The new news 24 thread

[Mr_Bo11ox]

My Xsara failed the test on assorted issues relating to the lights being set up for LHD use, plus a broken coil spring. All the brakes etc were spot on, amazing seeing as it hasn't been used for 2 or 3 years. I'd be on fixing it now if I hadn't copped another sodding flu bug thing.

[vulgalour]

All that talk of getting a Reliant is now on hold, instead I'm shopping for bits for the Maestro now that I can keep it as it's going to become one of those funny car-van things. Soon as the weather improves I can get the Princess booked in for an MoT and hopefully next weekend I'm off to collect her new shoes.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Sprite's brakes went to shit for no reason - soft pedal, then firming up. No leaks and the whole system appeared in good order so I changed the fluid and bled it (miserable job in cramped garage). Went for a five minute drive to test them, during which my backbox made a bid for freedom.

[Negative Creep]

Just put a deposit down on another car. Should be collecting it Monday, but rest assured it is both old and utterly miserable

[dollywobbler]

Hmmm. Was I going to get off our driveway? Drifting snow made it a foot deep in one side. Then there's the steep climb to the road. First and second attempts failed but some gentle rocking in first and we were away!

 

That shot was taken some way down the road as it's difficult to stop and take photos on a blind bend.

 

Then I helped my friends extricate a familiar 4x4.

 

It was properly stuck in a 4ft drift. This is after a couple of hours work and rearward movement of about 20ft.

 

Once we got it out, momentum was the only way to deal with smaller drifts.

 

Sadly, some massive drifts made it impossible to travel any further - we'd already had to walk some distance to get to it. We parked it up out of the way to away the arrival of a thaw and/or snow blower. Some drifts around here are 6ft deep and a friend rolled his car last night. It's a lot safer to stay at home!

[cort16]

I finally got around to putting some paint on the puma after fitting the new wheel arch fuggin ages ago. I painted the bottom half of the quarter and faded it out in the sill.

Not perfect and it'll need a couple of runs sanded out and buffed up but I think it looks alright for a repair made using a KIA cee'd wing and some halford rattle cans.

 

Puma by cort16, on Flickr

[Lankytim]

Pinched an hour or so to paint the rear hydrolastic units for the Austin 1300 today. A quick wire brush and a coat of smoothrite and they look (kinda) cared for now. I also found a missing subframe mount so with a bit of luck I can get it on all 4 wheels soon! I plan to remove the original 1300 engine and autobox soon. Anybody want to buy it??

[Wilko220]

Had the 75 serviced the other day and, amongst the inevitable list of minor faults spotted, they pointed out that the cooling fan only works on the higher speed.

A new cooling fan is quite an expensive part new (although I guess scrap ones should be fairly easy to come by). But does it actually matter? I can't say I've noticed any adverse effects and, tbh, I didn't even realise that cooling fans operated at more than one speed.

Is it something I need to worry about, folks?

[ashmicro]

Paging Lord Sward of Newcastle-land. I reckon he'll know.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I've never heard of a 2-speed cooling fan, is that definitely right?

[cobblers]

yeah, loads of them do that - your xsara will have one, even my 25 year old T25 has it!

It kicks in at low speed when the coolant is just a bit hot, then full speed when its mega hot. It means you'll generally not notice the fan kicking in as often, because rather than going in FULL HURRICANE mode for 30 seconds, it comes on much slower for a few minutes instead and you don't hear it.

 

New (post 2005) VW stuff has fully variable fan speed, they have a bloody ECU just for the engine fan. Obviously they pack in quite often and stick the van on full speed all the time even with the ignition off and flatten the battery, and cost £200+ to replace.

 

Anyway back on topic, so long as the van works at high speed then it'll be fine - the lower speed is more of a "comfort" feature to prevent the fan kicking in at high speed as often.

[Lankytim]

I fitted a 2 speed fan to my Volvo 240. It came from a 960 and had a dual temperature sensor connected to a double relay pack. Worked a treat although it never got into high speed in normal use.

[Lord Sterling]

Popped down to Brads yesterday in the Rover, had a new wiper linkage mechanism fitted and now I have working wipers! I can actually use my car. I also managed to come away with a couple of mirrors to replace the drivers side, unfortunately the weather has decided to toss it down with snow, so mirror exchange will have to wait, no doubt until next weekend...

 

When my mirror got hit a few weeks ago, a fault the mirrors had was inadvertently fixed by the whack, so I was hoping to get both mirrors fully functional. At least I know what the problem is and how it can be fixed.

[ProgRocker]

My car has nice new brakes.

 

Problem is now that my starter motor is frozen and/or not enough juice in the battery. Fail My Life.

[dollywobbler]

Had the 75 serviced the other day and, amongst the inevitable list of minor faults spotted, they pointed out that the cooling fan only works on the higher speed.

A new cooling fan is quite an expensive part new (although I guess scrap ones should be fairly easy to come by). But does it actually matter? I can't say I've noticed any adverse effects and, tbh, I didn't even realise that cooling fans operated at more than one speed.

Is it something I need to worry about, folks?

 

Sign up at the 75 and ZT owners club forum. This is a very common fault.

[M'coli]

Mk3 Passats had a 2-speed fan too, but sometimes when the second speed kicked in the fan couldn't keep up with the speed of the motor resulting in an atrocious racket from the slipping fan..

IIRC that some cars with aircon have a 2-speed fan, the first speed comes on automatically when the aircon is engaged no matter what the coolant temperature is.

