The new news 24 thread

[Richard]

Was that a Vauxhall by any chance?

 

Yes it was.

 

Yeah...remember that you cunt-stain politicians? this was SUPPOSED to be about the environment, not lining the pockets of car manufacturers.

 

 

I don't know where the environment idea came from, it was always openly about lining pockets. I'm 100% with you on the rest of your post though.

[bub2006]

What engine is it? Our w plate 1.6 estate did between 25 and 30 mpG. Never got above 30 even on a steady run.

I thought our one was just shite to be fair! Ours felt underpowered and seemed to struggle the majority of the time.

[Mr Lobster]

My old Alfa 145 got traded in on scrappage (not by me I should add), wonder if it's sat there. Be fascinating to have a look around that place. If also rather sad, frustrating and annoying.

[outlaw118]

Indeed Senor Lobstarr, there's sooo much good stuff potentially wasted.

 

A

nyhoo.

 

The Shed aka That Spanish Bastard passed the MoT today, after I'd fixed the windscreen washer pump. Hooray!!

 

Now the fucking CD player won't work.

 

FUXAKE!!!

[vulgalour]

Shite Balance:  A car has many components capable of breaking, ask yourself, do you really need to play CDs in your car?

[outlaw118]

Not especially Mr Vulg; however, it's just indicative of how much this car hates me. 

 

Fix one thing, something else breaks. 

 

Before the windscreen washers it was the bonnet catch. Before that the Traction Control button. Not to mention it shitting it's "bulletproof" gearbox, seizing it's OSR brake caliper, and leaking like a sieve.

 

But apart from that, it's GR9, it's just like I feel like Mickey Mouse in that bit of Fantasia with the mops and buckets!! (ask your parents kidzz)

[tooSavvy]

Saucedoctor.....

 

I blew past an MG3 on the A69 the other day..

 

YAWN....

 

tell me?

 

 

TS

[vulgalour]

It sounds like you're trying to fix everything.  Rookie error!  Always leave at least one item broken in some way or another.

[outlaw118]

Oh yeah, more than aware of TEH ROOLZ.....

 

Engine management light glowing and rear wash wipe's intermittent working have been a constant throughout.

 

Two jobs that I'll attempt on the 32nd of Jantober.

[wuvvum]

Didn't really get a lot done on the fleet over the bank holiday, due to a combination of laziness, mediocre weather at times and other shiz to do.

 

I did manage a few bits though.  I fitted the £16.99 Lidl stereo to the Merc - plugged straight in (although I did have to invest a further £2.49 in an aerial adapter), works fine and doesn't sound too bad considering.  The old stereo was a PITA to get out though, even with the (rather flimsy) removal keys that I'd bought off the Bay.  So I now can haz toonz; the only major thing on the car that still doesn't work is the rear wiper, which I haven't investigated yet.

 

I did a few bits to the Perodua - replaced a few blown bulbs, fitted new wiper blades and an upgraded horn (it's the kind of car you get cut up in quite frequently, and when this happens you want to be able to give the culprit a good blast, rather than the peeeeep  of the original horn).  Then I attacked the grot on the arches.  It didn't turn out to be quite as bad as I'd feared - there's only one tiny hole, and that only happened due to me getting over enthusiastic with a screwdriver.  I sanded it all down and Kurusted it - it now needs skimming with filler and painting over, which will be a job for another weekend.

 

I brought the Spacy home from hibernation on Monday.  It had been refusing to start before I put it away - this turned out to be due to the vacuum hose for the fuel tap not being securely pushed onto the inlet pipe, so that turned out to be a 2-minute fix, rather than the carb dismantleage I had been anticipating.  I took advantage of the time saved to try and tackle the oil leakage - I had attempted to fix it last year by putting Petro Patch putty over the crankcase joins where the oil was weeping from, but it was useless, and in fact when I started to try to chisel it away it came off in one great big lump.  After rubbing down and cleaning the surface I tried again with the Plastic Padding leak fix paste I'd used with success on the Renault 6 fuel tank - this looks like it's going to be a lot more effective, although the tube ran out before I'd done all the seams so more will need to be purchased at the weekend.  Then hopefully the Spacy can be pressed into commuting duties once the Chinese bike needs its first MOT (which it ain't got a chance in hell of passing at the moment) at the end of next month.  While I was at the garage I fired up the Renault 6 for the first time since October - it took a bit of cranking c'os mechanical fuel pump, but it soon fired up, as it always does, and nothing had seized or broken.  I really must pull my finger out with that car this year.

 

Didn't get much done on the A35, mainly because my mate who's storing it for me had family staying over the weekend, so it would have been a bit awkward to just pitch up there with my sander.  I did get a bit done on Monday evening though - the top layer of horrible grey paint is now fully gone from the nearside front wing, front panel and bonnet.  Still got half the roof and the offside doors to do - the offside front wing, nearside doors and possibly the boot lid are all getting replaced by the ones I got from Angrydicky so I haven't worried about those.  The car still needs more work before any of it's ready for primer though - it appears to have been painted at least four times in its life, sometimes not particularly well.

