The new news 24 thread

[eddyramrod]

1 minute ago, Shite Ron said:

Practical Classics was delivered today, good to see @eddyramrod on page 47.

I'd better go and buy one!

[richardmorris]

Just now, eddyramrod said:

I'd better go and buy one!

As long as it’s not the readers wives section.

[dome]

6 hours ago, Mally said:

I'd be frightened of going up to the next notch.

My arse was tweaking a bit but I just very carefully counted to 4 as I rolled it up🙈

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, eddyramrod said:

I'd better go and buy one!

Mine's in the hall, will turn to that page first for tonight's bedtime reading. 47, you say?

[LightBulbFun]

6 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Pez station shot.

No it's not a new purchase, quite the opposite, but today was the first time I'd filled it up at an actual petrol station in about 15 years so thought it worth documenting the occasion.

Awesome! glad to see you are hanging onto it for now and have pushed on with sorting it out  

(thats not to say I dont still want it LOL, still think it would be great for slushing around London in and just the right amount of shabby for street parking here)

[High Jetter]

14 hours ago, Shite Ron said:

Practical Classics was delivered today, good to see @eddyramrod on page 47.

Am disappoint he didn't get more space, but still an achievement.

[wuvvum]

This hasn't happened in a very long time.

[wuvvum]

Oh I do like, etc etc.

[GingerNuttz]

Polishing up well enough.

Fair bit of polishing left but it's coming up well enough.

Couple of nibs I've missed I need to re flat 

One of the last resprays I'll be doing then I'm sticking to welding.

(posted this in the grumpy thread by mistake 😑)

[Back_For_More]

Finally decided to stick to a fleet type thread..... 330ci brakes almost done after me being a dork and forgetting the new calipers I had in the stash. 

Rain buggered up playing all day..... But only 1 rear to sort and then Mot final prep 

[HMC]

just done a buy. Price point where I can take a gamble on its condition.

[richardmorris]

1 minute ago, HMC said:

just done a buy. Price point where I can take a gamble on its condition.

Perfect for ripping a wing off in a field 

[Broadsword]

Finally I have solved (I think), the reason why the XJR6 manual manages to be both tight as a drum yet is ever so slightly wayward on the road.  It has all new joints, springs, dampers and bushes throughout the chassis. Turns out these £125 a set Powerflex polyurethane upper wishbone bushes are completely the wrong size and allow several mm lateral movement of the front wheels all over the shop. Shocking.

 

 

[stuboy]

Galaxy next too a 'mini'... more maxi...

[mat777]

Went to view a car today and got a full tour around the seller's collection. Really nice guy! He took me out for a spin in (on?) his 1911 Hudson "Mile a Minute" Speedster, now that was an experience 😎 

Also managed to do "parking rules  applied" in the Aldi carpark with the Land Rover

 

[hairnet]

17 minutes ago, mat777 said:

Went to view a car today and got a full tour around the seller's collection. Really nice guy! He took me out for a spin in (on?) his 1911 Hudson "Mile a Minute" Speedster, now that was an experience 😎 

Also managed to do "parking rules  applied" in the Aldi carpark with the Land Rover

 

is that in case you needed a push

 

[wuvvum]

Well today has been a day of firsts.  And lots of driving.

As alluded to above I took the 164 for a drive this afternoon - its first "proper" drive in about 15 years.  12 miles covered at NSL speeds (where giffers permitted) and it drove beautifully - in fact I'd venture to say it's running the best it ever has in my ownership.  This has made me almost irrationally happy - I've procrastinated so much and nearly given up on the car so many times that to actually have it properly back on the road and usable again is fucking amazing.  In fact, this is going to sound really pathetic, but when the speedo needle hit 60 for the first time in over 15 years I actually got a bit emotional...

The new front tyres are great, way more grippy than the ancient Michelin ZXs that were on there before.  It behaved perfectly - no overheating, no sticking brakes, no conking out or spluttering.  The only thing that went wrong was that a couple of miles from home on the way back, the viscous fan started rattling - it does that if I don't oil it regularly, and I'd completely forgotten to do so before I went out.  I think in the medium term I'm going to take it off and replace it with an electric fan - you can buy new viscous clutch assemblies but they're a bit spendy. 

