The new news 24 thread

[Cavcraft]

Well in on the Astra estate, looks a million times better with proper trims on it.

[cort16]

I've finally got this old crock running after replacing the battery, removing the starter deciding it was fine and putting it back in. Still nothing, just a click when I turned the key then after 1/2 a dozen attempts it just started turning over. I dunno why but I'm putting it down to a sticking relay or something. When it did start running the oil pressure gauge was showing nadda, which was a bit worrying. After some digging around I found a stray wire around the oil pressure sender. I plugged it back in and bingo - oil pressure.

I took it for a wash and a hoover and it's running as well as it did when I laid it up 3 months ago. The downside is when I had it up on stands faffing with the starter I noticed the floors going to need a bit of weldage before the MOT.

 

sd1 by cort16, on Flickr

[dollywobbler]

The Merc seems to keep losing coolant. The Merc's gearbox level seems somewhat overfilled. These two things are related. DONKEY BALLS! That probably means a new radiator and gearbox flush needed then.

 

Also, I still haven't had the V5 come through. I signed it and left it with the seller, but no sign. Guess I'll have to try this sending the green slip off to the DVLA lark - apparently they should send me the logbook for free, but that means having to drive 12 miles to a post office with the correct forms.

 

STILL waiting for a coolant sensor for it too. Has been a bleedin' nightmare trying to find the right one and I've still no idea if the one on its way actually is the right one. Why did they have to fit so many different ones?!

 

I'm never buying a reliable German car again. I'll stick to unreliable French shite. It is still for sale! For a much-reduced price. Would swap for small hatchback.

[ruffgeezer]

Also, I still haven't had the V5 come through. I signed it and left it with the seller, but no sign. Guess I'll have to try this sending the green slip off to the DVLA lark - apparently they should send me the logbook for free, but that means having to drive 12 miles to a post office with the correct forms.

 

Click this link, print it out and tell me you love me

[dollywobbler]

I'm very cagey about declaring my love for people on the internet, but rest assured I'm very grateful for that link! It somehow passed me by that you can download these forms.

[Guest]

I'm very cagey about declaring my love for people on the internet, but rest assured I'm very grateful for that link! It somehow passed me by that you can download these forms.

 

I'm going to have to do that in order to get a log book for my sodding GS. The two twunts I bought it from never found the V5 despite promising to look for it.

 

Nice one, lads. You dented it reversing off the trailer and now you've cost me £25. Top show.

[MrDuke]

buy a little hatchback. Something with less than 60bhp ideally and that won't rot too readily.

 

*COUGH*

[dollywobbler]

buy a little hatchback. Something with less than 60bhp ideally and that won't rot too readily.

 

*COUGH*

 

M'lud, I draw your attention to the last section of my request. (and I reckon something smaller than that will be needed, but I did consider the Sunny!)

[red5]

I've finally got this old crock running after replacing the battery, removing the starter deciding it was fine and putting it back in. Still nothing, just a click when I turned the key then after 1/2 a dozen attempts it just started turning over. I dunno why but I'm putting it down to a sticking relay or something. When it did start running the oil pressure gauge was showing nadda, which was a bit worrying. After some digging around I found a stray wire around the oil pressure sender. I plugged it back in and bingo - oil pressure.

I took it for a wash and a hoover and it's running as well as it did when I laid it up 3 months ago. The downside is when I had it up on stands faffing with the starter I noticed the floors going to need a bit of weldage before the MOT.

 

sd1 by cort16, on Flickr

 

SD1's used to disable starter if one of the wires was disconnected iirc. Oil pressure switch or similar. Seem to have vague memories of odd starting issues being traced to that.

[MrDuke]

M'lud, I draw your attention to the last section of my request. (and I reckon something smaller than that will be needed, but I did consider the Sunny!)

 

Touché

[vulgalour]

Storage may have been found for the BX. I'll leave it up for sale until I'm 100% sure, but it would certainly be welcome if I didn't have to move it on, it's a superb machine and I will regret parting with it if I have to.

