The new news 24 thread

[HMC]

Building dens on dartmoor

Were briefly flown past by (what I think were) USAF ospreys in formation presumably connected to the G7 In Cornwall at the mo

[Ghosty]

3 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Collection day.

Oh so that's where that went...

[aldo135]

Was camping in North Berwick this weekend in our Autoshite supplied seven seater  

[Cord Fourteener]

Who just bought a gold American muscle car and is having it shipped up the M74?

Could have been a Pontiac Firebird or something similar, low, wedged and boxey shaped. 

[Split_Pin]

And home. Drive back up A167/A68 was uneventful.  Drives great, @Jim Bellgave me a full tank of fuel and washed it before collection too. Cheers man!

 

[schonker]

Another Cavalier Split Pin.Whats happening with the other one, you keeping that as well!

[Split_Pin]

One will be going after I have weighed things up. I will start a roffle on here first and see how it goes.

[JuridicalGrunt]

sometimes cars drive you absolutely mad one of these starts first turn of the key runs beautifully and pretty much everything works, one has had thousands spent on it and refuses to run properly and has multiple issue’s that are driving me and rich mad! I shall let everyone guess witch is witch.

.

[Lankytim]

Found an hour to dismantle this 145 suspension set up. I’ve managed to salvage the spindles which are both in good shape and may be swapped with my existing spindles if I can’t get the snapped caliper bolts out. 
 

Obviously I was left with a huge pile of rust at the end  which was swept up and dumped in the bin. Amazingly one of the lower wishbones look usable, they’re known to be rot prone and are in short supply. 
 

The calipers look horrendous but might make good core units for a rebuild. @wuvvum, were you after a pair once? 

[Bren]

My e60 has adaptive headlights that have never worked. A diagnostic on a budget scanner showed that the n/s light had no voltage. Some research showed a bad controller would be the issue.

 

A £27 chineseum controller was purchased and fitted. I doubted it would work - starting the engine showed nothing - however it needed a drive to set it self up. Success. I now have citroen DS style lights with only a fraction of the style.

[Stanky]

1 minute ago, Bren said:

My e60 has adaptive headlights that have never worked. A diagnostic on a budget scanner showed that the n/s light had no voltage. Some research showed a bad controller would be the issue.

 

A £27 chineseum controller was purchased and fitted. I doubted it would work - starting the engine showed nothing - however it needed a drive to set it self up. Success. I now have citroen DS style lights with only a fraction of the style.

I know its fashionable to deride the Chinese for a lot of low quality items, but my experience is that:

1. They are the only ones actually making things we need
2. They are eminently affordable

Out of curiosity, how much was a genuine BMW item which definitely* would not* have come from the exact* same factory in the PRC?

My point of reference is a pair of ICVs for my Daihatsu which cost £15 each, delivered on Ali Express; vs £800 for the same thing from Toyota, not delivered.

[Bren]

7 minutes ago, Stanky said:

I know its fashionable to deride the Chinese for a lot of low quality items, but my experience is that:

1. They are the only ones actually making things we need
2. They are eminently affordable

Out of curiosity, how much was a genuine BMW item which definitely* would not* have come from the exact* same factory in the PRC?

My point of reference is a pair of ICVs for my Daihatsu which cost £15 each, delivered on Ali Express; vs £800 for the same thing from Toyota, not delivered.

I didn't even enquire - and i'll tell you why.

The car suffered with a burst hose which I knew would be main dealer only. When I rang up my local dealer and told them the model and age they stated they had little to do with them anymore. In fairness they got me the part - forty odd quid - but you can see they are about selling finance and throwing a BMW in. I felt a bit embarassed getting a part for a 17 year old car.

[loserone]

I quite liked that when I bought a battery for a 19 year old LS400 my local Toyota dealer wanted to give me a coffee and fit it for free despite being very competitively priced.

 

Don't think I could walk into a BMW dealer.

[Spurious]

I got parts for my old Suzuki Jimny in Ireland. A panel and a few service bits, not badly priced. 

They gave me a Nespresso cafe and a muffin whilst waiting for the stores guys to pick out the wing from deliveries. 

Maybe it's a Japanese thing. 

[High Jetter]

12 hours ago, STUNO said:

A bit of a sidestep. There was a helicopter crash in NZ yesterday. The operations manager at the crash site at a resort in Windwhistle is a Mr Ronnie Ronalde. Turns out he is the son of the original. Older readers may have heard of him.

