The new news 24 thread

[kirton]

Following on from BrownNova's post:  on Saturday I went to Camborne for Trevithick Day, the first for two years.

The Trevithick Society were running their replica of Trevithick's 1801 Puffing Devil up a street in the old fashioned way;  no barriers with pedestrians walking on the road and cars parked on one side.

The replica looks like the only change from 1801 spec is a better pressure gauge and I would imagine a modern safety valve - just as well at 100psi and the redline at 120psi.

Boy did it shift;  you'd neeed an Olympic sprinter in front of it with the red flag, made some wonderfull noises as well.  I had a big grin on my face.  Beats a sedate trundle by of traction engines.

 

 

 

[wesacosa]

18 hours ago, wesacosa said:

do you even start a job you really wish you hadn't.  Trying to find source of a wet footwell in the XM and took the brake doseur valve off to check the rubber gaiter there.   After about an hour of trying to get the bloody bracket back on I set the torque wrench wrong and sheared one of the bolts clean off.  Stupid idiotic mistake I am kicking myself for.  Not sure how to sort this one.  Don't trust myself to drill and tap and think it too small for a stud extractor.  After the stupid amount of hours I have spent on this car I just want to cry

Well I'd done a right good job of snapping it off

despite not being able to get great access (surprise surprise) I managed to tap it around with a center punch and a drift enough to just get enough thread exposed to get the grips and then standard pliers on it.   Thankfully because I snapped it whilst tightening and not trying to undo it didn't fight too much.  now just got to try and find replacement, as no doubt they are obsolete from PSA 

[Mr Pastry]

15 minutes ago, wesacosa said:

now just got to try and find replacement, as no doubt they are obsolete from PSA 

Just a standard metric cap screw surely?  Not even very high spec if it's broken like that.  Shouldn't be a problem. 

[wesacosa]

yeah hopefully.  I like to get (ripped off for) OEM parts if I can but perhaps a I can find a replacement

[stuboy]

Today's job was to look at the blow in the exhaust.. it needs ideally welding... so bodge wit paste and wrap. 

 

[Split_Pin]

Big shout out to everyone in my street who thinks this delivery is for me (it isn't)

 

[Tickman]

14 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Big shout out to everyone in my street who thinks this delivery is for me (it isn't)

 

Hope you've been out for a chat

[Split_Pin]

4 minutes ago, Tickman said:

Hope you've been out for a chat

I may do later if it hasn't moved. The tow car is nice too, an old LandCruiser.

"Listen mate, sorry, I'm afraid I'd been drinking heavily when I bid on it".

[reb]

Successfully serviced this 1.6 FSI Octavia with no problems at all other than some fiddly screws on the air filter housing.

Only spilled a little bit of oil.

[Yoss]

My mum was recently quoted £800 for a pair of headlights for her Micra CC. I've no idea if that's what they cost or not but I said you could get headlight restoration kits. I'd never used them because I only drive quality* cars with glass headlamps but offered to give it a go. How hard can it be? 

This is the before shot, it doesn't really convey the state of them. Not just the colour but the texture. They were really rough. 

The slightly worrying bit is that you have to make them considerably worse before they get better. 

This is the Auto Glym kit. Comes with 800 and 1500 grade sanding discs, then 2000 and 3000 grade foam pads and finally a sponge mop with allegedly special polish which I think is just fancy T cut. There are cheaper options but it had everything in one pack and £25 is a lot cheaper than £800.

Anyway it worked. 

 

So I thought whilst I'm there we'll do step dad's Pug 207. They weren't nearly as bad to start with but they still came up nice. 

Before 

After

 

 

Oh by the way, the pictures of my mums Micra had the bonnet open. With it shut you'll note the quality decoration. 

These are all round the front and rear lights, door handles and badges. Now you know where I get the hankering to drive round in unique cars. I think mine are far more tasteful unique cars but other opinions are available wrong. 

[Yoss]

12 minutes ago, reb said:

Successfully serviced this 1.6 FSI Octavia with no problems at all other than some fiddly screws on the air filter housing.

Only spilled a little bit of oil.

 

 

So that 1.6 FSI looks like a close relative of the ARC in my Fav which is from a late 90s Polo GTI. Do you know the engine code? 

[reb]

10 minutes ago, Yoss said:

So that 1.6 FSI looks like a close relative of the ARC in my Fav which is from a late 90s Polo GTI. Do you know the engine code? 

The engine code is BLF I think.

