The new news 24 thread

[wuvvum]

7 hours ago, andyberg said:

Fixed the 12v sockets on the Alfa today. I bought new ones, and after taking part of the dash apart it still didn't work ? Because the hand book says the Radio uses the same fuse, the radio works so it cant be the fuse, right? No. Because Alfa the hand book is wrong, the sockets have their own fuse. replace fuse, working sockets. Oh joy. Glad I went to check after only replacing one.

Yes, the fuse guide in the 166 handbook bears little resemblance to the circuits which are actually protected.  Or rather they sort of do, but some circuits can have more than one fuse, and you have to take a stab at which one it's going to be.  Only other car I've had with the same issue was an Audi A3 - the speedo didn't work when I bought it, I checked all the instrument-related fuses and they were fine.  The reversing lights weren't working though so replaced the fuse for those and it brought the speedo back to life.

[Out Run]

Spoiler

 

I broke this toe in November. As the nail has been growing out, part of it has doubled up, and there was a physical gap between the two layers.

The top layer separated from the side, just before. So I thought it wise to remove it, before my socks do.
 

Enjoy your supper.

 

 

[Ghosty]

Why did you have to post that? 

???

[Out Run]

6 minutes ago, Ghosty said:

Why did you have to post that? 

???

To share my professional grooming tips.

[Robson3022]

14 minutes ago, Out Run said:

I broke this toe in November. As the nail has been growing out, part of it has doubled up, and there was a physical gap between the two layers.

The top layer separated from the side, just before. So I thought it wise to remove it, before my socks do.
 

Enjoy your supper.

Nice that ? 

[Out Run]

Just now, Robson3022 said:

Nice that ? 

Cheers, it does feel better.

[Lankytim]

4 hours ago, anonymous user said:

VOLVO 145???  Is there a thread, I  have missed this.

I don't remember doing a thread, maybe once I can get stuck into it i'll create a thread for it. 

[N19]

Bluebird didn't go for an MoT in the end. The tester looked it over and identified a few labour-intensive bits which would need doing to get a new ticket, and rang to ask if I wanted him to go ahead and fail it.

It needs new discs and pads, new rear brake lines, anti roll bar bushes, rear shocks, in addition to the starter, reverse light switch and nsr brake cylinder that I already knew it needed.  Nothing *too* difficult I shouldn't have thought (tho the brake lines need the tank to be dropped, and I'll probably do them all at that point) - I think they thought it'd be uneconomic to do based on the age of the car and difficulty in obtaining spares.

Current plan is that when the Capri goes off for bodywork in October for a while, get the Bluebird into the lockup, do the work on it then (except the suspension which I'll get the parts for and get them to do and then put a ticket on it (hopefully)).

[hairnet]

2 hours ago, Lankytim said:

I don't remember doing a thread, maybe once I can get stuck into it i'll create a thread for it. 

MAKEA WID DA TRED FUCKS SAKE

[PhilA]

I now own this. And the rest of what it's attached to.

 

I'm going to leave the calculation of how large the engine is up to y'all. I know it makes me smile.

 

Phil

[dozeydustman]

Been to 2 socially distanced birthday bbqs this evening. Just got home. 19 plate Prius taxi brought us back with 128k on the clock.

 

is this a record?

[wuvvum]

Slightly more productive day of fettling today - the 75 now has working towbar electrics and the Mondeo has a working high-level brake light.

The problem on the 75 turned out to be the live feed not being up to the job.  I'm not sure why as it's a pretty hefty wire I nicked the supply from (it powers the passenger heated seat so should be up to flowing a decent amount of current), so I'm going to put it down to "because CANbus".  I took the fusebox out and had a poke around behind it to try and find a permanent live, but the only one I could find that looked chunky enough for the job was the wire for the injector pump, and I didn't fancy hacking into that just in case.  So I ended up running a wire direct to the battery live terminal, expertly* routed up through the wing.  It works, and the towbar electrics can now cope with incandescent bulbs - before they would only manage LEDs.  I put an inline fuse in the circuit a couple of years ago when I was first attempting to get the electrics working, so the direct battery feed shouldn't kill any nuns or kittens.

