The new news 24 thread

[Cavcraft]

Now one car down, as some of you will have probably noticed. Tomorrow I'll have to cough for the SAAB alternator and take the Vectra in for an MOT, so even more money being pissed away on cars. I'm sort of annoyed with myself for having cars that I like and/or are actually handy to have, as it makes getting rid of any of them almost impossible.  

 

I even missed a bargain Astra Mk3 as I don't like counting chickens, plus it would have meant not going on the piss at the weekend, something I managed (going on the piss, that is) in style last night. It does occasionally knacker things up a bit, as I still stick to my 'no driving the next day rule' but I'd rather keep it that way.

[Shep Shepherd]

Yesterday I saw Shep Shepherd's old V70 estate on the other side of the dual carriageway on Eastern Avenue in Southend. This was surprising, as I thought Kirby's had scrapped it after failing to sell it when he sold it to them. Youngish bloke driving, who was having a good look at the Maestro as I drove past. 

 

That's amazing! I thought it had been scrapped ages ago. Perhaps the oil leak from the rear main seal has either been fixed or doesn't bother him as much as it did me? In any case, long live TV2!

[wuvvum]

Gassless - don't do it

The problem is that although my welder can be used with either type, I haven't got any of the gubbins that would be required to set it up to use gas (connectors, regulators etc).  Plus, realistically most of my welding is going to be done outside, and usually (being near the coast) with a prevailing breeze, so not ideal conditions for welding with gas.

[derskine]

Gasless = no go!

[Inspector Morose]

It's true, gas less won't produce as good a weld as a gas set up but it still should produce a perfectly suitable weld. Just not as pretty and it will splatter/set fire to random pieces of clothing, that's all.

 

Practice,

 

Practice,

 

Practice.

 

And you'll be fine.

[Angrydicky]

That's amazing! I thought it had been scrapped ages ago. Perhaps the oil leak from the rear main seal has either been fixed or doesn't bother him as much as it did me? In any case, long live TV2!

Me too, which was why I was so surprised to see it! Strangely it's registered as a 'VOLVOV70' but is taxed and MoT'd into next year.

 

Vehicle enquiry

Registration number: P979 UTM

✆Taxed

Expires: 01 February 2015

✆MOT

Expires: 29 May 2015

Vehicle excise duty Vehicle excise duty rate for vehicle 6 Month rate £126.50 12 Month rate £230.00 Vehicle details

• Vehicle make VOLVOV70
• Date of first registration 17 April 1997
• Year of manufacture 1997
• Cylinder capacity (cc) 2500cc
• COâ‚‚Emissions Not available
• Fuel type PETROL
• Export marker No
• Vehicle status Tax not due
• Vehicle colour SILVER
• Vehicle type approval Not available

[xtriple]

I love gasless welding! Had a 'proper'welder for years and used it for most of that time without gas... it ran out and I was halfway through, so just carried on!

 

Bought myself a gasless mig about 15 years ago and have used it for everything, thick and thin sheet.

 

When my lad was about 6-7 he was bored in the summer holidays and wanted something to do, so I taught him to weld. He then went round all my piles of old crap and built himself the biggest imitation 'chain gun' ( think like the one in 'Predators' that cut down great swathes of jungle) I've ever seen! Even had vented barrels and bullet feeds - if it had actually fired bullets, it wouldn't have surprised me in the slightest! He was soooooo proud of it, and it did take him days so deservedly so, and he kept it for years, adding bits, subtracting bits, painting it in camo, it was awesome.

 

Now he's a high flying production development engineer with a UK car manufacturer and the only thing he doesn't like is he doesn't get his hands dirty...

 

If he can learm, anyone can!

[AlabamaShrimp]

Before I forget I have to make an official thank you to red5 for driving my new toy up to me yesterday

 

 

 

It's got mega light steering that I'm trying to get used to but other then that it's amazing and already been commissioned to help a friend move house

[vulgalour]

Mikeknight has a classic car business.  I help out on an ad hoc basis.  I'm now custodian of our brand new Twitter account.

 

https://twitter.com/JMPClassicResto

 

It's the nearest thing to Ceefax we can do.  Please do follow and share the above with your fellow Twitter people.  We hope to bring you regular updates of the goings on at the unit, including parts and cars that come up for sale.  Dedicated to helping the old and the unusual, we have a similar approach to the cars we work on.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I finally relented and bought myself an auto-dimming welding mask. It's pretty damn awesome and I wish I'd just bought one straight away. 

 

Much, much better than my old method of "position torch. flip down mask. weld completely random bit of metal because the torch has moved".

[twosmoke300]

Oops just won a 1993 Aprilia on ebay for 700 quid , in birmingham . And im in cornwall

wcpgw

[Cavcraft]

Alabama has won this page.

