The new news 24 thread

[dean36014]

Leak is from nearside rear by suspension arm. I'm hoping it's not the ram. It can go in the queue of cars to be fixed.

[bramz7]

Liked for the service, not the green leak. Where is it leaking from.

 

Brammy is it always difficult to start or is it just from cold?

Okay I think it's worst cold, so it must be glow plugs. I'm sure they are a nightmare to do on an XUD11.

[bramz7]

Anyway, in more car purchase related news, the 405s departure to Holbeck a few weeks back made my commuting policy spare again, and with helping my brother move and the need to make several tip runs coming up, i was on the look out for something modernish that I could abuse for a short while.

 

So I found a C5 estate, not that far away (turns out the journey will include a taxi, no lifts offered from seller) and as a bonus it has working AC! Obviously now the weather has turned...

It's also merely a HDI 90 so I suspect it will be slow as hell. But cavernous. 

 

I will only have it until October I suspect, so if anyone wants a cheap (it won't be much) estate come then, you may be in luck. Unless of course, in some bizarre twist, I take to it more than the 605. 

[17-Coffees]

As some of you know, I had a Suzuki Cappuccino, which I’d left abandoned at my parents with the intention of doing it up then selling it on as I’d had enough of finding a lead, dealing with rust, etc.

 

Well 2 weeks ago a note was left on the windscreen asking if it was for sale, and a number to call. It had been raining so couldn’t make out the number. Then start of last week a guy knocked on the door and asked, saying he’d left a note. Turns out it was one of the guys doing work on a house up the road. My mum let them have a look and then arranged a meet. Then told me...

 

So at the end of last week I set about making sure it worked, having not moved or started it in two years! First was the battery which hadn’t had charge in two years. Took to work to charge and amazingly it took, and held charge! Next was seeing it it started, put new fuel in and turned the key annnd...first then if the key! Tidy.

But why do I smell fuel? Oh cock, a fuel pipe had rusted that bad in 2 years. Bugger. Next was the tyres, which were bad enough when it was last on the road, completely flat and cracked. Pumped up no problems. Next challenge, will it move? The brakes being rusted and seized to fuck. Jacked the OSR up and gave the calliper a few chaps of the hammer, freed. Went to do the other side and the wheel was free. Likewise the 2 fronts. Nice.

 

Tuesday came, the guys came and had a look, said how they plan to fix it up and had already priced parts. Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t too far gone. Was honest about everything. A deal was done, they collected it today. Typically it was pissing it down. Shame. On the plus side, I got more than I expected for it.

 

Alas poor Cappo, ‘‘twas fun knowing ye.

[Tickman]

Glad you got more than expected.

[r.welfare]

Day off today primarily for car shizz.

 

 

First off my wife's car which has been assuming this position since last Saturday.  Why?  Because the battery light was coming on at high revs, along with the handbrake light flickering on and off.  Googling plus multimetrage on the battery (which is only a couple of years old) led me to suspect the alternator.  More Googling on the part number found a genuine Nissan exchange job on eBay for £60 delivered.  Lovely!  Another £7 spent at Amazon for an SKF serpentine belt, and I was ready to go.

 

 

Getting the old one out took about half an hour, getting the new one on took about three times as long, as it was a pain to line the mounting bolts up with their holes, then I couldn't remember how the idler pulley bolt (used to set the tension worked); I got the washer on the wrong side, so once I fired it up I could smell hot plastic...looking at the workshop manual (which I should have done in the first place) got everything worked out, although stopping the idler pulley going squint when tensioning took a while.  Multimeter now says 14.6 volts with the engine running and all accessories on (as opposed to about 12.4 before).  Will take it for a run tomorrow to see if all the warning lights stay off.

 

 

Done a few miles in 8 years has this.  My Geordie postman approves.

 

 

My wife has been driving my car all week so I have been borrowing this again from my brother.  He hardly uses it.  My job - in lieu of hire payment - was to fit new door check straps.  Procedure is battery disconnected, door panels off (all the clips broke, typical E46), unbolt the old ones (completely stuffed), feed them out through the inside of the door (removing lots of skin), feed the new ones back in (even harder as they weren't broken, so less flexible around obstacles) and put it all back together again. 

 

 

Wonderful.  Never doing that job again.  Only one armrest bolt that wouldn't bite, and now the electric mirrors don't work.  Mainly because the plug broke when I pulled the door card off.  I'll get the soldering iron out when I get trim clips.

 

Lovely creamy 2.5 straight-six, surprisingly economical and handsome, unmolested looks (I like the gingercators, it would be even nicer if it had been painted a proper colour), but it's being slowly consumed by tinworm and it clonks underneath when you change from 1st to 2nd.  My money's on the propshaft flex disc/guibo/giubo thing, cheap to buy but painful to fit because you need to drop the exhaust.  Another day.

