The new news 24 thread

[purplebargeken]

I saw a blue Marina van today, in blue, much less spiffing than Trig's Ital though. It was still cool. 

 

Also purple Moggy Traveller in the local Halfords/retail park car park. It was driven by a young lad and his girlfriend looked happy sat in the passenger seat. The car was proper minty too.

[BorniteIdentity]

Today I discovered the limit of my own stupidity when it comes to overloading things and shrugging it off as "it'll be fine".

 

I've been using a rather knackered old camping trailer to shift all manner of shit around for the last couple of years. It's been utterly overloaded several times, and I have had to weld on a few extra bits of box section to fix where the original frame has either rusted out or I've overloaded it so badly it's collapsed. It also has larger heavier duty tyres on it to allow for the additional loading.

 

Designed for a mere 350kg originally, the modifications have meant I've been happily shoving up to about 500kg in it without worrying too much. The rate of wear on the tyres is a bit faster than I would have hoped, but it has been absolutely amazing and has shrugged off just about everything I've thrown at it. I may have lulled myself into a false sense of security.

 

Until this evening, when I was collecting 22 3' x 2' x 2" concrete slabs. Not all at once... I wasn't that stupid. I got 10 of them in the first load, and then went back for the second load of 12. Unfortunately, I really didn't realise how heavy they are. Turns out they are 60kg *each*. Bollocks. That means the first load was 600Kg of slabs, and the second load was about 750kg of slabs (there were a few offcuts too) and then I expected it to tow for about 20 miles at 50mph.

 

No surprise then that there was a fucking massive bang as the nearside wheel went from 60psi to 0psi in 0.001s. Shit. I have no spare wheel for the trailer. So what do you do? I shoved 8 of the slabs in the back of the car, leaving the rest at the side of the road (very large grass verge..) and towed the trailer home empty on it's bollocksed tyre. (trailer weighs about 30kg when empty). Halfway through that journey I get a "low hydraulic fluid" warning, and loose all power steering. Turns out the additional pressure needed by the rear hydraulic self-levelling suspension to hold the additional half-tonne of concrete I've just put over the rear axle was enough to blow the repair I did to the pump outlet pipe about a year ago, and hence it spat out all it's oil, leaving the rear suspension on it's arse and no PAS.

 

Fuckity fuck. Just get it all bloody home. Trailer off. Slabs out. Repair the hydraulic pump outlet pipe again, and fill up the hydraulic oil tank with rather murky looking LHM stolen from the Rofflewin Xantia. (same spec oil).

 

So the Merc drives again. The Xantia is about 1.5 Litres down on LHM, and there are 4-and-a-few-bits of staggeringly heavy paving slabs to be recovered from the side of the road tomorrow. And hope that the repair to the pump outlet pipe holds this time. And I need at least one new tyre and inner tube for the trailer. Possibly two as I'll bet the other tyre is ready to burst too.

 

What a Dickhead.

At least you didn’t leave the trailer in a lay-by, thinking you’d return to it the next day. Imagine what the ‘massiv’ would have said about that?(!)

 

I’ve no idea how much I ought to sling in my little trailer, but fear I’ve been over cooking it too. Thanks for the word from the wise, and hope you get it patched/bodged up soon.

[twosmoke300]

The only problem with that is that my cheapo brake pipe kit won't flare steel pipe properly*, and to buy a kit which does will be a lot more expensive than 13' of copper pipe.

 

 

*Unless I'm not using my kit correctly, which is entirely possible.

If the steel pipe keeps slipping back through the tool instead of flaring then degrease the inside of the tool well then put a small amount of valve grinding paste where the pipe goes . This can give enough grip to flare the pipe ok

[Talbot]

At least you didn’t leave the trailer in a lay-by, thinking you’d return to it the next day. Imagine what the ‘massiv’ would have said about that?(!)

That did occur to me while I was heaving the slabs from trailer to car at the side of the road! Difference here being I could not give two shits about the trailer. Both it and it's contents were free, so not *quite* in the same league.

 

I was somewhat scathing about mr Golf/trailer/ford model A, so maybe this was karma biting me in the arse. Or maybe I was just being a knob. I'm going to have a look at the exploded tyre today and see if there's any sign of the mode of failure, as my initial assumption was that it had overheated due to overloading, but when I checked the other side tyre (same pressure, same load) it was barely warm.. certainly no more than 40°c and nowhere near as warm as other tyres I've checked in the past.

[wuvvum]

I overloaded a trailer once.

 

 

[Talbot]

Always an issue with twin-axle trailers. Unless the towbar is at the right height, you can very easily overload one axle (usually the rear one) as it ends up taking the lions share of the load. Exactly the same as what happened to me with the trailer/Mk2 granada combo I had to abandon on the hard shoulder before now.

