The new news 24 thread

[HillmanImp]

Just found this in a bag in the shed. 

Must've sent my old 44 off missing a badge. 

[richardmorris]

My neighbour asked for help when I was outside this morning, cleaning my mountain bike after a ride.  He wanted to put the hardtop on his ac cobra*. Winterised as Q says to Bond.

the front just clips to the sides of the windscreen surround with over-centre catches each side and the rear to the body panel with a set of studs.  He’s the one with the GT40 replica currently sitting outside in all weather! Daily is a Porsche targa and wife has a huge Audi estate v8 as a runabout. 
 

in non motoring news, mum managed to spend three hours in a&e in Wrexham maelor on friday  night ( staff remembered her from working there), and 4hours in the countess of Chester hospital yesterday.  Severed a nerve in a finger preparing harvest supper for 80people at church - no good dead goes unpunished!  Has an appointment back at the countess on Tuesday for surgery to reattach the nerve.
honestly, how she can nearly cut her finger off whilst cubing butter!  Managed to get the rings off without cutting them though.  
 

[stuboy]

Busy day today ... part 1

Myself, and BiL popped along to a monthly car meet..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[stuboy]

Sunday part 2..

Myself, missus, BiL, shouting mini dog and the kids went up the pub for a non alcoholic drink... turns out VAG meet there.. but... there's a nice mota in the pub car park..

Now the moderns...

https://youtube.com/shorts/OB1lHvg5HBU?si=FAaMrG4ijZgiHBf-

 

 

[Wibble]

9 minutes ago, stuboy said:

Sunday part 2..

Myself, missus, BiL, shouting mini dog and the kids went up the pub for a non alcoholic drink... turns out VAG meet there.. but... there's a nice mota in the pub car park..

Now the moderns...

https://youtube.com/shorts/OB1lHvg5HBU?si=FAaMrG4ijZgiHBf-

 

 

Rover gets my vote.

[Lankytim]

Had a go at straightening the panels on the P4s front end today. The new wing was quite a bit higher than it should be and was held on by two incorrectly sized bolts. A strap was used to hold things in the right place and the correct bolts added to bolt things together. The leaky radiator was also swapped and the front grille repaired. A slight improvement! 

[egg]

Crikey. Miracle nobody died here (County Down)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cglk8lgkzd6o

[cort16]

Chris Harris has just gone up in my estimation.  Full corduroy interior in an m5

[loserone]

Fuck yes

[richardmorris]

I may have gone for brown rather than orange. But yes, bring back cord seats.

[richardmorris]

Dad sent me this link….

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-13932971/Citroen-2CV-just-550-miles-clock-remarkable-love-story-heads-auction-20k-estimate.html

 

[Split_Pin]

BMW fake leather is awful so the Uni Lecturers Jaiskit edition is an improvement.

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, egg said:

Crikey. Miracle nobody died here (County Down)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cglk8lgkzd6o

No, Bus down, shirley? 😀

[wuvvum]

I got bugger all fettling done at the weekend* but I did do a fair bit of driving.  Saturday I took the Innocenti down to Shotley for the end of season East Coast Retros show organised by Trigger.  Usual fantastic selection of cars, including an immaculate, completely original and very low mileage Mk1 Capri which was great to see.  Caught up with Trigger and his Escort, Spottedlaurel and his Carina E estate, and (briefly) Brodders.  The Innocenti behaved itself perfectly once again, but the 150 mile round trip is about as far as I'd want to drive it in a day - not that it's particularly noisy or difficult to drive, but it gets a bit cramped after a couple of hours behind the wheel.

On Sunday I drove up to Wells to meet with my parents who were in the area for a church-related conference.  I took the Renault 6 - I wanted to give it one last run before it goes away for the winter, and also I thought my parents might like to see it.  I ended up driving them to the beach in it - they had nabbed the last parking space outside their hotel and didn't want to lose it.  First time in nearly 17 years of ownership that I've had a rear seat passenger - there's no seatbelts in the back so I tend to take something else when I'm going to be carrying people.  I think they enjoyed it!  The drive home was less pleasant as it was drizzling and the car is a bit of a pain in light rain as the wipers only have one speed which is ridiculously quick, so I had to keep flicking them on and off which is annoying when they are on a rocker switch behind the steering wheel.  No other issues though, it did the 90 mile return trip quite happily, although I think the alternator is getting a bit noisier so that might need looking at next year.

