The new news 24 thread

[Skizzer]

the carb on the Princess is leaking fuel, but this time not from the hoses but from somewhere on the casing itself.

 

Is there an option to the £50 rebuild kit? Am I missing something obvious?

 

Temporary* bodge with chemical metal?

[Richard]

If the needle valve (that's not the same thing as the needle) isn't sealing or the float is incorrectly adjusted it'll cause the float chamber to overfill, and petrol will seep out of the gasket.

 

I'm going back more than 20 years and on Stromberg carbs but as I recall you adjust the float by bending the tag that actuates the needle valve.

[dollywobbler]

BX is now on its way and should be landing at the specialist soon. Mate called to say it had gone so thought I'd better call the breakdown company and make it was them that had taken it! I await the news on how much it's going to cost.

 

In other random news, I had a look at a Renault Trafic camper van that I don't really need. Owner wasn't there but I might well follow up if it's cheap enough. All this potential expense means I'm very likely to successfully ignore the Xantia Activa on Ebay. Opening bid has been dropped from £750 to £600. Still no bids mind. Looks a good'un for the money but the owner is unable to confirm when the cambelt was last changed.

[freebird]

Yugo has sold on ebay to someone who bid with a few seconds left - and lives in West Sussex. So, what do we recon people?

If the bidder lived in West Ham, Id say you were fooked.

Wes Sussex to you isnt THAT bad.

Anybody who shows any interest in owning a Yugo clearly has the mental strength and nous to go and get it, wherever it may be.

Hopefully.

[MrDuke]

Xantia failed the MOT, which has actually made me happy as it was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. New drop-link required, which I shall be doing later today, headlights are trying to point at the sky (that'll be the front-end prang that the seller helpfully didn't tell me about) and a tiny spot of welding on one door-jamb. Actually the welding might cause problems, as it needs a retest before the VIC on Wednesday and all the trustworthy garages seem to have a weeks' waiting list.

The advisory list has not made me happy, however - I'm foreseeing several £££s of financial haemorrhage over the next few months, including struts, suspension bushes, brake overhauls, power steering pump... oh, and a cambelt change which is about 10k overdue

I still bl00dy loves it, though

[rml2345]

Just found how crunchy the rear wings on the 740 are by managing to break a small bit off the lip.

FUCK.

 

Edit; I think it's actually the sill end. Double fuck.

[ruffgeezer]

The fleet has now one less in it, but with the road paved to add 2 more in it's wake... I've only met Skattrd once, but I reckon this caroverload is catching!

[andrew e]

Yugo has sold on ebay to someone who bid with a few seconds left - and lives in West Sussex. So, what do we recon people?

If the bidder lived in West Ham, Id say you were fooked.

Wes Sussex to you isnt THAT bad.

Anybody who shows any interest in owning a Yugo clearly has the mental strength and nous to go and get it, wherever it may be.

Hopefully.

 

I think he means has serial autoshite tat purchaser stuck a sneaky bid on...

[stuboy]

well i can confirm skoda fabia powersteering faults are a knightmare to diagnose and potentially wallet emptying crappers........

 

thankfully not my car.......... sadly owner has dreams of fixing it for 50p

[cort16]

I changed the shocks on the Astra this morning. I was reliably* told the top nut for the shock was in the boot. I found it okay and applied the break bar. No Joy so I put a big spanner on the end of the breaker bar and was dangling off the thing when I spotted what looked like a weld on the nut. Yes that's the nut welded into the boot and the bit I actually needed to undo was hidden under a load of shite on the OUTSIDE. Anyway all that leaning on my breaker bar made it shit itself later on tryng to remove the wheel nuts on the other side. I think breaking a breaker bar is like typing google into google.

[dean36014]

Had problems with the power steering and losing assistance occasionally on my Skoda fabia. Turns out they are voltage sensitive, one new battery later and it was cured.

[Lord Sterling]

Took the Rover Sterling to Telford yesterday, it performed faultlessly and the ride was comfortable and very smooth. This time last year before i had it, it had new ball joints/track rod ends etc... sorted.

 

Only problem was the speakers, the right-hand side speakers just didn't seem interested to work, they'd crackle and try to work but it was a gamble. One I got home, off with door card it was (again) and I eventually came across the problem which was down to the connectors that were touching the metal lip of the door cut-out for the front speaker, I bent the connectors away from the lip and so far, problems seems to be solved.

