The new news 24 thread

[captain_70s]

Dolomite lines are utter garbage, especially the doors.

My car was significantly longer from the bulkhead forwards on one side too, despite no evidence of being bumped. It was just built squint.

[davehedgehog31]

7 hours ago, Agila said:

Tadts.

Mine had both side cables done, New shoes etc, and yes the discs were a bastard to get off. My indy lexus specialist charged £500 with a fresh mot ticket.

He said the cables were £200ish lexus only so don't know where you got yours from?

Unfortunately it's a lexus/toyota thing, they make no allowance for the age and mileage and also make a repair sheet very expensive.

 

 

I only replaced the OS one and paid £75, there are 3 in total so £200 sounds about right! I think I managed to get it through after that fail for somewhere between £500 and £600, which I'd have taken after the Lexus dealers estimate. 

Unfortunately we don't seem to have any Toyota specialists up here, not that I could find anyway.

Most of the undertray bolts sheared, so will need to get the drill and cable ties out and improvise. With that said it really is in very good nick underneath, as JP commented it's nice to work on something that isn't filling your eyes with rust flakes. 

[SiC]

32 minutes ago, captain_70s said:

Dolomite lines are utter garbage, especially the doors.
My car was significantly longer from the bulkhead forwards on one side too, despite no evidence of being bumped. It was just built squint.

Being mines a '74 the tooling wasn't that old (by BL standards). I dread to think how badly things got nearer the end of the cars manufacturing run and trying to make things fit. Not least (iirc) the tooling had been carted between different factories too. It's a wonder they managed to make them fit together at all by then.

No wonder they kept going on strike. 😆

[HMC]

Rather like a scaglietti bodied Ferrari.*

*but in Birmingham and with 8 less cylinders

[Split_Pin]

I had a look at the Audi exhaust today. Some pictures are upside down, because they probably are. It was raining and I was busy with the Civic at the time so just kind of waved my phone under the car whilst tapping blindly at the screen to take a photo

The downpipe is toast but I have a good spare.

The cat looks OK however the rearmost part of it has been badly sleeved to presumably cure a blow.

The middle section is toast at that part and the rest of it is rotten but not yet blowing. It appears to be joined to the cat section by 2 clamps.

The rear section is not separated from the middle by a join so the whole lot will have to go.

So I have bought a middle section for a 2.0 for £68 posted which *looks* like it will fit.

Once I have this I'll lay it under the car and see where joins need to be made. I might just get a new cat section as well as those on ebay look the same as the one on the car. I can bolt it to the replacement downpipe as well to check it actually fits to that part.

If that all lines up then I'll get a back section and at that point I can be confident that it will go on without too much faffing and that is garage would be able to do it.

If not, some or more Scotoshiters may be mysteriously washing their hair that, and indeed every night for the foreseeable!

[Carlosfandango]

Anyone for a boat anchor? Sadly - mostly due to its previous ‘car enthusiast’ custodians, this is locked / rock solid and will go under the bench for a rebuild next year. The Lancia spare is being put to good use. 
 

CFD 

[New POD]

11 hours ago, SiC said:

Factory Dolomite swage lines. Top line the door is too high, bottom line the door is too low.
At least I can stop stressing about getting them fractions of a millimetre accurate! 🤣

That's the quality of steps and gaps we used to get on Thrust Reversers. 

 

[catsinthewelder]

9 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

I might just get a new cat section as well as those on ebay look the same as the one on the car. 

I'd be careful about that as replacement cats for most stuff are utterly shite and might cause you emissions problems at the MOT.

[Split_Pin]

I know but in the absence of an alternative I'm not sure what else to do.

[Lankytim]

“It’s completed fucking fucked m8, big time”

Carried on stripping this Volvo B20 engine today, the diesel did nothing to free off the pistons but I hoped they’d pop out with a block of wood and some hammering after I removed the crank. 
 

Things all came apart reasonably well but the pistons simply won’t budge, up or down. I was hoping at least one or two would come out but they’re all absolutely solid in the bores. 

