The new news 24 thread

[Burnside]

19 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Nice to see one still earning it's keep.  Remember thinking they looked really smart when they came out.

Thanks. 

I can remember actually driving a Stilo hatchback in the same spec brand new, at a horrible hire company I briefly worked for. An at the time I found the styling rather bland as a Fiat fan ! 

Although when I started looking around for a cheap estate car, a few yrs back. The Stilo styling was one of the reasons I brought it!! Funny how your taste's change. 

It's been a great workhorse so far and hopefully intend on keeping it for a good while longer yet.

[JJ0063]

Had to post this on here, made me laugh so much when I saw it.

 

Had to pop and visit my mum tonight to help them with some paperwork as they’re moving house. Whilst I was there she mentioned her car had to have some welding for it’s MOT last week so thought I’d have a look. 
 

State of this, done by a garage too 😂 this is a 55 plate Corsa C that she’s owned since it was 18 months old. 
 

Fucking wood screws, god knows what the actual welding is like underneath but check out the stonechip.

she genuinely couldn’t see the issue, I was laughing so much but at the same time was quite annoyed at the terrible workmanship from a garage to a car shes owned so long. Her reply to me was “oh it’s an old car now, they said I’ll probably only get another year out of it now anyway” 😂

[wuvvum]

A while back I noticed two holes that had been burrowed into the pile of grass clippings in the back garden.  I assumed some small rodent had made its home in there - the holes are about the right size. 

Today I met its resident.  What was it, I hear you ask?  Maybe a cute little field mouse, or perhaps a vole?  

Nope.  It's a fugging spider.  Huge bastard great black hairy thing, probably the biggest spider I've seen in this country outside of a zoo. 

You can just about see its front legs poking out of the hole on the right in this picture:

Now I'm normally no arachnophobe, but that's taking the piss a bit.  I'm happy for it to continue minding its own business in my compost heap, but if I catch it coming in the house it's going to find itself on the wrong end of a carefully aimed lump hammer. 

 

[wuvvum]

Had a slightly more productive day today, mainly because I didn't attempt anything too ambitious.  Today's tasks were to sort the stereo on the Swift, upgrade the horn on the Ducato (the one on there sounds like it was nicked from a Honda Vision, which is a bit pathetic for such a big vehicle), take the carb and the exhaust off the Spacy for further fettling, and have a play with the new welder to see if I can work out what settings would be appropriate to weld up the Renault 6 floor.

I didn't get on very well with the welder to be honest.  Even with everything turned down to minimum it blows holes in 0.75mm steel plate with worrying ease, so I'm not sure whether the waffer-thin floorpan on the Renault is going to stand up to it.  More fiddling required methinks.  Also my auto darkening goggles packed up half way through (they still darken instantly when I strike the arc but then they take about 5 minutes to become clear again when I stop welding) and the mask I bought off eBay a few months back doesn't darken at all.  Ho hum.

I also cleared some more rubbish out of the shed, and in so doing I found a few '70s and '80s car mags, plus a brochure extolling the virtues of the Ligier Ambra.  So that was nice.

[Jikovron]

Dodge cab

Spotted this at random and thought of the bollox camper wagon mainly as its listed in Alfreton!

[Mally]

10 minutes ago, Jikovron said:

Dodge cab

Spotted this at random and thought of the bollox camper wagon mainly as its listed in Alfreton!

@warren t claim Maybe worth passing that on if you would please.

[omegod]

7 hours ago, wuvvum said:

A while back I noticed two holes that had been burrowed into the pile of grass clippings in the back garden.  I assumed some small rodent had made its home in there - the holes are about the right size. 

Today I met its resident.  What was it, I hear you ask?  Maybe a cute little field mouse, or perhaps a vole?  

Nope.  It's a fugging spider.  Huge bastard great black hairy thing, probably the biggest spider I've seen in this country outside of a zoo. 

You can just about see its front legs poking out of the hole on the right in this picture:

Now I'm normally no arachnophobe, but that's taking the piss a bit.  I'm happy for it to continue minding its own business in my compost heap, but if I catch it coming in the house it's going to find itself on the wrong end of a carefully aimed lump hammer. 

 

Jesus wept , we get some odd creepy crawlies down by the docks, colleague had something the size of Tarantulas in her shed. Can you get a full size pic of that beast ?

