The new news 24 thread

[Cavcraft]

8 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Collectioned. 

 

Thread over, forever.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

4 hours ago, richardmorris said:

Your mistake there was using it in the first place, all custodians of citroen CXs stopped applying them after a week. 

Especially automatic ones....

[wuvvum]

9 hours ago, egg said:

Well done Wuv! Does it run? (Trailer is a hint...)

Well it drove onto the trailer, but I don't think it would have driven home...

[wuvvum]

Well after 18 hours, 670 miles, £115 of diesel and one police stop, the Rover, the Merc and I are safely home and the trailer is back with the esteemed shiter to whom it belongs.

I won't be doing anything like that again in a hurry.  Comfortable though Rover 75 seats are, 16 hours is more than enough time to spend sat in them in a day.  It did an OK job of towing the Merc home, but it was abundantly clear that it was only about 50kg off its max towing weight - hill starts in particular had it scrabbling for grip when the road was wet, and pulling out to overtake lorries on the motorway took some forward planning.  It managed it though which was the main thing.

Tomorrow's job is to clear out the garage (which will involve turfing out the Innocenti and the boat, among other things) and stick the Volvo in there so that the Merc can take up temporary residence on the drive whilst I go over it and sort out what it needs.  I was hoping to make a start this weekend but I have a job interview on Monday which I need to prepare for so Merc fettling might need to be put off for a week.  I'll take some more photos tomorrow though - it's quite a vehicle...

[richardmorris]

One of my favourite F1 cars.

 

[wuvvum]

[loserone]

What did the police say @wuvvum?

[richardmorris]

27 minutes ago, loserone said:

What did the police say @wuvvum?

Good evening sir, I see we are winning at life.

[wuvvum]

No, it was when I was returning the trailer so the Merc wasn't present.  They basically wanted to make sure I hadn't nicked it - towing an empty car transporter trailer through the wilds of Norfolk late at night does look a bit dodgy tbf. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

35 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

My cousins used to run the W115 coupé version of that in the 1980s. ACD 824K. Quite a thirsty thing.

[wuvvum]

Well this is a 2.2 diesel so I don't anticipate it being particularly thirsty.  It will, however, probably be slow. 

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

20 hours ago, TataBobu said:

When you got it, did you thank and assured  the other person that the mug will always remind you of him or her?

Could you take a picture of said instructions and post it? I do love me a nice bit of google translate humour.  Last chinese bit of kitchen equipment I bought had a nice recipe on how to make soup from babies.

So.... Read the instructions...

After extreme neck ache...

NOTHING! Off to buy 3 new car batteries.

[TataBobu]

Wow! A battery tester in casing of imported steel, and it comes with a chuck too! And not a run-of-the-mill one, but one with copper components! Is it an SDS chuck? ?

[lanciamatt]

1 hour ago, wuvvum said:

Well this is a 2.2 diesel so I don't anticipate it being particularly thirsty.  It will, however, probably be slow. 

We had one when I was a kid, in beige imported from holland. Q82 WWJ was reg. 

[nigel bickle]

Nice one Wuz.     Look forward to the write ups

[Talbot]

25 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

They basically wanted to make sure I hadn't nicked it - towing an empty car transporter trailer through the wilds of Norfolk late at night does look a bit dodgy tbf. 

A car I was passenger in, towing a car transporter trailer many years ago was stopped for that exact reason.  I spoke with the copper briefly and he mentioned that he stops just about anyone towing a car transporter or plant trailer, and his hit-rate for finding stolen ones was remarkably high.

A bit like back in the 90's when an officer who used to frequent the 24hr fuel station I worked in commented that he pulled over every single 'scrote XR3i/RS turbo and Arstra GTE, as his hit rate for finding stolen ones was well over half of them.  He only left them alone once he recognised a driver in the car.  Some owners were twats about it, but the vast majority were pleased, as it meant there was a fighting chance that if their car was stolen, it would be stopped.

[Ghosty]

 

Name that part!

It's the fuel filler cap on the Concerto - it's the wrong part, it should be an unpainted metal cap with a central ridge to turn it and 'GAS' stamped into it. 

But what *is* this off? It seems familiar but I can't put my finger on it. The central bit swings round to reveal a (mullered) keyhole. 

[320touring]

New MOT, just drove it straight out the garage where it had sat for a year and BOOM!

[SierraMikeHotel]

Little bit different from being completely ignored by a passing Met unit while beating the shit out of a malfunctioning BX alarm

 

 

[mitsisigma01]

1 hour ago, Ghosty said:

 

Name that part!