Bride and groom injured in 'horrible' Canterbury helicopter crash | Stuff.co.nz

It's outstanding as it was a 'horrible' crash. All the other crashes were OK tho.

[Skizzer]

1 hour ago, loserone said:

I quite liked that when I bought a battery for a 19 year old LS400 my local Toyota dealer wanted to give me a coffee and fit it for free despite being very competitively priced.

 

Don't think I could walk into a BMW dealer.

My local BMW dealer told me to piss off when I tried to drop off a 3 year old car for a booked service.

Never, ever again.

[PhilA]

8 minutes ago, Skizzer said:

My local BMW dealer told me to piss off when I tried to drop off a 3 year old car for a booked service.

Never, ever again.

Why? What's wrong with a 3 year old car going in for service?

[wuvvum]

/\ That's exactly what I was wondering...

[wuvvum]

2 hours ago, Lankytim said:

The calipers look horrendous but might make good core units for a rebuild. @wuvvum, were you after a pair once?

I was, but my 164 has vented discs so those wouldn't've been any good.  I forked out for a new pair in the end.

[Cord Fourteener]

33 minutes ago, Skizzer said:

My local BMW dealer told me to piss off when I tried to drop off a 3 year old car for a booked service.

Never, ever again.

I had an airbag recall job and a failed attempt at boot hinge replacement at my local BMW dealer on a 17 year old car.

They gave me all the tea I could drink, biscuits, a lift into town and back, etc etc.

I would have another BMW just for the tea and lifts about the place.

[wuvvum]

Got very little done on the fleet this weekend, partly because I was busy with other stuff but mainly because I just couldn't be arsed, probably due to the heat.  I did fix the screenwash on the Renault 6, which has been dodgy for ages - turned out to be a combination of gunge in the bottle and the fact that I'd managed to trap one of the hoses behind the slam panel when I refitted the panel after fixing the heater valve.  The washers are still shite, as most foot pump washers are, but I can at least clean the screen now.

I gave the Mondeo a quick look over before its MOT on Wednesday.  Didn't find anything too glaring - I'd already replaced the blown nearside number plate bulb and the only-just-amber-enough offside rear indicator bulb.  Only obvious thing it needed was a passenger side wiper blade, which was duly bought and fitted.  I topped up the screen wash while I was at it, and I'll take it for a blat on Tuesday night to give it a bit of a clearout, but the rest is in the hands of the MOT gods.

Next job was to loosen the cambelt cover on the C2 to have a look at the belt.  It was quite obvious given the state of the retaining screws that the cover's not been off recently, but the belt itself didn't look too bad - it's obviously not new but it's dry, clean and not too badly perished - it certainly doesn't look like it's about to let go.  Having said that it really doesn't look a difficult belt to do and a new Gates belt and water pump can be had for under 30 quid all in so it wouldn't be an expensive job.

I had another crack at getting the Spacy running this afternoon, rerouting the fuel lines to give the petrol a better chance of getting to the right place.  It hasn't quite worked - the bike now fires up straight away but then cuts out immediately, like it's not getting enough fuel through.  The fuel tap was leaking like a sieve which didn't help, so I've drained the tank and taken the tap off for now - it's going to need new O rings as the old ones have partially dissolved (fugging ethanol...).

The Innocenti's master cylinder seems to be pretty well seized.  I took it round a mate's to borrow his circlip pliers as I couldn't find mine - we got the end off the cylinder easily enough, but the piston showed no interest in moving.  I could open up the other end of the cylinder and try knocking the piston back from that end, but that would entail taking off the fluid reservoir and I'm pretty sure if I do that I'll never get it back on again.  @Angrydicky, how are your lot at rebuilding obscure unobtainium Italian master cylinders?

I watched a couple of videos on YouTube showing how to remove the steering wheel on a Fiat 500 - my reasoning was that the Ypsilon wheel is probably exactly the same.  The 500 wheel seemingly has two holes in it into which one inserts a screwdriver to release the spring clips holding the airbag assembly in place - the Ypsilon's wheel doesn't have holes, but it has two indentations in the same place as the holes were on the 500 wheel - I assume these are designed to be stabbed with a screwdriver to gain access, although I have a feeling the spring clips could be rather fiddly.  I might give it a go one weekend, but it was too bloody hot this weekend to be working inside a black car with the battery disconnected.  I have been running around a fair bit in it this weekend, as it's the only car I have with working A/C, and the opening panoramic roof is nice when it's a little cooler.  It's still a fun little buzzbox, although I'm still not gelling entirely with the driving position, but that's less of an issue for local running around.