The crank doesn’t look too bad but has bits ground out of the webbing, the connecting rod caps have also been numbered, perhaps it’s been rebuilt before and the cranks been balanced. 

I did find some damage that might be terminal, a cracked cylinder liner. The corresponding piston has some bits of skirt missing and appears to have melted, it also looks crooked in the bore, very odd. This damage would’ve certainly prevented the engine from running, or it would’ve at least been pretty obvious there was something drastically wrong. The previous owner couldn’t remember why he parked it up in 1986, this may well be the reason. 

I’m unsure if cylinder liners are available or even removable, I’ll have to look it up and make a decision on the engines future then. 

[Asimo]

That looks like a one-piece cast iron engine block, ie not seperate liners. Also, that crank; those ground out areas look like they have created some nasty stress-raisers. Probably ready for the re-cycling smelter.

[Cheezey]

17 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

I had a look at the Audi exhaust today. Some pictures are upside down, because they probably are. It was raining and I was busy with the Civic at the time so just kind of waved my phone under the car whilst tapping blindly at the screen to take a photo

The downpipe is toast but I have a good spare.

The cat looks OK however the rearmost part of it has been badly sleeved to presumably cure a blow.

The middle section is toast at that part and the rest of it is rotten but not yet blowing. It appears to be joined to the cat section by 2 clamps.

The rear section is not separated from the middle by a join so the whole lot will have to go.

So I have bought a middle section for a 2.0 for £68 posted which *looks* like it will fit.

Once I have this I'll lay it under the car and see where joins need to be made. I might just get a new cat section as well as those on ebay look the same as the one on the car. I can bolt it to the replacement downpipe as well to check it actually fits to that part.

If that all lines up then I'll get a back section and at that point I can be confident that it will go on without too much faffing and that is garage would be able to do it.

If not, some or more Scotoshiters may be mysteriously washing their hair that, and indeed every night for the foreseeable!

I have a set of four piece drive on ramps somewhere you could borrow if that would make the exhaust easier? 

[RobT]

Nice R8 m8.

[Cheezey]

6 minutes ago, RobT said:

Nice R8 m8.

Thanks. Unfortunately that is a very old photo. Crazy to think the car was probably only about 8 years old at point. Like a ‘13 plate now!

[richardmorris]

Saw my parents again this weekend for  the first time in months. 

[dean36014]

Anyone feel brave and fancy gambling 30 quid? Free shipping apparently although god knows what the custom charges would be if it actually turned up. I'm guessing if it's paid via PayPal you'd have some protection in the event of it being a scam.
https://marterco.com/products/ezylift-3000-tipper-car-lift?fbclid=IwAR0EniiLYaxtsuyWzs1fanHMAyIp-3iRovt7SBvJb9i0SFXSj5-KmaDHxdQ

[Cheezey]

21 minutes ago, dean36014 said:

Anyone feel brave and fancy gambling 30 quid? Free shipping apparently although god knows what the custom charges would be if it actually turned up. I'm guessing if it's paid via PayPal you'd have some protection in the event of it being a scam.
https://marterco.com/products/ezylift-3000-tipper-car-lift?fbclid=IwAR0EniiLYaxtsuyWzs1fanHMAyIp-3iRovt7SBvJb9i0SFXSj5-KmaDHxdQ

Looks familiar 

 

https://www.autoliftproduction.com/en-gb/autolift3000

 

[stuboy]

Back at sunny leysdown taking the cladding off..

[sdkrc]

36 minutes ago, dean36014 said:

Anyone feel brave and fancy gambling 30 quid? Free shipping apparently although god knows what the custom charges would be if it actually turned up. I'm guessing if it's paid via PayPal you'd have some protection in the event of it being a scam.
https://marterco.com/products/ezylift-3000-tipper-car-lift?fbclid=IwAR0EniiLYaxtsuyWzs1fanHMAyIp-3iRovt7SBvJb9i0SFXSj5-KmaDHxdQ

It's a scam I'm afraid. 

