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2 hours ago, richardmorris said:

Should anyone have watched top gear yesterday, the two lancias are looked after by All Italia in wrexham that now do my x1/9.

also, this is a link to car sos on the jenson interceptor that I saw at goodwood last November. Not watched it yet, but I may be in the background on the track.

 

https://dai.ly/x801mds

 

https://dai.ly/x801mds

I had Top Gear on in the background last night, wasn't really paying attention. Then those two Lancias appeared and my attention was aroused. I was very disappointed when they spent about 10 seconds on them and 55 minutes faffing about in their so called midlife crisis cars. Why go to all the trouble of getting them there and then practically ignore them. They have their priorities seriously wrong. 

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1 hour ago, dollywobbler said:

Headed up to North Wales today for a bit of colour. In the Matiz. It's last long drive was up to North Wales in November. 500 miles between the two visits. Midlands tomorrow where the Matiz will receive some bodywork TLC.

 

IMG_20210405_160247.jpg

Would that be at DFTR ? I was round there a couple of weeks ago and they said that you were expected. They are doing a bit of welding for me the end of the month for the Mot. Great guys.

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2 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

Headed up to North Wales today for a bit of colour. In the Matiz. It's last long drive was up to North Wales in November. 500 miles between the two visits. Midlands tomorrow where the Matiz will receive some bodywork TLC.

 

IMG_20210405_160247.jpg

Hang on... I recognise those cars.... 

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Had a 5-day weekend but didn't get as much done on the fleet as I might have - Thursday I was mostly playing with pushbikes (although I did finish installing the wiring for the diesel heater in the Trafic), Friday I did my annual spring clean of the house which I finished on Saturday morning, and today the weather was shite.

Saturday afternoon I jacked the petrol C2 up and took the wheel off to have a look at the brake and work out what tools I'd need.  The caliper retaining bolts were Torx and really fucking tight - I actually bent my expensive chrome vanadium T45 bit undoing the top bolt.  As it turned out I didn't actually need to take the caliper off, but hey ho.  Sunday morning I had a nice lie in, eventually got up and mowed the lawn, then went down to the car park to carry on with the C2 brake.  It turned out that what was causing the brake to bind was the pads being completely stuck in their carrier - the HBOL said "withdraw the pads" but didn't mention having to use a rubber mallet to get them out.  The problem was that the pads had gone rusty all round the edges - I imagine they'd been in there a long time, there's still plenty of meat on them but I don't think the rear brakes do a lot of work in a car like the C2.  So I sanded the rust off, re-greased the pads and refitted them - they went back in with just finger pressure so I'm going to call that an improvement!  It's going back in next Monday for the sill to be welded and then a retest, so I'll find out then if I've mended it or not.

While I was in brake mode I decided to try the vacuum bleeder on the front calipers of the 164, having had no luck with the rears last week.  The results didn't look particularly impressive with the fronts either - just a big stream of bubbles coming out of the bleed nipples, in fact a couple of them were only giving air.  I even took the offside caliper off to turn it "upside down" (technically the right way up as it's actually a nearside caliper fitted upside down) so I could bleed it properly, but that made little difference.  So I gave up, put the bleeder away and went on to the next task, which was to get the Innocenti out of the garage then shove the Volvo in there so the Innocenti could come onto the drive for a bit of fettling.  The Innocenti started up after a bit of cranking and drove happily out of the garage where it's been since October.  The Volvo also fired straight up and reversed out of the drive, but then as I drove off down the road I discovered, much to my surprise, that I actually had a brake pedal.  Not a brilliant one - I certainly wouldn't want to attempt an emergency stop from 70 - but for driving the few hundred yards to the garage at 15mph and then manoeuvring in the brakes were quite adequate.  I resisted the temptation to take it for a longer spin down the road, but it's certainly encouraging for whenever it comes out of the garage again (probably once the Innocenti is MOT'd).

Monday I got very little done due to the fact that it was howling a gale and snowing on and off - I did give the Innocenti a quick wash to clear the dust and cobwebs off, and had a quick rifle through the boot - finding, to my annoyance, that having just bought a set of front brake pads off eBay there was actually a set already in the boot - whether they were ones I'd bought years ago and forgotten about or ones that were in the car when I bought it I have no idea.  Anyway, the ones I've just bought are the same size, so that's encouraging...  About the only other thing I got done was to take the carb off the Spacy ready to be stripped, cleaned out and put back together again (properly this time, with the diaphragm that I forgot to put back in last time I cleaned it out :oops: ) which should hopefully see that running again.

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Well fuck. 

Another garage has let me down with the Cavalier.

Promised it would be ready today. I had been corresponding with the chap via WhatsApp so sent him a message at 3 o'clock today asking how things were going with the car.

I'll take the absolute radio silence to mean 'haven't even touched it'.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE???

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11 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Well fuck. 

Another garage has let me down with the Cavalier.

Promised it would be ready today. I had been corresponding with the chap via WhatsApp so sent him a message at 3 o'clock today asking how things were going with the car.

I'll take the absolute radio silence to mean 'haven't even touched it'.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE???

I know my favourite local garage is up to the eyeballs in work at the moment. MOTs have eased off massively but loads of general work and the results of deferred maintenance, now that people are starting to go out more again. 

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20 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Since I got the same excuse from my usual garage on week 1 and again on week 4, resulting in nothing done at all, I'm understandably irritated by this situation.