[Skizzer]

7 hours ago, PhilA said:

Why? What's wrong with a 3 year old car going in for service?

Their incompetent ‘national call centre for better service’ messed up the booking and the woman at the local branch of Sytner, formerly a really good independent, was very rude about it, as later was the call centre.

[New POD]

9 hours ago, Spurious said:

 

Maybe it's a Japanese thing. 

Or just a policy to make all customers feel valued.  For all they know you might have a job where you run a fleet of 2316 management cars for JCB, and you last order was 2315 insignias in appliance white.  

Or be fixing your mother's car and actually be in the market for a new car in the next month or so. 

[New POD]

7 hours ago, Cord Forteener aka Tim_E said:

I had an airbag recall job 

I last owned a Honda in 2015. I got a letter inviting me for a new airbag the other day. 

[Cord Fourteener]

11 hours ago, JuridicalGrunt said:

sometimes cars drive you absolutely mad one of these starts first turn of the key runs beautifully and pretty much everything works, one has had thousands spent on it and refuses to run properly and has multiple issue’s that are driving me and rich mad! I shall let everyone guess witch is witch.

 

.

Sd1, being the pig to run?

[Cord Fourteener]

8 hours ago, wuvvum said:

... the rest is in the hands of the MOT gods.

Fingers and toes crossed. Figuratively as I'm not superstitious in the slightest. But still, here's hoping for a decent pass 👍

[Zelandeth]

23 hours ago, Lankytim said:

Well this thing failed on two out of three points. 

It’s far too rotten to move

Its falling to bits,

It did provide some parts though, I needed things like steering arms as mine has a mix of metric and imperial parts which don’t fit together properly. I bought cutting gear but forgot my 110v transformer which meant I couldn’t use any of them! Fortunately the 145 was so rotten I was able to remove the front and by hand by just cutting the radiator hose and with a little force pull the front suspension out and away. The bodywork in this area was non existent, the front axle had rotted away and the engine was sitting on the ground. 
 

The parts removed are remarkably in pretty good shape, including the steering box and idler. I tried to remove the remaining chassis sections clinging onto them this morning but the bolts are seized into the steering box and will need some persuasion. 
 

Im going back to this wreck next month to remove the engine and axle! It’s shiting and archaeology all in one! 

That's in quite the state!  Anything left of the interior?  Switchgear in particular as a friend has been after the switches for a while - his have been chewed by mice.

[Lankytim]

14 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

That's in quite the state!  Anything left of the interior?  Switchgear in particular as a friend has been after the switches for a while - his have been chewed by mice.

The switchgear is semi-intact. I tried to remove a couple and I think they've been affected  by damp ingress. When I go back ill take them all out and have a look. 

The interior is all there but again, decades of damp have badly damaged  it all. 

[Shite Ron]

We may have a new car arriving today,  there are currently two very nice Lotus Eclat’s on ebay which I am so far resisting due to lack of space. My girlfriend wants to replace the BMW which I wholeheartedly approve of. The replacement drives the wrong wheels but shares an engine with a Lotus Elise.

A clue if anyone is interested, she already has one of these so I do not know why we are getting another:

No correction Fred as it has no MOT so is coming on a recovery truck.

[Zelandeth]

6 minutes ago, Lankytim said:

The switchgear is semi-intact. I tried to remove a couple and I think they've been effected by damp ingress. When I go back ill take them all out and have a look. 

The interior is all there but again, decades of damp have badly effected it all. 

Usually easiest because of the spring clips to remove the few screws that hold the panel onto the dash and pull it out as a unit... assuming this is the same as the last one I touched about twenty years ago anyway!

Thanks for checking whether they're intact or not.  The switch mechanism condition isn't too important as it's the plastic rockers that are knackered in John's one, so the caps could be switched over if need be.  His switches work fine, they just look a mess (well, it's got ones from a later 240 fitted currently but they look wrong).