[dollywobbler]

I'm very annoyed at myself for letting the 2CV get into such a horrible, rotten state. A thorough going over is on the cards, but I'm at the stage that I need to start preventing rust getting much more of a hold or there'll simply be nothing left to repair.

 

I had a look at the sills today. Bit flaky.

 

My cheapo Homebase screwdriver quickly got the sill to this stage.

 

The paint just sort of fell off and there was quite a lot of moisture beneath the paint. I scraped all bubbles and then went over the whole area with a sanding block. Once wiped clean, I smothered everything with Vactan rust converter, which seems very similar to Bilt Hamber's Hydrate 80 stuff.

 

This was only meant to be a quick job, but I soon ended up removing the rear door and seat to access other areas of woe.

 

This front wing is for the bin. It's a pattern part and was rotting very badly indeed. As I had some Vactan left over in my pot, I thought I'd smother the wing with it and see what happens. Psychedelic!

 

I got a bit carried away and am not really sure what I'm going to put over the Vactan once it has dried. I did find a tin of red primer earlier, which'll do for the wing, and some white Hammerite, which I probably shouldn't use on the sills.

[vulgalour]

Autosupplies must love me. Spent ages trying to locate valve stem seals for the Princess on their various systems until we found one supplier with them in stock. Due to the apparent difficulty of finding these things I bought them even if I don't need them as they were less than a tenner, I have all the puffs of oil smoke stuff to tell me the stem seals probably need doing soon.

[trigger]

Driving around some rural Welsh village in the middle of nowhere i spotted a red Citreon BX Estate outside a garage, I go to the wife "look a shit car!" (that's what she calls the old cars), i look at the number plate, it's only Dollywobblers one! small world!

 

It looks great in the flesh mate.

[dollywobbler]

Driving around some rural Welsh village in the middle of nowhere i spotted a red Citreon BX Estate outside a garage, I go to the wife "look a shit car!" (that's what she calls the old cars), i look at the number plate, it's only Dollywobblers one! small world!

 

It looks great in the flesh mate.

 

Ah, you've been very local today then! It's still awaiting a balljoint and inner track rod. I'm in the next village.

[trigger]

I did laugh, we had been to Devil's Bridge then for a monster walk round Hafod, he stopped at the village shop around the corner from that garage. Lovely area to live I'd imagine, also saw a old Morris LD bus not far from there too.

[dollywobbler]

I did laugh, we had been to Devil's Bridge then for a monster walk round Hafod, he stopped at the village shop around the corner from that garage. Lovely area to live I'd imagine, also saw a old Morris LD bus not far from there too.

 

Ah, the ex-ambulance that's now sort of yellow? I've never known it move. Not far from where the BX is there's a driveway with an abandoned Ambassador on it. I keep meaning to drop in and ask what the plan is with it but that hasn't moved since we came here in 2010...

[trigger]

That would be the one, now you say it it was a ambulance! I've also seen a driveway locally with 2 old BX's on it, one on axle stands and a red one next to it.

 

That's also a yellow P reg Citroen Dyane Van (AK400?) at the top of the road too.

[dollywobbler]

The van is an AKS400 - 2CV based. That'll be Simon and his bananavan. It's just been rechassied. I found the driveway full of BXs when we were house hunting but I've never managed to find it since!

[ruffgeezer]

Having already got a brokenish Dispatch van, what's the next sensible step? That's right! Buy an even more broken Scudo to keep.it company... Ffs!

[cort16]

After my epic 11 minute journey to pick up the Astra where I looked out the window of my wifes car at some shops and watched an old dog crossing the street slowly I got this home safely.

It looks clean other than a little dent on the boot lid. Theres an engine management light on, the clock doesnt work, the temp gauge is slow or intermittant and the centre console looks like its been painted with hammerite but over all pretty good for a 10+ year old Astra. If anyone fancies it then give me a shout as it was a random ebay purchase.