 

Today I made a long overdue purchase of a grease gun.  It's a Hilka job, so a step up from Rolson or Blackspur.  It was a tenner out of Roys of Wroxham, which was cheaper than I'd been able to find them for on eBay.  So this weekend, weather permitting, I'm going to have a go at greasing the trunnions on the MGB.  Its MoT is due end of next month so it can't hurt.

 

 

 

TL;DR:  I have far too many vehicles; I've been working on them over the bank holiday but still have shitloads to do.

[coalnotdole]

I'm secretly of the opinion that old cars need so be greased with TECALEMIT grease guns - because pedantry! They should preferably be bought from car boot sales for a £1

 

[coalnotdole]

I've got the week off work (well actually our factory is on shutdown for 4 days so its mandatory time off...)

 

I've been getting on with odd jobs, cleared the shed out yesterday and intended to do the same to the garage today, instead I've been distracted by the Rebel van. For the last month or so I've mostly been used as a shed for storing surplus tat from the garage Its only really been driven round the block and to the petrol station.

 

I've recently been considering selling it as its one of my most sale-able vehicles and I'm not using it enough. Having emptied the junk out of the back of it I took a spin round the block and discovered that the irritating exhaust rattle had cured itself... Seemingly having responded well to the lightening of its load I decided to spend the rest of the afternoon doing some long overdue work to the interior.

 

I've touched up the speckle paint, which involved lots of scraping old paint and contact adhesive. I've fitted some modern style anti vibration dampening. Hopefully tomorrow I'll begin fitting carpets and insulation. I've just ordered some new rubber matting to cover the load area and I've got a headlining which was bought ages ago but never fitted.

 

No pictures of the work so far but I'll try and get some tomorrow....

[RobT]

All this grease gun talk reminds me the Metro radius arms need doing. My gun is cheap shite and doesn't work that well, so I might try and get a decent old one from an autojumble next time I go.

 

Just fitted a new ICV to the Cavalier and it seems better, not perfect but I can live with it. There's also an annoying exhaust rattle I need to sort, and possibly the PAS pump needs replacing as the steering is bit heavy at parking speeds and it makes a bit of a racket, which otherwise ruins a nice quiet runner. I'm off outside to do an oil change in a minute. Being a bit of a night owl I like these milder nights as I can spend time out in the garage when everyone else around here is asleep.

[xtriple]

'Cos I've been feeling rough this last few days, I have not been venturing toooooo far from home. Consequently spring cleaning fever has come over me and I have been wandering round the flat with a cloth in one hand and a bottle of 'Mr Muscle' in t'other.

 

Having cleaned everything cleanable that is fixed to walls/floors/windows/carpets etc, I turned my attention to the car radiator shells I have adorning my walls. These used to live on the garage walls and though I gave them what I considered, a decent clean when I moved in here, they didn't exactly sparkle.

 

So, off the wall came (slightly bent) Daimler 250 V8 grille, Merc 'S' class grille (that came off my own car when some knob backed into it and dented it very VERY slightly) and the Austin A35 grill that is actually really good.

 

A few minutes under the care of Mr Muscle and fook me, these buggers all sparkle and shine and dazzle! They have increased the light in the front room by about 30%!

[fred]

I need a cleaner - xtiple - my arse and motivation is lagging badly in this area

[dave21478]

I thought our one was just shite to be fair! Ours felt underpowered and seemed to struggle the majority of the time.

I think its just a case of They All Do That...... It needs worked hard to keep momentum up hills, but reasonably often I catch myself easily over the speed limit in it too.....

meh, its a €200 Escort runnabout - cant be expecting miracles from it.

[Mr Lobster]

 

 

Engine management light glowing 

 

 

 

Disconnect battery for half an hour or so then reconnect, should stick the light out. Occasionally EML comes on on my Toledo due to some cold start device that is unnecessary apparently. I do the above when the light comes on and it goes out and stays out for anything upto about six months.

 

Anyway, fleet update.

 

Toledo got thrown in for an MOT last week and aside from the osf wheel bearing that they changed at the same time passed without a single advisory. Result.

 

R4 has awoken from winter lay up and getting a bit of use. Its going to France in summer so needs a thorough service (ie not one that I do) and probably the slight leak from the water pump sorting before then. Going to have to have four tyres to replace the eighteen year old Pirellis that it currently wears too.

 

Mazda. Zzzzzzzz. Just does what its supposed to really.

[Skoze]

I love my new badge. 

 

[Six-cylinder]

I collected 4 new tyres for our boat trailer this morning.

 

[cms206]

We use Doublestar tyres on our coaches now, have taken over from GT Radial as my gaffer's "shite tyre of choice".