 

All this took me about six hours.  Good job I don't do this for a living, innit?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

CX's MoT booked for next Friday. This is the same tester who did my oul 635 for donkeys' years up to 2013. He hasn't seen me since then.....

[chodweaver]

^^^^^^ Crossing digits here for another year's ticket on the CX...

[mrbenn]

Wonderful.  Never doing that job again.  Only one armrest bolt that wouldn't bite, and now the electric mirrors don't work.  Mainly because the plug broke when I pulled the door card off.  I'll get the soldering iron out when I get trim clips.

 

Just done similar on my brother's E46 and had same problem with the arm rest. One of the spire clips had slipped off an fallen inside the door, should be able to retrieve and push it back into place.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

^^^^^^ Crossing digits here for another year's ticket on the CX...

There are three possible things that could happen:

 

1. Failure to start on the key, because Citroën.

2. Air horn fails to work, despite my clean up and repair*

3. Greasy gearbox casing put down to fluid leak (there isn't one, far as I know)

 

Any or all of these could produce fail.

 

Just hoping the tester recognises it for what it is - a very old car - just as he used to with the 635 and doesn't get pedantic.

[Tamworthbay]

Day off today primarily for car shizz.

 

IMG_2616.JPG

 

First off my wife's car which has been assuming this position since last Saturday.  Why?  Because the battery light was coming on at high revs, along with the handbrake light flickering on and off.  Googling plus multimetrage on the battery (which is only a couple of years old) led me to suspect the alternator.  More Googling on the part number found a genuine Nissan exchange job on eBay for £60 delivered.  Lovely!  Another £7 spent at Amazon for an SKF serpentine belt, and I was ready to go.

 

IMG_2615.JPG

 

Getting the old one out took about half an hour, getting the new one on took about three times as long, as it was a pain to line the mounting bolts up with their holes, then I couldn't remember how the idler pulley bolt (used to set the tension worked); I got the washer on the wrong side, so once I fired it up I could smell hot plastic...looking at the workshop manual (which I should have done in the first place) got everything worked out, although stopping the idler pulley going squint when tensioning took a while.  Multimeter now says 14.6 volts with the engine running and all accessories on (as opposed to about 12.4 before).  Will take it for a run tomorrow to see if all the warning lights stay off.

 

IMG_2617.JPG

 

Done a few miles in 8 years has this.  My Geordie postman approves.

 

IMG_2618.JPG

 

My wife has been driving my car all week so I have been borrowing this again from my brother.  He hardly uses it.  My job - in lieu of hire payment - was to fit new door check straps.  Procedure is battery disconnected, door panels off (all the clips broke, typical E46), unbolt the old ones (completely stuffed), feed them out through the inside of the door (removing lots of skin), feed the new ones back in (even harder as they weren't broken, so less flexible around obstacles) and put it all back together again. 

 

IMG_2619.JPG

 

Wonderful.  Never doing that job again.  Only one armrest bolt that wouldn't bite, and now the electric mirrors don't work.  Mainly because the plug broke when I pulled the door card off.  I'll get the soldering iron out when I get trim clips.

 

Lovely creamy 2.5 straight-six, surprisingly economical and handsome, unmolested looks (I like the gingercators, it would be even nicer if it had been painted a proper colour), but it's being slowly consumed by tinworm and it clonks underneath when you change from 1st to 2nd.  My money's on the propshaft flex disc/guibo/giubo thing, cheap to buy but painful to fit because you need to drop the exhaust.  Another day.

 

All this took me about six hours.  Good job I don't do this for a living, innit?

it’s a shit job on the E46 for sure, there are also two types, one looks better made but fucks up the electric window channel if fitted to the wrong door as I found out.

[r.welfare]

This is an early coupe so I struggled a bit to find the right strap, thankfully they were identical to those that came out. I forgot to mention I put the first one in the wrong way round so I couldn't reconnect the bolt to the door jamb...great days. I believe it's a slightly easier job on the saloon or Touring as there is slightly better access.

[stuboy]

Had to crowbar my wallet open as i knew front tyres where getting low on the daddywagon, ats wanted £167 the pair, rang protyre(tyreweb) and they quoted £130 so being a tightass i went there and got a pair of autoquips.

[mrbenn]

At Krown having rust proofing applied to my brother’s E46. Back in a couple of weeks to have my car and a mate’s done. Very interesting stuff, big in Canada where they salt the roads like hell over winter.