 

disastra1 by cort16, on Flickr

 

disastra2 by cort16, on Flickr

[vulgalour]

BX storage fell through which should mean that I continue to push to sell it and when it inevitably doesn't sell at the end of the allocated time period, I'd be forced to scrap it. However, there is another way, it's the Denis Leary way, and it is a way I had forgotten. I am going to create some sort of pandemonium on the driveway by keeping both cars on it and sod the consequences. The drive can hold 5 full size cars but presently stores only three because whichever of my two is road legal gets forced to live on the street. No more. From this day forth I shall be following the teachings of Leary:

 

Oh boohoo Mr Neighbour, you're going to have to walk an extra 500 feet to knock on our door to ask me to move one of my shitty cars so you can go out doing whatever it is people with children do. You might have to do it every day. How terrible. What a shame. See the amount of fucks I cannot give.

[Timewaster]

A the centre console looks like its been painted with hammerite

 

Didn't they come from the factory like that?

[cort16]

I should have said textured Hammerite. It's all wobbly, very odd.

[vulgalour]

Would someone bother to touch up a centre console panel to freshen it up a bit? Looks like they might have also painted the grille bar black for some reason, so perhaps they were into their arts and crafts.

[cort16]

Its got hints of blue Peter about it that's for sure. I'll take some pics tomorrow. I've just discovered the stereos pretty swanky it's got iPod and blue tooth.

[phil_lihp]

Hah, that's normal! They came with a horrible battleship grey paint finish which rubs off with minimal effort and looks crap by times the car's done a few miles. I did exactly the same thing to mine in the same colour (well, Vauxhall Star Silver) but I did take all the bits off and sand, prime and spray them with some* care. It looked pretty OK if you didn't notice the runs and iffy laquer finish. When researching how best to do it, I did see evidence of some absolutely horrible chav jobs in bright colours.

 

If the finish is bad, it may well be that the person who did it sanded too much back, the original grey should be keyed but not rubbed through as there's a layer of something underneath which paint reacts with - the only other option is to sand it down to the bare plastic all over which is a lot of work.

[cobblers]

Bugger me, I got stacks of stuff done this evening due to the mega pleasant weather based mojo injection.

 

I've got my T25 camper up for sale(£3.3k if anyone is interested, you probably aren't though) due to being skint and trying to save for a mortgage and some bloke sent a PM asking for some more pictures while I was at work, so when I got back I hoovered it out, washed the outside and G3d off all the rusty trails from down the sides and snapped him some pics and even did a video of it starting up for the first time in about a month.

 

While I had the bucket out, I washed the commuter golf too, and even scraped all the algae out of the window seals with an old dish brush thing. It's like a different car now - It's covered in tar spots and some strange other black marks - I'd BLUTAK clay it off and go at it with some paint renovator etc, but the 3" long hole in the bottom of the drivers door and the bead of silicon round the tailgate window sort of puts me off bothering. It also looks even more like a GTi now, so even more nobs are going to try and race me when I'm trying my best to do 55mpg.

 

Anyway I was PROPER in the mood by now (Like craig charles after an extended taxi ride, you can imagine), so I got the battery on the impact gun and did a formula one pitstop style swap of the coilpack and heater valve thing on the Ka that's earmarked for my nan. Frankly I'm sick of the sight of it so I want it MOT'd and gone off the drive. While I was slinging electrical undoing devices around like an idiot I stripped the rear brakes off my mums MX5 in anticipation of some new ones arriving tomorrow (via UKMAIL so I'll be fucking lucky). After all that action I came back in the house and did some electronic tinkering, and finally got this thing sorted:

It's a DIY tightarse pilfered from scrap PCBS at work adjustable power supply, but it'll charge a car battery at 12 amps and I've programmed it to sense when a battery is full and click over to trickle charge etc. Works pretty well apart from trying to set itself on fire if the battery voltage goes above 14v, but that's just a programming issue.

[Guest]

Cobs, you know this algae? Tell me more about the brush you used, did you stick anything on it?

[cobblers]

Nah I just went at it with the good end of a wonky old brush and some washing up liquid, you'd get the same results with anything really. In the past when I've been trying to clean stuff properly, a cheapo gumslasher toothbrush and some neat TFR will remove everything apart from the actual paint, including all the moisture from your skin making your fingers crack and bleed over a few days, so you know it's good stuff.