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This may be a bit new, but I spent the afternoon replacing the front shocks on the Doblo. Why?IMG_20230211_145524.thumb.jpg.0d179d4ef34ec91b7d18b40418b230f1.jpgIMG_20230211_142855.thumb.jpg.b065211d1f9ef27e6cfbd7029e826a69.jpg

The ARB link ripped itself out of the shock. Which was put on the car by the previous owner in July 2021. As the other side did the same thing, and got welded back together last summer I decided to replace both sides with new. The old ones were JapanParts in case you're wondering.

It gave me a chance to try out the new spring compressors I bought 18 months ago and never used IMG_20230211_145536.thumb.jpg.664aeb6883976b5790bcb55db9b0f8fe.jpg

I have to say they felt safer than any other compressors I've used, although I usually borrow a spring station.

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On 10/02/2023 at 18:22, Lankytim said:

Camskill never responded to my email about the 20 month old tyres so I took that as a big middle finger to the idea of getting them replaced. 

As the tyres were cluttering the place up I decided to fit them. Getting the old tyres on and off by hand was pretty easy once I’d broken the bead in a suitably padded vice. Soap was used to pop the new tyres on but no matter what I did I couldn’t get the first tyre to bead properly so I could inflate it. A quick YouTube tutorial later and I discovered that the tyre could be pushed onto the bead with suitable support (in this case part of the towing dolly)and the other side could then be massaged onto the opposite wheel bead enough to take air. Soon all tyres were fitted and the 2cv is now sporting a set of new(ish) hoops! 

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20 months old would be a big improvement on the ones on my 2CV! 😂

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3 hours ago, trigger said:

Dolly looks a bit salty! Swapping the 2.0 16v for something a bit more reliable?

Ha! Nah this parts car is having its engine off to a new home northwards. I had to take some panel cuts but it's really too rotten on bits that I need. 

As this is a very late car (registered 1982!) I guess the factory workers CBA. There is literally no rustproofing on the inside of this front piece I cut off.

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3 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Excellent work. Did the front panel just come off in your hands?

Pretty much! It was only really being held on by the welds on the wings. I cut along there and the front left fell off, with the right hand side just needing a bit of back and forth action to snap it off. 

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7 minutes ago, junkyarddog said:

What make are they?

They are just Neilsen ones from Amazon, so they got a careful look over when bought to make sure the bolt and nut had no play and that the jaws were properly finished off. But, so far, so good. They were really bought for my Saab 96, which has rather frightening springs, but that hasn't made any progress for a while.

They are a copy of a Laser item, but that's about 5 times the price.

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IMG_20230211_225145_070.thumb.jpg.59d8d79e612932860da40ccf1aaa7b35.jpg

 

Yesterday was one hell of a day. Sold the green MX5 to a lad from Portsmouth who met me in Northampton and had a handshake so firm I'm pretty sure it dislocated my little finger. 

Then bought a Civic, go figure. 

It's had a lot spent on it, the girl selling it was working in a technical role for the Mercedes F1 team and pretty hands on, she's done the cambelt, all the servicing etc for it to need nothing for a long time. The owner before her had had it since 1994... 

It supposedly had a fault where it didn't like starting when it was cold, but was fine when it warmed up - it would turn freely and had spark etc, but wouldn't fire. She suspected it was the coil and had rebuilt the whole distributor. 

Jumping it off another car didn't help, while we tried to work out what was up we left it connected to the other car. There was a non-zero chance that the cambelt had jumped teeth - but it'd have to have been a big jump for it to not fire at all, and that didn't make sense if it was turning freely. Despondent, gave the key one last turn and it just started instantly. 

There was one thing she hadn't replaced. 

 

 

A fucking Lion battery. 

 

Got the car home as it's far too good to pass up - going to change the battery and see what happens. It can't be much. 

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13 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

Booked in to see a potential new car for stepdaughter tomorrow. 

Turned out to be some wannabe car trader on F*cebook muppetplace. No history, short MoT. C3 up for £1200. Clutch rattling, big dent in a door. Drove ok but better out there for the same money.

Gutted I missed out on Stanky’s Skoda - only saw the post after it was sold.

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3 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

Turned out to be some wannabe car trader on F*cebook muppetplace. No history, short MoT. C3 up for £1200. Clutch rattling, big dent in a door. Drove ok but better out there for the same money.

Gutted I missed out on Stanky’s Skoda - only saw the post after it was sold.

Sorry chap, I was astonished how quickly it sold on Gumtree, thought it'd hang about for a bit. Probabaly underpriced in in retrospect!

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57 minutes ago, BeEP said:

Took the trailer for a morning out to Hertfordshire and somehow this followed me home...

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I should probably make an effort to update my thread, because a month ago this did the same...

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Was that the one on the 1100 club classifieds? If so I kept looking at it and was rather tempted!

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1 minute ago, SiC said:

Was that the one on the 1100 club classifieds? If so I kept looking at it and was rather tempted!

Yep.  It's a bit lot of a shed; one owner until 2020 doing progressively less mileage, with their garage presumably cobbling it along from one MOT to the next.  I went and looked at it two weeks ago and walked away, but a week later the seller got back in touch and offered it for just over half the original asking price.  Still not sure it was worth it, but an afternoon's tinkering has got it running and mechanically it seems quite good (except the blowing exhaust, which I was warned about).  Given you like to get the bodywork on your classics just right you did well to avoid this; you'd have been working on it long into your retirement!

