The new news 24 thread

[MrDuke]

The Cherry's making its debut on evilBay this evening. Wish me luck and protection from the hordes of internet mongs that are probably sending me indecipherable messages at this very moment.

 

In other news, I bit the bullet and did the drivers' side mirror on the Xan this afternoon, which took me around 2 hours less than the other side did. The rain held off until I was half-way through the job, which was nice*. Even nicer* was seeing water dripping down the back of the passenger-side speaker cavity, when I'd taken the trouble to seal the new mirror with silicon when I changed it. But probably the absolute highlight was chancing across an old post on FCF about the lock button that I've been ranting about on the previous page - following their advice enabled me to refit it perfectly in seconds, rendering all my complaints utterly invalid. I'm not sure what annoys me more, the leaky door or my own twattishness.

[rml2345]

Been meaning to write this for some weeks as I've had some ignition related woes on the Volvo...

Anyway. At the end of March (just after the last Scotoshite meet) it decided that it would rather run on three cylinders than four. So the ignition leads were checked, then the distributor cap and rotor arm. All good apart from one small detail, but more on that later.

Whilst poking about I saw that the hall sender plug on the back of the distributor looked pretty dodgy as it hung on the connecting wiring. Sure enough a wee prod resulted in the plug no longer being attached to anything.

Embarrassed face.

So a trip to Central Scotland's favourite Volvo breaker saw the purchase of a second hand one;

 

 

All fitted and it made precisely no difference (to the nearest difference) with regard to the poor running but did let me get the bloody thing home. By this time I was pretty pissed off with it so off to the garage it went. It turned out that the small detail that caused the mess in the first place was a massive crack in the distributor cap that I'd somehow missed by being a bit incompetent. New cap and rotor arm and back to reliability!

For a whole afternoon...

The following morning on an attempted trip to Falkirk the Hall sensor on the second hand distributor gave up completely. A call to Green Flag and half an hour later it was on the back of an Iveco Daily driven by a nice man to the garage. Being another 740 enthusiast, Stevie the garage owner leant me his spare one until I could get a good second hand replacement. Nice chap all round.

I was beginning lose faith in second hand ignition crap and knew the timing belt was needing done. Add to that a recently discovered leaking water pump and despondency wasn't far away. Serious consideration was given to spending the money on another cheap motor. The problem with that is you could be buying someone else's misery and I'd rather spend it on my own misery.

 

I'm shit at bangernomics.

 

So with cambelt kit, water pump and brand new distributor ordered at £Bumrape it went back to the garage for a third time to be mended for (hopefully) more than an afternoon. Picked it up on Thursday afternoon along with 4 GLE alloys in need of refurbishment and so far it's been absolutely fine.

It's even got a new back box and tailpipe fitted now so sounds much better too.

 

 

Came in very useful yesterday scavenging for seatbelt related gubbins for cms206's Maestro.

 

[Negative Creep]

Seriously thinking of selling the Yugo now, to make way for something like that Cherry or Orion on here. Would anyone be interested?

[wuvvum]

The Scenic "sold" on eBay for £1,382. The high bidder was a zero-feedbacker though so not holding my breath - especially as that's way more than the car is worth. The second bidder had good feedback but he'd sent me a couple of messages and it seems he wanted the car to do a charity rally to Mongolia - I did my best to put him off (I don't think modern Renault build quality would stand up to ex-Soviet roads) but seems he decided to bid anyway - and, again, bid much more than the car's worth. Weird.

 

I went out for a bike ride this afternoon on the folding bike I bought myself yesterday. It's actually not an unpleasant thing to ride - it doesn't feel as heavy as some folding bikes I've tried in the past, and it has 20" wheels so the ride is reasonable and it copes OK with potholes etc. It's rather undergeared though - it has a 6-speed derailleur but even in sixth I found myself pedalling like a twat to move the thing along at a decent speed. As it's been used on campsites it has chunky BMX tyres on it at the moment - they'll not be staying long as they increase the rolling resistance something chronic, and also produce a weird vibration at certain speeds.

