The new news 24 thread

[jonathan_dyane]

50 minutes ago, Dave_Q said:

Is the current set of clocks fully dead or just dodgy?

The journey home was about 85 miles and they worked for about the first 12 miles and the last 5, the rest of the journey all the clocks were frozen (they didn't drop back to zero literally frozen) and the mileometer stopped. Cycling the key off and back on didn't help.

Car doesn't seem too terrible so I may keep it for a bit in which case it would be better if I could fix it, particularly as the way they freeze means you could overspeed without realising. Let's see how it gets on for the first few weeks first though, although I will have to give the interior a deep clean and also replace the terrible wing (which is so intolerable I've already ordered one...)

I will do some research and probably PM you for advice when I get round to it 😉 

[Zelandeth]

55 minutes ago, NigeT said:

Worse cars around to daily. Plugs have got a spring clean after too many winter cold starts and livin it up at Sainsburys and Wickes. N47 only insured from next week when I'm taking it home to Scotland but have already been breaking all rules of bangernomics throwing parts and time in its direction. 

I still have nightmares about helping a friend hunt down an engine bay wiring issue (mouse damage...) on a yellow one of those.

We ended up with the engine cover off and me laying across the forks of the forklift above the engine bay... comfortable it was not.  A lot of swearing happened when the inevitable happened and I dropped the multimeter down the front of the engine.

[SiC]

48 minutes ago, NigeT said:

given it's done over 180k chain must have been replaced at some time. 

Possibly not! I've seen quite a lot of "Mileage Impossible" Facebook group posts where they've done those sort of miles on the original chain. However they've invariably changed the oil much more often than what BMW specify. 

[NigeT]

5 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

I still have nightmares about helping a friend hunt down an engine bay wiring issue (mouse damage...) on a yellow one of those.

We ended up with the engine cover off and me laying across the forks of the forklift above the engine bay... comfortable it was not.  A lot of swearing happened when the inevitable happened and I dropped the multimeter down the front of the engine.

I've spent so many hours laying on top of the engine I could almost sleep there.  Plenty of far worse disasters that can befall an owner than losing a multimeter into the Ferrari ether! Speed sensor wiring a particular source of running issues on these cars if they're left with Mr Mouse. 

[NigeT]

5 minutes ago, SiC said:

Possibly not! I've seen quite a lot of "Mileage Impossible" Facebook group posts where they've done those sort of miles on the original chain. However they've invariably changed the oil much more often than what BMW specify. 

Wow! If I keep the car I think I'll change it at least every 5k or so. No suspicious rattles atm though if it grenades I'll probably pull the engine & take it apart just for the hell of it. 

[Cavcraft]

6 hours ago, jonathan_dyane said:

Well one of us had to buy it...

Thanks @Cavcraft

Does anyone in the North West have Vag-Com or whatever the fuck it is? The instrument cluster is knackered and a secondhand replacement isn't plug and play, will need coding in because immobiliser and kinda modern.

Drives well like, I see why they were popular 

Nice one, looked a really good buy that.

[SiC]

Drive it day today! I've the one old car working...

Which was covered in filler dust

So I needed to do an irritating wash first

Went to a local meet but bugger all there. Presumably because everyone was off to larger car rallies or something. 

Got chatting to this bloke though and discussing his interesting Renault 17 (I won't deny, I've never seen one before)

Then drove to Wells Screwfix to pick up a pallet splitter tool ...

On the way back, stopped at a local village for a snack and drink.

Then went out this evening for a drive. Caught up with a colleague mate giving his Honda C90 a test run after recommissioning it. He disappeared off to get home quicker en route rather than driving around the airport where we planned. He just messaged me to say he had to go home as  forgot to put his number plate back on the back 😆

I carried on and pulled up on a usual road for a quick post-sunset photo.

 

As the world prefers videos than pictures, here's a quick video walk around of it idling. Shame smell-o-vision was never perfected as a technology. 

 

 

[Split_Pin]

Lovely colour, I've never seen any BL car that colour before.

[doug]

Just a wee paint blister I said. 