[Talbot]

I might have the wrong shocks which are causing the rear to lift too high!

Are they gas pressurised shocks which naturally sit at full extension and have to be compressed to fit? If so, yes they can cause a vehicle to ride higher than usual as some of the load is being taken by the damper. Usually makes 10-15mm difference, depends on the car.

 

If not, and they are standard oil-dampers which you can extend and compress by hand, and stay where you leave them, then they have absolutely no effect on vehicle ride height.

[trigger]

I couldn't tell what shocks they are, there's no way of telling. It would have originally been fitted with Nivomat self leveling shocks but they must have failed at some point and been replaced with a standard set up.

 

It sits 5 1/2" high and doesn't look right.

 

 

[bub2006]

That certainly has got a bit of a tilt going on. Has it got a tow bar? If it's been used for towing in the past then gas filled shocks as mentioned above would be used for such reasons?

[fordperv]

What's that you say trig

 

[320touring]

I'd remove one and test s per Talbot's suggestion.

 

Looks suspiciously like the gas shock holding the car up.

[trigger]

I've probably just spent £200 when I didn't need too!

[trigger]

That certainly has got a bit of a tilt going on. Has it got a tow bar? If it's been used for towing in the past then gas filled shocks as mentioned above would be used for such reasons?

I thought that but there's no evidence of one being fitted.

[xtriple]

I have got to recommend 'Premium Choice' insurance company. I had the Mazda insured with them for 3 years and every year, the price came DOWN! It started at under £200 and ended up at £112, classic policy so no 'no claims'. Just rung them to cancel and because I have recommended others to them (New owner is also now insured with them!) they waived the cancelation fee and gave me a £10 bonus for saying they were great!

 

I am the first to slag off insurance companies for being money grabbing arses, but they have been fab' so it is only fair that you commend when it is due.

[trigger]

I've cancelled the order for the springs and ordered a new pair of rear shocks now instead, I'm now thinking that I probably shouldnt have cancelled the rear springs either... My head hurts.

[richardmorris]

Sunny this morning waiting for the funeral, so thought I’d get the fiat out for a run.

[RobT]

Since collecting the 623 from Bo11ox exactly one month ago I've managed to cover 1,900 miles, so it's now on 162,000.  Good job my classic policy is unlimited miles!  940 of those have been in the last 7 days with a trip to France, coupled with a trip up to Worcester this weekend (caring for an ill father-in-law which was tiring but necessary).  After all that I still like it, which is a good thing as I want to keep it for a while.  Famous last words I know...

 

I took a wrong turn in Le Tréport and ended up in this underground car park.  Worthy of a pic I reckon seeing as the place was deserted.

 

 

Next up is another pair of tyres so it's got four new ones all round, which is a rare thing.  Can't remember the last time I had a car with a full set of new rubber.  LUXURY.  I'll also consider getting the AC fixed in time for summer, although I think there's some pipework missing last time I looked.

[wuvvum]

I've probably just spent £200 when I didn't need too!

I've just bought an entire car for less than that.

[Cleon-Fonte]

I couldn't tell what shocks they are, there's no way of telling. It would have originally been fitted with Nivomat self leveling shocks but they must have failed at some point and been replaced with a standard set up.

 

It sits 5 1/2" high and doesn't look right.

 

 

 

It looks to me like the standard springs are still fitted but the Nivomats have been replaced with conventional dampers. The normal SD1 rear springs don't have any bearing on ride height so the arse end of the car will tend to sit too high if the Nivomats are replaced with something else.

 

Those Rimmers 30mm lowered springs are also designed to be fitted alongside Nivomats (despite what the Rimmers website says) and usually cause the rear of the car to sag on its bump stops without them (as I found out when I fitted them alongside a set of Koni dampers).

 

There are springs you can buy that will work without the Nivomats, or if you have lots of spare cash new Nivomats can be bought from the SD1 Club for something like £450 each.

[bramz7]

Stilo is running a bit iffy suddenly. I'd thought the gearchange was a bit stiff and the clutch a bit heavy, but yesterday the engine fault light came on, stayed on, and then went off. Weird. 

It also sounds like the rear axle wants to break through the boot at times. 

 

Otherwise it drives fine....

[louiepj]

Running an aunts car in for mot

 

Fulvia 3 anyone? Or gtv6

 

Sent from my F8331 using Tapatalk

[trigger]

It looks to me like the standard springs are still fitted but the Nivomats have been replaced with conventional dampers. The normal SD1 rear springs don't have any bearing on ride height so the arse end of the car will tend to sit too high if the Nivomats are replaced with something else.