 

I was also going to take the moped out for a quick blez, but that was aborted when I went to get my gloves out of the front passenger seat of the Rover 75 and the door wouldn't unlock. I'd actually never tried that door as I've not needed to carry any passengers in the car since I've had it. The lock button pops up and it feels like it should be unlocked, but the catch won't release. I prised the door card off as far as I could and discovered that the mechanism is almost completely inaccessible with the door closed - I managed to ascertain that the locking button is still attached to the little lever on the mechanism, which is moving as it should, and the cable from the door pull also appears to be attached as it should be, so looks like something's worn out / broken / stuck inside the catch itself. Arseflaps.

[shedvan]

Is Austin Rover Online down right now?

[cort16]

Great weldage cobblers given you used some garden to shape the metal.

I took the injectors from the Smart to a specialist in Glasgow at the weekend. They tested them this morning and all three are goosed . They recon they've got a wiff of petrol about them so it seem the car's been misfueled. The fella at the injector place said "so do you want us to go ahead and rebuilder them." How much is it i say? £125 each + VAT so £450!! I went away and made a cup of tea at that point just so I could spit it all over my desk.

I told them to hold off.

 

I knew there was a place on line that did them for £114 each inc VAT so I fired an e-mail off to them then went hunting on ebay and found a car that had been rear ended. I e-mailed the guy and they still had the injectors and the car had been running well (hopefully) before it got bumped. I got them £150 + postage for all three so fingers crossed. If I'm feeling flush I might get the old three refurbed anyway as they sell for around £170 each refurbed and that would pretty much cover the costs of the 2nd hand ones I bought.

[dollywobbler]

Seeing as all my cars are rubbish, I'm considering a leap to the dark side and the purchase of something less than 20 years old. I need to keep my NCD going. Currently have my eye on a TDDi Focus (prefer the older diesel) and the Rover 200/25 is on the list of possibles. Have also hurled the Merc onto Ebay as I don't want it anymore. It's not entirely the Merc's fault - I'm also fed up with how much my other half hates it. It seems that having separate heating for each side of the car doesn't make up for woeful MPG.

[cort16]

Dollywobbler I hear Laguna Diesels are good value. Just saying.

[dean36014]

can have my C5 for 700 quid!

[dollywobbler]

Hmmm. Moar detayls Plz.

[dean36014]

2.0hdi, sx model. silver in colour. mot'ed to april 1st 2014, taxed for about 4 months i think. Cheap tax, think its £120 a year, its an 03 reg. Got new front avons for the mot, new rear avon tyres last year. Had cambelt, waterpump and tensioner done 8000 miles ago. had oil and filter change last week. been totally reliable in the 15 months I've had it, done nearly 17k in it. 5 speed manual, climate control, remote locking, boot liner,Cd changer in boot. not bad on fuel for a big car.

Faults, has a few car park dents and the odd scuff on the bumpers, aircon is icy cold, but occasionally the climate control plays funny buggers and jams on hot on the passenger side.Has a slight leak from a power steering pipe which runs from the pump to the rack, I just top it up when i hear the steering pump start to groan, it uses Total LDS fluid, will fill it up and chuck in a few bottles with car. Alloys could do with a refurb, but its never bothered me as I just drive it!

Its in Coventry, and now sorn due to taking the insurance of it today.

Looks like this when its clean(which it will be when its sold)

[dean36014]

Meant to say its just shy of 117k miles, and can collect from Cov station!

Tax is due 01/09/14

[dollywobbler]

Hmmm. Tempting but I can already sense a 'too big' from my other half. Yes, I know she says that about anything that isn't a Mini, but the Ford Focus I showed her earlier was almost met with enthusiasm. Almost.

