The new news 24 thread

[Angrydicky]

If the 2cv is that far gone I think now's the time to take it off the road and learn to weld! Unless you have unlimited funds of course.

[dollywobbler]

I don't have enough funds to buy even a welder at the moment.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

To be fair 10 years is good going if you use it all the time in all sorts of weathers, I bet most cars that have been rebuilt and resprayed without the aid of OEM dipping tanks and all the rest of it wouldn't last anything like that.

[dollywobbler]

Indeed. It's mainly the box sections that rot out from the inside. I'm yet to find a really good way to protect those. Wax makes a difference, but doesn't entirely stop it because getting a uniform coating is so difficult when you can't see what you're doing.

 

Which leads me to other news. The Disco's new offiside sill and the chassis are both full of wax and I hope the coverage is good. The nearside still needs welding. Also refitted the B-post trim, using far more insulation tape than is strictly attractive. 

 

Then I fixed the Sirion's 12v power outlet. Indeed, I had failed to reconnect it after removing the console trim to upgrade the stereo to one of those new-fangled CD player things. It was after this that bits fell off the 2CV. On the plus side, the fog light works now (which is why I was fiddling about with the back end) and none of the engine bay exhaust clamps are leaking. I thought one might have been.

[dollywobbler]

Need to cheer myself up and try to regain my 2CV mojo. Perhaps this video I made many years ago will help! Most of the footage is from 2003/2004. My 2CV had undergone the body rebuild, but still wore scruffy panels. She was fully restored in the shot with the 2CV that has far too many headlamps.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152089756078200&l=8580401468446280556

[ruffgeezer]

I have also been breaking Citroen parts, the AX had a blow from the manifold to downpipe join and firstly tried to remove the first of three bolts and snapped it off, then thought I'll tighten them instead and snapped number two off. The Ambassador has a leaking carb so no point re-taxing that.

 

Looks like I'll be borrowing the for sale 420 GSi this week.

 

Bugger, that's a shame as I'm sure I only scrapped an Ax manifold recently, I'll check the garage tomorrow to confirm.

[Parky]

Be very afraid when changing dearbox oil on VAG group stuff. Depending on what box you have, the drain plug, which looks very very like a drain plug, isn't. Undoing this, instead of getting stinking oil up your sleeve, leads to gearbox death. The drain/filler plugs usually are 17mm allen keys type.

 

Box and new clutch are in the Golf- had a rather pleasant Tuesday afternoon swapping them over. Clutch was amazing, right down to the rivets, original, and soaked in gear oil. Amazed the thing still moved under its own steam. The gearbox had the usual diff rivet failure so the bellhousing was cracked and leaking oil all over the clutch. Got a really cheap box off Ebay which looks to have been reconned at one time so hopefully it's been done right and the rivets replaced with the bolt kit. Not driven it yet since, apart from up and down the drive, but all gears are there, clutch is light and there were no nuts/bolts/clips left over!

Cheers Tiff - I am looking for the relevant 17mm Allen bolt and NOT touching anything else.

 

Might just leave it to my tame mechanic. I have a couple of litres of redline MTL for it so hopefully I will only need to shell out for an hour of his time

[cobblers]

Razzed up the country  this morn to pick up Barry Shitpeases knocky 205 with my mate . It drove back no worries, I was kind of looking forward to an explosion of pistons and conrods and stuff. Seeing as we got back in good time I went up and looked round a MK3 golf auto for my mum, seemed a nice old thing so I just biffed a deposit on that and will collect tomorrow night (from deepest darkest barnsley).

Her shabby MX5 will probably be fo' sale soon. Plenty of ticket but it's hardly a minter, she'll probably only want about £350 for it. JOIN THE QUEWUE!

[dollywobbler]

I'm still playing with video. I know the world has been waiting for a decent review of the Sirion. The only other one I could find featured Howard Stableford from Tomorrow's World. He didn't find such an unusual way to demonstrate the boot space though.

[Lord Sterling]

Ian that video was enjoyable to watch, it was very imformative and harked back to the early days of Top Gear. I really think we should all start making videos like this reviewing our own cars like an Autoshite video club or something, doing real-world reviews of very normal cars.

[skattrd]

Nice video DW.

If I make it to Welsh Shitefest I should come in the X4 to let you compare the two side by side. Actually, that's still a few months away so you'll probably have sold it by then.

[vulgalour]

That's 60, and I'm terrified!

ZOOOOOOOOM

 

That was my favourite part of the video.

