The new news 24 thread

[mat_the_cat]

J turns are really easy, go somewhere with plenty of space, hoon it in reverse, swing the steering round, my preference is left hand down, clutch in as your front is swinging around, select 1st then when your front end is almost all the way around with the momentum, get your revs up and pop the clutch, away you go, just don't try it in your 3 wheeler

 

Not a J turn but it reminded me of a weekend in the late 90s. I'd taken a gap year before Union the Year in Industry scheme, and one of the other people on it had organised a social meet...basically just camping in a field with a band. Me and a mate with his lady friend had popped down to the nearest town in his parents new Clio to get supplies (he was still sober - I wasn't quite) and as we weaved our way back through the tents he was showing off a bit and going at a reasonable rate.

 

As we neared our tents he turned the steering fairly hard (about to reverse between them), and at the same moment I leaned forwards from the back seat and pulled the handbrake on. He slid beautifully between the two tents, and everyone around applauded Although quite rightfully I got a talking to later...

[The Moog]

Helped my brother service his 190e.

 

Sparkplugs check.

 

Air filter- two of the screws were just turning. Why they need 4 screws and all the clips on it. Dremmeled off and changed.

 

Oil-cheaper to get national to do change at £35 than to buy jack etc (left all my tools in london)

 

wiper blade took him 25 minutes.

 

Sunroof - pulled off plastic cover and then gave up. It runs but won't open

[derskine]

Superb haha.

[andy18s]

Whilst working out in Nordhausen,Germany we were given a new Grand Voyager as the group "taxi" and we were allowed to use it at the weekends too

I ended up being the designated driver 1 friday night,so decided to pop down the local supermarket and try these J turns on the empty car park

Verdict?

Make sure the onboard fridge has been emptied of fizzy pop before shaking the shit out of the car...And removing all the heavy passenger seats turns a fat ass Chrysler into a sort of SuperLeggera people carrier

Being the 3.3ltr V6 with the column change made the turns easy enough

Shame the steering took a real beating,it had to go get the tracking done 1st thing monday morning.....

[Semi-C]

I did a Bloggage on Semi-C's Cortina. Sadly, it beat Will's 205 in the voting - though I'll try and get a write-up done on that next week.

http://wp.me/p1jtbd-B7

Ta Mr wobbler, your words paint a flattering picture. Having been inside both of your potential subjects I think democracy has failed us all.

 

Keeping 'em peeled for Will's weapon write up.

[MarvinsMom]

i've spent a pleasant* afternoon sat on the side of the M18 today.

the gear change which hasn't been all that great all week has gotten worse and worse today on the way home until i had no gears at all.

the rac came and popped some fluid into the master cylinder and normal service was then briefly restored.

a couple of miles further on though it was just as hopeless as before so i have managed to drive from around doncaster to malton in 4th gear, i didn't have any others to choose from!

the master cylinder was damp though so i guess i now need one of those.

oh and i got a puncture this morning and had to put the dustpan lid wheel on in a service station car park, joy!

i should have stayed in bed.....

[JohnK]

Serviced the Civic today.

 

Went to sling the new timing belt on and after stripping everything down I was faced with what was a fairly new belt, tensioners etc. I rang my sister and quizzed her on this to which I got no definitive answer, but a 'oh it might have been done I don't know'. I can't find the proof in the service history though.

 

Anyway proceeded with the belt change, seems it has been done in the past as the injection pump timing was out by a fair way. Got everything lined up and put back together. The car is now so much more responsive and where it used to emulate symptoms of 'turbo lag' following a gear change it's now on boost. Successful days work!

[Jerzy Woking]

New battery in the SV650 seems to have cured the battery flattening issue (and I now have a spare reg/rec as purchased one thinking this was the issue).

 

Cagiva pulled from the depths of the garage and checked over - a few missing fastness replaced, tyres inflated, levels checked, exhaust wire brushed and painted with BBQ paint, alarm connected. Not ridden a geared motorbike for a month or so, and not ridden a two stroke bike for many many years. Felt weird at first but once Ihad adjusted the handlebars, gear lever and rear brake lever positions to suit me, it felt much better. Gave it a 30 mile thrash and all good - smokey haze whilst warming up, clear once warm. The Arrows exhaust sounds great. May remove the front pads as they may be a bit glazed, as not as powerful as it looks (same disc as on the Yamaha FZR 1000. Also must strip the engine cases and repaint in satin black.

 

CBR600 - filled the Scotoiler. Nothing else needed, looks good splattered in flies.