It's the fuel filler cap on the Concerto - it's the wrong part, it should be an unpainted metal cap with a central ridge to turn it and 'GAS' stamped into it. 

But what *is* this off? It seems familiar but I can't put my finger on it. The central bit swings round to reveal a (mullered) keyhole. 

If we could see the picture it might help?

[richardmorris]

6 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Well this is a 2.2 diesel so I don't anticipate it being particularly thirsty.  It will, however, probably be slow. 

But enough wiper action to give @dollywobbler palpitations.

[stuboy]

Well prefacelift grills dont fit last run mondeos unless u trim and cut all lugs lips off and cable tie it on..

[beko1987]

I quite like that... Good to see you taking things subtle on this one! 

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

BREAKING* NEWS. 

Discovery covered 200 miles today and autobox is 'clunking' into 1st from 2nd when coming to a stop. You know that noise you get if you have a CD in the old door pocket and it knocks about from side to side every time you hit a bend in the road... Like that.

Thought it was something in the glove box, but sadly no. Investigation starts tomorrow, and there's a lot to investigate, I can't wait*. PLACE BETTINGS NOW!!!

[stuboy]

36 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

I quite like that... Good to see you taking things subtle on this one! 

thanks

[Cavcraft]

Boring indeed, but 19,000 steps Weds, 22,000 yesterday and 19,000 today at work. Going to try and crack 100,000 in a week, which should be doable.  Fucking hard graft, but the insults traded between co-workers are truly hilarious and make it all worthwhile. 

[wuvvum]

So as you would probably expect, I have spent a significant percentage of today poking around my new* Mercedes.  Had a quick rifle through the paperwork that came with it first thing this morning - there was no V5C but there was an ancient new keeper's section in there - I took it to the post office to see if I could use it to tax the car, but they said it was too old, so I've attached it to a V62 and sent that off instead.  It appears the Merc was originally a Spanish car (there's a driver's handbook in Spanish) and arrived in the UK in 2000.  So it's only* had to endure 20 years of British weather, which might explain why it's still more or less car shaped. 

I went out to where I'd dumped it on the car park after unloading it in the pitch dark last night, to find that I had actually managed to get it more or less into a parking space, which was good.  First task was to give the interior a quick wipe down with some, er, interior wipes, as the seat vinyl and the gearknob had got a bit of mould on them where the car had been standing.  The interior needs a bloody good clean but isn't actually in that bad a condition.  And look - genuine Mercedes floor mats!

 

Then it was time to try and fire it up.  The battery that was on the car was completely dead, but fortunately the big battery I use for jump starting fitted OK, despite the terminals being the other way around.  It's a physically smaller battery but is only 5 AH and 30 CCA down on the battery that was on there, so I thought it'd do the job OK.  And it did - the car took a while to get started, but that was largely due to the fact that it has an old-style starter motor which disengages as soon as the motor tries to fire - if I'd been able to just keep cranking it it'd've got going a lot quicker.  Once it eventually fired up it ran quite happily.  The controls are quite old school - you turn the ignition on with the key, but starting is done via the large round knob below the fuel gauge - pull it out half way to operate the glow plugs, then all the way out to engage the starter.  To turn the engine off you push it all the way in.  In a similar way to the old Saab reverse gear interlock, it won't let you turn the ignition off at the key until the knob is pushed in.

 

I had a play with the electrics, and the only thing I've found so far that doesn't work is the fuel gauge.  Actually that's a lie, it only has one working reversing light.  The wipers initially weren't working but that turned out to just be the fuse - the blades were utterly shagged though so I went to Roys of Wroxham and shelled out £2.99 for a pair of refills, and they work fine now, although they don't self park (a trait shared with the other 1972 cars in my fleet, the 164 and the Renault 6).  Headights, indicators and horn are all present and correct, and the heater seems fairly decent for a car of this age, although as is often the case with diesels it takes a little while to warm up.  A quick check of the battery with the multimeter showed 14v at fast idle, so the alternator is working fine.  I haven't yet worked out how to wash the windscreen however, and I have no idea if the heated rear window works as it was that windy today there was no chance of anything misting up.  It also has power steering (which works now I've put some fluid in it) and central locking, which were a surprise - I didn't think these taxi-spec Mercs were thus equpipped.  The central locking does appear to have a slight vacuum leak as it doesn't work after the car has been left overnight.

Opening the boot revealed a full set of genuine wheel trims.  And some mould.

The dangly wires are for the speakers which have been fitted to the parcel shelf for some long-dead in car entertainment.  The car now has its blanking plate back in its rightful place, which is much better.