[brownnova]

I don’t think my cars like my wife. The standing joke in our family is that my cars only ever break down with her driving. Imagine the fun then, when today after providing immaculate service to me all week the 9000s dash lit up like a Christmas tree with warning lights I’d never seen before in 8 years of ownership. It was the first time Mrs_b had driven it in a couple of months.

Thankfully turning it off and on again solved it. 

[SiC]

1 hour ago, Split_Pin said:

Lovely colour, I've never seen any BL car that colour before.

You won't have done! That's because it was repainted in Aston Martin Green back in the 90s. 😄 

I like non original colours on cars. Makes them stand out better and more original. My Spitty almost invariably gets nice comments and interest directed at it. 

[SiC]

25 minutes ago, brownnova said:

I don’t think my cars like my wife. The standing joke in our family is that my cars only ever break down with her driving. Imagine the fun then, when today after providing immaculate service to me all week the 9000s dash lit up like a Christmas tree with warning lights I’d never seen before in 8 years of ownership. It was the first time Mrs_b had driven it in a couple of months.

Thankfully turning it off and on again solved it. 

Just having Mrs SiC travel in mine is enough often for them to misbehave...

[bramz7]

Had no idea it was drive it day today, but I drove it.

 

 

And it's now starting to get under my skin. What a fun little car. Manages to do yobbo and OAP modes with ease. 

[aldo135]

Scrolling through facebook and come across my car, at a supercar thing my son had dragged me too as well! Good to see there were other weirdos there that would rather take pictures of old shite like this rather than Lamborghinis 😂

[wuvvum]

Well the Merc now has a working parking brake for the first time in my ownership.  Got the offside done yesterday, was a bit awkward especially getting the springs on the shoes and I ran out of time so had to do the nearside today - thought it'd be quicker as I'd already done one side so knew what I was doing. 

LOL. 

First of all the shoe expander completely refused to slot into the gap between the hub and the back plate - took me over half an hour of pissing about before I eventually decided to put it in place before connecting the cable - which isn't how it's designed to be done and is properly awkward but got there in the end.  Then once I got the shoes and springs fully installed I couldn't get the disc back over them - they were expanded too far even with the brake fully off.  After some more buggering about I eventually took the top spring back off the shoes and cut the adjuster down with the grinder - that did the trick and it's now working.  I could possibly have adjusted the cable somehow to give it more slack, but that would have involved getting the car up on the ramps which would have entailed removing the brake shoes again so I could get the wheel back on, and I wasn't going to go down that road so grinder it was.

The only other problem I had was when I put the offside back together and put the wheel back on, it would only rotate so far in either direction before getting stuck.  It took me a while but eventually I realised that one of the wheel bolts was massively longer than the others and was sticking through the hub and getting caught on the shoe retaining springs - hadn't been an issue before as there were no springs (or shoes) in place previously.

I also changed the diff oil - had been planning on using an oil suction syringe I bought a few years ago but that turned out to be utterly useless - fortunately the "straw" on the gear oil bottle was just long enough to reach over the exhaust and into the diff.

I started to go over the Maxus in preparation for its MOT - checked all the lights and polished the headlight lenses as it had an advisory for poor beam pattern last time.  Then I drove it round to the garage to empty the worst of the crap out of it so it looks less like it's been used as a shed.  Went to get back in and the driver's door handle broke so the door no longer opens from the outside.  Brilliant.  Fortunately the passenger door was unlocked, but that's yet another job added to the list.

I did have a quick go at removing the nearside drop link on my ungrateful bitch of a VW Eos, but that was seized just as solid as the offside and putting the breaker bar on it just resulted in a twisted spline bit, so that's going to get the angle grinder treatment as well.

Today was Drive It Day so I went for a spin in the Renault 6.

Then I went for a spin in the Volvo.

Renault behaved fine, Volvo drove perfectly well but its coolant leak has got worse - it's coming from the thermostat housing but when I got home there was coolant bubbling on the rocker cover by the inlet manifold - couldn't see any obvious leaks there so I assume it's run down from the thermostat housing rather than anything more sinister.

There were a few classics out and about - a 105E Anglia pulled in to the petrol station while I was there in the Renault, and I passed an old Corvette and a Mazda 323 saloon while out in the Volvo, plus I got stuck behind a 2CV on the way in to Norwich this morning.  There was also a nicely scruffy 205 GTI parked outside the cathedral in Norwich.