[Yoss]

10 minutes ago, reb said:

The engine code is BLF I think.

Thanks, don't you just love VW engine codes. 

[HMC]

Random spots yesterday  (note menacing Cadillac in the background )

[Wibble]

1 hour ago, Yoss said:

My mum was recently quoted £800 for a pair of headlights for her Micra CC. I've no idea if that's what they cost or not but I said you could get headlight restoration kits. I'd never used them because I only drive quality* cars with glass headlamps but offered to give it a go. How hard can it be? 

This is the before shot, it doesn't really convey the state of them. Not just the colour but the texture. They were really rough. 

The slightly worrying bit is that you have to make them considerably worse before they get better. 

This is the Auto Glym kit. Comes with 800 and 1500 grade sanding discs, then 2000 and 3000 grade foam pads and finally a sponge mop with allegedly special polish which I think is just fancy T cut. There are cheaper options but it had everything in one pack and £25 is a lot cheaper than £800.

Anyway it worked. 

 

So I thought whilst I'm there we'll do step dad's Pug 207. They weren't nearly as bad to start with but they still came up nice. 

Before 

After

 

 

Oh by the way, the pictures of my mums Micra had the bonnet open. With it shut you'll note the quality decoration. 

These are all round the front and rear lights, door handles and badges. Now you know where I get the hankering to drive round in unique cars. I think mine are far more tasteful unique cars but other opinions are available wrong. 

Just done the same with our Bini. No need to buy a kit, see my thread for cheaper way. Just 3k grit and compound that I already had👍

[stuboy]

Found these in a muddy wet box at deceased uncles garage floor..

 

[NigeT]

Managed to acquire this gem whilst under the influence last night for the princely sum of £250 from an even drunker mate who wanted it off his driveway.  Been sitting since last summer when my pal replaced it with an E39 estate & forgot about it. Started and run fine off my CLK battery & brakes don't seem to be seized. Hope to book it in for an MOT in the next couple of weeks to get it to my olds & see what it fails on. Underside seems pretty solid. Perfect present for my old man to replace the Rover that will hopefully end up on here.    

[vulgalour]

1 hour ago, Yoss said:

I really like that colour, no sense in having a modular Micra in a boring shade, you don't have a car like that to blend in.

[RoverFolkUs]

2 hours ago, Yoss said:

My mum was recently quoted £800 for a pair of headlights for her Micra CC.

Was it a chain garage, out of interest? I find it absurd that a garage wouldn't suggest mopping them instead of buying new headlights presumably from the stealers!

[stuboy]

19 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Big shout out to everyone in my street who thinks this delivery is for me (it isn't)

 

Sprint?

[Yoss]

30 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

I really like that colour, no sense in having a modular Micra in a boring shade, you don't have a car like that to blend in.

It was beige originally but she had it painted this colour. I thought it was a Honda Jazz colour but I'm doubting myself now, perhaps it was a Suzuki colour. I can imagine an Alto in this colour. Either way you're right, it's an improvement on beige. 

21 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

Was it a chain garage, out of interest? I find it absurd that a garage wouldn't suggest mopping them instead of buying new headlights presumably from the stealers!

I don't know where it was but she was never going to pay it anyway. 

[High Jetter]

3 hours ago, HMC said:

Random spots yesterday  (note menacing Cadillac in the background )

Sod the Caddy, sad Porter seems shy of the kerb. Or taste.

[Split_Pin]

3 hours ago, stuboy said:

Sprint?

Not sure man, I don't know much about these. My wife drove past it on her way back to work after lunch and said it was full of holes along the bottom. Hopefully it's being saved, nobody on the Scotland Rover Facebook page has owned up to it yet though.

[wuvvum]

Been having a look over the newly-purchased Peugeot 107.  I've done a couple of minor bits to it - got the radio working again (one of the wires had come out of the plug in the back of the unit), fitted new wiper blades and adjusted the rear wiper so it wipes the screen rather than the tailgate.  It really is quite amusingly basic - electric windows and central locking are all you get, there isn't even a courtesy light switch on the passenger door.

Most of the MOT issues don't look too bad.  The brake pipe is a bit annoying as it's just gone in the usual place - the final inch before the rear flexi - but because it's one pipe from front to rear with no joins and I don't have the wherewithal to flare steel pipe I'm going to have to replace the whole thing.  The welding is a hole around 2" by 1" in the rear of the nearside inner sill, which will probably only cost about 60 quid even if I get the garage to do it.  The brake imbalance issue I reckon was a result of it having been taken for a test after sitting for 3 months as the brakes seem fine now and the car pulls up in a straight line.