"Probably be Monday"  was his eventual response. 

I'll give it till Monday then its coming back and I'm selling it to someone that can fix it themselves. Its been one big pain in the arse, through no fault of the car but I just don't need the hassle.

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Boxster went in for its MOT today.
8569ea1d611b969fe8e54fe69c9a11d5.jpg

It passed its with a clean sheet.
9dec7c450e42d5fbc1371388cef153e0.jpg

Emissions were respectable. Lukewarm engine going by the test time.
0cfca1b94ba0a397f5e1076a14535608.jpg

Also got fresh oil + filter and inspection service. 9 litres of the stuff. Cheapest Porsche C40 approved oil was a big tub of MANNOL. £30 for 10 litres - a good quarter the price of official Porsche branded oil.

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24 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Since I got the same excuse from my usual garage on week 1 and again on week 4, resulting in nothing done at all, I'm understandably irritated by this situation.

If what I've been seeing the last couple of days are anything to go by it's going to be the norm for a while...had to negotiate three broken down cars in awkward places today alone.

Get the feeling folks have just gone out again the millisecond they're allowed, and cars aren't too happy at having barely moved in months.

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I've had my 305 van for about twenty years and when I got it the drivers door would drop and the top corner would hit the frame. About 8 years ago I thought it was about time to do something about it so I purchased two new pins. After fitting it made no difference at all. Bugger. So I gave up for 8 years until yesterday, don't want to rush things, when I decided plan B would have to be dusted off. Off with the door card, a 5min job coz none of those pesky electrickery things, loosen the two bolts holding the hinge and slip a shim into the hinge. What a lovely thunk now. I must have opened and shut it twenty times just to hear it. You can't beat the sound of a car door shutting nicely. Why I left it 20 years when it took no more than an hour I'm buggered if I know. 

Oh, and another thing. When I imported it in 2010 I got an E prefix plate which is 1988, which it is, but mine is December 88 which would make it an F as E stopped in August. I wonder if I could get an age related plate. They've also put it down as a GLD which I reckon is wrong. I'm sure mine is a GRD, base model, as I don't have carpet, rubber mats, plain door cards, no decadent rear wash wipe or intermittent front wiper. Bastards, upgrading me from base. Who do they think they are ?

Just looked out the window. Kin ell ! It's a snow storm.

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Her next door had a empty washer bottle on her mercs cause she could not get the 2nd latch undone . When i opened the bonnet , she headed straight for the brake resoiviour !!!! , Er no , how about this blue top over here with the washer symbol  , good thing the 2nd latch worked ..

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13 minutes ago, MikeR said:

Her next door had a empty washer bottle on her mercs cause she could not get the 2nd latch undone . When i opened the bonnet , she headed straight for the brake resoiviour !!!! 

I did that once, fortunately I realised straight away.  That was a fun half hour syringing screenwash out of the brake fluid reservoir!

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21 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

Headed up to North Wales today for a bit of colour. In the Matiz. It's last long drive was up to North Wales in November. 500 miles between the two visits. Midlands tomorrow where the Matiz will receive some bodywork TLC.

 

IMG_20210405_160247.jpg

Calendar shot Shirley?

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Travelling back from college to home and doing some commuting racked up 199 miles and I used around 28 litres of petrol. Not good, my sticking caliper is now hurting my fuel economy. Something I should probably fix now.

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3 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Sounds positively frugal to me!

Heh, this is true, it's just a positive indicator that the problem with my front brakes is worse than originally thought, which is good motivation to "fix the bastard" at the end of the week.

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3 hours ago, puddlethumper said:

I've had my 305 van for about twenty years and when I got it the drivers door would drop and the top corner would hit the frame. About 8 years ago I thought it was about time to do something about it so I purchased two new pins. After fitting it made no difference at all. Bugger. So I gave up for 8 years until yesterday, don't want to rush things, when I decided plan B would have to be dusted off. Off with the door card, a 5min job coz none of those pesky electrickery things, loosen the two bolts holding the hinge and slip a shim into the hinge. What a lovely thunk now. I must have opened and shut it twenty times just to hear it. You can't beat the sound of a car door shutting nicely. Why I left it 20 years when it took no more than an hour I'm buggered if I know. 

Oh, and another thing. When I imported it in 2010 I got an E prefix plate which is 1988, which it is, but mine is December 88 which would make it an F as E stopped in August. I wonder if I could get an age related plate. They've also put it down as a GLD which I reckon is wrong. I'm sure mine is a GRD, base model, as I don't have carpet, rubber mats, plain door cards, no decadent rear wash wipe or intermittent front wiper. Bastards, upgrading me from base. Who do they think they are ?

Just looked out the window. Kin ell ! It's a snow storm.

I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure GR is above GL, at least it was on 405s. The base 405 around that time was the GE.  In 88 I was fully invested in company car hierarchy and I know my 1.9 GRi was only bettered by a GTX. The 1.6 GL was on the same list as 1.6 L Cavalier, Sierra, Montegos and the GR was the GL equivalent.

 

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LS400 is going into the garage tomorrow. It repaid my excitement about going straight through the MoT then having an oil change by dropping out on half its cylinders, seems like a coil pack has failed. The exhaust heating up to cherry red and then splashing through puddles on the slow journey home doesn't seem to have done it any favours either, I'm hoping they can weld it up.

Hoping to drop into a real post office later in the week so I can get the Laurel swapped over to historic tax.

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