The new news 24 thread

[juular]

10 minutes ago, GingerNuttz said:

Sister and parents are waiting on tests atm but I reckon me and the wife will be fine. 

We only made it 3 feet into the house before I was told what happened and we bailed. 

Hopefully everything is ok with your Mrs. You did the right thing by bailing out.

43 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

It's still out there big time. A few folk in my work were talking about going back to the office but no way I'm doing that. It's just asking for trouble

Yep, it's rife at my work (school).

People are dropping like flies here, but it all seems to be talked about in casual conversation as if everyone is now immune. Masks optional. Hand sanitisers empty everywhere. I wish I could work from home again.

Management:

[dozeydustman]

1 hour ago, GingerNuttz said:

Just been informed my niece has the rona and she might have given it to my sister who was in my parents house last night.

I've just walked right into her house with the wife who is currently with child FML 

Order a couple of boxes of lateral flow tests and do them daily. I really do hope neither of you are infected 

[MJK 24]

New rear light seals for the baby Benz 

[SRi05]

8 minutes ago, juular said:

Hopefully everything is ok with your Mrs. You did the right thing by bailing out.

Yep, it's rife at my work (school).

People are dropping like flies here, but it all seems to be talked about in casual conversation as if everyone is now immune. Masks optional. Hand sanitisers empty everywhere. I wish I could work from home again.

Management:

My Mrs is a primary teacher and it's everywhere in her school. Two kids in her class have it from last week. She messaged me this morning saying that she feels like shit and something is starting on her. Great. Still hasn't had her 2nd vaccine yet.

 

[LabRat]

Got back off holiday to moaning neighbors, apparently the MG6 has been lowering the tone of the area- it's parked under a tree so if fucking filthy after 2 weeks and has 2 flat tyres and a dead battery.

I did obviously thing and ignored the moaning gits until this morning, then borrowed the wife's Ssangyong for a jump start, against all sensible advice from fellow mg owners (you cant jump start one as it will kill the ECUs, fry fuses, injure nuns and kittens...) Surprisingly it only bloody fires up first press of the key! 

Pumped the tyres up, dragged it's sorry arse to the nearest jet wash and it almost looks presentable again. It promptly thanks me with a strong smell of hot electrics coming through the vents. On investigation the battery negative is hot enough to fry eggs on.

Looks like I'm stripping all the earthing points down and praying that the battery isn't fucked then. Oh, and the fucking clutch has started to slip under load too... I'm so, so tempted to scrap the the bloody thing off and get a Dacia on PCP. 

But, I'll keep with it, if only for the fact it's trade in value is currently about £800 in good condition. This one would probably have me owing the dealers money to take it off my hands!

[Floatylight]

Stepmum has the rona, everyone who was at Dad's funeral last week currently getting pinged by test and Trace, thankfully most people double jabbed..

[brownnova]

4 hours ago, SRi05 said:

My Mrs is a primary teacher and it's everywhere in her school. Two kids in her class have it from last week. She messaged me this morning saying that she feels like shit and something is starting on her. Great. Still hasn't had her 2nd vaccine yet.

 

I’m dreading being back in work this week for that reason too… 

Wife is pregnant too, but has no option but to be around 30 teenagers at a time.

Can’t wait… 

[brownnova]

Some highlights from the Capesthorne Hall car show today…

Starting with my car of the show:

This Hustler was bloody ace!

Runner up: 

Beautiful Ami! Wonderful to behold.

And in bronze medal position...

18,000 miles from new! It was awesome.

Honourable mentions:

And having commented on how rare e Beta Montecarlo I saw at Mavericks on Tuesday was… 

Another one! 
 

Of course that’s just my cars of the show… things like Escorts and Mk2 Jags were winning in the actual show ring. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

A relaxed run in the CX up to North Watford and back. Nothing of note to report, although there did seem to be more SUVs out on the roads than normal.....

[Mrs Spart]

On 8/25/2021 at 10:44 PM, HillmanImp said:

Who's got that shopper bike with the bike engine on it these days, that was doing the rounds on here a few years ago? It was quite local to me but not sure if it still is. 

Its the Harley Davidson weekend where I live, where hundreds of bikes ride through the village and I fancy borrowing it and suddenly pulling out of a side street and being the leader of the gang as they come through. 

 

[Mrs Spart]

On 8/25/2021 at 10:44 PM, HillmanImp said:

Who's got that shopper bike with the bike engine on it these days, that was doing the rounds on here a few years ago? It was quite local to me but not sure if it still is. 

Its the Harley Davidson weekend where I live, where hundreds of bikes ride through the village and I fancy borrowing it and suddenly pulling out of a side street and being the leader of the gang as they come through. 

