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Father Ted

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Well, I got the terracan, nice old thing by all accounts, but I thought I would bang it on gumtree and see what happened. Bloody hell! I could have sold it 10 times, the nearest person wanting it was from Manchester, everyone else London. Why is a 10 yr old thirsty left hooker Hyundai with a noisy diff in north of scotland such good news to Londoners?

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Why is a 10 yr old thirsty left hooker Hyundai with a noisy diff in north of scotland such good news to Londoners?

 

Because the stress of living in this over-rated shit hole of a city does funny things to people.  I hope for your sake one of them buys it though!

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I've been buzzing in to work on the Yamaha YQ100 all week.  Normally I drive most of the way in, park up, get the folding bike out the boot and cycle the last 3 miles, but this week it's just been too fucking hot to cycle.  Funny thing is, it's actually costing me noticeably more in pez on the moped than in the AX - AX averages about 70mpg on the commute, the moped is doing 55-60 (plus two stroke oil).  It's worth the slight extra expense though for the pleasure of arriving at the office not half drowned in my own sweat.

 

I found a correct-spec headlight for the Innocenti on Wopbay this evening - 45€ BIN, which isn't too unreasonable.  Unfortunately the seller doesn't specify postage costs outside of Italy, and my Italian isn't up to asking him - I might just BIN anyway and see what happens.  Once I have a headlight, the car should just need a blob of gun gum on the silencer and for me to find a way to stop the fugging offside door mirror from falling off every 10 minutes and it should be ready for a test.

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I've been getting quotes on having my front wings repaired on the Civic but most the garages have been telling me they would sooner fit new wings as my old ones are rotten, If they do repair them then to strip them and weld them I'm looking at £500+, The specialists on the Civic forum have told me wings are impossible to find now and that you can only get repaired ones at £75 each.

 

Well I've just looked on ebay and found a pair of "new" pattern wings and done a deal with the seller to buy them and have them delivered for £65 for the pair, which is good.

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Have just been on a logging mission with the BX. There's nowt quite as terrifying/frustrating as driving a water cooled car on a boiling hot day, with a manual fan switch but no temperature gauge! Can't quite understand why the previous owner went to the trouble of getting a switch wired up when you can quite easily get new fan switches! Mind you, I've owned it since March and haven't got around to doing anything about it...

 

I have to try and guess when it'll be too hot - better to have the fans on when not needed than not on when they really are needed I figure. All this hard work seems to have finished off the accumulator sphere - the only sphere I haven't changed. I knew the tick time was getting low - why on earth didn't I buy an extra sphere when I ordered the suspension ones?!

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Having my local body man hack out all the filler on the rear arches of the s type. Theyre double skinned and have been wobbed up probably a number of times in the 50 years since leaving browns lane. Ive used him before on a rover p4 and a merc w123,  Hes very good and very thorough, which leaves me with a slight sinking feeling that things are going to get expensive.....

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This:

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I've had enough of painting, sanding, painting, sanding etc. It's no fun to do on the drive, working around times when neighbours are at work so I don't get overspray on their cars etc (meaning I can only really put any paint on or do major sanding IMMEDIATELY when I get home from work)

 

I was going to paint the inside myself then put all the doors and stuff back on, trailer it up to the painter and let him just quickly razz over the outside, then today I realised that I'm an idiot, I can afford to pay him another £300 or so to just do the inside and finish it from how it is. It'll put me a month forward in "getting it finished" and save me 5 or 6 holiday days at work when I have to take the day off to do much painting.

 

He's "definitely" coming round tomorrow at 5:30PM to look over it and do a proper quote. He won't turn up though, I guarantee it.

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BMW passed it's MOT today with no advisories, Yay!

But the tax is due at the end of the month, Boo!.....it's also due on the cortina.....and the free-ish fiesta needs a VIC check as it turns out it's a cat C.

My arsehole is starting to develop it's own calluse.

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Did a bit more work on the 760 yesterday : I replaced the old indicator stalk with one I bought off Ebay, but the main beam was still not working. In a fit of anger, I pulled the headlamp relay out and threw it across my garden. Retrieved it (before the magpies could get to it), plugged it back in and, hey presto, main beam working !

 

I then spent some time looking for the cause of the Exxon Valdez-like oil leak. Previous owner was convinced it was the crank seal, but the leak appeared to be further up. Indeed, when I took the dizzy cap off, and pulled back the rotor arm shield, a torrent of oil came out. So I put everything together and added a distributor seal to my long shopping list.

 

More work to be done over the weekend, after which the beast will hopefully be ready for its retest.

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Replaced the aircon compressor on the discovery today, had to go to the aircon man to get it degassed, then swap the compressor and gas it up again, but now have cold air - yay ....

 

Treated it to a new fan belt as well while we had it in bits and managed to score a heater blower motor for £15 as mine sounds the bearings are about to jump out of it.

 

All in all a productive day

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Seeing as the forecast for tomorrow looks bearable I plan to get up early and buy two new tyres for the Vitesse, collect the door mirror glass I ordered from my local independent car spares place (some bum hole clipped the mirror when I parked it on the road the other day), and give the interior a good clean and hoover.  The Sierra also needs a clean too.  SWMBO will have to do her own thing as I'm determined to have a full day doing car stuff :smile:

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As of Monday I am back at work...What I mean is that during the past fortnight, of excellent weather, I hasten to add, I have been on holiday... 8)

 

Tuesday of last week, I took my Grandad to the 'Great Gathering' at the NRM - he sat in the fireman's seat of 'Mallard', a place he last occupied in about 1951 when he crewed it from Grantham to Lincoln due to engineering works on the ECML. He was over the moon, absolutely loved it :smile:

 

Most of my time off has consisted of stripping the 126 of all it's running gear. This came about as last year before MOT time I discovered a 10p size hole against the front suspension that I realised would result in failure. I decided the only way to repair it properly was to strip the front suspension. If I was going to do that I should really clean and refurbish/repaint it all. Then I thought, if I do the front, I should really do the back. It went OK in that 3 of the 4 steering rack bolts all sheared off...I managed to drill two out and clean the threads, the other captive nut came out completely and I was able to weld in a new nut into the support :-?