The site was created a month ago, there's buttloads of malware and the prices are far too low

[richardmorris]

11 minutes ago, sdkrc said:

It's a scam I'm afraid. 

The site was created a month ago, there's buttloads of malware and the prices are far too low

Seems we’re back to the old “ if it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and swims like a duck. It’s a duck!”

[dean36014]

Pretty much as I thought but nice to have it confirmed

[richardmorris]

20 minutes ago, dean36014 said:

Pretty much as I thought but nice to have it confirmed

I got caught out last year by a kitchen goods website linked to from bbc. They recommended a Black Friday deal for a food processor that I’d been looking to buy all year. So i didn’t do enough checking. The scam buster on YouTube Jim browning, got scammed himself last month and lost his you tube account.

[richardmorris]

Just watching an extremely interesting YouTube with Gordon Murray at Harry’s garage. He has no time for style in place of engineering. I pass his new campus ( ex BOC Linde group in windlesham, across the road from Brian may’s place) every day.

 

 

[stuboy]

Funky wallpaper revealed...

 

 

 

[wuvvum]

1 minute ago, stuboy said:

Funky wallpaper revealed...

 

Nice to see that after all that graft you still have enough energy to teach your lad "I'm a little teapot".

[Fumbler]

That wallpaper looks so good! A lot better than the wanky wood cladding they put over it.

[stuboy]

12 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Nice to see that after all that graft you still have enough energy to teach your lad "I'm a little teapot".

essential trainings

[sdkrc]

'Back to the Future' is particularly apt for that décor

[wuvvum]

Got relatively little done this weekend due to shite weather (seems to be something of a Leitmotiv for this summer*).  I dragged the Benz onto the drive to make a start on tidying up the bodywork, but ended up sat inside giving the interior a clean.  Some of it has come up fairly well, but there are areas that are just worn - the car has done over 200K and the W220 wasn't exactly a high point in terms of Mercedes build quality.  The plastic surround for the headlight switch in particular had "done a Fiat" and gone all sticky, although I managed to get most of that off.

When it eventually dried out a bit I took a big screwdriver to the loose paint on the rear arches and door bottoms and chipped it off, with occasional assistance from a hammer.  The metal underneath was somewhat pitted in places so I took a flap wheel to it (borrowed my mate's grinder as it has a trigger switch like a drill so is easier to modulate - mine has an on-off switch on top which is less than ideal) to get the worst of it off, then rust-treated it and ran a thin skim of filler over it to smooth it further.  Handily I found a new unopened tin of filler in the boot of the Rover.  It still needs rubbing down and priming, then I can spray it when the rattle can of paint I ordered off eBay arrives.  It's never going to be immaculate but if I can get it looking OK from 10 feet away then that will do.

I spent a bit more time trying to work out what the issue is with the Rover's electric windows.  I've come to the conclusion that it's definitely the BCU playing silly buggers rather than the switch pack in the driver's door.  Replacement BCUs are not expensive but they need programming in with the correct software, so I'd need to find somebody who has said software and could do the necessary for a few beer tokens.  Bloody moderns...

I forked out just over a fiver last week for a new adaptor cable for the stereo in the Swift.  It arrived yesterday and I fitted it today - it's done the trick, the radio now stays on as it should and doesn't switch itself off over bumps.  I still need to sort the exhaust blow - it's blowing around the ends of the cat, I've found a front section with cat (presumably non-type-approved but meh) on eBay for 28 quid so that might be the way to go - although I have spent a distressingly large proportion of my summer so far buggering around with exhausts, which are not exactly my favourite job.  The Swift is still draining its battery too, so I need to investigate that - or just remember to pull off the earth terminal when I'm not going to be using the car for a week or two.

[stuboy]

12 hours ago, Fumbler said:

That wallpaper looks so good! A lot better than the wanky wood cladding they put over it.

gradually cigarette smell is fading