[Cavcraft]

Awaiting a call back about some weapons grade shitemobile I spotted for sale. Sadly it looks like I may have been pipped to the post, hopefully the supposed buyer doesn't show up.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Sorted my exhaust. Someone else's amateurish repair had rusted and failed. I amateurishly welded a patch over the hole and was happy until I tried to refit the thing and found I'd welded the bracket on back to front.

 

There are countless pictures on the internet I could have used for reference, why did I guess?

[Negative Creep]

Put the Punto on Autotrader about an hour ago, first time I've ever tried selling on there. Had 2 phone calls almost immediately to arrange viewings. Can't see it being around for long..........

[vulgalour]

 

Well, that's not right.

[holbeck]

After leaving my A3 on soft ground all weekend because we had the in-laws hogging all the parking (sorry visiting), the frigger now refuses to play.

Now indoors for warming cup of tea before raiding the shed for anything that might provide traction.

[holbeck]

Piece of crap Audi now free. Required the sacrifice of a couple of old blankets, half a dozen sacks and two buckets of grit.

 

Can't hellp thinking that my old Mitsubishi Colt which looked like a mobile shed but kept going for an embarrasingly long time would have hauled itself out

[R9UKE]

Mégane can't even get out of the driveway, Vel Satis can't get out of the street. The old diesel Clio? Up and down the many altitudes of Belfast, sailing past BMW X5s and Volvo XC90s. Yet to be stopped by over a foot of snow in some places. It's like a little mountain goat

[dollywobbler]

New battery fitted to the BX 'Safari.' Starts beautifully now. Thanks Halfords for your crap battery that's failed after three years. If only I kept my receipts in order...

 

Was a bit worried I wouldn't get it moving as it's a bit snowed in. No worries! No power and relatively skinny tyres are what you need. Found an icy car park just to do a comparison with the winter tyre-equipped BX TD. Drove around fine but stopping was another matter. Then almost got stuck on 2in deep snow on my driveway. I think the winter tyres have definitely proved their worth.

[Negative Creep]

Punto ad has been live on AT for about 18 hours and I've had 6 people arranging viewings. I'm already losing track but viewer number 1 is supposed to be meeting me outside work. Surely at least 1 will turn up......

[cort16]

It's the low mileage. Folk go daft for it I bet you wish you'd added a few extra £££ now.

[Negative Creep]

I put it up for 999 when the book value is 1200, but should allow a quick sale. Of course if it was just as clean but had 125k on the clock the phone would be a lot quieter.....

[wuvvum]

I had fun this evening digging the P6 out from the corner where it was dumped at the end of November. Despite not having been touched since before Christmas it started first turn of the key, which is more than can be said for the Rover 200 which needed a jump. It took me about an hour and a half to get the P6 out, by the time I'd shovelled enough snow out of the way to extricate the 200 and Carina from their spaces so the P6 had a way out. Lots of wheelspinning on the part of all the cars involved, but none of them got stuck and they're now all safely back in the drive, only with the P6 as the front car ready to bring home tomorrow.

 

I also had a bit of a "moment" after work when I thought I'd killed the 400 - the only parking space I could find near work this morning was one which nobody had parked in as it was 5" deep in snow. I managed to persuade the Rover into the space, so naively thought that getting it out again wouldn't be an issue. Only it started to thaw today, and slushy snow is a whole lot more slippery than the fresh stuff. So while I was rocking it in first trying to get it out of the space, the turbo decided to kick in while I was on a particularly slippery bit and the (cold) engine went straight to 5000rpm. I took my foot straight off the accelerator and the engine stalled; turned it over on the key and there was no compression. I was crapping myself that I'd snapped the cambelt, but then when I tried it again one of the cylinders started to fire, so I kept going and eventually it started again in a cloud of grey smoke. I can only imagine that the tappets must have got stuck through redlining the engine when the oil was stone cold. Car seems fine now, but it did scare me at the time...

[oman5]

I had fun this evening digging the P6 out from the corner where it was dumped at the end of November. Despite not having been touched since before Christmas it started first turn of the key, which is more than can be said for the Rover 200 which needed a jump. It took me about an hour and a half to get the P6 out, by the time I'd shovelled enough snow out of the way to extricate the 200 and Carina from their spaces so the P6 had a way out. Lots of wheelspinning on the part of all the cars involved, but none of them got stuck and they're now all safely back in the drive, only with the P6 as the front car ready to bring home tomorrow.

 

I also had a bit of a "moment" after work when I thought I'd killed the 400 - the only parking space I could find near work this morning was one which nobody had parked in as it was 5" deep in snow. I managed to persuade the Rover into the space, so naively thought that getting it out again wouldn't be an issue. Only it started to thaw today, and slushy snow is a whole lot more slippery than the fresh stuff. So while I was rocking it in first trying to get it out of the space, the turbo decided to kick in while I was on a particularly slippery bit and the (cold) engine went straight to 5000rpm. I took my foot straight off the accelerator and the engine stalled; turned it over on the key and there was no compression. I was crapping myself that I'd snapped the cambelt, but then when I tried it again one of the cylinders started to fire, so I kept going and eventually it started again in a cloud of grey smoke. I can only imagine that the tappets must have got stuck through redlining the engine when the oil was stone cold. Car seems fine now, but it did scare me at the time...

 

That's exactly what happened to my Rover 45. was convinced the cam belt had gone.

[Cavcraft]

BREAKING NEWS LIVE FROM SOUTH WIRRAL:

 

I'm literally outside the house of the vendor of a truly awful looking car. There's money in my pocket but not for long. C U L8R sanity!