The new news 24 thread

[Floatylight]

Looks like FIL's Zafira is knackered, broken down and left in a car park, konked out and won't turn over, apparently has been using water and there is non in the header tank, so might be seized.. will go and have a look in the morning..

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Been out this morning and had a look, at least 2 faults but not seized, battery completely flat, won't fire the central locking and won't take any charge, tried to jump start but no dice. Battery was replaced last year with an RAC badged Varta so FIL will be invoking warranty, could also be a drain somewhere. Also has a coolant leak which needs addressing

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[Skizzer]

19 hours ago, hairymel said:

I pointed out it was massively overpriced had spent 2 years sitting after a huge mot fail on rot, had had another fail the year after again for rot and the last 2 owners had only had it for 4 months each before punting it on.

[POINT A]

I searched the ebay for something better near them.

See point A above?  Right there is where you need to tell them to fuck off and live with their own fuck ups.

[Fat_Pirate]

Upset that I missed this, the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy deffo needs to up their marketing game.

[Skizzer]

You’re not wrong - Paul Darrow’s been dead for six months.

[hairymel]

57 minutes ago, Skizzer said:

See point A above?  Right there is where you need to tell them to fuck off and live with their own fuck ups.

Although it seems most people only want advice that justifies their already held viewpoint, I still try.

I would have posted in the grumpy thread if I had reached my 'go fcuk yourself' limit.

They both have been there for me when I have been drowning in my own fuck ups, so it seems reasonable to help out in return.

On the flip side when brother in laws sister arrived to ferry them to their next family gathering this afternoon, I stood by watching the chaos as it was realised she had a flat tyre.

After 15 munutes I had to take over though because idiots.

Then it started raining.....

Im still a  bit soggy

 

Good cheer to all men and all that other seasonal shit ?

[Skizzer]

Fair do’s — you’re a better person than me, all power to you.  May karma duly reward you!

Happy Christmas and all that.

[hairymel]

Cheers @Skizzer

Sadly I expect karma will just bring me more aggro.

On the other hand I usually find Xmas family gatherings to be more emotionally draining than transit fettling.

And one for the grin thread : 

I managed to pull my own name out of the hat for family secret santa and, just for once, I got a decent present.

'My' santa massively overspent as well because I/he is such a nice guy?

A bottle of Makers mark 46 and a six pack of walnut topped whips. I deserve it because I am special* ?

[xtriple]

My new wheels/tyres are flawed. To wit: one flat back tyre. Well, flatter than it should be at about 15 psi. I am not well pleased.

Number 1 son turned up today bearing not only gifts (new shoes, 6 NGK platinum/irridium spark plugs and a Pela pump that, strangely matches exactly the one I bought him, but also a Vauxhall Vectra estate. I had a look at it and it looks bloody decent to me! Certainly better than the price would suggest and apart from the seats (which are just a 'tad' grubby) is in bloody fair condition. I believe you (us) lot have unfair expectations and it is a solid tharsand parnd car. To prove that it gets the love and attention it deserves, have a picture...

 

This is the most embarrassing picture of Kyle I have so  enjoy hairy arse!   

[MarvinsMom]

oh for the want of an air rifle......

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 hour ago, xtriple said:

.....Number 1 son turned up today bearing not only gifts (new shoes, 6 NGK platinum/irridium spark plugs and a Pela pump that, strangely matches exactly the one I bought him.......

Maybe that Pela pump is the exact same one you gave him, destined to be passed back and forth like festive ping-pong?

[mrbenn]

1 hour ago, xtriple said:

On the plus side, the number of places to park a bicycle in Torquay has just increased by 1 ?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

Just now, mrbenn said:

On the plus side, the number of places to park a bicycle in Torquay has just increased by 1 ?

What else were you expecting to see from a Torquay hotel bedroom window? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon?

[xtriple]

18 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Maybe that Pela pump is the exact same one you gave him, destined to be passed back and forth like festive ping-pong?

Not quite. I handed him a huge box filled with 9 litre pump thing and he handed me another huge box filled with 9 litre pump thing Yes, we bought each other the same thing and he carted one from Coventry to Torquay and then swapped the exact same model and carted it back to Coventry. There's no insanity in our family...

[Tadhg Tiogar]

20 minutes ago, xtriple said:

Not quite. I handed him a huge box filled with 9 litre pump thing and he handed me another huge box filled with 9 litre pump thing Yes, we bought each other the same thing and he carted one from Coventry to Torquay and then swapped the exact same model and carted it back to Coventry. There's no insanity in our family...

Tell you what, let's cross out the "in"...

It's like giving Ferrero Rocher at Christmas, and then finding someone else has given you the exact same....

[EssDeeWon]

Finally back home with a cuppa after  200 miles in the Rover visiting family over Christmas down in Kent. Weather coming back this afternoon was atrocious, had to gingerly drive it though some flooded farm roads then the A2 from Dover was under water in places. How we didn’t aquaplane I’ll never know but relieved to be home with the car and myself in one piece.  

[Bren]

2 hours ago, xtriple said:

My new wheels/tyres are flawed. To wit: one flat back tyre. Well, flatter than it should be at about 15 psi. I am not well pleased.

Number 1 son turned up today bearing not only gifts (new shoes, 6 NGK platinum/irridium spark plugs and a Pela pump that, strangely matches exactly the one I bought him, but also a Vauxhall Vectra estate. I had a look at it and it looks bloody decent to me! Certainly better than the price would suggest and apart from the seats (which are just a 'tad' grubby) is in bloody fair condition. I believe you (us) lot have unfair expectations and it is a solid tharsand parnd car. To prove that it gets the love and attention it deserves, have a picture...