The fix on the Mondeo involved running a live feed from the nearside brake light live wire up to the third brake light in the tailgate.  Conveniently, someone had already spliced into the live on the nearside light cluster - a wire had been soldered in but then cut off, presumably as an abortive attempt to wire up the trailer plug.  So there was a couple of inches of redundant live wire available which I could join onto - which saved pissing about with Scotchlocks, which is always a bonus.  I've fed the wire through along roughly the same route as the main tailgate loom, so it's behind trim for most of its run - the only bit I couldn't do is get it through the rubber boot 'twixt tailgate and body, so I've run it along the outside of the boot and cable tied it in place.  The LED bulbs I bought from eBay turned out to be utter shite, so it's currently running three normal 5W 501 bulbs and two LED bulbs - it seems to be coping OK with the extra load on the primary brake light circuit.

[wuvvum]

37 minutes ago, PhilA said:

I now own this. And the rest of what it's attached to.

 

I'm going to leave the calculation of how large the engine is up to y'all. I know it makes me smile.

 

Phil

About 6.4 innit?  Based on the 6.6 in my old LTD being 400ci.

[PhilA]

2 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

About 6.4 innit?  Based on the 6.6 in my old LTD being 400ci.

6.4 yes. However it manages to do 33mpg (uk) at 65 along the flat.

Mash the loud pedal into the carpet and that drops to about 1, maybe 2.

 

Phil

[chaseracer]

15 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

Been to 2 socially distanced birthday bbqs this evening. Just got home. 19 plate Prius taxi brought us back with 128k on the clock.

 

is this a record?

No...

?

[Split_Pin]

The 75 has been sitting for a week so was pressed into family car service this weekend and I can't stress enough how lovely it is to drive.

Takeaway ice cream in the countryside yesterday in the middle of torrential rain and then to my folks today to sit in their garden room.

Very enjoyable!

[Zelandeth]

Wanted to try to sort the misaligned exhaust tips on the Jag.  They had managed to utterly nweld themselves to the tailpipes...figured battling them off with the silencers off the car would be easier...I wanted to repack the join between them and the mid section anyway as it was blowing there slightly on both sides.

Of course it would have been rude to not do a test to see how things were without those rear silencers on wouldn't it.  I really wanted to give her a bit more of a voice as the system on it reduces noise out the back to zero.  Don't want to replicate a chavved up Corsa, but for goodness sake... it's a V12 you should be able to hear it sing.

Um...those rear silencers are getting replaced with something with rather less in the way of silencing.  Sounds bloody lovely.  Maybe *slightly* more in your face than ideal, so probably not just straight pipes, we'll see what the local stainless specialists say (if they're open anyway).

I also want to tweak things a bit back there to try to stop the nearside pipe touching the underside of the car.  Hopefully this might be the opportunity to do that.

[dollywobbler]

9 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Wanted to try to sort the misaligned exhaust tips on the Jag.  They had managed to utterly nweld themselves to the tailpipes...figured battling them off with the silencers off the car would be easier...I wanted to repack the join between them and the mid section anyway as it was blowing there slightly on both sides.

Of course it would have been rude to not do a test to see how things were without those rear silencers on wouldn't it.  I really wanted to give her a bit more of a voice as the system on it reduces noise out the back to zero.  Don't want to replicate a chavved up Corsa, but for goodness sake... it's a V12 you should be able to hear it sing.

Um...those rear silencers are getting replaced with something with rather less in the way of silencing.  Sounds bloody lovely.  Maybe *slightly* more in your face than ideal, so probably not just straight pipes, we'll see what the local stainless specialists say (if they're open anyway).

I also want to tweak things a bit back there to try to stop the nearside pipe touching the underside of the car.  Hopefully this might be the opportunity to do that.

Rear silencer deletes on executive cars are definitely the way to go. Mason the Lexus sounded amazing with straight-through rear section, but was a long way from over-bearing.

[Borsuq]

I think the Polonez has decided that it hates me and it wanted to kill me today. Took it for a decently long spin, 100 miles or so, and just as I was about to head back towards my city, the engine decided to die just as I was joining a reasonably busy A road, on an intersection that's right behind a hill. I'm really glad it was a Sunday and therefore traffic was fairly minimal, because it could have ended really badly. I was literally stopped across both lanes of the main road for what felt like eternity as the car was struggling to restart and then hold its revs. I've noticed that it now seems to struggle when even a medium amount of throttle is applied from idle revs (also, the idle is too high to begin with, ~1200 instead of ~900 revs, but I knew about that), which is a bit odd for a fuel injected car.