 

My new favourite thing though is Bilt Hamber Deox C. I stuck the 126 drums and backplates and wishbones in it and they have come out like new... Brilliant stuff. 8)

 

I've condemned the front leaf spring along with various other odds and sods, but as it is all Fiat 500 based and available from Axel Gerstl or Ricambio it isn't the end of the world.

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...and I'm sat here expecting to see van updates! Great to see the 126 being resurrected though, that colour still looks fab. Surely there's plenty of life left in that "cardboard" spring yet.  :shock:

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Like I said earlier, the painter definitely didn't come at 5:30pm. Nor did he come at 8pm which he said he would when I rang him after he didn't turn up at 5:30, or at 7:30am the following morning like he also promised, so I drove up to his place and practically kidnapped him about lunchtime. He came down, looked over the van and seemed impressed with the work I've done and couldn't really fault it apart from a few corners that were a bit edgy. He's good at what he does but unreliable and badly organised, but I'm just the same so I'll work round it.

 

He reckoned it would be fine to just wet flat and paint over what I've done, but since I want a really good job he'll put a few coats of thinned down primer over it and flat it back so he has a uniform base.

 

Anyway it's going up for paint next week, I've just got to sling some primer at the tailgate and front doors, flat them down and work out how I'm going to get the van up to him.

 

It's a massive weight off my shoulders to be able to hand it over. I feel like I'm copping out a bit in not painting the insides myself, but in reality I don't have the right resources to do that properly. The final price for the job including paint will absolutely buckle me, but I know the work it will take so I'm happy to pay it, I'll just have to choose between beer or food for a month (beer wins)

 

 

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Headed over to Hereford last night, to a party thrown by the chap who (amongst other things) puts BMW bike engines in 2CVs (like that matt black Saxo eater).

 

Was a pleasant old evening. Then drove home in the dark. The 2CV decided at this point that main beam was over-rated as a concept. Cue many miles driving along on dipped beam only. Seems there's a slightly duff connection on the relay contacts. Wish I'd never fitted the sodding things now as I've already had one relay fail after a mere three months.

 

The journey was also livened up by the Rhayader Carnival, which we accidentally drove through. Having a carnival in a town that is a meeting of several major trunk roads was a great* idea. Stuck in traffic, some lads picked up the back of the 2CV and dragged it in front of a tractor coming the other way. Returning later, it was like driving through zombie land with drunks staggering all over the road and Police utterly failing to keep them away from passing cars. One prick slapped the windscreen, leaving a greasy paw print upon it. I did actually here someone else say "look at that old banger!" Thanks!

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In a deal with my Merc w124 estate i have now become the owner of this.....

 

IMG_8277_zpsb93f1a30.jpg

 

First impressions are of a well looked after car, all the books and manuals, original font dealer plates etc. Drives well, but with a 2.0 six its not exactly fast. The manual box makes it fairly easy to stirr along though. By modern standards it has enormously fat, tall rubber which helps give it a nice wafty ride. My previous e34 experience was an 89 525i which i paid little for and was a fantastic hack, taking me round europe a good few years back. It did look a bit dodgy, black and dented, had no trouble with it at all except back in England the Metropolitan Police took one look at it and did an anti terror stop and search on Pall Mall. This one has a huge full length sunroof; this im hoping isnt going to break on me as i've heard they can be a pain.

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The boring passed it's MOT with no advisories ... Well, after all of the rear bulbs were replaced  :oops:

In my defence only one had blown, the others were functional but black.

 

De-chavving the Storia has almost finished, all the chrome crap is now in the bin One of the wing mirrors was actually blue under the chrome plastic, that's now being sprayed black to match the other side. No colour coded mirrors or leccy windows on this car.

I picked up some Ferodo front pads very cheap off ebay (£17) and had some hoses made (not so cheap) which are now fitted. I also changed the oil and whilst the friont bumper was off repaired that again. The front bumper still  needs work, but it's structurally solid now which will do until find a stock pre-facelift Sirion one.

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Took the opportunity to take the Ginetta SPC for a run out today - 35 mile round trip to the National Railway museum in Shildon, which somehow I'd never managed to visit before but was hosting a classic car show.   Somehow the marshalls directed us to the display area, and we ended up parked between an immaculate Scimitar and an early 90s mustang.  It was certainly the scruffiest car present, but held a never ending crowd of bystanders.  I did notice a number of photographers completely ignoring it, though!

 

I quite enjoyed the drive (I drove rather than being the full-licence holding passenger), though it's definitely not the same kind of fun as the MX5.  This was probably my first trip out behind the wheel that wasn't mostly motorway journeys, and it makes a lot of sense pootling around.  I should probably get it on a set of ramps and get the new exhaust fitted..

 

 

Highlights of the day: trains, a 924, and a tracksuit-clad youth pointing at the G26 and saying loudly "That's fucked that is, look at the wing! It needs painting and everything!". All in all a lovely trip out.  

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