 

[Ghosty]

decided I'm going to put the Ignis up for sale if anyone wants it - I'll sell it for my (rather fair) break even price - see the for sale section. 

[brownnova]

27 minutes ago, Ghosty said:

decided I'm going to put the Ignis up for sale if anyone wants it - I'll sell it for my (rather fair) break even price - see the for sale section. 

Didn’t think it would last long… not a very ghosty car… 

[bunglebus]

Someone's pinched my photo! I took that "BE 54UCY" picture years ago when I worked at Merc/Chrysler in Southend, it's on my Flickr and the number plate thread - and now pops up on Google (but not on the link if you click it). Cheeker feckers

 

[Split_Pin]

Fixed the air bag light on the 75 today.

Disconnected the battery, waited 10 minutes. 

Disconnected and reconnected both pairs of yellow plugs under the driver and passenger seat, light now out.

This was literally a fix from a Rover technical bulletin  back in the day.

[Fumbler]

I swapped over the gear knob in the car with the one in the spares stash. Spares stash one is also falling apart but it's better then what was there.

Naturally, I decided to PlastiDip the old one to see if it'll work. Have a painted knob (fnar).

The knob is sticky (fnar fnar) but after a night in the warm house it should be cured and ready for use. I can't find any shiny plastic ones so I'm having to make do at the moment.

[Lankytim]

I was having a mooch in the loft and found a load of paperwork relating to the 145 that I’d completely forgotten I had. 
Looking though the receipts and paperwork I can see a partial owner history. It seems to have been in a single family for most of its life before being sold to a Swedish Cello player in 1998 and driven over in 2010 and later sold to the owner I got it from.  After Googling the guy on the licence I found mixed in with the paperwork most of the names featured in the family history turn up on a genealogy site. It’s all pretty interesting. I’ve found the Cello player on Facebook and fired him a message but he hasn’t read it yet, I’ve also found the granddaughter who sold him the 145 but I haven’t approached her yet as my wife thinks I’m a “weirdo stalker” . 

After that excitement I went out and used my home-made brake pressure bleeder (the Bleederlizer 500) to finish bleeding the brakes. There’s three bleed nipples on each front caliper and they have the be bled in a certain order. Obviously I couldn’t be bothered looking it up so I just bled each nipple until the air bubbles and old fluid was replaced with fresh new fluid. I managed to get through over a litre of fluid but was rewarded with a nice firm pedal and working brakes! The whole operation was pretty painless. The pressure bleeder was made from a £1 plant sprayer from Poundland, some pipe, a tyre valve stem and a sacrificial master cylinder cap so it’s well within even my miserly budget and bodging skills. I still had to pump the pedal but the positive pressure seemed to do the trick and get the fluid to where it was needed. Great, not far from the road now! 

[Yoss]

5 hours ago, brownnova said:

Some highlights from the Capesthorne Hall car show today…

Starting with my car of the show:

This Hustler was bloody ace!

 

Škoda wheels and Maxi 1750 badges. One and a half Estelles died to make this. What else is in it? 

[brownnova]

18 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Škoda wheels and Maxi 1750 badges. One and a half Estelles died to make this. What else is in it? 

Maxi engine, and Austin 1300 bits apparently… 

[High Jetter]

If only AS made cars...

[Ghosty]

16 minutes ago, brownnova said:

Maxi engine, and Austin 1300 bits apparently… 

Hustlers were designed by one William Towns (Aston Lagonda, Scimitar SS2 et al) and are either a metal frame and fibreglass, or marine ply, with Mini running gear. Sounds like that one's had some upgrades. 

[somewhatfoolish]

11 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

If only AS made cars...

I'm pretty sure Bill Towns never intended his wedgefest to be scumbled.

[wuvvum]

Got a bit of fettling done over the weekend, as the weather had the decency to remain largely dry.

The Škoda now has its shiny new exhaust centre section fitted.  I attacked the bolts at the cat end with the dremel - I splashed out on some half decent cutting discs on eBay and they sliced through the nut easily enough, and I was then able to wind it off with mole grips - which was a relief as I didn't fancy using the angry grinder in such a restricted space.  The aft end of the centre section took a bit* of persuasion to slide out of the tail pipe, but lots of twatting with a lump hammer got there in the end.  The new section went on easily and seems a decent enough fit, and the car is now substantially quieter.

I then backed the Renault 6 onto the ramps for a look underneath, as I haven't been under the back end for a while.  The brake pipes that were looking slightly dodgy last time I went under haven't got any worse, and in fact after a good wire brushing they look fine for another year or two.  It is going to need some more welding on the outer edge of the floorpan though, although that may have to wait until the spring.  It's definitely not going to spend another winter outdoors though - if I can't get the Innocenti MOT'd and on the road by then I'll just have to rent another garage.

