The new news 24 thread

[wuvvum]

I'm not* jealous at all.

[wesacosa]

Mrs W looked out the window this morning and noticed some neighbour pointing at the fleet of AS cars lined up outside our house in disgust to her husband.  Why the fuck do people get so worked up at three taxed and insured older cars parked legally on the road.  Its not like I live on a posh estate where everyone drives range rovers and I never park them directly outside anyone else house yet people still seem to take offense.   We once had someone knock at the door (thankfully when I was out) asking about my intentions for my old Sierra which was legally parked outside my own house, but not being used.  All it does is make me tempted to buy another just to piss them off

[MJK 24]

On 1/27/2022 at 7:31 AM, Jazoli said:

You cannot compare modern cars to older stuff, modern vehicles have so much more crash protection built in, plus they have things like abs pumps, multiple ecu's etc etc, FYI the new 'E'  Berlingo weighs 2.4 tons.

That’s almost certainly them quoting the gross weight instead of the unladen weight.  I imagine it probably weighs around 1,800kg giving it a 640lkg payload.

[High Jetter]

29 minutes ago, wesacosa said:

some neighbour pointing at the fleet of AS cars

If it upsets her that much, perhaps she'll move. Sure she wasn't admiring the fleet?

[Jamie]

Give the tt another wash down and wax. Cleans up well for a 20 year old car which has covered 150k 

[Spurious]

6 minutes ago, Jamie said:

Give the tt another wash down and wax. Cleans up well for a 20 year old car which has covered 150k 

It's a classic shape as well, hides it's years really well. Proper Bauhaus Audi, last of the small grilles. 

[Jazoli]

19 minutes ago, Jamie said:

Give the tt another wash down and wax. Cleans up well for a 20 year old car which has covered 150k 

Looks great, I'm not 100% on the wheels but it's not my car, if I could find a nice auto coupe I'd happily have another one.

[Jamie]

1 minute ago, Jazoli said:

Looks great, I'm not 100% on the wheels but it's not my car, if I could find a nice auto coupe I'd happily have another one.

Yeah I think they are a little less boy racer than the ones fitted previously? 

Quite rare normal auto ones in the mk1, dsg v6 ones aside. 

[Jazoli]

Just now, Jamie said:

Yeah I think they are a little less boy racer than the ones fitted previously? 

Quite rare normal auto ones in the mk1, dsg v6 ones aside. 

Haha yeah I kept my thoughts on the other wheels to myself as I didn't want to cause offence

Auto Mk1's are indeed rare, I wouldn't turn down a V6 but I'm not a fan of the DSG box.

[Jamie]

Just now, Jazoli said:

Haha yeah I kept my thoughts on the other wheels to myself as I didn't want to cause offence

Auto Mk1's are indeed rare, I wouldn't turn down a V6 but I'm not a fan of the DSG box.

Don't worry, I appreciate your thoughts and opinions, at least I know your not just saying things to be cuntish. 

I dread to think what a vr6 dsg would do mpg wise on your short commute though! 

[wesacosa]

1 hour ago, High Jetter said:

If it upsets her that much, perhaps she'll move. Sure she wasn't admiring the fleet?

haha that was my first thought

[Jazoli]

14 minutes ago, Jamie said:

Don't worry, I appreciate your thoughts and opinions, at least I know your not just saying things to be cuntish. 

I dread to think what a vr6 dsg would do mpg wise on your short commute though! 

It wouldn't matter to be honest, I now do a 2 mile round trip each day rather than 20, so mpg is pretty much irrelevant as it costs less than a fiver a week whether I use the 2.0t Saab or the 2.4L 5cl petrol auto S80  I was going to buy an electric push bike but the £1000 purchase price would cover my fuel costs for work for 4 years, plus I would get cold and wet, so I haven't.