 

This is the most embarrassing picture of Kyle I have so  enjoy hairy arse!   

I am off for a round of toast

[MorrisItalSLX]

11 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

What else were you expecting to see from a Torquay hotel bedroom window? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon?

Well might I suggest you move to a hotel closer to the sea. Or preferably in it.

[New POD]

12 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Tell you what, let's cross out the "in"...

It's like giving Ferrero Rocher at Christmas, and then finding someone else has given you the exact same....

Except ferrari-rosher(sic) are horrid and nutty and are only good for the packaging. 

[New POD]

On 12/24/2019 at 6:12 PM, HillmanImp said:

 

Incidentally there's a guy I was racing against called OP_OMEGA_V8 which I assumed was nothing to do with Vauxhalls but I've looked and theres a whole section on Wiki about prototype V8 Omegas. So its been educational too. 

You know that Holden made cars and pickups that appear to have very similar profiles to the front half of the omega right ?

Just buy a Monaro and retrofit the front panels off an omega. I'm sure it would fit. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

3 hours ago, New POD said:

You know that Holden made cars and pickups that appear to have very similar profiles to the front half of the omega right ?

Just buy a Monaro and retrofit the front panels off an omega. I'm sure it would fit. 

Might be a bit wider than an Omega, though....

[hairnet]

Two inches

[HillmanImp]

Been out to do a 2 minute job changing the headlight bulb on the Subaru. 

Access was good, old bulb straight out, new bulb straight in, just need to clip it tigh.... 

Fucksticks. The plastic holding the retaining clip had snapped. 

I remember L1 saying the other side had broken too. Had a look and it was cable tied so I've done the same but not before I'd dropped my phone and half a packet of cable ties into the engine bay. 

It then took me about 10 minutes to get the bonnet down as it wouldn't shut. Managed it eventually. Now worried its gonna just pop open when I'm driving it as it was so reluctant to shut. 

Now the new light is about 400 times brighter than the other side so I'll have to go back tomorrow to get another to cable tie it in again and no doubt face more shenanigans. 

[loserone]

Yeah, the cable tying was a bitch.  Not sure why the headlights do that, I guess they get hot and it degrades the plastic.  That bulb can't be that old either, they were both changed in May.

[HillmanImp]

28 minutes ago, loserone said:

Yeah, the cable tying was a bitch.  Not sure why the headlights do that, I guess they get hot and it degrades the plastic.  That bulb can't be that old either, they were both changed in May.

Plastic just degrades doesn't it. It's just standard as stuff gets older innit.

I've got a light restoration kit too to de-yellow the lights. Will try and do that over the next few days as well. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 hour ago, hairnet said:

Two inches

Fill the gaps with wob. Nobody* will notice...

[N19]

Today is turning into a "one job leads to another" type of day... 

Decided to give the Bluebird some attention, discovered a damp spare wheel, traced to... Oh. Missing floor bung and an extra hole. And a spare wheel covered in rust. 

Cleaned up for now, wheel wirebrushed and kurusted, need to sort the boot floor out properly at some point. Sprayed the well with WD40 temporarily. 

Poking around the engine, oil filter is done up v tight and not much access for a grips style tool to remove, might splash out on a chain remover. 

[DVee8]

35 minutes ago, HillmanImp said:

Plastic just degrades doesn't it. It's just standard as stuff gets older innit.

I've got a light restoration kit too to de-yellow the lights. Will try and do that over the next few days as well. 

We drove past a bloke using a restoration kit and drill polisher on a S-type jag this afternoon.

[Split_Pin]

More messing about with the Mini today. It kept wanting to stall when the revs were allowed to return to idle Although it would always recover before it cut out manoevering was a pain in the arse because the issue made it too easy to stall without riding the clutch a lot.

Unhelpfully, it doesn't have a separate Idle Control Valve, everything is integral to the throttle body so all I could do was clean it up.

Quite a bit of trunking had to be removed. The smaller box is some sort of resonator.

Theres a surprisingly large about of room round the back of the engine with all of that removed. Throttle body sits under the bog pipe on the left.

The butterfly area was fairly clean however I gave it a few passes of brake cleaner anyway.

I accidentally stripped the thread of the tiny bolt holding on that useless resonator box (it's before the main air cleaner) so it's now cable tied in. Might replace it with plain pupe if I can be bothered.

The fall to idle seems much smoother now.

Ordered a MAF sensor too however the car doesn't have one (only Turbo models do) hopefully I'll get a refund of some sort.

[HillmanImp]

5 minutes ago, DVee8 said:

We drove past a bloke using a restoration kit and drill polisher on a S-type jag this afternoon.

Thats the sort of think I've got. Think it was about £15 from ECP. 

Will be careful to keep it very wet when sanding, my mate burnt the lenses in his Boxster doing it. 

[SiC]

11 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

More messing about with the Mini today. It kept wanting to stall when the revs were allowed to return to idle Although it would always recover before it cut out manoevering was a pain in the arse because the issue made it too easy to stall without riding the clutch a lot.

Unhelpfully, it doesn't have a separate Idle Control Valve, everything is integral to the throttle body so all I could do was clean it up.

Cars haven't had Idle Control Valves for years. Pretty much everything that is a fly-by-wire throttle body doesn't have one. 

Does the car have a clutch switch?  I know some cars have it not just for cruise but also to tell the ECU that there is a substantial load decrease coming because the clutch pedal is down. Then not to overreact from loosing that load.