The new news 24 thread

[Guest Hooli]

Me and Girlfriend_70s are going on a day trip to Loch Lomond. I've elected to take the Doloshite.

 

Adventure!

 

Just in case

 

https://www.laterooms.com/en/k16295577_loch-lomond-hotels.aspx?k=Loch+Lomond%2C+Highland%2C+UK&n=1&d=20180922&et=POI&rt=2-0&pr-min=70&pr-max=160&distanceUnit=on&SortOrder=Price&SortedAscending=true

[wuvvum]

Remember hiring one when we moved house. Interior plastics were hilariously shit, I was warned to be gentle with the gearchange and also warned not to apply pressure to any panel for fear of it buckling under the pressure. It was a bloody good drive though, and didn't hang about! I was impressed.

That just about sums it up. Plastics to make an Iveco blush, shonky electrics, tin foil bodywork and a gear change that can't be rushed, but they were a cheap van when new and are a very, very cheap van now. And they have enough grunt that you don't have to use the gears much anyway.

[gm]

Me and Girlfriend_70s are going on a day trip to Loch Lomond. I've elected to take the Doloshite.

Adventure!

The Oak Tree Inn at Balmaha is a smashing spot for a bite to eat, decent rooms too if you fancy staying over

 

[RobT]

Outside in the pissing rain trying to change the Xantia's drive belt (bits flew off it last week), I had a delivery. It's about time I bought a car off bramz...

 

 

These were an optional extra on the GTS-X. Frickin' YES.

 

 

Standard equipment was this snazzy interior and sports steering wheel.

 

 

I've given up on Xantia fixage today. Much more fun to potter about with the 19.

 

Edit: after reading the brochure properly, the yellow fogs were actually standard equipment. PAS was an option. Steering at slow speeds requires monumental effort, so this doesn't have it! Must check the pressures.

[Tamworthbay]

The Oak Tree Inn at Balmaha is a smashing spot for a bite to eat, decent rooms too if you fancy staying over

IMG_1679.JPG

I have had food there a couple of times. Very nice food and very reasonable prices.

[Guest Hooli]

Outside in the pissing rain trying to change the Xantia's drive belt (bits flew off it last week), I had a delivery. It's about time I bought a car off bramz...

 

20180922_135749.jpg

 

These were an optional extra on the GTS-X. Frickin' YES.

 

20180922_135941.jpg

 

Standard equipment was this snazzy interior and sports steering wheel.

 

20180922_143650.jpg

 

I've given up on Xantia fixage today. Much more fun to potter about with the 19.

 

I've seen that seat pattern before, as 70s bed sheets!

[davehedgehog31]

Not really deserving of a thread, but collectioning was afoot this morning. No pictures of the event though.

 

The location, Tebay services. The time, about half 9. The car collected being this;

 

 

Sadly, only one car could return, so my old Rover is now C/O fellow shiter Monsieur Shadow. It's in good hands.

 

There was a return drive, adding some motor fuel spirit at Southwaite services, a snip (!) at 154.9 per litre.

 

There was a quick wash of the outside;

 

 

A stereo was installed and there was quick wash of the inside;

 

 

It met my girlfriends Alto about ten years his junior;

 

 

It's a nice little runabout. While the motorway isn't it's forte, it got me up the road with no fuss just the same. I've strangely always fancied one, nice to finally have acquired one. 

 

Has a few unexpected extras in the form of leccy windows and central locking.

 

The paint is somewhat challenged, but a good scrub and aggressive polish will be satisfying and make it look a bit tidier.

[captain_70s]

The Oak Tree Inn at Balmaha is a smashing spot for a bite to eat, decent rooms too if you fancy staying over

 

IMG_1679.JPG

We passed by but didn't eat as it was a bit early for food at the time...

 

I say we passed by, as I pulled out of the car park onto the road immediately outside the inn the car died and refused to restart.

 

 

A kindly chap helped me and Girlfriend_70s push it back into the car park where I fiddled about with a few ignition components halfheartedly until it worked again. Other than that minor mishap the car ran fine and took us up to the Trossachs with no other issues, clocked up around 120 miles today.

 

[Six-cylinder]

It is a damp dark night here in North Bucks and I have been out to to meet a friend, as he has an interest in cars we did a walk round of the car park and found this to brighten our evening!

 

Add, I have just looked it up and it comes up as a 2.0 Ghia in brown!

[vulgalour]

For a second there I thought that was snow all over in that picture and was very confused.

[iainrcz]

Work news.

 

A penis on my shift has just emptied a full tip-skip of general waste in to the cardboard only recycling skip.

 

Bravo.

 

Sent from my VFD 710 using Tapatalk

[RobT]

The view from my kitchen window today. Three French dizzlers.

 

 

Wot went rong with car styling. Discuss.

 

Although for a modern I quite like the Modus. Looks OK in giffer gold.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

BMW 730d, that's very specific!

What about the other 7 series?

