The new news 24 thread

[dollywobbler]

One of our community minibuses is an old LT. It's rather agricultural, which may or may not be a good thing. It has developed a horrendously heavy clutch - I don't think they're all like that. They do all have a gearbox that's like stirring a bucket of spark plugs with a walking stick though. I find myself double-declutching with a rev blip all the time in it.

 

Boy do they rot though! I'm sure ours is just going to fall apart at some point, though it gamely keeps going. DMF has been rattling for about three years now...

[wuvvum]

They do all have a gearbox that's like stirring a bucket of spark plugs with a walking stick though.

Compared to the old shape LT they're a fugging MX5.

[richardmorris]

Cars and coffee meeting at Chester castle again this Sunday. My dad is taking my X1/9 If the weather is ok.

[plasticvandan]

Been winterising some of the toys today. Covered in soot and mud but a beer or two is helping the satisfying feeling of a "job jobbed".

 

Another day at the office by Kevin Mills, on Flickr

I need an A35 in my life

[tooSavvy]

Our 30th Wedd Anniv 2day....

 

She gets nice prezzie & I'm having ToMM

 

..... fair

 

TS

[M'coli]

Zx owners: if you've got the silent alarm going off do not be tempted to try to switch it off by turning the key the wrong way in the switch on the front slam panel - it will no longer be silent...

[Richard]

You should be able to take a fuse out and delete the alarm altogether.

[Lacquer Peel]

 

I drove this for a bit last night, it's bloody lovely.

The ride is a bit thumpier than I expected but it's still very comfortable. It's not rapid but the smooth spread of power and civilised V6 make it very nice to drive, even on the M25 car park.

WOULD.

[SiC]

A Peugeot 406?

[Lacquer Peel]

Aye, V6 GLX manual saloon with a rear wiper.

[Ghosty]

Been talking to Old Man and it seems he's considering selling the A4 in the spring when it's had some faults ironed out. 

Any money from selling it would go towards a slightly more sensible family car that I'd run, and Old Man could use it for the rare occasion he needs it to go shopping or something, or we'd all use it to go out somewhere (A4 is no good for this as there's no rear space, and fuck going on long journeys in the Bini).

 

There's a lot of talk of Rover 75s, either a diesel or 2.0KV6. And probably a Connoisseur.

[richardmorris]

At Chester castle this am...

[Ghosty]

Old Man's other sensible* family car suggestions were R8s and Freelanders. 

 

I think I'll stick to the 75, it's the silliest car I'll get away with.

[320touring]

Anyone any tips re how to get a refund off an ebay seller?

 

I paid for a new gear gaiter (with paypal) for the Toledo at the end Sept. The one sent was wrond and did not have elastic to go over the gearknob. It appears the seller thought it was like a mk4 setup.

 

Despite repeated messages and pics they have fucked me about and nothing has been resolved.

 

I'm looking as to how to open a case but it seems that ebay wants me to send it back at my cost?

 

I have requested to return.

[17-Coffees]

Was round at the parents today to check the house over while they are away and took the Lexus out for a drive, since I've been using the Abarth for the past month since I got it back. Forgot how smooth and care free it is to drive! 

 

Had to laugh though, I said to my dad "Feel free to use it if you want", as a thanks for taking it for the MOT for me and letting me keep it there until I lay it up for the winter. (more on that soon). I expected him to maybe use it once or twice, but he's added about 500 miles onto it! 

[richardmorris]

Did that with my X1/9 - last month he and my mum drove it to portmeirion!

[Skizzer]

Sold the Jeep last week, it having failed its MOT on chassis corrosion and a few other things.

 

Shame in a way because I'd finally got it running and steering properly about five minutes before the MOT ran out, and it was quite a fun truckster. Lost quite a bit of money on it in the end, but the buyer paid me a fair price considering the issues it had.

 

An observation: I've only once bought a car from a private individual that turned out to be a lot more fucked than promised (and that was nearly 25 years ago). On the other hand, I've only ever once bought a secondhand car from a trader that DIDN'T turn out to be a lot more fucked than promised.

 

The faithful ex-Andy18s Discovery has taken over the Jeep's duties for now. It turns out the MAF sensor is fine, it's just doing the sort of mpg a V8 Disco always does, i.e. not as many as you'd hope. Happily the LPG pump has miraculously cured itself though: problem solved.

[alf892]

Spent the weekend reassembling my Chevy truck engine to cure water in oil problem. When I took the head off it was clear there were no oil galleries........further investigation revealed an oil pipe that travelled through the water jacket and emerged inside the tapper cover. There is a soldered joint which is notorious for giving problems.

 

After much searching I managed to find compression fittings short enough to do the job so today put it all back together. Put oil and water in and stopped for lunch. After that I loaded it it with crap for the tip.....

 

Then I noticed water underneath........had a quick look and it seems that flushing the block out has dislodged all the crap that was stopping it from leaking so now there is a nice line along the bottom of the block that seeps water. Worse is the fact it seems to be getting more water that ever in the oil so likely rotted through internally too. This is a right twat because I was really chuffed and surprised to find what good nick the engine was in.

 

Runs like a Swiss watch too. But it's fucked.

 

Now drowning sorrows.

[SiC]

Ideal candidate for k-seal or equivalent?

[alf892]

Yeah....even though I don't believe in the stuff I tried that because I am optimistic to the point of stupidity.

 

I might try some wonda weld yet too.......I remember being quite impressed with the instructions where it said you should plug larger holes with wire wool before using......