[chancer]

Had a FTP on friday, van lost all electricity. Fine one minute, dead the next. Thought turned to alternator or battery, but on inspection found this

Battery negative terminal has multiple strands broken and looks pretty messy. Anyone had any experience of issues like this? Plan is to renew the terminal tomorrow as its only a couple of quid. Cant find mutimeter to check output from alternator. Typical

[Rusty_Rocket]

I think once you've repaired that, your electrical woes will be gone!

[chancer]

8 minutes ago, Rusty_Rocket said:

I think once you've repaired that, your electrical woes will be gone!

Fingers crossed. Van is up for sale. Typical but im glad it broke while still here. I would be mortified if it happened to a new owner

[BorniteIdentity]

5 hours ago, chancer said:

Had a FTP on friday, van lost all electricity. Fine one minute, dead the next. Thought turned to alternator or battery, but on inspection found this

Battery negative terminal has multiple strands broken and looks pretty messy. Anyone had any experience of issues like this? Plan is to renew the terminal tomorrow as its only a couple of quid. Cant find mutimeter to check output from alternator. Typical

Exactly the problem I had with my Mini.  Totally dead when I wanted to take it for an MOT so put jump leads on and away we went.  Found out later that the MOT man had to jump it to get it off the ramp(!) and was completely fucking confuddled as to what was up.  Turned out it was deteriorated wires on the earth strap - £7 on a new one and it spins like a Tasmanian Devil now.  Cheap simple fix!  Use a booster cable from the negative terminal to a known ground - that will rule it in/out.

[chancer]

11 minutes ago, BorniteIdentity said:

Exactly the problem I had with my Mini.  Totally dead when I wanted to take it for an MOT so put jump leads on and away we went.  Found out later that the MOT man had to jump it to get it off the ramp(!) and was completely fucking confuddled as to what was up.  Turned out it was deteriorated wires on the earth strap - £7 on a new one and it spins like a Tasmanian Devil now.  Cheap simple fix!  Use a booster cable from the negative terminal to a known ground - that will rule it in/out.

Cheers, some great info there and gives me some hope. I will give that a try tomorrow. Its 2 quid for a new heavy duty negative terminal and hopefully stripping the cables back gets me a clean enough connection

[gm]

just casually looking at mx5s for sale and I happened to look up the mot history on this one

https://www.facebook.com/commerce/products/4508518492593119

somehow it gets a massive fail sheet then a clean pass within days - must be a restoration god working in that garage

same story a couple of years ago, mega fail to pass in a couple of weeks

last comment on fail sheet is quite something  

I don't think I will be buying this one

[wuvvum]

Didn't get a great deal done this weekend as yesterday was a bit* breezy and today it took me ages to get up and running.  I did do a temporary* fix to the holes in the LDV's rear doors using a bit of aluminium sheet I found - the smaller hole in the nearside door was fixed by tapping a bit of sheet in between the inner and outer door skins and then going over it with fibreglass filler; the larger hole was just under 6" square and has been covered using a slightly larger square Tiger Sealed into place.  Once that's dry I'll skim it with filler as well.  It's not ideal but it'll keep the weather out, and it's never going to be an immaculate van anyway.

The main thing I wanted to get done this weekend was to get the Daihatsu and the Rover up on the ramps to give them a quick look over in advance of their upcoming MOTs.  I didn't find anything disastrous - the Daihatsu is going to need a tyre, a front indicator bulb as it's lost its amberness (annoyingly they are modern wedge-type bulbs which I don't have, not bayonet type which I have in abundance) and the exhaust is blowing slightly on a join - I'm not sure whether this will be a fail or not as it's after the back box so it's not really any louder than it otherwise would be, and I don't think it's blowing enough to affect the emissions.  I should Gun Gum it up but there was so much condensation coming out when I had the car on the ramp that there's no way the Gun Gum would have stuck.