[stuboy]

not much got to work washed, chamoised, hoovered out and polished inside of the mondogno

[cort16]

I've has my first run in the Smart today and it's pretty nice. It's quite nippy although it seems one of the rear caliper is bindinng on, which is a bit of a pain in the arse.

The interior is stinking. It smells like an old trainer inside and looks like a badger's been living in it.

 

Smart by cort16, on Flickr

[ruffgeezer]

I hoped to be regaling you all with tales of my latest tat collection, but a day with fresh eyes meant it wasn't to be, yes AS, I Ruffgeezer confess to walking away from a purchase today.

 

Here is the little lady in question; just shy of 20 years old, 160k but barely looking half of that:

 

On my first visit I'd already spotted this, which I thought could be patchable.

 

On today's visit, I moved the bonnet release cable, and was glad I did!

 

The rot here was so bad, that the strut top has torn towards the centre, much as I'd already bought this one in my mind, I decided instead to walk away.

 

When I was offered this, I didn't really want a ZX, now that I haven't got this one, I feel a sense of loss for not owning it!

[Cavcraft]

Fact of the day: You can NEVER have enough green Peugeots.

[cort16]

Crikey I didn't think those ZX's rotted like that. In other news the Smart is wee-ing out diesel somewhere. bollocks.

[Cavcraft]

Autoshite North West, today.

 

DSCF0777 by Cavlover1, on Flickr

 

DSCF0775 by Cavlover1, on Flickr

 

And for Wat:

 

DSCF0776 by Cavlover1, on Flickr

[vulgalour]

I had completely forgotten to put this here, but the blue forum monthly get together for South Yorkshire happens TOMORROW in it's new venue. After many complaints about the Meadowhall Retail Park venue being a bit of a chav magnet I took on some suggestions for a new venue and have moved it to a place called Meadow Farm just off J35 of the M1.

 

Hopefully the new venue will lead to a quieter, more family friendly environment. All cars welcome providing they're pre-2000 and the more very much the merrier. So, if you're in the area and fancy supporting a fresh start for what has become a frustrating meet to organise I would encourage you to toddle along in whatever old chod you feel like wheeling out of the garage.

 

For full info, visit this thread: http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.c ... 711&page=1

[wuvvum]

Well I ended up spending most of yesterday afternoon waiting for the AA to tow the LNA home, which I hadn't been planning on doing. Turns out the fault was actually with the earth from the coil which had a corroded connector - although the distributor cap is still on its last legs so I've bought a new one anyway. Unfortunately by the time Mr. AA Man got the spark back the engine was so badly flooded that it didn't want to know. He tried taking the plugs out (twice), heating them and spraying his magic spray into the cylinders, but the car would cough a couple of times and then die again. So he eventually sent for his mate to tow me home - took him an hour and a half to get to me, then another 20 minutes to get the car loaded up on his funky pull-out dolly. By the time he'd dragged me the 15 miles home it was getting dark. The only bonus was that the airflow through the air filter over those 15 miles had dried the engine out sufficiently that it started straight away when we got home.

 

Yesterday morning I'd been down to the garage to clear some more crap out and take the Innocenti to the jet wash. Well that was the plan anyway. Unfortunately the Innocenti had other ideas, and started running like a bag of crap, eventually conking out completely after about 1/4 mile. I say conked out completely - it would still just about run if I pumped the throttle manically, but it didn't have enough power to move the car at more than walking speed on the flat. So I nursed / pushed it back to the garage, had a fiddle around and decided that it was most likely a blocked jet in the carb. I bought a can of carb cleaner and sprayed it liberally into the top of the carb, started the car and it was still running like a bag'o'shite. Repeat a few times, and eventually the car gave an almighty backfire and started running beautifully again. Unfortunately I was running out of time by then as I had to get the Renner Six up to my mate's, so I stuck the Innocenti back in the garage.

 

The Renner Six happily drove the 20 miles to my mate's, despite not having been out of the garage since October. It still isn't idling properly, but other than that it's fine. I think I might treat it to a new carb once it's back on the road - the standard carb is a shit design anyway.

 

I went back to the Innocenti this morning and had another attempt to run it up to the jetwash (about 3/4 mile away from the garage). This time it made it, but then half way back it started playing up again - it would run if I revved the knackers off it, but anything below about 5,000 revs it didn't want to know. So I drove it back to the garage a lot faster than I had done yesterday, tried the carb cleaner treatment again, but this time to no avail. So it looks like I'm going to have to get it transported, which is an expense I could have done without.