Friday night I went to see a mate and there was an interesting shape under a tarpaulin on his drive.  Turns out his daughter (20-odd, hairdresser by trade) has bought herself a Renault 21 diesel hatchback, with the non-turbo 1870cc engine (all of 64bhp).  It's been off the road for 18 years but it's a runner, although it needs one of the sills replacing.  It was under a tarp as the sunroof was leaking, and as the interior is pretty much immaculate she didn't want it getting wet.  She bought it because "I wanted a project, it's rare and it was 300 quid", which sounds like very sound reasoning to me.  She's going to get her brother to weld up the sill but everything else she's going to do herself, so good on her.

*Actually I tell a lie, I did make one minor improvement to the Rover 75.

[hairnet]

fuck sake dave

[somewhatfoolish]

6 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

BMW All fake leather is awful so the Uni Lecturers Jaiskit edition is an improvement.

EFA. I had fondly imagined we'd seen the last of vinyl as a seat material outside of landrovers and prison transport once "the greatest decade of ever" dawned, heralded by the fall of the Iron Curtain. Why the fuck has it made a comeback and can I blame Vladimir Putin?

 

5 hours ago, wuvvum said:

a Renault 21 diesel hatchback, with the non-turbo 1870cc engine (all of 64bhp). 

 it was 300 quid

Quoted so I can like it for a 2nd time.

[Volksy]

Replaced the radiator on the Battlecruiser this weekend, remarkably it was done in 20 mins. I guess one advantage of having the 6pot rather than the V8 means there is loads of room to access pipes and jubilee clips etc. 

It even bled up without incident, and now it has proper coolant in, it sits unwavering at 78 degrees even in the heavy traffic this morning. 

This may help with it's occasional idle freakout, as I'm sure it's temperature related. Will wait and see.

It's now had a new Radiator, Waterpump, Thermostat and Housing, Fan Clutch, Temp Sensor,  Aux belt and coolant, so pretty much the whole cooling system. 

 

It got a full compound and polish after the paint incident the other week, so it's looking pretty smart - apart from its many battlescars. 

 

[goosey]

Noticed recently some of my neighbours all leave the house at more or less the same time in the morning and then return later on in the day between 5pm and 6pm, they seem to do this every day of the week except weekends.

seems rather suspicious?

[Volksy]

9 hours ago, wuvvum said:

 First time in nearly 17 years of ownership that I've had a rear seat passenger - there's no seatbelts in the back

 

Blimey. I feel old now, as I remember putting that on the original Ebay Tat thread way back when. 

[IronStar]

I swapped the electricity meter which was probably over 2 years ago.  Since then, I kept receiving 0KW bills. I complained a few times and got "all good!" as a response from the power company so I gave up. Imagine my surprise when I got a ring on the door from a guy from a power company asking where the meter is.

- Here it is!
- But the number and the type don't match what I have on the record?
- It was swapped ages ago when the line got uprated from single phase 16A to three phase 32A.
- Oh...shit. Let me call my boss.

*2 minutes later*

- Well apparently, there's an open meter change request that was never closed. We farmed the swaps out to 3rd party companies and they didn't update these requests.
- Now what? This is hardly my fault, is it?
- Well we're going to update it now, but you have used...*clicks buttons* 11k KW.
- And you're going to dump it all on a single stratospheric bill?
- They probably will, yeah. You than go and complain that the bill is insane and this wasn't swapped out, so they'll break it over the time it wasn't read bringing it down, and let you pay in installments. 
- So how much is this bill?
- Some 1000Eur, more or less
- Oh amazing, I can't wait* to be handed a huge bill for your fuckup

So on the upside, they will probably finally sort this out. On the downside, nothing ruins your day like an unexpected huge expenditure for someone else's incompetence. 

[MorrisItalSLX]

13 hours ago, cort16 said:

Chris Harris has just gone up in my estimation.  Full corduroy interior in an m5

That is delicious!

[Christine]

Daughters 250 quid Polo passed an Mot with a couple of  rear springs  for  £40 and a bulb !  

I gave it a wash  over too   Door lock is bust , but no one will nick it anyway

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[adw1977]

7 hours ago, IronStar said:

I swapped the electricity meter which was probably over 2 years ago.  Since then, I kept receiving 0KW bills. I complained a few times and got "all good!" as a response from the power company so I gave up. Imagine my surprise when I got a ring on the door from a guy from a power company asking where the meter is.

- Here it is!
- But the number and the type don't match what I have on the record?
- It was swapped ages ago when the line got uprated from single phase 16A to three phase 32A.
- Oh...shit. Let me call my boss.