 

Took Guzzi for a blast, stopping at the VW camper event not far from here for a quick look.

 

And washed the Merc - will wax it tonight as may go to the local classic show tomorrow, although it clashes with MotoGP.

 

A productive day for once.

[catsinthewelder]

Changed both the gearbox seals on the Cherry and stopped the oil leak.  I have a sneaking suspician that just whacking the driveshafts in with a hammer the first time might have achieved the same effect though.

 

Oh well,  now we have a fully functional car here we can send the Disco away to be fixed properly.

 

VW is still for sale,  it was 'won' on ebay for £2550 but the highest bidder decided that it was more work than he expected (after driving up from Sleaford with a trailer).  I second chanced it twice but neither turned up so I gave up and stuck it on Gumtree for £2500.  A few folks have been round and offered less (I've kept thier numbers) but there was supposed to be a chap here at lunchtime with the full asking and a trailer but due to a puncture it will now be tomorrow.

 

Fingers crossed eh.

[Richard]

I completed the 850's timing belt job today by replacing the serpentine belt, putting some antifreeze in and setting the pump timing.

 

 

 

[Skizzer]

Swapped disks and pads on my Dads Freelander this morning, and nothing went wrong.

I can't remember the last time I did a job on a car and nothing went wrong, or I didn't need to go and buy a tool I didn't have, or it didn't take 45 minutes to undo a seized bolt, or I didn't slip and shatter a finger into a thousand pieces.

 

It was actually a pleasure to do a job on a car for once.

 

I don't believe you.  This never happens.

[twosmoke300]

JohnK , is that a 1.7 diesel civic you did the belt on ?

[The Moog]

Must be the day for it. Replaced passenger side electric window motor in my sisters fiat panda.

 

Not stuck bolts all came apart easily and back together easily. New mech fitted within 20 minutes

[JohnK]

JohnK , is that a 1.7 diesel civic you did the belt on ?

Yes mate.

 

If I go by the manufacturer specs it's good for another 90k/10 years now!!

[nebuchenezer]

I have now completed my re-programming. 

 

3 hours with a 20 minute break?  You slacker.  This was 4 hours with two breaks of 10 and 5 minutes respectively.  It was quite interesting, no more patronising than was inevitable, and mostly full of slightly bewildered pensioners.  It was certainly a lot better than points and I don't regret the time spent.

 

 

Will it change my driving?  Probably not massively - I drive quite cautiously around town and rural roads, and my hazard awareness is generally pretty good (riding a motorbike in and around London hones your concentration, observation and anticipation like nothing else).  But I do/did drive over motorway limits in free-flowing traffic fairly regularly, and will try to do less of that now.

 

 

One sobering thing I did learn was that by the time a car doing 70mph has braked hard to a stop (including real-world reaction time), a car doing 80mph will still be doing 40.  And a car doing 100mph will still be speeding.

No doubt they failed to explain what happens when a new car with super ABS nips into the clear space in front of you then has to brake heavily to avoid the traffic stopped ahead.

 

Not my fault occifer, the car in front that is 30 years newer than my MOT yesterday with OMGBRAKESPASSEDTEST but has much technologies ergo I haz hitted it up the 'arris why is it my fault...

 

Should really be in the grump thread from about 4 years before I joined this august site 

[twosmoke300]

Yes mate.

 

If I go by the manufacturer specs it's good for another 90k/10 years now!!

I hate to ruin your excitement at finding the pump timing wrong at that its running better but............... the pump on those is a dumb common rail jobbie that doesn't need to be timed .

It has a mark or pin hole but its only for fine tuning the balance .

 

Now where is that snake oil thread

[JohnK]

I hate to ruin your excitement at finding the pump timing wrong at that its running better but............... the pump on those is a dumb common rail jobbie that doesn't need to be timed .

It has a mark or pin hole but its only for fine tuning the balance .

 

Now where is that snake oil thread

Ooh this interests me. I think this is only the second time I've done anything on a common-rail aside from servicing.

 

So it needed no adjustment at all as it was ?

 

The rest of the service must have cleared everything out then if that's the case!

[twosmoke300]

Naa , the pump is just a 3 piston radial pump which merely supplies constant fuel pressure to the rail , the timing is controlled by the injectors . Much the same as any modern petrol inj engine but with massive pressures and an engine driven pump over a leccy one in the tank.

 

I still time them up tho out of habit

[richardmorris]

mini car show for burnham carnival. - free beer too!