[cms206]

Tamed the awesome handling prowess of the Maestro today by visiting my local part worn tyre emporium. The nice chaps fitted a brand new* Gilslaved and a part worn Runway in exchange for twenty five pounds. If I am found dead in some sort of Maestro based murderous atrocity involving street furniture please let my family know the Maestro wasn't mine. I fear I couldn't handle the shame.

[dean36014]

my ex wife just bought an old focus, its rotten! engines the old 1.8td, thats still sweet though. Its not going anywhere atm, need to clean it out, wash it and the lob it on gumtree.

[Volksy]

Spent most of Saturday battling with my mates Transit. He's run it out of diesel and couldn't get it going again. I went to where he'd broken down and we tried in vain to get it running. It didn't seem to want to bleed, there's no manual pump on the newer Duratorq one's as they are 'self bleeding'. Suddenly it stopped even turning over. So we had to admit defeat. Luckily I'm in the AA, so got them out to see if they could help. Appears the starter had fried. So he got a tow home.

 

He's stripped the starter down and it's got a set of planet gears inside that had fallen to bits, therefore jamming it all up.

[vulgalour]

My brother and I started cutting rust out of the BX today. There's surprisingly large amounts of car in between the rusty bits, this is promising. There's also much more metal behind the rear bumper than expected, which was even more of a surprise. There will be a full update in due course, especially since we made a ramp out of a bonnet to get the BX to where we work on it.

[sporty-shite]

Spent most of Saturday battling with my mates Transit. He's run it out of diesel and couldn't get it going again. I went to where he'd broken down and we tried in vain to get it running. It didn't seem to want to bleed, there's no manual pump on the newer Duratorq one's as they are 'self bleeding'. Suddenly it stopped even turning over. So we had to admit defeat. Luckily I'm in the AA, so got them out to see if they could help. Appears the starter had fried. So he got a tow home.

 

He's stripped the starter down and it's got a set of planet gears inside that had fallen to bits, therefore jamming it all up.

 

If it's like my old one (2000 model), you should press the brake and accelerator pedals down fully, at the same time, then turn on the ignition. keep the pedals pressed, and after about 30 seconds(ish) you will hear a small pump prime up, and the service lights will flash/go out. Once the pump stops, it will start. It's the process for re-setting the service lights, but there's also a small primer pump on top of the filter body, which fills the filter back up after it's been changed. It used to work for me, when I changed the filter.

[dollywobbler]

The BX has healed itself, which is nice. Finally managed to find a moment to drag my sorry arse under the BX's arse. It's been parked on ramps for several days, so I could actually crawl underneath with it on low. Cleaned up all the spilt LHM and started it up. Got a surprise as the LHM was dripping down from above the suspension unit. OMG I CAN NOT HAZ FAYLE AKSHULY!

 

I think there's a return pipe union up there. My fiddling around with it may have improved things as it doesn't seem to be losing any fluid now. The slightly-risky drive to London this weekend might be back on. I must remember that the cooling fan is operated by a manual switch... (there's no temperature gauge - that'd be far too convenient!).

[cort16]

The smart defo has had or still had petrol in it. I took the fuel cap off and had a good sniff and it's very petrolly.

Next job is to figure out how the tank come out.

[skattrd]

The smart defo has had or still had petrol in it. I took the fuel cap off and had a good sniff and it's very petrolly.

Next job is to figure out how the tank come out.

I hope that smart was damned cheap, as it appears to be quite a bit of work to get it going again.

[Cavcraft]

Spent most of Saturday battling with my mates Transit. He's run it out of diesel and couldn't get it going again. I went to where he'd broken down and we tried in vain to get it running. It didn't seem to want to bleed, there's no manual pump on the newer Duratorq one's as they are 'self bleeding'. Suddenly it stopped even turning over. So we had to admit defeat. Luckily I'm in the AA, so got them out to see if they could help. Appears the starter had fried. So he got a tow home.

 

He's stripped the starter down and it's got a set of planet gears inside that had fallen to bits, therefore jamming it all up.