*2 minutes later*

- Well apparently, there's an open meter change request that was never closed. We farmed the swaps out to 3rd party companies and they didn't update these requests.
- Now what? This is hardly my fault, is it?
- Well we're going to update it now, but you have used...*clicks buttons* 11k KW.
- And you're going to dump it all on a single stratospheric bill?
- They probably will, yeah. You than go and complain that the bill is insane and this wasn't swapped out, so they'll break it over the time it wasn't read bringing it down, and let you pay in installments. 
- So how much is this bill?
- Some 1000Eur, more or less
- Oh amazing, I can't wait* to be handed a huge bill for your fuckup

So on the upside, they will probably finally sort this out. On the downside, nothing ruins your day like an unexpected huge expenditure for someone else's incompetence. 

In the UK they can't bill you for electricity used more than a year ago.

[MAF260]

21 hours ago, cort16 said:

Chris Harris has just gone up in my estimation.  Full corduroy interior in an m5

I saw this on Sunday at the Bicester Scramble - it's even better in the flesh. It was near the brand new M5 touring from BMW and alongside a home made E39 M5 Touring - quite a sight!

[IronStar]

57 minutes ago, adw1977 said:

In the UK they can't bill you for electricity used more than a year ago.

Same here, but I’m sure they’ll do some mental gymnastics to say it’s not usage that wasn’t billed right, I’ve used it all in a month somehow and they’re doing me a favor by splitting it into installments. Oh and I’m sure they will find a way to argue that it’s all somehow my fault. 
I can’t even tell them to FRO and change providers because power utility company is  state-owned monopoly so you have no choice. Looking forward* to being bent over. 
 

EDIT: Called my lawyer, she says they can’t possibly bill it for a single month for their fuckup, and is looking forward to suing them for unlawful charges. Thinks she can get them to drop everything on the grounds of having no clue of monthly usage and the court will throw them out if they guesstimate over such a long period. This is all going to be very fun*.

[pilninggas]

On 03/10/2024 at 06:47, pilninggas said:

Blimey astonishing spotting @Lord Sterling. That compound used to belong to Alan Coward, but his lot moved up to Chittening 20+ years ago.

I can take a look but cant do it until the weekend, so @angleis welcome to do a recce first.

@Lord Sterling Do you still want it look at?

I'll try to get over there before the end of the week if you do.

[BorniteIdentity]

There's some tasty TV on BBC Four at the moment.  The other night, once I'd finished enjoying pleasures of the flesh, I settled down to watch '40 Minutes' - The Great North Road.  The eccentric Lucinda Lambton meeting the sort of people who no longer exist on a journey along the road to the north.

One thing I've never seen before in any photographs, is a photograph of the Galleria Tunnel at Hatfield sans- Galleria.  Now I re-read that last sentence, I realise that what everyone calls it wouldn't always have been what people called it.  

I digress.

Here you go - a screenshot from then and now.  

 

The show is delightfully left-field, but you do get to see old stretches of the road which have long since been bypassed, improved and supersceded.  Plus, she's driving a 1984 Subaru and rocking some awesome shoulder pads in a few scenes.  These points almost mitigate her scything insult of the Barbican which I happen to be very fond of.

Anyway, it's worth watching.

[Spottedlaurel]

1 hour ago, BorniteIdentity said:

There's some tasty TV on BBC Four at the moment............I settled down to watch '40 Minutes' - The Great North Road.

Will try and remember this one for Friday night, when I'm Home Alone.

[Spottedlaurel]

21 hours ago, wuvvum said:

I got bugger all fettling done at the weekend* but I did do a fair bit of driving.  Saturday I took the Innocenti down to Shotley for the end of season East Coast Retros show organised by Trigger.  Usual fantastic selection of cars, including an immaculate, completely original and very low mileage Mk1 Capri which was great to see.  Caught up with Trigger and his Escort, Spottedlaurel and his Carina E estate, and (briefly) Brodders.  The Innocenti behaved itself perfectly once again, but the 150 mile round trip is about as far as I'd want to drive it in a day - not that it's particularly noisy or difficult to drive, but it gets a bit cramped after a couple of hours behind the wheel.

Good to see you and the Innocenti again. That Capri, which it transpires did have a respray circa 20 years ago but given the quality of early '70s Ford metallic paint I don't think we can hold that against it.....

Other things which caught my eye:

 

Thus looked and sounded very nice.

Trigger's Escort, looking vastly better than when I saw it elsewhere with its previous owner earlier in the year.

Two PAPA cars, neat to see them together in Suffolk as it's some way from where they were sold down South.

[wuvvum]

1 hour ago, BorniteIdentity said:

There's some tasty TV on BBC Four at the moment.  The other night, once I'd finished enjoying pleasures of the flesh

I'm not familiar with that one.  Sounds more Channel 5 than BBC4 though.