[dean36014]

Been soldiering away on the Dandy trailer tent and have discovered it has a bad case of sill rot! I knew it needed a small weld to one corner of the chassis, but while cleaning up what looked like an otherwise perfect rail I put mt scraper straight through it. Went down the rail and could poke a stanley knife through it all the way up to the axle. At this point i thought about sacking it off but then decided I might as well have a go at removing the alloy side panel that would need to come off. Luckily stikaflex hadn't been invented when this panel was fitted, so rivets out and a hacksaw blade sharpened up cut through the glue used and i got the panel off reasonably intact. Need to order some steel now then cut the rail out.

 

Being at a lose end this afternoon I decided to try the bilt hamber autobalm polish as recommended on a thread on here. I have to say you can really see the difference and it looks great now.

 

[Kiltox]

The shagged Panda is still sitting in my unit looking sorry for itself. Hateful thing.

 

Not sure whether to bridge it, strip it or have a final go at fixing it (ECU replacement)

[SiC]

Did you try disconnecting everything non-essential to engine running and seeing if it starts & stays running?

[Hertz]

That's my mates A610 pictured above. I need to start using mine more and meet up with him again.

 

 

In other news I've sold another Alpine GTA, this ones going to Spain (the last one went to Germany). Shame they are going abroad but I guess with the exchange rate in their favour it's going to be more common. I spoke to a trader last week and he said recently he's been selling all sorts to Europe which he hasn't done for a long time. 

[spike60]

Anyone any tips re how to get a refund off an ebay seller?

 

I paid for a new gear gaiter (with paypal) for the Toledo at the end Sept. The one sent was wrond and did not have elastic to go over the gearknob. It appears the seller thought it was like a mk4 setup.

 

Despite repeated messages and pics they have fucked me about and nothing has been resolved.

 

I'm looking as to how to open a case but it seems that ebay wants me to send it back at my cost?

 

I have requested to return.

I recently requested a return on Ebay and was sent a Royal Mail posting label to print off, not at my expense. Is it the seller or Ebay you asked?

[320touring]

I recently requested a return on Ebay and was sent a Royal Mail posting label to print off, not at my expense. Is it the seller or Ebay you asked?

I requested a return via ebay. the seller has been useless thus far.

 

When I opened the return request I had to choose a postage option.

 

the process is fairly unfathomable if using the app.

[wuvvum]

This weekend I have been mostly trying to fit new glow plugs to the Rover of Doom.  What an absolute fiddly arsehole of a job.  Coolant pipes, injector pipes, wiring loom and bits of sticking-out engine here there and everybloodywhere.  I eventually managed to get two of the three plugs replaced, after a lot of swearing and dropping tools into inaccessible bits of engine bay - the third one ain't going to come out easily, it broke in two when I was trying to get the wire off but the bottom half is in there bloody tight.  There's less than an inch of clearance 'twixt the plug and the coolant pipe that goes into the cylinder head, so I couldn't get a ratchet in there.  Because of the angle I couldn't get at it with a spanner from above; I could just about fiddle a spanner onto the plug from underneath, but then I only had the strength of two fingers to try and turn it with, and that wasn't going to happen.

 

I had to make up a new wire to run from the feed wire on the centre plug to the other plug I did manage to replace - the original harness had three terminals (because three glowplugs), I didn't want to leave a fairly thick live wire dangling against the head obviously, and the whole thing was too thick and inflexible for me to be able to fit two terminals on one plug.  Fortunately I had a stock of ring terminals the right size, and plenty of odd bits of wire.  The problem came when trying to fit the nut that holds the wire in place onto the end plug - after eventually getting the nut into place after 20 minutes of fiddling, swearing and dropping it on the floor, the only way I could do it up was with an 8mm socket on the end of a 12" extension bar with my 3/4" drive ratchet on the end.  Obviously this was using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, and gave me absolutely no idea how tight I was doing the nut up, so the first I knew I was overtightening it was when the inner section of the glow plug broke off and came out.  So I then had to get that glow plug out, put in the one that was supposed to be going in the other side, and then redo the process, this time being very careful not to overtighten the nut.

 

So it now has two new glowplugs and one completely broken one.  I'm going to wait and see how it copes on cold mornings with just the two - I've reached the conclusion that to get the third one out I will have to unbolt the coolant inlet from the head, which is not a route I want to go down if I can help it.

 

I also got the 121 up on the ramps and had a good poke around - the good news is it isn't as bad as I thought, some of the soft areas on the floorpans just turned out to be peeling underseal.  It will need a small patch on the nearside sill though at least.  And a new exhaust section, although they're only about 25 quid off ebay.

 

Then, as it was a nice day, I took the Spacy for a quick run.  As always, it started almost before I'd pressed the starter button, despite being sat out untouched in the cold and pissing rain for almost a month.  I love old Hondas.

[nacho man]

So discovery 3 2006 at work with the 2.7 dizzler donk in.

 

We got it cheap as it's done 230k .

 

As always been a bit hesitant.

 

Dropped it off at the local garage, yeah mate both egr valves. You sure yeah. Defo there both sticking. Ok how much. £240 each. Okay mate order them in.

 

So I picked it up and brought it back as they wasn't coming in for two days. Had a quick google as I was thinking about just blanking them off.

 

Couldn't find them, had a look online, looked at our discovery.

 

There already blanked off.

 

Rang garage, you know these egr valves you checked, yeah, well they ain't fitted, there blanked off.

 

Phone went quiet for ages while he thought of an excuse.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[saucedoctor]

Spotted this online while looking for something else. I'm sure it's not brilliant, but for £15.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271683563122

 

 

[Cavcraft]

At Chester castle this am...

 

Ah, FFS I managed to miss this (show) again. I was sat round bored most of yesterday and looking for something to do to ignore my hangover, too.