[dollywobbler]

I've got a friend who welds gasless to a very nice standard (he owns my BX Mk1). He also welds a lot outside so gasless has its advantages. Definitely more difficult, but as long as you never use gas, you'll never know, right?

[garbaldy]

^ agreed nothing wrong with a gasless its what I started to weld with, once I bought my duel mig 24 years ago its been set up for gass use and I've never tried it gasless.

[Ratdat]

Yesterday, I decided my red Prairie needed some TLC as it's rear end was looking a bit shabby. By 5pm yesterday, I got this far...

 

 

By 7pm I'd had dinner and got it into primer....

 

 

Took a fair while for the primer to harden off even with my burner going flat out (managed to get it up to 100 deg F in there!) so I did some of the other jobs like repairing and repainting the wheel trims and the door mirrors. Finally, I got some paint on it just before 3am. This was some 1K acrylic I got mixed up at my local motor shop yesterday morning. Expensive (over £30 a litre) but convenient and the colour match is good....

 

 

And by 8.30am this morning it was all done, re-assembled and cleaned inside and out. Looking much better....

 

 

 

[The Moog]

And I am sitting here debating whether to finish off remote central locking on the 405, but feeling its a bit cold. We aren't worthy

[skattrd]

Holy crap ratdat you really don't hang around on these things do you?

[Bucketeer]

Jeezuz Ratdat. Have you got a legion of OompaLoompa helpers or something?

You keep on blitzing through jobs in the blink of an eye that would take me a month or two.

[dollywobbler]

Er, I slept! Seems like a waste of time now.

[Ratdat]

Jeezuz Ratdat. Have you got a legion of OompaLoompa helpers or something?

You keep on blitzing through jobs in the blink of an eye that would take me a month or two.

 

No, but I do have Mrs Ratdat who kindly came out to the workshop at 6:30 this morning to help me refit the rear screen ....and then volunteered to  wash off all the polish residue out of the door shuts. What a star she is   

[Ratdat]

Jeezuz Ratdat. Have you got a legion of OompaLoompa helpers or something?

You keep on blitzing through jobs in the blink of an eye that would take me a month or two.

 

Sadly, not always... hence the Pony pickup still not being finished. It's not far off though and I think I'm going to go balls out on it next week and get it painted and MOT'd. It's taken me far too long as I keep getting distracted with other things.

[barefoot]

Exciting news this morning.

 

Took the Scirocco for an MOT and whilst negotiating a well known slippery roundabout in the wet, I managed to spin out completely!

Back let go completely and I'm certain it must have pirouetted about forty times, or 180 degrees or something.

I've not done that for ages & had forgotten how exciting it was!

Did quite well, failed to hit any other cars and just gently mounted the kerb with a front wheel as it stalled.

[HillmanImp]

How did the MOT go though?

[barefoot]

No idea, I've done the take it to garage A, who will take it to garage B to test, thing.

It's got a stonechipped mainbeam lamp and a replacement on the back seat.

I'm hoping that this will prove sufficient distraction for them not to bother looking to closely.

It will be returned to me later today with paperwork of some sort.

Will advise later.

[vulgalour]

I thought Sciroccos were immune* to pirouettes because they were FWD.  Are they not? 

[cms206]

I thought Sciroccos were immune* to pirouettes because they were FWD.  Are they not? 

 

 

I managed to spin the Montego more than once which was both spectacular and terrifying. I put that down to shit tyres and a wet roundabout.

[dollywobbler]

Lift off oversteer is an exciting thing to experience. Mind you, I tried damned hard to make the Rover do it, on a skid pan, and it wouldn't! I'll be uploading some video of that shortly.

[vulgalour]

 

I know a guy could make the tub for this trailer idea in fibreglass, I've got enough spare bootlids, lights, bumpers and wheels for the rest of it.  I'll likely never commission it, but I reckon it'd be ace.  I did consider grafting the front onto the rear but there's a lot more car at the back than the front and it just doesn't work.

 

Of course, what you really need for a car trailer like this is to chop a Princess in half and weld the ugliest sheet of metal you can to the front of it, you then end up with a really shit but very comfortable** tearcrop caravan.

 

 

 

**if Phil's bed reports are anything to go by.

[barefoot]

Lift off oversteer is an exciting thing to experience. 

 

I'm not really sure what happened, I think I was driving like a twat, trying to take far too tight a line and the back just stepped out to the right, I over-corrected and had the back out to the left, I did my best & it went round to the right again and of course by this time it was swinging like a fucking pendulum and just swung the full one eighty. By this time I was doing about two miles an hour & just trickled gently up the kerb.

Bloody miracle I didn't hit anything.

[dollywobbler]

Unless you've got a rear tyre down on pressure, they don't usually just step out. Only takes a slight lift on the throttle though and the back end will get light and start spinning. And yes, it is also very easy to over-correct, catch the initial slide then lose it the other way. I did a fair bit of this on the skid pan yesterday.