 

In what seems to be a fairly common issue with German cars of the 1970s, the accelerator pedal is missing - only the metal bar is left.  I might have to do something about that as from my experience with old BMWs, driving using just the bar can get a bit awkward after a while.  It has the usual Merc foot-operated parking brake, which I haven't been brave enough to try yet.

 

This is where the magic happens - 2.2 litres and 64bhp of OM615 goodness.

It's the oldest diesel I've owned by several years, and it shows it in things like the amount of glowplug time it needs before it'll fire up, but it sounds OK and it isn't comically unrefined.  The throttle linkage is a bit stiff so that'll need lubing up at some point, but that's not a massive issue.  It gets up to temperature OK and it doesn't seem to smoke excessively.  There's an idle speed control knob on the dash, which is cool - last vehicle I had with one of those was an Isuzu Trooper.

Bodywork wise it has some issues, as I expected.  The rear edge of the roof looked completely rotten in the eBay pics, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it is in fact surface rust under peeling paint.

I think it's had a respray at some stage - the paint code under the bonnet indicates it should be a pale beige.  I quite like the metallic green though.

The bonnet paintwork needs some attention as well, but apart from one spot the panel itself is in quite good condition.

There's some grot on the small scuttle panels next to the vents, but I don't think they should be too huge a challenge to sort.  The most unsightly bit of the car is this bit on the offside rear wing:

That's going to need some tlc at some point fairly soon.  Underneath has some grot, but it's far from the most rotten car I've owned - in fact it's probably not even the most rotten car I own now...  All the important structural bits (suspension mountings etc) seem to be sound enough.

In fact the only thing that's really preventing it from being drivable on the road at the moment are the brakes - they work after a fashion, but the pedal is very soft and they stick on quite badly (I suspect knackered flexis as they seem to free themselves off after a while).  So that's top of the list to sort when I get the time to start working on it.

I spent a couple of hours in the howling wind making room to get it on the drive.  This involved emptying the boxes of crap out of the garage, extricating the Spacy and the Mobylette and then the Innocenti (which fired straight up despite not having been touched for at least three months, although it did have a flat tyre) and the boat, which had been hanging from the wall on its side for a couple of years but went onto its trailer easily enough.  Then I drove the 164 round to the garage and backed it in (a bit of a tight fit as it's 15'6" long and so is the garage).  I was able to get most of the other crap back in around it - only the boat and the Spacy are having to live outside for the time being.  I've stuck the Innocenti on the car park for now - having it in sight might encourage me to actually get it back on the road.  Then I drove the Merc up the road from the car park and manoeuvred it into the drive - my first "proper" drive in it (driving it onto the trailer yesterday doesn't really count) - I even got into second gear!  The gearbox seems much more pleasant to use than later Merc manuals I've experienced.

Here it is in its new home.

And so to bed.

[Bren]

9 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

So as you would probably expect, I have spent a significant percentage of today poking around my new* Mercedes.  Had a quick rifle through the paperwork that came with it first thing this morning - there was no V5C but there was an ancient new keeper's section in there - I took it to the post office to see if I could use it to tax the car, but they said it was too old, so I've attached it to a V62 and sent that off instead.  It appears the Merc was originally a Spanish car (there's a driver's handbook in Spanish) and arrived in the UK in 2000.  So it's only* had to endure 20 years of British weather, which might explain why it's still more or less car shaped. 

I went out to where I'd dumped it on the car park after unloading it in the pitch dark last night, to find that I had actually managed to get it more or less into a parking space, which was good.  First task was to give the interior a quick wipe down with some, er, interior wipes, as the seat vinyl and the gearknob had got a bit of mould on them where the car had been standing.  The interior needs a bloody good clean but isn't actually in that bad a condition.  And look - genuine Mercedes floor mats!

 

Then it was time to try and fire it up.  The battery that was on the car was completely dead, but fortunately the big battery I use for jump starting fitted OK, despite the terminals being the other way around.  It's a physically smaller battery but is only 5 AH and 30 CCA down on the battery that was on there, so I thought it'd do the job OK.  And it did - the car took a while to get started, but that was largely due to the fact that it has an old-style starter motor which disengages as soon as the motor tries to fire - if I'd been able to just keep cranking it it'd've got going a lot quicker.  Once it eventually fired up it ran quite happily.  The controls are quite old school - you turn the ignition on with the key, but starting is done via the large round knob below the fuel gauge - pull it out half way to operate the glow plugs, then all the way out to engage the starter.  To turn the engine off you push it all the way in.  In a similar way to the old Saab reverse gear interlock, it won't let you turn the ignition off at the key until the knob is pushed in.