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For the last few weeks the XC90 hasn’t done the bulk of the work, it’s done all of it. A lack of time to do anything with any other car meant that easiest was the only way. Anyway now the pesky school inspectors have fucked off I had a couple of hours to use doing something car related. The 2CV is out of MoT next week, and last time I went to use it the battery was dead and the interior had got damp when I stored it outside for a couple of weeks and therefore was a little mouldy. Fast forward three weeks and… 

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Yeah that’s grim, 

So it was a couple of hours cleaning. 
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Turns out the inside had got quite grubby, I felt like it needed mopping out!

From there it was MoT checks, one rear light had a bit of a loose connection, and the fog light wasn’t working (wiring not the bulb). Those were sorted. But the non working screen wash was not, not quite sure why that’s not working. But other than that… nothing obvious. 

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4 hours ago, BeEP said:

Took the trailer for a morning out to Hertfordshire and somehow this followed me home...

173884253_FRO186Karrival.thumb.JPG.61ea2509d9d89381d5c81254f670bd53.JPG

I should probably make an effort to update my thread, because a month ago this did the same...

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Ooh!  Limeflower?

Definitely need more on the Montego as well.  A diesel estate is still on my bucket list.  Is the Transit yours as well?

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Did a bit of pottering with the fleet this weekend but I really couldn't be arsed to attempt any big jobs, so the Rover 75 has sat untouched.  Yesterday I had a bit of a play with the MG - I took the front wheels off to investigate how much of a pisser it'd be to remove the hubs so I can take them to the garage and get new bearings pressed in.  Most of the bolts look like they'd come undone with a bit of persuasion, but the top ball joint nut on both sides is rusty AF.  I've given them a liberal dousing in Plus Gas and left them - I'll try cracking them off another day.  While I was on wheels I got the two locking wheel nuts off the back after some hammering, and all four locking nuts have been replaced with normal ones.

Then I backed the car up onto the ramps to have a proper look at the exhaust blow.  It's blowing from the join between the cat and the silencer - there is very little left of the bolts (if indeed that's what they were) and the chances of getting them out were pretty much zilch, so I found three small G clamps and stuck them on the flange next to the remains of the bolts - once tightened they held the exhaust together a bit better, there's still a blow but it's a bit quieter than it was.

I've actually been wondering whether the wheel bearing noise on the front is actually the tyres - they are 10-year-old Kormorans and are both cracked and rock hard.  The noise definitely sounds wheel bearingy but the sound doesn't change under cornering load which I'd normally expect with a noisy bearing.  I might try fitting the spare wheel onto the driver's side next time I get a spare half hour to see if that changes anything.

After that I gave the Toyota a wash, then I brought the MG round and gave it a very quick one-bucket wrong 'un to get the worst of the dirt off - I need to do some paintwork rectification on it at some point and that's easier to do when it's clean.  And that's all I could be arsed to do yesterday.

Today I've mostly been playing with the Visa.  It's back together again - I'd removed and dismantled the carb to see if I could find any reason the needle valve might not be closing, but I couldn't find anything obvious - the float is moving freely and the valve is doing what it should - with the carb up the right way I can blow into the fuel inlet, with it upside down I can't.  There was some crud around the base of the valve in the fuel inlet pipework which I've cleaned out, but nothing else untoward that I found.  The carb is now back on and the car is running on the original mechanical fuel pump (which should in theory be lower pressure than the electric pump it's been running on until now), with a fuel filter added into the line for good measure as it's hitherto been running filterless.  I've also refitted the bonnet latch so the bonnet now closes properly rather than relying on the emergency catch to stay closed.  The carb hasn't flooded again since I reinstated the original fuel pump, although that doesn't mean owt as before it'd sometimes run for 15-20 minutes before flooding and conking out.  I ran out of time to take it for a drive so that'll have to wait for another day.  It now won't idle off choke though, which is a bit strange - it idles fine on choke when cold but as soon as it warms up having the choke on makes it splutter and eventually conk out, as you'd expect.  I might try the easy way out of adjusting the idle via the screw on the throttle stop - it's going to be a pain in the arse having to keep blipping the throttle to keep it running.

I think I may have killed the battery on the Maxus.  I went to visit a mate in it on Friday evening - I had to jump start it, nothing unusual there as it doesn't get used very often and it has a minor battery drain somewhere which I've not been able to find.  When I left my mate's to come home though, there wasn't enough in the battery to start the van, despite having driven 12 miles just a few hours earlier.  My jump pack was also nearly flat so my mate had to fire up his car and put jump leads across - which will have endeared me to his neighbours given that it was gone 1am by then.  I stuck the battery on charge overnight and it just about had enough guts to start the van this morning, but I'm not confident that it's holding a charge properly.  I've disconnected it and I'm going to try it again tomorrow morning - if it's gone flat on its own I know it's shagged.  It's mildly annoying as I only bought the battery a few months ago, but it's probably partly my fault for letting it go flat over the winter.  I do have a plan though - I have £75 worth of lifestyle vouchers from work which can be spent, among others, at Halford's.  A new 110 battery with a 3-year guarantee is 91 quid - with vouchers applied that results in a net cost to me of £16, and if the van does kill it I can just take it back and get a new one...

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