[Coprolalia]

Cardiff. Been sat there 10 years.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/car-been-parked-same-spot-12298165

[artdjones]

43 minutes ago, Coprolalia said:

Cardiff. Been sat there 10 years.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/car-been-parked-same-spot-12298165

That takes me back to Grangetown or Splott c.1974.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

2 hours ago, Coprolalia said:

Cardiff. Been sat there 10 years.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/car-been-parked-same-spot-12298165

"Gonna restore it one day".

That's going well.

[St.Jude]

2 hours ago, Coprolalia said:

Cardiff. Been sat there 10 years.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/car-been-parked-same-spot-12298165

I'm impressed that the tyres have held air for 10 years.

[wuvvum]

5 hours ago, omegod said:

Jesus wept , we get some odd creepy crawlies down by the docks, colleague had something the size of Tarantulas in her shed. Can you get a full size pic of that beast ?

I did try - I saw it fully outside of its burrow but by the time I went and got my phone it'd gone back inside again, and despite hanging around for 20 minutes or so that's as far as it came out when I had the camera.

[wuvvum]

6 hours ago, Jikovron said:

Dodge cab

Spotted this at random and thought of the bollox camper wagon mainly as its listed in Alfreton!

Looks like wor Bollox is online at the moment.

@Mr_Bo11ox

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Yeah I've had a couple of PM's about that so cheers chaps, much appreciated.

Its been on FB for a little while and I quite like the idea of buying it and trying to use my spot weld drill to carefully partially dismantle the cab for repair sections 'Arthur Tussik'-style, plus the screen and doors would probably resell quite easily. I think the cab as a whole is toast as the roof is all bashed in on one side.

I havent got a space for dismantling it at my place.... but maybe the seller would let me do it on site.  I'll have a think about it and maybe drop him a note . Will let you know if owt happens!

[Bren]

I drove the vectra today - my wife's car so I don't use it every day. I noticed the brake pedal was spongy - normally it is very firm. Wife, as usual noticed no difference, cos wife. Pedal goes hard when engine not running.

Plenty of fluid in the resevoir but it is dirty. I wonder if the high temps have affected the fluid? It absorbs a fair bit of moisture.

[richardmorris]

The external paintwork to the property is being done. This has appeared- it makes a huge racket!

[richardmorris]

Two of these and a mclaren F1 this morning.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

A full lock set for the CX has arrived from Stan Platts, with keys!

[Six-cylinder]

1 hour ago, richardmorris said:

Two of these and a mclaren F1 this morning.

It is a McLaren Speedtail, about £1.75 million each.

[richardmorris]

2 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

It is a McLaren Speedtail, about £1.75 million each.

It looks like the least user friendly thing I’ve spotted. No luggage space, huge overhangs and low ground clearance and huge turning circle.

[Split_Pin]

4 hours ago, Bren said:

I drove the vectra today - my wife's car so I don't use it every day. I noticed the brake pedal was spongy - normally it is very firm. Wife, as usual noticed no difference, cos wife. Pedal goes hard when engine not running.

Plenty of fluid in the resevoir but it is dirty. I wonder if the high temps have affected the fluid? It absorbs a fair bit of moisture.

I think you'd have to nail it around a track for about 10 laps before the heat boiled the fluid so I doubt the highish ambient temperatures would impact it.

It sounds as though air is getting in somewhere, have you had work done on the brakes recently? 

A bleed would help but to root cause would still be there.

[Bren]

15 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

I think you'd have to nail it around a track for about 10 laps before the heat boiled the fluid so I doubt the highish ambient temperatures would impact it.

It sounds as though air is getting in somewhere, have you had work done on the brakes recently? 

A bleed would help but to root cause would still be there.

They havn't been touched. It crossed my mind one may be sticking - this would correlate with the poor economy we have been getting.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

3 hours ago, richardmorris said:

It looks like the least user friendly thing I’ve spotted. No luggage space, huge overhangs and low ground clearance and huge turning circle.

That thing isn't meant to be user-friendly. It's meant to show incredibly filthy rich the owner is. Nice work if you can get it.

[SRi05]

Cleaned and polished the Astra this morning, managed to buff out a good few scuffs so pretty happy with how it's turned out. It's always going to be a 6 footer but it's looking clean and tidy. I tried to get the get the front grille off but three of the screws are absolutely siezed on with rust, fighting with them is for another day. Replaced the done in number plates and a bit of trim on the passenger door. It's came up well. 