 

I had a play with the electrics, and the only thing I've found so far that doesn't work is the fuel gauge.  Actually that's a lie, it only has one working reversing light.  The wipers initially weren't working but that turned out to just be the fuse - the blades were utterly shagged though so I went to Roys of Wroxham and shelled out £2.99 for a pair of refills, and they work fine now, although they don't self park (a trait shared with the other 1972 cars in my fleet, the 164 and the Renault 6).  Headights, indicators and horn are all present and correct, and the heater seems fairly decent for a car of this age, although as is often the case with diesels it takes a little while to warm up.  I haven't yet worked out how to wash the windscreen however, and I have no idea if the heated rear window works as it was that windy today there was no chance of anything misting up.  It also has power steering (which works now I've put some fluid in it) and central locking, which were a surprise - I didn't think these taxi-spec Mercs were thus equpipped.  The central locking does appear to have a slight vacuum leak as it doesn't work after the car has been left overnight.

Opening the boot revealed a full set of genuine wheel trims.  And some mould.

The dangly wires are for the speakers which have been fitted to the parcel shelf for some long-dead in car entertainment.  The car now has its blanking plate back in its rightful place, which is much better.

 

In what seems to be a fairly common issue with German cars of the 1970s, the accelerator pedal is missing - only the metal bar is left.  I might have to do something about that as from my experience with old BMWs, driving using just the bar can get a bit awkward after a while.  It has the usual Merc foot-operated parking brake, which I haven't been brave enough to try yet.

 

This is where the magic happens - 2.2 litres and 64bhp of OM615 goodness.

It's the oldest diesel I've owned by several years, and it shows it in things like the amount of glowplug time it needs before it'll fire up, but it sounds OK and it isn't comically unrefined.  The throttle linkage is a bit stiff so that'll need lubing up at some point, but that's not a massive issue.  It gets up to temperature OK and it doesn't seem to smoke excessively.  There's an idle speed control knob on the dash, which is cool - last vehicle I had with one of those was an Isuzu Trooper.

Bodywork wise it has some issues, as I expected.  The rear edge of the roof looked completely rotten in the eBay pics, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it is in fact surface rust under peeling paint.

I think it's had a respray at some stage - the paint code under the bonnet indicates it should be a pale beige.  I quite like the metallic green though.

The bonnet paintwork needs some attention as well, but apart from one spot the panel itself is in quite good condition.

There's some grot on the small scuttle panels next to the vents, but I don't think they should be too huge a challenge to sort.  The most unsightly bit of the car is this bit on the offside rear wing:

That's going to need some tlc at some point fairly soon.  Underneath has some grot, but it's far from the most rotten car I've owned - in fact it's probably not even the most rotten car I own now...  All the important structural bits (suspension mountings etc) seem to be sound enough.

In fact the only thing that's really preventing it from being drivable on the road at the moment are the brakes - they work after a fashion, but the pedal is very soft and they stick on quite badly (I suspect knackered flexis as they seem to free themselves off after a while).  So that's top of the list to sort when I get the time to start working on it.

I spent a couple of hours in the howling wind making room to get it on the drive.  This involved emptying the boxes of crap out of the garage, extricating the Spacy and the Mobylette and then the Innocenti (which fired straight up despite not having been touched for at least three months, although it did have a flat tyre) and the boat, which had been hanging from the wall on its side for a couple of years but went onto its trailer easily enough.  Then I drove the 164 round to the garage and backed it in (a bit of a tight fit as it's 15'6" long and so is the garage).  I was able to get most of the other crap back in around it - only the boat and the Spacy are having to live outside for the time being.  I've stuck the Innocenti on the car park for now - having it in sight might encourage me to actually get it back on the road.  Then I drove the Merc up the road from the car park and manoeuvred it into the drive - my first "proper" drive in it (driving it onto the trailer yesterday doesn't really count) - I even got into second gear!  The gearbox seems much more pleasant to use than later Merc manuals I've experienced.

Here it is in its new home.

And so to bed.

Fit. 64 bhp. There are quicker glaciers.

[Alan_Green]

MOT pass today for this roffle win Saab 900i Auto.  I've spent a pretty penny on this lucky machine recently and it's pretty much spot on now, but I'm too busy and too short of space to enjoy it at the moment so I'm giving it to a pal up Finchley way to look after and maybe keep. Give it a wave if you see it cruising North London. 

[brownnova]

Scotland and back (572 miles) in the 9000 over the last couple of days. Faultless as ever... 

Saw two other 9000s whilst we were up there too!