Because posh taxi. Usually driven aggressively at speed over here anyway

 

Sent from my F3211 using Tapatalk

[vulgalour]

Hooray, I am very unlikely to have an incident, Yahoo! says so.  Although, surely the vehicles least likely to have an incident would those be registering 0% rather than the heady heights of 3%.  I'm not a mathematician, but I'm pretty sure that's how numbers work.  Perhaps there are no vehicles with 0% incidences, though I find that hard to believe, statistically, because there's probably low volume exotic called a Bingleby Bumrot Turbot Satsuma or something that's too valuable/worthless to be involved in an incident.

[clayts450]

Fully functioning bonnet on the snoozer

 

(quote from PT Cruiser club as too lazy to post again)

 

 

 

Postscript on this as, like others, I hate searching for and finding topics that don't have a resolution. 

In fiddling about some more I achieved nothing less than snapping the cable at the release end....with the bonnet down of course. 

Search on eBay netted me a cable complete with the release lever for £20 - perfect. 

You have to remove the interior trim ('kick panel') which came out easily enough after some jabbing and prying with a screwdriver, and I was able to unbolt the release handle. 

Where the cable had snapped meant there was nothing to grab hold of to enable bonnet liftage, as naturally it had sheared right in the middle of where the cable goes through the handle. As the handle was going to be replaced anyway, I got violent with some tin snips and was able to pull off the cable and yank that end out. Pair of pliers on the exposed bit of cable and bonnet popped open. Loverly. 

Unbolted the catch with surprising ease, turned over, unhooked the end of the cable, then back under the dash to push the rubber grommet out. 

I then left the old cable in place, threaded the new one (with the handle attached and it's own grommet) through the same hole and tied some string on the end of the bit I'd be pulling through to marry up to the release catch - vital to help you thread the cable through some tricky bits. 

I was then able to follow the route of the old cable until I got to the bit underneath the air filter, where I chose a slightly different route as it was near on impossible to thread it where the old cable went. It popped out next to the radiator and was able to yank it through with enough play to attach it onto the release catch. Small doll-sized hands and a third hand would have been useful for this exercise. 

After a bit of faffing I got it attached, bolted it down (by this time it was pitch black and I was damned if I was leaving the bonnet insecure overnight - bit rough round this area !) and slammed the bonnet down. It didn't catch, dagnabbit. 

Pulled the lever out in the cabin, tried shutting the bonnet again - success

I'll be reattaching the trim and the release handle this morning, but it locked, it works, and I'm happy. 

Oh and yes, I did pull out the old cable - came out easy enough (Haynes says pull it from cabin side - rubbish : pull it engine side and it's much easier 

[clayts450]

To reward* me for fixing the bonnet cable, the Cruiser then FTP this morning - flat battery (revisited). I really must put a better one in the old girl. That's on charge.

 

The MoT is due 9Oct so I had a few more jobs to do so...

 

The scraping noise had returned to one of the back wheels, despite me replacing the brake pads a while back. Suspected I knew what it was (one of the clips on the back of the pads had dropped off in my last fitment) and indeed twas that. I'd managed to source some quality TRW pads for a knock down price a few months back and, given my experience last time, had both wheels off, the car up, both calipers off, , some brake fluid syringed out of the reservoir, the pads replaced, calipers on, wheels on and lowered within 45 minutes. It really is a piece of piss on the Snoozer.

 

Finally we had this little issue:

 

offside headlight - clear

 

 

nearside headlight - foggy (camrah not really picked it up - believe me it was bad)

 

 

Cue some of this shite from Halfords (mugged off to the tune of £30 but will last a while)

 

 

ten minutes work with the solution, spray over with the clear coat. better (but nowhere close to t'other)

 

 

That should get the thing through the MoT, nae bother

 

[Fumbler]

Did this today.

[GeordieInExile]

 

Parked up at the coast and when I came back there was another Aero estate in steel grey parked next to me. The owner was nearby and popped over for a chat. His (the facelift model) was in far nicer condition than mine, but then mine was £500.

[xtriple]

I was determined to get that oil pressure switch off. I ended up taking the tower that holds all the throttle mechanism on, off, the ignition, the linkages and still couldn't move the bastard! My mateVasz came round, and we cut a 19mm spanner down, still, even with his strength, we could not move it.

 

So we took the housing off which meant taking oil feed pipes off that go to the back of each cyl head, copper washer, tiny bolts,  all lost in the bowels of sodding great big and very oily engine"

 

 

 

 

And this was the little sod... still had to go in a vice and get hit with BFO hammer before it finally yielded

 

 

Now just got to put it all back together, buy Vasz a new spanner/lots of lager and fill it up with water. So many wires and connections it will never run agan!

[R9UKE]

IMG_20180923_170408.jpg

 

Parked up at the coast and when I came back there was another Aero estate in steel grey parked next to me. The owner was nearby and popped over for a chat. His (the facelift model) was in far nicer condition than mine, but then mine was £500.