[rml2345]

It's a shame I crashed my small Japanese hatchback as it would have been very interesting to compare them. Watching that video reminded me quite a lot of the Yaris, particularly the gearbox whine and it being far more entertaining than a small city car had any right to be. It had EPS being a later one and it was very light but I always thought it had plenty of feel. Are they related particularly underneath?
Great video DW, this is much better than watching Top Gear. 

[phil_lihp]

It really was like watching an old Top Gear episode, great stuff and the Bluebird one's good too.  I've been toying with the idea of doing these myself for ages but never got around to it, we should definitely start doing Autoshite car reviews!

[Craig the Princess]

Bugger, that's a shame as I'm sure I only scrapped an Ax manifold recently, I'll check the garage tomorrow to confirm.

Are the bolts part of the manifold? That is a pain if so.

Thanks for checking for me.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

The noise the Sirion's folding mirrors make is nightmarish!

[dollywobbler]

I'm going to admit to using camera trickery in that video. When the Sirion zooms past the camera, I've actually sped that up to 1.5x speed. OMG, I IZ LIKE ORIJINAL BATMAN!

 

Thanks for the comments though. You do feel like a prat talking to a camera and then uploading it for the world to see. What inspires me is seeing big name companies doing videos that seem little better than what I'm knocking out. It's quite a lot of fun to do, but does take time. Shooting stuff, binning quite a lot of it, editing it all together. Still got the Discovery and the 2CV to do but I'm running out after that!

[Jim Bell]

Holy Special Effects DW Man!

[vulgalour]

Come to Derbyshire, test my Princess.

[Joey spud]

I dropped this off at the Painters back in late October,

And got a call to pick it up Friday.

 

Just got to nail all the bits back on now and waxoil the arse off it...

[rml2345]

Shame it's not still beige but it does look much much better than it did before. 
Come to Scotland DW, test many Volvos. 

[vulgalour]

That looks great now.  I'm not even sad to see the beige replaced because that red looks superb.

[Barry Cade]

Here  you can see what happens to VAG gearboxes- the DUU box in particular, fitted to 1.4,1.6 and 1.9SDi engines... the diff rivets make a break for freedom and make a hole in the bellhousing...

 

 

[Lacquer Peel]

VAG SHITE

[Barry Cade]

That looks great now.  I'm not even sad to see the beige replaced because that red looks superb.

The first "car" I ever resprayed completely was one of these, in the original beige.. Belonged to a mechanic at the garage where I was an apprentice- he later passed away in his soup at the works night out. Harry, you were a cantankerous old bastard, but thanks for everything!

[Joey spud]

That looks great now.  I'm not even sad to see the beige replaced because that red looks superb.

 

Funny you should say ''superb'' as it's a 2012 Skoda colour called Corrida red...

[wuvvum]

Didn't get a great deal done today as I didn't get up till gone 12 (catching up on sleep from yesterday morning), but I did manage to pull the Saab onto the drive and give it a good hoover out (the previous owner smoked like a chimney so the whole car smells like an ashtray).  I topped up the oil as it was getting a bit low, and fitted a reversing light bulb as it had no reversing lights at all, which made reversing in the dark interesting. 

 

I also took advantage of the fact that it was dry and not too cold to play with the soft top - the first couple of times I tried it it got stuck (don't think it'd been used for a while), but after a few tries it now appears to be working as it should.  Whenever we get a dry weekend through the winter I'll cycle it a couple of times to make sure it doesn't seize up before I want to use it in anger.  All the car needs now is a new pair of wiper blades and she's all good.

[vulgalour]

I keep seeing adverts for cars on the internet with "ideal Christmas present" in the listing.  Do you think if I leave heavy enough hints around peers, family and complete strangers one of them will purchase a working one for me as a gift?  I've been *very* good this year.

[Barry Cade]

Can't sleep, so just starting my 4th episode of Top Gear USA series 3...

 

 

Now I want a V8 again.

 

And I'm wide awake.

 

Did go to bed to count sheep, but Moroso, Edelbrock, Holley ,Mopar, Mickey Thompson, Cragar ,Thunderbird ,Crane, Shelby and El Camino ZZZZZzzzzzzz-28

 

IROC ,Hemi, Highland Green,

 

I ********* hate insomnia.

[Vin]

A friend of mine got badly flooded due to the tidal surge last week 

 

Luckily he and his family are all OK but his house and workshops (which is his business) were ruined by floodwater. Unfortunately a few of his cars took the brunt too. A Alfa Montreal, Fiat Dino Coupe, Fiat Dino Spider and an early Fiat Daily truck have all suffered bad flood damage.

 

A video was posted on my facebook of the Dino coupe being started and expelling copious amounts of the river trent from it's exhausts