The brakes pull a little to the left under harder braking - a consequence of the offside rear brake not doing anything - but it's not dramatic.  The brake pedal feels fine and the car will stop plenty quickly enough when needed.  I've come to the conclusion that the non-functioning rear brake is due to a seized load sensing valve (there are two valves, one for each side).  I found a pair of used but working valves for 20 quid on eBay so I'll be fitting those at some point once it warms up a bit.  I also need to sort the headlights as they are temperamental - I think it's the relay, it's an overly complicated 8-pin job which again are £££ new so I think some rewiring to take a "standard" pair of relays may be in order.

I've also done 25 miles in the Visa today - I took it up to the coast again this evening, it was running fine so I kept on going and went to see a mate.  Then drove home again in the dark and wet.  Again it ran fine taking into account the fact that it still needs a tune-up, but everything worked and it never showed any sign of conking out.  I've also got the heater working - I hadn't realised that the slide on the dashboard wasn't actually moving the linkage under the bonnet, so I moved that manually to open the heat exchanger flaps and now it's lovely and warm.  Headlights are great and the wiper is perfectly adequate, although I had to fit another new blade as the one I fitted when I first bought the car was already falling to bits.

I popped the bonnet when I got home just to check that nothing had fallen off, and there was quite a lot of oil around the nearside of the engine bay.  It appeared to be coming from a breather pipe that I'd forgotten to connect to the air filter housing - the actual quantity of oil wasn't huge (the level on the dipstick had barely moved) but because the pipe terminated right near the cooling fan it'd been blown all over the engine bay.  I've now fitted the pipe properly and will have to see if that's sorted the issue.  The engine has been somewhat over-filled with oil which may be why it's chucking some out - I might drain a bit out of the sump when I get a minute.

Not a great deal of fettling done this weekend but I did get one of the front hubs off the MG.

It was a bit more involved than I'd anticipated but not too traumatic.  I've not managed to get the nearside hub off yet though - the bottom ball joint doesn't want to come out, I've been given a few ideas to try but I ran out of time today so that will have to wait until another day.  I might take the offside hub in to the garage tomorrow anyway - they're a bit of a faff to refit so I only want to do it the once if possible, and I don't want to leave it sat with no front wheel for too long.

I also swapped the wheels on the Rover 75 front to back - I prefer to have the bigger tyres on the front, the speedo is more accurate that way and because the rear suspension sits so high it makes more sense to have the lower profile tyres on the back to level things out a bit.  I took that for a drive today as well to put some charge in the battery - it really is nice to have it back on the road.

[Lankytim]

Brilliant news all round there, @wuvvum! Reading stuff like this really spurs me on with my own projects, talking of which a nice box from ECAS showed up the other day full of 2CV parts. The weather has been shite recently but this afternoon the sun was out so I got the cover off the 2CV and got fitting. 
 

The engine was warmed up and the oil drained, while it was emptying I replaced an engine mount and removed and replaced the leaking master cylinder, the removed pedal box/master cylinder combo looking a bit like a big dead lobster or something . A new filter and fresh oil was added to the engine and it was run up to check for leaks. I haven’t bled the brakes yet as I had to get ready for work but I don’t foresee any real dramas. Another few jobs off the list. Fingers crossed I’ll be getting that 60mph buzz soon too! 

[Wibble]

Brilliant news @wuvvum, I too felt emotional when I drove the Senator on a run after a similar amount of time off the road and found myself doing 90.mph without realising, so quiet and smooth. Great progress on your others too.

[SiC]

Bought a radio for the TT. First time I've bought an aftermarket radio in almost two decades. Has Bluetooth audio, handsfree and all that good stuff. Also has a built in phone mount which is handy as the TT doesn't have any great places to mount a phone.

 

Just need to figure which fitting kit I need for the Bose equipped setup in the TT.  