 

 

Having recently changed my daily from a Saab 9-3 Convertible to a Merc CLK Convertible, I miss the run ins with Saab eccentrics already.  And the wave you have to give when another one with the top down comes towards you.  If I waved at any CLK drivers around here, I'd be waving at nothing but glamorous 52 year old bank clerks called Debbie who think I want a bonk.

[bramz7]

So after telling myself no more cars, something rare, insanely weird and must have (for me) appeared on the internet earlier today.

I'm just waiting to hear back if the sellers parents are happy with a deposit....

 

The tension is killing me.

[xtriple]

Having recently changed my daily from a Saab 9-3 Convertible to a Merc CLK Convertible, I miss the run ins with Saab eccentrics already.  And the wave you have to give when another one with the top down comes towards you.  If I waved at any CLK drivers around here, I'd be waving at nothing but glamorous 52 year old bank clerks called Debbie who think I want a bonk.

Yep, another CLK owner here and I reckon I am the only (vaguely) male owner in the area! I have an excuse as my roof is down 'cos the dog likes fresh air!

[R9UKE]

Nice one mate!  Glad to know there's at least one other looking like he's borrowed the wife's car! 

 

Cracking car though.  Well pleased with it, build quality, comfort etc all streets ahead of the Saab.

[xtriple]

I bought mine for 'cheap summer roofless fun' as the mX5 was too small for me and das mutts. After a very few teething troubles (roof handle falling off being the worse!   ) I actually started to use it and it's....really rather good! I did the gearbox reset on mine which made sod all difference, or so I thought until I put it in 'sport' mode and it was transformed. Before in sport, it was horrible and hung onto gears forever and a day, but now, it is exactly as you would wish a 5-speed box to be. It's still naff in 'winter' (waft) mode and still hangs onto hears to long for me - I like things like the old BW 35 that has you in top at 15mph!   

[trigger]

I sold this last Saturday.

 

 

I've been umming and ahhing about it for a while, and I've had someone bugging me for a while to buy it, I was just going to sorn it over winter but with cash being waved under my nose I bit.

 

I wasn't sure I had done the right thing until I saw him drive away and the big cloud of blue smoke pouring out the back behind him. The valve stems need changing and I couldn't be arsed to do it, this way I've got all my money back that it owes me and I've had a year's worth of fun out of it.

 

I've still got the van and the Marina, the van might go too as I fancy something else and the Marinas being prepped to be displayed at the NEC in November.

[HMC]

Gave the new shape 900 a bit of a shakedown today. As it’s got winter tyres fitted already it’s top of the list for Germany transport at the end of the year (obv assuming boredom hasn’t set in) No hot running, happy at various speeds on the A38 and th climb over the moor on the route back. It reminded me of the “birdlip route” that standard-triumph used to use for testing, odd to think that the engine in this GM platform sharer has origins amongst those woodbine smoking standard triumph engineers.

 

Anyway it drove fine, and at a stop off I got a quick pic before my phone died. I’m not sure of the exact colour, but it was almost a match for Dartmoor...

[RobT]

Nice colour, can't recall ever seeing one in that before.

 

New username for you: Wallander!

[HMC]

That’s a great one! My avatar could be either Branagh or either of the Swedish blokes

[GeordieInExile]

Best colour and best wheels for a 9-3. I like.

[davehedgehog31]

I gave the Alto a good seeing to yesterday. 

 

The little scamp drives perfectly, but I don't think it had any attention paid to it's cosmetics in a long, long time. Even after it's jet hosing, there was a layer of various indeterminate crud all over it. 

 

It was going to need quite an aggressive scrubbing. First of all, I gave it a thorough washing and instead of using car shampoo I used (avert thine eyes two bucket wrong uns) fairy liquid. This had quite a good effect and made a good dent in the crud. Seeing as I was going to polish and wax it I just wanted to really strip it back as far as I could and didn't want the waxy additives from car shampoo.

 

I went over the full car with a clay bar which done a good job at removing some more of the assorted deposits and the car was pretty smooth and looking a lot better.

 

I don't have a rotary polisher unfortunately, so some good old fashioned elbow grease would have to do, I used a bottle of "Mer ultimate polish" I had in the shed and vigorously applied it by hand. Conditions weren't ideal as it was unusually bright and the paint was getting quite hot, but I think I covered most. 

 

Last of all, I went over the whole lot with paste wax, it smelt nice and looked pretty presentable after all this. Cleaned all the glass too.

 

It has various dents and scabs all round which no amount of polishing will sort but it does look much more presentable now and it was pretty satisfying.

 

 

I've done over 250 miles in it since Saturday and it's absolutely fine. I'll probably do a full review at some stage or maybe even a comparison to the Citroen C1. Although they're both small cars, they're quite a lot different. You can definitely tell the Alto is very much of a previous generation, but it's still capable transport on a shoestring. 

 

Of my 250 miles, most have been motorway and it's actually fine. Hills must be anticipated and it will struggle up an incline in it's long fifth gear, probably best to think of it as a four speed with fifth being an overdrive for flat or higher speed cruising.