The new news 24 thread

[aldo135]

FFS Cort 4 Beemers? Don't be doing a David Cameron and forgetting which one you've strapped the bairn into!

 

 

Sent from my Hoose Phone

[cort16]

FFS Cort 4 Beemers? Don't be doing a David Cameron and forgetting which one you've strapped the bairn into!

 

 

Sent from my Hoose Phone

 

Yes, finally (after years of trying) I'm king of the wankers!

[aldo135]

You just need an Audi for Friday to be a wanker all week! (You can be the good guy in the cortina at the weekend!).

 

 

Sent from my Hoose Phone

[hairnet]

Just bought another car.

 

Fuck. I am soooooo getting castrated.

 

keep awa frae tha stickers ye ken

[Mr Lobster]

I havent got the faintest idea what this carb looks like, but if you can sort me out with a picture or 3 and show where the mixture screw is, I will see what I can find - I will be at my local breakers yard at some point this weekend.

 

Looks like this -

 

 

 

Fitted to Mk1 R5 and is fairly rare it seems!

[dave21478]

Ok, assuming its not pissing down again tomorrow, I should be at my local breakers, who has a fair amount of old stuff.

 

Do you just want the mixture screw (where is it on the carb?) or the whole thing? The guys pricing is very erratic with some stuff cheap as you like and other stuff pretty dear. What would be reasonable for the whole carb?

[phil_lihp]

I have 7 days left to wring every last drop of enjoyment I can out of the 220 before it goes to its new home - I should be sad but I'm not really, I'll miss driving it but it's going to a better home than I can offer it now.  Then it's back to a one car fleet although since that is the C'eed I can't complain - I wonder how long it'll be before irrational decisions are once again made.  Probably a while, storage of more than 1 car here has become untenable of late and I've just cancelled the rent on the damp, leaky lockup the Rover and Kia were alternately sharing.  Good riddance to that.  I think it's time to renew the CBT and get another CG125.

[The Moog]

I have a piece of triumph loveliness sitting outside thanks to Scruff. Unloading it freed off the brakes so hopefully can have a tinker tomorrow

[gordonbennet]

Front wheel bearing started to grumble on the Outback on RH bends, jacked it up and spun the wheels up, sure enough its the N/S.

 

Was a bit annoyed that the sod didn't make its impending demise known before i rebooted the front drive shafts...mind you the force needed to extract said shafts with puller from the hubs probably caused the failure in the first place...O/S seems fine and dandy now but no doubt once i've done the other bearing that sod will start singing too.

 

Haven't had done a FWB for years, MB front bearings are old fashioned individual tapers, takes minutes to whip the hub off and repack with fresh grease so bearings last forever.

[Lord Sterling]

Had a day off yesterday so I drove to Beziers around midday, on the way there I saw an accident happen in front of me, I was far enough away to comfortably avoid it. A Blue new shape Fiesta had collided with a Black older-shaped Fiesta that was either turning in or coming out of a side road. The Blue Fiesta had hit it quite hard flipping it over onto its roof into a ditch.

 

Thankfully, all parties invloved were Ok apart from being shaken up. The Black Fiesta driver crawled out of his car and I helped him out of the ditch. The girl driver of the Blue Fiesta was quite distressed at the carnage she felt she'd caused. The fella driver of the Black Fiesta seemed calm but pissed off by the damage caused to his car.

 

A couple of other people came to help including a truck driver. I recognised the girl driver and today I remembered that she worked at the local Lidl next to my workplace. I helped the drivers calm down and helped the lad as there were a load of cuts and scratches to his arm.

 

Hopefully both parties are Ok now.

[Bren]

 

Taxed the busa - blew the tyres up, cleaned it, refilled the scottoiler, but never got chance to go out on it.

 

Hopefully next week i can start using it.

[richardmorris]

Driving to the merc. dealers to get them to service the air-con I got a puncture - first one ever! Obviously it was pouring down, but got the spare on in 10mins (hampered by boot being full of weekly supermarket shop). Then after an hour and a half in the dealers they decide it's got a big leak. And as it's an aftermarket dealer fit one and not a genuine Mercedes one they won't look at it as they won't have the parts.

 

Grrr.

 

Oh and rather than a puncture repair I need two new rear tyres as they're just about on the minimum on the inside. That's about 18,000miles on continental premium contact 2s, so am trying Goodyears next as they have a better fuel and noise rating.

 

Anyone know any good air-conditioning repair places (Surrey/Berks or North Wales ish)?

[skattrd]

The beta spyder of stickers and scruffiness almost has MOT. If I can source a replacement light switch in the next week I may tax it on my return home next month.

[Skizzer]

Talking of Betas, I finally got around to going to look at this on Wednesday:

 

 

It's running quite roughly and has no MOT so obviously I bought it without hesitation.

 

Collection capers to follow in a couple* of weeks, hopefully, depending on results of MOT.  It's done about 200 miles in the last several years so mostly what I think it needs, apart from fresh fuel and a service, is to be driven like an Italian sports car.

[skattrd]

Top work skizzer the number of shonky old Lancia around here is increasing nicely.

[Inspector Morose]

They're almost reaching Volvo levels of commonality on here! That does look a nice one. Well saved!

[Cavcraft]

My mate asked me if I'd used the cruise control on my Vectra yet and I had to confess I didn't even know it had it! It works fine though and relatively clear motorways are much nicer to drive on now.

 

After my last experience with a 1.9CDTi, I pretty much assured myself I'd never have another, but this really growing on me now. In 6th gear doing 70 it's barely ticking over so economy is ace, plus there's (obviously) shit loads more room than in the Corsa. As if to prove how much I rate it, it's usurped it's smaller brother and I haven't used the Corsa for a week or two now.