[brownnova]

After several months rusting resting, this came out to play today… 

After having been quoted three grand for the welding work by a 2CV specialist (they wanted to rebuild the back end essentially) I decided to try a more old school welder type instead.

I knew I had the man for the job when I saw this Asia Rocsta outside… 

Much more pleasing price, but small waiting list. Early September and the welding can be done, then we can fit the wings etc we have here waiting. On bringing it home Mrs brownnova decided to show her friend just how rusty it is by pulling on the seatbelt… which came off in her hand, bringing part of the inner wing with it! Told you it was Rusty! 

[MarvinsMom]

we had the mini out to play today, but the revels were sadly short lived.

seems our old friend "Mr Missfire" has come back.

its the same symptoms as before, stuttering under load. so i guess the culprit is going to be some crud floating around in the carb somewhere. 

so the days run over the wee back roads of north yorkshire got cut short, and we headed over to Kerrys as fast as 10 inch wheels and 3 cylinders could manage. only to find out that kerry had left her keys at home "cos i won't need them with me"

fucks sake.

i have decided that i am going to NAIL a fuckin' coat hook onto kerrys forehead so that there will be somewhere to put her fookin' keys!

well, now't else for it but to head for home. we made it too, though there were moments when i thought we weren't!

"get and old car, they said, it'll be fun, they said......"

so after that, well i doubt we will be running out tomorrow in the run from Middlesbrough to Pickering. 

we also found that the head gasket on that car is weeping, well more than weeping, dribbling, leaking, pissing out? oil too.

yep, i am REALLY loving the bloody thing at the moment!

and the Rover went for its test the other day.

it failed, of course. basically it needs the cataracts on the headlamps polishing back, a o/s track rod and the hand brake, which is shit on a 75 at the best of time encouraging back into something resembling working order on both wheels.

so not too bad for a 20  year old, 208,000 mile Rover!

now to get someone to just do the jobs above.

and the Toyota too has had a test what it failed with a "major defect", the repeater thing in the wing mirror had given up,

now this is not some wee bulb, like what it would have been in the olden dayz, but some sealed LED shit. the only one i could get was from the local toyota main stealer, for £90.

£90 FUCKING QUID!!!!

still, could be worse, a friend had the same thing with some piece-of-shit golf, and that was £800-odd plus VAT as they had to change the WHOLE DOOR MIRROR!

the LED nonsense wasn't available on its own, so it was a complete mirror job.

"german engineering" what a fuckin' joke!!

[stuboy]

Yesterday back to retirement weekend,  rip out the kitchen, scraped all fire encouraging ceiling tiles from lounge/kitchen/bathroom and bathroom walls. Found a nice duckhams jug probably worth 20p and a empty paint stripper that tin i thought was cool looking..

[Split_Pin]

Took the Cavalier down to the NE meet yesterday, it was a brilliant day.

Unfortunately the drive back was somewhat tense though! The Cav is overheating quite a bit. It's fine on A roads and around town but on the motorway the needle rises almost to the red, especially on inclines. I thought I wasn't going to make it home at one point.

On reading up on it when I got home, the 1.7TDs are known for this. I've bought a new thermostat (I've been told there are 2 though, no idea where the second one is!) and I will flush the cooling system out, hopefully that will cure the issue. The coolant in it looks spot on though so I'm not sure why it would be crudded  up.

My plan is obviously to fix this, get it MOTs again in September and then I will probably sell it.

[Six-cylinder]

56 minutes ago, stuboy said:

Yesterday back to retirement weekend,  rip out the kitchen, scraped all fire encouraging ceiling tiles from lounge/kitchen/bathroom and bathroom walls. Found a nice duckhams jug probably worth 20p and a empty paint stripper that tin i thought was cool looking..

 

In the early 1980s when I ran a motor parts store we sometimes were sent boxes of them to give them away with a 5 LTR Duckhams 20/50 oil purchase.

I used to have a couple but have not seen them for a while.

[Split_Pin]

Bridged both fans on the Cav this morning, both working.

I will get a new sensor as well as a thermostat. The housing doesn't look great but the only 2nd hand replacement on ebay doesn't look any better. 

I also shut a screwdriver in the wing channel, jamming the bonnet shut. Thankfully Mrs_Pin was on hand to help me get it open again.

My old car mojo  has taken a bit of a dive this morning.