I gave the S-Class a hoover out and had another go at removing the tuning box - successfully this time, it transpired that the reason it wouldn't start when we tried it at the FOD was that one of the wiring plugs hadn't been pushed fully home (it was impossible to do so as the wires for the next plug were in the way, so I had to unplug the entire row and then refit then one by one).  It hasn't changed the performance of the car noticeably but it does seem to have stopped it going into limp mode.

Today I extricated the Volvo from the garage.  It needed a jump start but then it fired straight up, as it always does.  It also still has brakes, which is encouraging as it means the braking system must be air- and fluid-tight.  That is now back on the drive for me to try and sort the electrics (the fuse box is somewhat corroded in places) and put the interior back together and generally get it into a more saleable condition.  The Innocenti has gone in the garage for now - I really should take it in for a test but I'm worried that it'll fail on some silly little suspension bush that should cost about 50p but is in fact completely unobtainium and writes the car off.  I jacked the front end up and had a wiggle of the wheels and I couldn't see anything obviously loose, but there's definitely a rattling from the front end when driving so something's up.  Having the Innocenti in the garage rather than the Volvo has also freed up some space to store the pushbikes that are currently in the back of the Ducato, which may be going off to a new home soon.

There were other jobs I had been hoping to do, but I was a little restricted by the fact that I managed to slice a chunk out of my left index finger whilst attempting to change the wiper blade rubber on the Renault 6.  Here's a tip if you ever find yourself fitting a refill to a stainless steel wiper blade:  if the rubber comes free more suddenly than you were expecting, the little metal clips that hold the rubber in place are remarkably efficient at slicing through human flesh.

[Schaefft]

8 hours ago, brownnova said:

Some highlights from the Capesthorne Hall car show today…

Starting with my car of the show:

This Hustler was bloody ace!

Runner up: 

Beautiful Ami! Wonderful to behold.

And in bronze medal position...

18,000 miles from new! It was awesome.

Honourable mentions:

And having commented on how rare e Beta Montecarlo I saw at Mavericks on Tuesday was… 

Another one! 
 

Of course that’s just my cars of the show… things like Escorts and Mk2 Jags were winning in the actual show ring. 

Woah, I don't think I know this white mark viii yet, any more photos of it?

[Ghosty]

On 8/28/2021 at 9:47 PM, Crackers said:

Of all the things a person could choose to barry... a Fusion? Really?

Least it wasn't a press car like the Mondeo.

[TheOtherStu]

If anyone is local to the Silverstone area (I know a load of you already know about this and at least 2 members are on Silverstone Social - I spotted the FoD on a post!)

Nigel, who runs Yakushi jap weekend meet next weekend (10-12), is having a twist on the Sunday. He's doing a classic car show and it's called Whittlebury Classics.

https://whittlebury-classics.co.uk/

I know it's a bit of a piss-take advertising sometimes, but I think a lot of people want to make this work. So if you're in the area and can spare a fiver, probably worth popping over.

 

In news news, took both cars to JDMK yesterday. Great day out. A really good cause and it's great to see a car show raising over £6k for Cancer research. Won a raffle prize too!

What I did find out about the car for sale is that annoyingly, the gap between the cheap manifold and cat has opened up again and is blowing like Hugh Grant's hooker. I'll take it all out at the weekend (if not before - weather dependent). I've got a stock manifold, so might gut it and put that on, knowing that the gasket will fit snugly.

MR2 Roadsters are blessed with a pre-cat as well as a main cat (something to do with Californian emissions). When MR2 Roadsters start burning oil (which for some, is inevitable if they're poorly serviced or ragged), it then starts breaking down the pre-cat material which causes all kinds of exhaust issues. Because it's a ceramic material, it's pretty easy to gut with a large screwdriver. Most of us run aftermarket manifolds which are also less restrictive. Unfortunately, they're generally poor steel and not always perfectly flat on the bottom. They have a tendency to start warping a little after 30,000 miles too.

[beko1987]

Off to get my new glasses in a sec! I've never had to wear glasses, not sure what to expect really... Being a le to focus on things would be nice I guess! 

Do I dare walk home in them or wait until I am home? 

[High Jetter]

Walking should* be fine, but get a bit used to them first before driving. Make sure they adjust them to fit you before leaving the shop, if they're not comfy or aligned correctly you won't be happy wearing them. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

22 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

Off to get my new glasses in a sec! I've never had to wear glasses, not sure what to expect really... Being a le to focus on things would be nice I guess! 

Do I dare walk home in them or wait until I am home? 

Wait 'til you have to use varifocals!!

[brownnova]

7 hours ago, Schaefft said:

Woah, I don't think I know this white mark viii yet, any more photos of it?

Sorry, no I didn’t take any more!