 

Those Rimmers 30mm lowered springs are also designed to be fitted alongside Nivomats (despite what the Rimmers website says) and usually cause the rear of the car to sag on its bump stops without them (as I found out when I fitted them alongside a set of Koni dampers).

 

There are springs you can buy that will work without the Nivomats, or if you have lots of spare cash new Nivomats can be bought from the SD1 Club for something like £450 each.

Hmm... So do you think I should have ordered standard rear springs for it too or will the ones already fitted be ok?

[Talbot]

the arse end of the car will tend to sit too high if the Nivomats are replaced with something else.

The Nivomats can actually pull the vehicle *down*? Against spring tension?

[Joey spud]

Going back to trailer tyre blow outs i find a lot of it is down to under inflation and over loading.

Once they get moving they overheat and quickly fail.

 

 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5-00-8-500-8-High-Speed-Trailer-Towing-Dolly-10-Ply-TYRE-TUBE-5-00x8-500x8/400305506851?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908110712%26meid%3D8cdf818d8e944282bb0892d2798a0f11%26pid%3D100677%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D20%26sd%3D401054595215%26itm%3D400305506851&_trksid=p2385738.c100677.m4598

 

The tyres fitted to our old breakdown towing dollies were these 10 ply rated and inflated to 112psi jobbies

[louiepj]

Engine shot

 

Sent from my F8331 using Tapatalk

[wuvvum]

Stilo is running a bit iffy suddenly. I'd thought the gearchange was a bit stiff and the clutch a bit heavy, but yesterday the engine fault light came on, stayed on, and then went off. Weird. 

It also sounds like the rear axle wants to break through the boot at times. 

 

Otherwise it drives fine....

Odd.  Did it lose power when the light came on?  I don't recall it ever coming on when I had it (apart from the time when I accidentally unplugged the MAF sensor like a twat).  Have you got a code reader?

 

Every modernish Fiat and Alfa I've owned has had a heavy clutch - I think that might just be a thing that they do when they're getting old.

[Talbot]

Going back to trailer tyre blow outs i find a lot of it is down to under inflation and over loading.

Once they get moving they quickly overheat and quickly fail.

I assume that's what I did with my trailer, but the other tyre was barely warm to the touch. Depends how hot "overheated" is on a tyre. I'd guess that 50°c isn't too hot for most tyres? That said, I could easily have had a slowish puncture (deflated over the course of 10 mins say) and not realised. Tyre gets down to 25-30psi and gets rapidly very hot indeed, leading to the gunshot-worthy bang that happened!

 

inflated to 112psi.

[dave21478]

Going back to trailer tyre blow outs i find a lot of it is down to under inflation and over loading.

Once they get moving they quickly overheat and quickly fail.

 

 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5-00-8-500-8-High-Speed-Trailer-Towing-Dolly-10-Ply-TYRE-TUBE-5-00x8-500x8/400305506851?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908110712%26meid%3D8cdf818d8e944282bb0892d2798a0f11%26pid%3D100677%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D20%26sd%3D401054595215%26itm%3D400305506851&_trksid=p2385738.c100677.m4598

 

The tyres fitted to our old breakdown towing dollies were these 10 ply rated and inflated to 112psi.

 

 

Aye, if you dont know the manufacturers spec for your trailer or its a home made thing, go by the tyre ratings. All modern tyres will say something like "max 450kgs at 46 psi" which means exactly that....if the tyre is loaded to 450kgs it needs to be at 46psi. A twin axle running tyres like that would be 1800kgs gross weight. If the trailer is plated for less, you could reduce the pressures accordingly, but not by too much...best not to stray too far from what the tyre maker says.

[fraser.innes.3]

Whats happening with the roffle Range Rover?

As stated previously, I have sold it to a fellow shiter. It is up to him to reveal who his is if he wants to, but I am sure that he will admit that he paid a pittance for it. In the last week I have forked out over £1000 on car related expenses, so just could not take this on. I even insured it, and will send you a copy of the policy, if you are that way inclined. I was really excited when I won it, but with my sensible head on, I realised that I just could not afford it

 

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

[Cleon-Fonte]

The Nivomats can actually pull the vehicle *down*? Against spring tension?

 

I can't give a definitive technical explanation, but I've seen a few cases where SD1 owners have swapped out knackered Nivomats for conventional dampers without changing the springs and their cars have taken on a distinct dragster stance. Cue much panicking on Facebook SD1 pages...

 

Perhaps it's explained by the fact the rear springs on the Nivomat cars are really only there as helpers and are therefore not under a particularly great amount of tension. Most of the springing is done by the Nivomats themselves and the springs also have no bearing on ride height, nor do they support the weight of the car.

 

Hmm... So do you think I should have ordered standard rear springs for it too or will the ones already fitted be ok?

 

2000/2300 springs could be your friend here.