The Rover is going to need three tyres - I'd hoped I could get away with two but the offside front has now perished to the point the cords are visible, so I'm going to have to find another tyre for it from somewhere (the local garage doesn't have any in the right size).  It's also going to need the handbrake sorting this year I think as that is now utterly shit.  I've given the headlights a polish so hopefully they'll be OK, and I couldn't see anything else obvious that it'd fail on, although there is more surface rust under there than I'd ideally like.

This evening I went in to Norwich in the Daihatsu and on the way home I took a detour to look at the business park where the company I work for is going to be moving to later this year.  I wanted to scope out the parking as apparently the office car park is too small to fit everyone - unfortunately as usual with business parks everywhere is double yellows, so that's going to be fun.  The route took me up the bypass and I took advantage to give the Charade a good caning - it still surprises me how nippy it is, even at dual carriageway speeds, and I think it also surprised the chap in the Mk6 Golf who tried and failed to out-accelerate me away from a roundabout.  If it passes the MOT I'm going to treat it to a gearbox fluid change though as it did smell a bit of hot ATF by the time I slowed down.

[Ghosty]

After the rest of my house was redecorated late last year, the time came for me to move/reorganise all the shite I've hoarded and have my room done up too. A new bed frame was proposed, as well as carpet to match the rest of the house, a repaint, clean up, and so on. The house has a lovely grey de Stijl inspired look now. 
We have a small room that had been used as a spare bedroom that got zero use so it's now just storage/office space - I managed to get my record collection moved in there and out of my bedroom which saves masses of space, and makes my room a lot more airy - I moved my desk to a much better space, and most importantly, there's now space for a double bed, which I've never had. 

So it's off to Ikea for a browse on Friday night - I find something I like to fill the space but it's out of stock. Check online, Leeds and Warrington have it in, so I figure I'll head off to Leeds the day after. Besides, I have  a mate that lives in central-ish Leeds that I can go and see. 
I spent Saturday changing the oil and fuel filters on the silver Civic hatch, and fitting one of those air horn kits I had lying around, as the original horn was a bit paltry, and a bit rusty. It was a very easy installation as there was a vertical crossmember between the radiator and the crash bar with holes in it that all the horn brackets mounted to quite happily, in place of the original horn - assisted by the fact the square nut on the back of the crossmember for the original horn chose to come unbonded instead of releasing the nut, leaving a convenient larger hole to mount the compressor. I have some polybush trailing arm bushes to fit too, and someone I know that's selling up his Civic stuff is selling me a few things - including some lowering springs, a set of Monroe dampers that the folks are buying off me for the grey Civic, and a set of VTi wheels that I'm having. The silver Civic is a great daily/project - it's tidy enough and runs well, but has no history and has a few livable quirks so it's a great daily to mess about with. 

Anyway, with some bits fettled it was off to Leeds in the silver Civic. 
Ikea's stock checker had its head up its arse and kept changing between in and out of stock, but I figured I'd go anyway as my local Ikea is much worse for stock than any of the other three local ones (Leeds, Warrington and Sheffield). However when I got there I found that the bed I wanted came as two separate articles, the sides and the head/footboards - the website didn't detail this, you couldn't look them up individually, and it transpired the headboards were in stock but they had run out of sides as they were common to several different mattress sizes. The information computer in the store said it was out of stock but could be ordered for delivery - online, it said you couldn't have it delivered. The staff wouldn't order it for me and were generally unhelpful and shrugged things off instead of trying to help me. 
So I went home, but having seen some of the boxes I had a suspicion they wouldn't have fit in a hatch Civic anyway. 
I had a look at more beds in the Leeds Ikea to consider other options, and found one that would work and suit the room - Warrington was the only Ikea close by with it in stock. It was very late in the day by now so I headed home and left it at that.

Sunday rolls around, and I headed to Warrington and finally managed to pick up everything I needed to have a double bed - the bed, mattress, sheets, duvet, and a load of storage boxes too, some for elsewhere in the house. It was bloody tiring work - I can't advise going to an Ikea wearing a thermal baselayer and a fleece lined jacket.