[wuvvum]

I decided to have a bash at doing the drop links on the Rover Not of Doom this afternoon, as they unexpectedly arrived in the post this morning (I ordered them at about 11pm on Thursday).  There's no way in arse I'm going to get the old ones off via conventional means - the upper nuts are almost impossible to get to, even with the car on full lock, and the lower ones are accessible but the stud just turns in the link so they won't be coming undone any time soon.  Weather is supposed to be a bit better tomorrow, so I'm going to stick it on the drive and see if I can get the grinder in there.  Hopefully fitting the new ones should be a bit easier...

[twosmoke300]

Molegrips on the rod and twist the rod off the balljoints, then hold the ball with the holey moleys.

[dave21478]

 

Looks like this -

 

 

 

 

 

Fitted to Mk1 R5 and is fairly rare it seems!

 

Sorry chief, its pished down with rain all day so I never set foot outside the door. I will let you know when I next head down.

[HMC]

Top bombing Skizzer! Ive yet to ever see one in person. That and the SD1 on the drive is very cool indeed.

 

Had it made it to shitefest we would have had virtually every beta variant side by side

[ShiteRider]

Spent the afternoon working on the cortina of woe.

Stripped and rebuilt the rear cylinders and front calipers, then as we bled them up the master cylinder shit itself.

Topped up gearbox oil (took a pint) and the axle (took two pints). After freeing of the rear brakes i've found the diff rumbling like a washing machine full of bullets.

I've also found even more rust, and the recent glorious weather has caused the cheap and nasty blow-over paint job it's had blister up on every panel.........

I'm now debating wether to put it on ebay as a rolling project, or more likely strip off the good bits and stick the rolling shell on ovalchat (all cortina meet in july).

This may seem harsh but i've two other mk5s i'm far more attached to and they are far more deserving of my time and money.

[Skizzer]

^ ouch.

 

Re HPE: Thanks! It does look like quite a nice one, even close up - there are various bubbles in the paint here and there but structurally it seems ok, the interior is very good and it's got lots of history to back up the lowish (78k) mileage. It seems to have been well looked after.

 

Plan is to roll as-is for now and maybe invest in some welding and paint in a couple of years. Of course, I'm a lousy judge so it might turn out to be Philibusmo's Y10 all over again, but the deal I've agreed with the seller (a fine gentleman) would see me paying a goodly chunk less if that happens.

[ProgRocker]

This isn't car related.

 

Can I just say that I have the utmost respect for Aldi staff after sharing the store with the pond life that shop there? The whole point of doing my shopping there at 8pm on a Saturday was to try and avoid them.

 

By the way, I don't regard myself as pond life - I wuz brawt op properlee!

[Richard]

That's the recession for you, Aldi and Lidl are full of Tesco customers now.

[vulgalour]

There is definitely a perceived image with supermarkets and they've gained a hierarchy all their own.

Waitrose

Sainsbury's 

Tesco

Morrisons 

Asda

Lidl

Aldi

Iceland

Farmfoods

Heron

[Skizzer]

It's an early '84 1.6 Ghia auto, genuine 43k miles, first owner for 12 years then it's current owner since 9/96 who stays about 100 yards down the road from the original owner. Last tested in 2009. Couple of grotty bits but it seems saveable. Runs and drives sweetly too and everything seems to work. The OSR wing is hysterically wobbed up but the rear inners and turrets are all sound. Front inner wings will need a tickle and it's needing a couple of plates here and there.

Don't think I was robbed for what I paid but I'll need to investigate further on a ramp.

That looks GR12, or at least it will with a bit of nursing. The early ones in Ghia carb trim look dead classy. Top shout.

[meshking]

Anyone know any good air-conditioning repair places (Surrey/Berks or North Wales ish)?

Not sure which part of Surrey, but I used this fella

 

http://www.autoairconditioningltd.co.uk/

 

For my 407 after halfords (yes, I know...) had two attempts to find the leak and failed. He took one look at it, climbed under the car and pointed the issue straight away. He supplies parts too, replaced the exchanger in a morning on my driveway.

[richardmorris]

I shop at Waitrose because it's the nearest. And very nice it is too. But I also like Aldi (bike and gardening offers in particular) and Lidl - bargains on olive oil and tinned tomatoes recently. I used to go to sainsburys (and have a Sainsbury's bank card) but to be honest my nearest was Staines (on Thames) and it was depressingly dirty. I complained a few times but it didn't get better so didn't go back. Another reason was that for a couple of weeks on the run they had no bread nor milk in store - hopeless.

The woman on the counter in Lidl in Camberley on Saturday mornings is chatty, happy and fun, the Deluxe ranges a bargain and things like bleach and flash a good buy. The store is clean and well stocked. I will go to M&S when they have a £10 meal offer on but apart from that waitrose is my only stop now - apart from local butcher's in ascot (mbe from the QE2) and the farmer's markets in ascot and Windsor. God, I sound middle class!

 

There is a good website though that was mentioned in the Guardian the other week - overheard in waitrose. Along the lines of "darling, do we need parmesan for both houses?", "put that focaccia back Sebastian, you know you're wheat intolerant".

 

I like to lower the tone in the car park by bringing down the average age of the cars by a decade or two- although I came out this morning to find a 1920s Bentley alongside!

 

I remember what Alan Coren said about Sainsbury's on the News Quiz - It keeps the riff raff out of waitrose!

[dollywobbler]

The totty is a far higher class in Waitrose. We don't have one for many miles but my eye stalks were exhausted after wandering around the Cheltenham branch a couple of years ago. In Aberystwyth, we make do with a dingy Co-op, Morrisons, Lidl and Iceland. Sadly Tesco are on their way, and we've recently had a B&M Bargains store open.