 

It's not the early signs of DMF FAIL is it? I'm sure they start taking the starter out by filling it with bits of metal.

[cobblers]

Well, I finally went at all the seams with a wire wheel, a job I've been putting off for months. It went really well. I knew it was solid, but I was surprised just how good it turned out - I only opened up two small holes on one rear corner

 

 

Looks like this from inside:

 

 

I've repaired the outer lower corner as I thought repair panels were £50 a side, but as you can see there's rust on the rear tubs just behind this, which is really hard to get at to make a nice job of - it turns out AHSchofields rear corner repair panels are only £15 a pop so I might cut both corners off to do the tubs to save the back corners going rust again any time soon. It would also save me having to grind this snotty lot down with a dremel since you can't get a grinder into the recess:

 

 

I'll ring Schofields tomorrow and see what the panels are like, if they are a full piece I'll order a pair and chop this lot back off.

[ProgRocker]

Interesting partial drive on the way home from work this evening. Followed some 'wide boy' in a bright red 55 reg Vectra hatchback, , window down and arm perched on the door. His right hand started waving about outside the car like he was conducting an orchestra with one hand and appeared to to be pointing at the trees and cars on the opposite side of the road.

 

I found it rather amusing but I do wonder if he was sane enough to have a licence. Not sure if he was p'd off with the vehicle in front or if he was trying to wind me up for some reason. I kept a safe stopping distance away from him Bizarre. Glad he went in a different direction at the approaching roundabout.

[trigger]

Managed to buy a brand new genuine Ford throttle cable for my Cortina of ebay and had it fitted today, the old one had rusted up and I hadn't noticed, I can feel the difference now, the pedal is much lighter and the car feels more revy although I suspect this is in my head.

 

This now means that I can drive it to the garage in the morning to get my exhaust repaired where it keeps spinning round and hitting the body and my flat spot on the carb looked at and hopefully fixed.

 

In other news I've got my little Alto booked in for it's mot in the morning, the same local garage has been looking after it since 1999 so I've booked the mot with them, they've told me they will charge me trade (£38) for the mot as they know the car and want my business, Hopefully the chip on the windscreen would be a fail...

[cort16]

The smart defo has had or still had petrol in it. I took the fuel cap off and had a good sniff and it's very petrolly.

Next job is to figure out how the tank come out.

I hope that smart was damned cheap, as it appears to be quite a bit of work to get it going again.

 

Ive not spent too much on it so far but I have spent a lot of time piss arsing around with it. Fingers crossed it'll be running soon.

[ruffgeezer]

Started taking stock of the new Scud-o today, 3 good and one usable tyre, all matching which is nice, took the rear shocks off, but the towbar bolts are spinning in their captives so I'll have to attack those with the angry grinder later on...

 

Treasure so far: Iphone car charger (anyone got any use for this?), Bluetooth earpiece, 2x Contractor's ID cards and lots of self drilling screws.

[DSdriver]

Hot news... the Peugeot 206 replacement water pump has not cured the problem and it shat itself down near Chichester. Garage are redoing the head gasket free of charge.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Managed to buy a brand new genuine Ford throttle cable for my Cortina of ebay and had it fitted today, the old one had rusted up and I hadn't noticed, I can feel the difference now, the pedal is much lighter and the car feels more revy although I suspect this is in my head

 

I keep meaning to do this on the current car, its accelerator is really notchy. I replaced the cable in the Herald with a bike brake cable and the difference it made was immense. That felt revvier too, presumably because the cable wasn't offering a load of resistance in both directions.

[andrew e]

Good news: Some more of these bib and brace's have arrived at home:

 

http://www.totalworkwear.co.uk/bib-brac ... /TX12.html

 

Very good quality, knee pad holes, good fit and pockets you can actually rummage in - really nice quality kit. KHAKI FTW TOO!!! Just go up a size, or two sizes if your wearing jeans underneath.