I mentioned I didn't think these would fit in a three door hatch Civic... some measuring occurred before my trip to Warrington and I was very very right. 

I've posted on here before about how a 6ft long desk fit in my saloon Civic... yeah, I took that.

 

 

Hmmmmmm.

 

Didn't even have anything on the front seats. 

It's genuinely impressive what this car can carry for its size. When I realised the Civic saloons had folding seats, I knew they were the perfect car for me, and that continues to ring true. R8s pale in comparison.

It was turning heads all day too which was nice. 
Alas, the clutch, which has never been in good health as long as I've owned the car, because giffer (it needs 2000rpm to get off my sloped driveway then usually stalls trying to pull away in first, then kangaroos or bogs out of junctions until it warms up), didn't take well to the car being fully loaded, and was slipping badly on the flat in 3rd and 4th at 30mph. Eesh.
The clutch is categorically shagged, but despite that it's still an amazing car to drive, like nothing I've had before - I can't imagine how much better it'll be with a new clutch.

I have a mate that can weld, and he said he's going to be in Manchester this week (he's in Bristol) and offered to weld the E34's sill - which will enable it to go for an MOT once the battery is charged. 
I think I'm going to put the E34 up for sale once it's MOTd - as much as I'd like to keep it, I think I'd rather stick to the two Civics for a bit and put some of the proceeds of selling the E34 towards getting my saloon Civic a clutch, seeing as there's no way that one's going anywhere, ever. 

 

[Inca-mpetent]

Why does this Opel Rocks-e remind me of something?

Sent from my Redmi Note 9 Pro

[High Jetter]

It has a French 'friend':

Very similar, but the door hinges seem to have moved.

[Inca-mpetent]

It has a French 'friend':

Very similar, but the door hinges seem to have moved.

Ah yes, "friend" and stablemate

Sent from my Redmi Note 9 Pro

[Inca-mpetent]

It's going to be our 'Ami' for now

Even has different trim levels

The 'Klub', which will be Grey
And the 'Tekno', which will have yellow skidplates

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[Metal Guru]

24 minutes ago, Inca-mpetent said:

It's going to be our 'Ami' for now

Even has different trim levels

The 'Klub', which will be Grey
And the 'Tekno', which will have yellow skidplates

Sent from my Redmi Note 9 Pro
 

Misread that as Tenko. I was thinking , what would a trim level named after a Japanese prison camp, look like?

[Inca-mpetent]

Misread that as Tenko. I was thinking , what would a trim level named after a Japanese prison camp, look like?

It being sparse?
Wait a minute........

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[reb]

Today's job is to get the 850 spares car ready to scrap. There's almost nothing of any use or value left on it, but it's still quite sad to see it go. Lots of happy memories in that car! Some would say the 2.5 10v is under powered, but for a 21/22 year old wit a fresh pass it was perfect. Faster than any of my friends cars at least!

The alloys it's going away on are the second set of that type I've got rid of, I don't know where this set came from. They just turned up in my unit in 2020! In any case I used up all of the tyres on them, so they've served their purpose. If you gave them to me, thank you!

[wuvvum]

4 hours ago, Inca-mpetent said:

stablemate

Possibly not the best choice of words to describe the Ami...

[Inca-mpetent]

Possibly not the best choice of words to describe the Ami...

Okay, okay, I yield......
Instablemate

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[Lankytim]

A neighbour recently dug a couple of old looking metal boxes from the back of his garage and offered them to me. Apparently they belonged to his Dad who died back in the 1970s and have been sat around ever since. I’ve finally found time to have a good look through and there’s some useful items but a lot that will probably get binned. There are what appears to be tyre levers which might come in useful, plus a tiny KING DICK adjustable spanner. The boxes themselves are interesting, I’m told they might be military as the Neighbours dad made them during the war in a factory in Birmingham. They certainly have a slightly odd shape, maybe they’re meant to be bolted to a vehicle of some sort.

I can’t be the only one who loves sifting through boxes of junk?