are these worth 60 quid? 14ah is massive isn't it?

[Stanky]

11 hours ago, Carlosfandango said:

I “may” have posted this before but worth it again if I have. Blame the wine.  Just took this pic recently in local village to me (Dublin). Slammed ‘73 Imp with my humble ‘90 (previously from this parish) in the background. 
For the record, the Pug is now on 15” steelies with nice tyres and has had further suspension work to improve d’ride.. Still going like a bomb and may have some exhaust work soon.

CFD 

OOOOF. I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again but I would dearly love an Imp/Chamois/Stiletto and those wheels are FIT. Want. 

[Yoss]

On 10/3/2020 at 11:06 AM, wuvvum said:

Look what I've found. 

That's funny you should get that because I went to look at this yesterday. 

At a deliberately unshite price, in fact about £500 more than I've seen any other Felicia for but as proper good ones are very rare now I thought I could at least make an offer. It's a pre face-lift GLXi too so it's quite a desirable spec (in Felicia licking circles anyway, not for the general public) 

Dealer plates with matching rear window sticker. 

It was really good but not £2.5k good. Still the best I've seen for a while but the front panel was bent under a headlight, there were a fair few stonechips and a small blister on one rear arch. It was very small but once they start you can't stop them. I've tried it on my own car, as soon as the blisters appear grind them out, add Kurust and paint but they always come back. The guy certainly seemed like a dealer but was affable even after I'd said it was too much. I said £2k was more realistic and he said he wasn't going to budge from £2.5 and said he'd rather keep it. I suspect he will have it for some time. 

He had an interesting collection of cars. There was some modern stuff but the majority was 90s stuff. Here's a few random shots. 

I'd say most of it was a bit overpriced, except the breadvan Polo's perhaps as they would have scene tax added elsewhere anyway, but they were all good tidy examples of their type, and they are all the type of thing that you can't just go and buy good ones of anymore so if you really want one they probably aren't overpriced. I kind've got the impression he's using the sales of newer cars to fund his habit for old chod and he doesn't really want to sell them. 

If you see anything you fancy they are here:

[High Jetter]

I know they're tight up there, but he is surely trying to extract the urine.

[Ghosty]

For £3k I'd want that Polo to be a GT. 
There was a GT for £2000 on eBay a couple of months ago, and non-GT 1.0s and 1.3s (and GT swapped 1.0s) seem to be in the 1-2k bracket. 

[Mrcento]

I must have been unconscious for a decade.

When did Felicia's become even a 2 grand car?

Wasn't all that long ago i was looking at similar around the 6-800 mark. Low mileage, years MOT. That price explosion totally passed me by.

[Yoss]

I've seen (not physically on t'internet) four in the last year around £1500. At £1500 I would have bought the one above. Probably would have at £1750 but that would be my limit. 

You can still get them for £300 but they look like £300 cars. But even then not very often anymore. 

Out of interest how much would a really good Cinquecento or a mk1 Panda fetch these days? I know Felicias are a few years behind those but people are starting to realise how good they are. 

[dozeydustman]

This is my next three days