 

An easy 70 mile trip but the M6 was at a standstill going north as one lorry had bummed another. Hope there were no injuries.

[fatharris]

Finished work for three weeks yesterday afternoon, and after attending a few appointments, the late afternoon gave me enough free time to do what I've wanted to do for two years.

 

 

 

When we moved into The Cottage, the garage had a partition wall fitted by the previous owner who was a drummer. This back room was almost completely soundproof, and served as a parts dump for all the Mini bits.

 

 

However, it meant that only the Mini would fit in, so after two years, the time came to pull it down.

 

Made some good progress last night

 

 

The walls were really well constructed, with chipboard, sound absorbing rubber, sound deadening foam, fibreglass and plasterboard. The rubber sheeting will be repurposed for future projects

 

 

I plan to move the storage racking so it's down one side, and relocate the workbench to the back of the garage, with a tool board/shelving running down the other side.

 

Hopefully it works out

[mrbenn]

Nice. I did similar with our garage last year, really opened it up and made it a lot more usable. Can just about squeeze the Minor and Smart in together now if necessary (if I remove one of the Minor’s bumpers....).

[fatharris]

Nice. I did similar with our garage last year, really opened it up and made it a lot more usable. Can just about squeeze the Minor and Smart in together now if necessary (if I remove one of the Minor’s bumpers....).

Would be nice to fit the Mini and the Mazda in together for the winter!

[wuvvum]

Hey, why is Mr Welfare "validating"? He's been here since the dawn of time...

 

Did another 260 miles in the 205 yesterday. As usual it held its own quite happily in busy motorway traffic, although it did run out of traction trying to accelerate hard off a soaking wet roundabout on the A420. The radiator fan kicked in for the first time in my ownership while sitting in traffic on the M5 - was glad to discover that it was working as it should as with the temp warning light coming on randomly there's no other indication of when its getting warm.

 

I'm still probably going to have to sell it soon, sadly.

[r.welfare]

At Krown having rust proofing applied to my brother’s E46.

 

What's it like under the sill covers?

[r.welfare]

Hey, why is Mr Welfare "validating"? He's been here since the dawn of time...

 

I'm not going anywhere (although I've moved from carshite to houseshite for the time being, so fleet reports will dwindle), just a change of email address, so normal service should now be resumed.

[mrbenn]

What's it like under the sill covers?

Solid as a rock, thankfully/surprisingly. Only really bits of surface rust here and there. Not bad going for 18 years old and 144k miles.

[mrbenn]

Underside being coated now.

[ProgRocker]

I thought I saw a Hyundai Sonata with round-ish headlights filling up at Tescos this morning as I was inflating my tyres. Chap filling up started staring back at me so I looked at what I was doing. Looked around again a bit late and realised that it was a 51 reg Lexus GS 300. Chap probably didn't look happy because he was probably looking to part with £100 to fill one of those up with pez.    

[HillmanImp]

Imp Jr has just come upstairs and asked what I am doing and I've said 'Trying to find out what sort of carb I've got' and he ran off saying something that sounding a bit like "I'll get my Rancho!".

 

Few minutes later he turns up with his Rancho.

 

 

I'm not exactly sure how he thinks it will help but 10/10 for trying.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

Finished work for three weeks yesterday afternoon, and after attending a few appointments, the late afternoon gave me enough free time to do what I've wanted to do for two years.

 

 

 

When we moved into The Cottage, the garage had a partition wall fitted by the previous owner who was a drummer. This back room was almost completely soundproof, and served as a parts dump for all the Mini bits.

 

 

However, it meant that only the Mini would fit in, so after two years, the time came to pull it down.

 

Made some good progress last night

 

 

The walls were really well constructed, with chipboard, sound absorbing rubber, sound deadening foam, fibreglass and plasterboard. The rubber sheeting will be repurposed for future projects

 

 

I plan to move the storage racking so it's down one side, and relocate the workbench to the back of the garage, with a tool board/shelving running down the other side.

 

Hopefully it works out

 

 

As a drummer, I am deeply envious and have conflicting feelings about this!

[cort16]

Not buying anymore cars he says then suddenly your the highest bidder on a non running allegro that needs welding.

 

Then you win the auction.

 

I don't even like allegros

 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

Not buying anymore cars he says then suddenly your the highest bidder on a non running allegro that needs welding.

 

Then you win the auction.

 

I don't even like allegros

 

Just add PLAH.

[vulgalour]

Mmm, desperate late model facelift appeal.

[cort16]

Is it technically a coupe ?

[vulgalour]

No, but only because the rear seat is big enough to accomodate full sized people.  A coupé should only really have a package storage area back there, or token seats, to qualify imo.