I'd also like to wish a happy birthday to the nearside rear tyre on the Volvo, which turns 35 this month.

[wuvvum]

On 06/11/2024 at 18:22, wuvvum said:

I went round there last night and the Renault 21 was out from under its tarp, having just had a new windscreen fitted as the original was badly cracked.  Here it is in all its pogweaseled glory.

Mate's daughter has now decided that she's going to do everything herself, so she's been teaching herself to weld.  She's already most of the way through fitting a new nearside outer sill.

This thing is now back on the road - passed its MOT with two minor advisories (both since fixed) and it's now in regular use, although the paint is still as pogweaseled as ever.  Took slightly longer than planned to get it road legal as it badly needed the timing belt doing and mate's daughter kept getting messed around by people who said they'd do it and then never turned up, so eventually she got fed up and did it herself.  In fact I think she's done pretty much everything herself in the end other than fitting the windscreen.

[andyberg]

21 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

This thing is now back on the road - passed its MOT with two minor advisories (both since fixed) and it's now in regular use, although the paint is still as pogweaseled as ever.  Took slightly longer than planned to get it road legal as it badly needed the timing belt doing and mate's daughter kept getting messed around by people who said they'd do it and then never turned up, so eventually she got fed up and did it herself.  In fact I think she's done pretty much everything herself in the end other than fitting the windscreen.

Superb. This gives me an incentive to keep my beautiful (in my eyes) Safrane going. 

[Supernaut]

I'll jump on the Drive It Day bandwagon then.

I took this out for a roughly 40 mile roundtrip yesterday, to a cars and coffee meet. It was mostly modern supercars though, boo.

It's the furthest it's been driven in one go in a long, long time.

When we began taking it to pieces in 2013 the last tax disc in the windscreen was from 1991. It's only been on the road again for about a month now.

[alcyonecorporation]

Drive It Day was good for me. I went to the tip.

[SiC]

3 minutes ago, alcyonecorporation said:

Drive It Day was good for me. I went to the tip.

Which car did you leave there? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

😄

[alcyonecorporation]

Just now, SiC said:

Which car did you leave there? 

your mum's 

[SiC]

3 minutes ago, alcyonecorporation said:

your mum's 

That's a bit too nice to leave there!

(It's much nicer than I've ever owned and probably ever own)

[alcyonecorporation]

whoa

[SiC]

6 minutes ago, alcyonecorporation said:

whoa

I've been after having for the last 18 years! 

It's currently in my storage while their house is having a lot of building work and I get free use. That works for me as it's £70pcm odd to tax and servicing isn't cheap either.

[captain_70s]

I managed to miss Drive It Day, again. Realised what day it was a bit late and the weather was a bit shit.

The novelty is a bit lessened when your daily runners are all old crocks anyway...

[juular]

9 minutes ago, captain_70s said:

I managed to miss Drive It Day, again. Realised what day it was a bit late and the weather was a bit shit.

The novelty is a bit lessened when your daily runners are all old crocks anyway...

We had some stuff to do and went out in the 240. Didn't realise it was drive it day, but everywhere was hoaching with old stuff so that now makes sense!

Followed this up the motorway for a bit.

[alcyonecorporation]

Most of the shit in the boot was stuff I hadn't done anything with or couldn't sell at autojumbles. 
I have a rule that if I do nothing with [thing] for a year and it doesn't sell upon three attempts, it gets binned. 

[SiC]

13 hours ago, SiC said:

Caught up with a colleague mate giving his Honda C90 a test run after recommissioning it.

 

[Volksy]

There was quite a bit of old rammel chugging around Leeds on Drive it Day. Unfortunately I was driving about in a rented Peugeot Boxer as I was moving house. 

Spotted a lot of Mk2 Jags/Daimler V8's, TR4's etc.

[hairnet]

1 hour ago, juular said:

We had some stuff to do and went out in the 240. Didn't realise it was drive it day, but everywhere was hoaching with old stuff so that now makes sense!

Followed this up the motorway for a bit.

stenhousemuir nearly ftw