I guess no more driving until I can investigate, because bloody hell that was scary. Hopefully it's just a dodgy stepper motor, or something that'll be fixed when I change the fuel filter.

[Supernaut]

14 minutes ago, dollywobbler said:

Rear silencer deletes on executive cars are definitely the way to go. Mason the Lexus sounded amazing with straight-through rear section, but was a long way from over-bearing.

Went well round Knockhill, too.

[Zelandeth]

Looking closer, no wonder I could never get the tips to match...one is a good 1 1/2" longer than the other...

[mitsisigma01]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

Wanted to try to sort the misaligned exhaust tips on the Jag.  They had managed to utterly nweld themselves to the tailpipes...figured battling them off with the silencers off the car would be easier...I wanted to repack the join between them and the mid section anyway as it was blowing there slightly on both sides.

Of course it would have been rude to not do a test to see how things were without those rear silencers on wouldn't it.  I really wanted to give her a bit more of a voice as the system on it reduces noise out the back to zero.  Don't want to replicate a chavved up Corsa, but for goodness sake... it's a V12 you should be able to hear it sing.

Um...those rear silencers are getting replaced with something with rather less in the way of silencing.  Sounds bloody lovely.  Maybe *slightly* more in your face than ideal, so probably not just straight pipes, we'll see what the local stainless specialists say (if they're open anyway).

I also want to tweak things a bit back there to try to stop the nearside pipe touching the underside of the car.  Hopefully this might be the opportunity to do that.

Where's the video without the silencers ?

[PhilA]

4 minutes ago, mitsisigma01 said:

Where's the video without the silencers ?

This

 

Please have the video done and ready before you cause us all to start chewing on the edge of the table waiting in anticipation.

 

Phil

[Speedy]

18 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

Been to 2 socially distanced birthday bbqs this evening. Just got home. 19 plate Prius taxi brought us back with 128k on the clock.

 

is this a record?

Must have been shared and driven back-to-back. No way one person could do 128k in 15ish months, surely?

[chaseracer]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

Jag... less in the way of silencing... probably not just straight pipes...

Zel.  Two words:

Side.  Pipes.

Thank me later ?

[Zelandeth]

59 minutes ago, PhilA said:

This

 

Please have the video done and ready before you cause us all to start chewing on the edge of the table waiting in anticipation.

 

Phil

I had planned to, but got dragged into making dinner the moment I got in the door!

 

 

Of course there was video, I know I'd have been excommunicated if there wasn't.

[stuboy]

Been to see my friend in sittingbourne, gave the mondeo a long run out .. came away with some 2.0 cans for my fil, a mondeo picture for my wall, and hes sold the mk1 citrine mondeo, due to go in July.

 

EGG if u need anything from garry I'd ask soon as once buyer takes the car and any bits he wants, the left overs will be chucked .

[cort16]

19 hours ago, PhilA said:

6.4 yes. However it manages to do 33mpg (uk) at 65 along the flat.

Mash the loud pedal into the carpet and that drops to about 1, maybe 2.

 

Phil

Does it have cylinder decactivation?

[HMC]

Did an oil change on the fiesta 1.25. I bought some 5w30 to the ford spec; apparently these are fussy about their oil- (am I the first owner / service administrator to do this on this car and does it make a difference anyway?) but I went along with it FWIW.

later in the week and had to go up to Bristol for my job. I misstimed it having not driven far of months and had to make up time shall we say. Despite being a 22 year old fiesta not far from the end of its life it felt good at speed, it didn’t blow up despite being caned up the m5 and is quicker than you expect it to be. 
 

Rather pointlessly I have spent out on a cheap set of the correct ford wheel trims for a ghia to replace these (ka trims?) 

To cap the week off I saw this parked by my house yesterday. It’s still got its period Vauxhall font plates, yum!

 

Check out the ‘zorst

[HMC]

Later I saw it’s elderly owner getting into it and  made a conscious decision not to strike up convo/ leave a note. Willpower at last?