 

On a related note, aren't A frames getting fugging expensive? Last time I looked you could pick one up for about £85 BIN on the Bay - now the cheapest ones are about £130.

[dollywobbler]

Why do you think the Innocenti is fuel related? First port of call is usually the ignition. What sort of set-up has it got? Sounds to me like condenser failure, though it might be more advanced than that.

 

I went to the Llandudno Transport Festival yesterday, which shares the already-hectic seaside town with the Victorian Extravaganza. I left home at 7:15am, which wasn't fun, arriving at about 10am. It takes bloody ages to drive 90 miles in Wales. The day was an absolute assault on the senses with a large gathering of classic vehicles, free historic bus shuttle (including a WMPTE Metrobus prototype! I enjoyed that), funfairs, LOTS of fairground organs, marching bands, dogs towing trailers (no, really), a steam parade, acrobats and an evening road run of classic stuff. I got back home at about half ten last night, absolutely broken. The Merc provided trouble-free transport, but good grief is it thirsty if you're trying to push on along A roads!

 

In other news, the BX finally arrived at the specialist on Saturday afternoon, about 52hrs after I called for breakdown.

[wuvvum]

Why do you think the Innocenti is fuel related? First port of call is usually the ignition.

See that was my initial thought, as the symptoms do feel like they could be ignition-related, but there are a couple of things which pointed me towards fuelling instead. For one thing, the Innocenti's ignition is electronic, so no condenser to worry about; dizzy cap and rotor arm look fine, and the coil isn't getting excessively hot. The other factor is that the first time it played up, spraying cleaner into the carb cured the problem (at least temporarily). It's annoying, because all the ignition components are pretty accessible, whereas the carb is a bit of a PITA to do anything with.

[dollywobbler]

But if the spark is weak/inconsistent, putting something a bit more flammable into the air intake might make you think fuelling was the problem. Not saying it definitely isn't fuel related, but the vast majority of fuel problems are actually electronic in nature.

[michiel]

I went to the Llandudno Transport Festival yesterday, which shares the already-hectic seaside town with the Victorian Extravaganza. I left home at 7:15am, which wasn't fun, arriving at about 10am. It takes bloody ages to drive 90 miles in Wales. The day was an absolute assault on the senses with a large gathering of classic vehicles, free historic bus shuttle (including a WMPTE Metrobus prototype! I enjoyed that), funfairs, LOTS of fairground organs, marching bands, dogs towing trailers (no, really), a steam parade, acrobats and an evening road run of classic stuff. I got back home at about half ten last night, absolutely broken. The Merc provided trouble-free transport, but good grief is it thirsty if you're trying to push on along A roads!

 

I went to Llandudno in september and all I saw was this.

 

Gull by Michiel V, on Flickr

[Inspector Morose]

(a WMPTE Metrobus prototype! I enjoyed that)

 

Ooh, which one? There are three in preservation and on the road now! Plus the granddaddy of them all, TOJ, is still extant in Derbyshire running for Midland Classic in full Stevensons livery.

[dollywobbler]

Dancing seagull. Brilliant.

 

(a WMPTE Metrobus prototype! I enjoyed that)

 

Ooh, which one? There are three in preservation and on the road now! Plus the granddaddy of them all, TOJ, is still extant in Derbyshire running for Midland Classic in full Stevensons livery.

 

WTA xxxT. I will get some pics up at some point in the next week, once work is out of the way! Got a nice shot of it stopped next to a Daimler front engined thing, so the bus of my childhood next to the bus of my parents' childhood. Wasn't expecting that given that I was many, many miles away from Birmingham.

[Inspector Morose]

Sounds like 6835 WDA835T then. Owned by BaMMOT over at Wythall and a uber superb restoration job!

[dollywobbler]

Ah yes, sorry. WDA. Has lovely Serck plates!

[michiel]

Dancing seagull. Brilliant.

 

It was, until his mates flew off with my wallet.

[Cavcraft]

I went to the Llandudno Transport Festival yesterday, which shares the already-hectic seaside town with the Victorian Extravaganza. I left home at 7:15am, which wasn't fun, arriving at about 10am.

 

Just got back from a few hours in that town. We didn't go into the actual field where the old trucks/buses were, but there were a few round the town which was great. 40 odd miles on the A55 is probably akin to 90 across country as seemingly there's a new law in Wales that forbids people to use the inside lane.