Of more concern is the EML, which has come back on a couple of times.  I plugged the laptop in and apparently it's a fault with the ROM in the ECU, so not the nice easy sensor I was hoping for.  It's an intermittent light and sometimes it goes out of its own accord - I think I'm just going to have to take it for a test and keep everything crossed that it doesn't choose that moment to come on, 'cos I'm fecked if I'm paying for a new ECU.

I had a crack at polishing the Mazda 121 this afternoon.  Bits of it are actually coming up OK, but other bits are completely beyond hope.  It's had some paint applied at some point, and I don't know what sort of paint it was but it's faded badly and gone weird in places and it won't polish up.  So it looks like the rough-as-a-badger's-arse look is here to stay...

This evening I've been attempting to dismantle the Volvo's carbs for a good clean up.  I got the tops off OK (and discovered a split diaphragm in one which may have been what was causing the running issues) but the float chambers won't come off - I've got the screws out and I can wiggle the bowls back and forth but they won't part company with the carb body - apparently there's a plug which goes over the jet and I think this is getting stuck somehow.  I'm not quite sure where to go from here - I can clean the main jet from the top but that doesn't get rid of any mank in the float bowl, and anyway I'm going to need to fit new gaskets before I put the carbs back on the car as otherwise they're going to piss fuel out.  So I'm a bit stuck at the moment...

I seem to be getting increasingly absent-minded.  On Sunday afternoon I opened the passenger door of the LDV to borrow one of its speakers to put in the Pug.  On Sunday night I went out to retrieve my laptop from the Pug and found the LDV's door still wide open - it'd been that way for at least 8 hours and the interior lights had run the battery down.  Good job I live in a safe area...

[Split_Pin]

Dropped the red forum bike Saab 93 off for its MOT. I know it needs a few bits, hopefully it will all be more or less an expected outcome.

[AnnoyingPentium]

15 hours ago, Yoss said:

My mum was recently quoted £800 for a pair of headlights for her Micra CC. I've no idea if that's what they cost or not but I said you could get headlight restoration kits. I'd never used them because I only drive quality* cars with glass headlamps but offered to give it a go. How hard can it be? 

This is the before shot, it doesn't really convey the state of them. Not just the colour but the texture. They were really rough. 

The slightly worrying bit is that you have to make them considerably worse before they get better. 

This is the Auto Glym kit. Comes with 800 and 1500 grade sanding discs, then 2000 and 3000 grade foam pads and finally a sponge mop with allegedly special polish which I think is just fancy T cut. There are cheaper options but it had everything in one pack and £25 is a lot cheaper than £800.

Anyway it worked. 

 

So I thought whilst I'm there we'll do step dad's Pug 207. They weren't nearly as bad to start with but they still came up nice. 

Before 

After

 

 

Oh by the way, the pictures of my mums Micra had the bonnet open. With it shut you'll note the quality decoration. 

These are all round the front and rear lights, door handles and badges. Now you know where I get the hankering to drive round in unique cars. I think mine are far more tasteful unique cars but other opinions are available wrong. 

Excellent work there.

I did the same with the Fabia. The difference at night was startling, but they were getting bad again within a few months (probably an issue on my end tbh) and I just whipped the lights off when ECP had one of their never-ending 45% off sales.

[Split_Pin]

Pass for the Saab. 

The wheelbearing is annoying me though, going to get that sorted at a later date.

[SRi05]

4 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Pass for the Saab. 

The wheelbearing is annoying me though, going to get that sorted at a later date.

I was going to quote you earlier saying it would probably need a coil spring. It's needed at least one the past few MOT's. Absolutely loves them.

That's a result though ! chuffed it's still going man

[sierraman]

11 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Not sure man, I don't know much about these. My wife drove past it on her way back to work after lunch and said it was full of holes along the bottom. Hopefully it's being saved, nobody on the Scotland Rover Facebook page has owned up to it yet though.

He looks insane, get him out for a drink. 

[Saabnut]

2 hours ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

Excellent work there.

I did the same with the Fabia. The difference at night was startling, but they were getting bad again within a few months (probably an issue on my end tbh) and I just whipped the lights off when ECP had one of their never-ending 45% off sales.

 

Once plastic lights have been polished, they need a coat of UV resistant clear laquer on them to stop them going the same way in short order.