[Six-cylinder]

31 minutes ago, SiC said:

Bought a radio for the TT. First time I've bought an aftermarket radio in almost two decades. Has Bluetooth audio, handsfree and all that good stuff. Also has a built in phone mount which is handy as the TT doesn't have any great places to mount a phone.

 

Just need to figure which fitting kit I need for the Bose equipped setup in the TT.  

Yes but where does the cassette slot in!

[Six-cylinder]

8 hours ago, wuvvum said:

As alluded to above I took the 164 for a drive this afternoon - its first "proper" drive in about 15 years.  12 miles covered at NSL speeds (where giffers permitted) and it drove beautifully - in fact I'd venture to say it's running the best it ever has in my ownership.  This has made me almost irrationally happy - I've procrastinated so much and nearly given up on the car so many times that to actually have it properly back on the road and usable again is fucking amazing.  In fact, this is going to sound really pathetic, but when the speedo needle hit 60 for the first time in over 15 years I actually got a bit emotional...

It is so good to see you have fallen in love with it again.

8 hours ago, wuvvum said:

I've also done 25 miles in the Visa today - I took it up to the coast again this evening, it was running fine so I kept on going and went to see a mate.  Then drove home again in the dark and wet.  Again it ran fine taking into account the fact that it still needs a tune-up, but everything worked and it never showed any sign of conking out.  I've also got the heater working - I hadn't realised that the slide on the dashboard wasn't actually moving the linkage under the bonnet, so I moved that manually to open the heat exchanger flaps and now it's lovely and warm.

My 2CV heater control seized a couple of times and I had to call for that great engineer from the South @richardmorris to free it it for me. My Visa Twin ran out of MOT during first Covid and has not been used since so when I get it out I may need to call on that great engineer from the East to free it up. 

[SiC]

17 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

Yes but where does the cassette slot in!

[HMC]

Patinated ADO16; 1977? No, try 2021.  it’s being delivered for that London on Thursday. Photos by previous owner.

 

[Sham]

Today, my 13 year old 130k mile Skoda Octavia passed it's MoT on the first attempt with advisories for some tiny cracks in the tyres between the tread (they're Avon's, TADTS) and corroded rear arms. 

Both of which are only there so the garage had something to write down and are extremely nitpicky.

Happy days.

 

[GingerNuttz]

Outside pics.

Oh how far the Clio of the lake has come 🤣

[dozeydustman]

Three Saabloads of junk to the tip today enabled this:

Now Cindy Citroën has her house.

Also did a few more checks on it, I need 2 new tyres as I hadn’t noticed the other day one of the rears is the original Michelin Energy with a 2006 date stamp on it. Loads of tread but it’s cracked a bit too much for my liking. Along with the spare having never been fitted I can imagine that will be a ballache to get out the cradle. I’ll do some shopping around but when I had the silver C2 I was mega impressed with the Vreidesteins I got for that.

Front tyres were about 6psi down each, so they have been pumped up and the fluid levels checked.

Cindy was the name given to the car by the previous owner, so Mrs D has decided to keep the name.

[Split_Pin]

21 minutes ago, GingerNuttz said:

Outside pics.

Oh how far the Clio of the lake has come 🤣

Looks well!

Is the owner of that 900 a boy called Gary?

[GingerNuttz]

7 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Looks well!

Is the owner of that 900 a boy called Gary?

Aye it's Gary's car, he needed a corner welded for an MOT but he's wanting it restored in the future.

Someone had made a total arse of the back corner 

 

Tacked on arch panels and patches over holes, first pic is the arch where it meets the bottom of the quarter panel, they couldn't even be arsed finishing the weld 😑 

Oh aye and the sheet metal tek screws just slammed through the panel.

He should have it back at 5pm tonight 

 

[D.E]

A short while ago I brought the Peug to a garage for a couple of jobs I don't have time for myself atm, and today this happened:

https://www.gooieneemlander.nl/cnt/dmf20230313_49967786

Not really something for the grumpy thread as this could have ended a lot worse for the 205 (the cars in front of the garage were far enough away from the fire and do not seem to have been damaged) and the mechanic (who inhaled smoke and is in hospital now), but I think it is safe to assume that this workshop can't be used for a while...