[castros_bro]

So there is a discovery of 100 000 000 000 barrels of oil under Gatwick !!

 

1, Why didn't I but shares in that company last week?

2. The future of my moped's fuel supply has been found so no more converting it to run on chicken shit.

3 Anyone want a lifetime supplt of chicken shit?

[Craig the Princess]

Last Sunday we finally got round to looking at our Nuffield DM4 tractor. We bought this back in 2011 after moving a Triumph Herlad for tonedepear of this parish. The chap we picked the car up from also had this for sale. We had moved to Norfolk and had a small paddock that needed to have the grass kept down, Autoshite logic = buy a 1950s tractor.

 

It had been bodged about a bit but the chap showed us how to make it start and we loaded it up and had a few joy-rides at home.

 

It was parked up as we didn't have any impliments and even the cheapest ones cost more than the tractor.

 

Anyway we decided to start it up as it had stopped doing so in the time laid up. The original starting bodge bypassed the solenoid and needed the negative lead touched to the battery to make it start. This wore away the negative terminal so first thing was a new battery and an Austin 1100 starter solenoid wired into the lead.

 

The new battery was as flat as a pancake so needed to be charged, still nothing at all at the starter. A bit stumped on old-school technology we asked our very friendly neighbour farmer who grew up with tractors of this age and has a few dotted around the field behind our house. He explained the proper starting system, that the big leaver we had to put to engage the starter motor also has a switch that provides the power to it. This switch was taken apart and cleaned up. That is more like it, now push in the cold start button and a very rough tickover, result!

 

We then checked the clutch wasn't siezed so it moved forward and back. Some cleaning was also done at this stage, the wire filled oil bath air filter was cleaned up and refilled with oil. PTO has power to it so the search for a topper has started again.

 

 

[Keymaster]

Drive from Liverpool to Silverstone for WEC going well*

 

[Skizzer]

^ Oops.  Nothing too serious I hope.

 

Love the tractor resurrection Craig man, we need more on this.

[vulgalour]

Autoshite Calendar material both with tractor and camper!

 

 

A little while ago I repainted two of the Synergie trims the Xantia wears and used a can of silver I had that was originally destined for Dad's Omega bumpers.  Once I'd painted them I really didn't like the silver at all and knew I should have painted them white so bought myself some generic white from Wilkinsons at a mere £3.95 for a tin big enough to do all four.  Initial coats look promising, just got to find the tin of Wilkinsons generic satin black paint I've got somewhere to do the 'vents' and possibly the chevrons.  If the paint is a good match I might even use it for that rear arch, the Xantia is practically Appliance White anyway so it could be a cheaper alternative to Halfords cans.

[Keymaster]

^ Oops. Nothing too serious I hope.

 

Love the tractor resurrection Craig man, we need more on this.

Cheers.

 

Just a bit of Kangarooing and no power. Now at garage with 2 mechanics who are arguing the toss about the cause. One says electrical, the other says fucked carb.

 

Meanwhile I reckon it's a manifold issue as Talbot vans are known for it and kangarooing is the usual symptom.

[Keymaster]

Camper has broken down again on test drive! Mrs kgb is happy as it happened out front of a stables. Electrical theory has now been disproven. Sitting in garage waiting for them to be towed back.

[oldcars]

Autoshite Calendar material both with tractor and camper!

 

 

A little while ago I repainted two of the Synergie trims the Xantia wears and used a can of silver I had that was originally destined for Dad's Omega bumpers.  Once I'd painted them I really didn't like the silver at all and knew I should have painted them white so bought myself some generic white from Wilkinsons at a mere £3.95 for a tin big enough to do all four.  Initial coats look promising, just got to find the tin of Wilkinsons generic satin black paint I've got somewhere to do the 'vents' and possibly the chevrons.  If the paint is a good match I might even use it for that rear arch, the Xantia is practically Appliance White anyway so it could be a cheaper alternative to Halfords cans.

I painted my trims in ford moondust silver, it was the nearest match i could get. Must have looked a clown carrying my wheel trim around trying to match the silver. Did you use plastic primer first? I forgot on one and had to re paint it.

[vulgalour]

Sometimes I bother with plastic primer, sometimes I don't.  I haven't with these.  I've found in the past that the Wilkinsons paints bond really well providing surfaces are clean.  Rather brilliantly, the dog walked past the last two I painted so I need to flat those back, he's a walking fur factory at the moment.

[Bren]

So there is a discovery of 100 000 000 000 barrels of oil under Gatwick !!

 

1, Why didn't I but shares in that company last week?

2. The future of my moped's fuel supply has been found so no more converting it to run on chicken shit.

3 Anyone want a lifetime supplt of chicken shit?

As it has been discovered in the South queue much legal wrangling which will take years.

 

However, it had been discovered north of Watford the wells would have been drilled last night.