 

 

[richardmorris]

Oh and took the merc over to multitech body and paint (Mercedes specialist ) in Chobham for Barry to do wonders with the rear arches which are starting to bubble through the paint. Hope he doesn't need to ring until it's all finished - I hate calls from the garage that start "you'd better come in and see". The car is in good company with a couple of pagoda roofed sls there at the moment.

[coalnotdole]

Straight 6 Coupé news:

 

 

I've just agreed a deal to buy a Rebuilt race engine for the Straight 6 Coupé. The 213E Ford engine suffers from having very poor parts availability and pricing tends to reflect that most people who rebuild one have deep pockets.

 

This engine is one of 3 built for historic saloon racing in 1995 its supposedly done less than 300 miles, but has been in storage since then. Its got a stack of paperwork covering a whole bottom end rebuild. Oversize pistons, ported head, repofiled cam etc. Its not cheap by autoshite standards but its probably a fraction of the cost of commissioning all the work today. 

 

The plan will be to run it on the Triple SU setup that I posted about a few months ago.

 

I'll post up some proper details when I go to collect it on Saturday.

 

At the end of June I hired a van and Dave and I went on a trip up to Dagenham to buy a race engine... What could be better than buying a 50 year old engine direct from the town where it was first built?

 

The engine in question is the 213E Ford Straight 6, The MkIII version was introduced in 1962 and produced until 1966 when Ford replaced it with the Essex. Ford were claiming 109 bhp @ 4,800 rpm for the engine in standard form. but thanks to the triple SU carbs Reliant were managing 120 bhp @ 5,000. often referred to as the Zephyr/Zodiac engine though they also found their way into a handful of more exotic cars over the years. There's a list on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Zephyr_engine

 

The new engine we went to collect was completely rebuilt in the 90's prepped for historic saloon racing it had only done about 300 miles before being put into storage when the car was sold.

 

The current engine in my coupé seems ok but its not original to the car and is generally a bit of an unknown factor. It pulls well enough up to about 70mph but has never felt excessively quick, So as We're in the process of creating a silly tuned up Rebel it seemed only sensible to fit the Coupé with a silly tuned engine too... I'd had it in mind to rebuild a spare engine on the bench but when an advert cropped up on the owners club forum and it seemed silly not to buy an engine where most of the work has already been done.

 

The full Spec sheet for the new engine reads like this:

 

Bottom End:

 

Hepolite Pistons +60 (max overbore)

Reground Crank & New Bearings,

New Oil Pump,

Flywheel Lightened,

Engine Rebalanced, Including pistons, rods and Flywheel

Hot Camshaft A3 Profile,

Refurbished waterpump.

Block decked off,

 

Top end Work:

 

Head Skimmed 9.75:1, Compression Rato (Standard is  8.3:1)

Reprofiled Rockershaft,

Reprofiled Followers,

Head Ported, 

Oversize valves, 1.625

Uprated valve springs,

 

Its been treated to a bit of a freshen up today, I've given it a decent clean, removed all the core plugs to inspect the waterways. I've ordered a spin on oil filter conversion kit, new spark plugs and core plugs.

 

 

 

 

 

Rockershaft closeup,

 

Springs:

 

 

Engine & Epco

 

 

Ancillary's:

 

 

May have to get the rocker cover chromed again.... Though they were only painted as standard!

 

 

I'm yet to decide about the ignition system, I wouldnt mind fitting electonic ignition but I'd been intending to keep the car as positive earth which limits the choice a bit I may stick with the standard setup to begin with. Some decent quality HT leads will be on the cards as will a solid state fuel pump. I'll probably replace the timing cover, rear crank seals before fitting it to the car.

 

The engine in my coupé is due to go off to a new home at the end of the month so the pressure is on to get the new engine ready to fit!

[Cavcraft]

I went new car hunting recently. I've never owned a brand spanker and obvs. I'm aware that 'all new cars are shit/depreciation will kill you/do/don't get PCP/balloon payment' etc.

 

Anyhow...we went to one local dealership, had a look at a couple of nearly motors, then spoke to the bloke who sold my son his new Corsa last year, as he's a great fella and not at all pushy. Had a test drive in the one I fancy (was quite impressed with it) and worked out rough monthly payments after deposit etc, and I'm happy with the arrangement, though I'm not 100% yet for another (unrelated) reason.

 

While we there, we went to the Dacia 'dealership' within the same group on the same site (Vauxhall, Renault and Dacia) as I was semi-interested in a new Sandero, or whatever they are. The wonderful* arrangement they seem to have is a Dacia sign over the showroom, and a showroom full of Renaults. Got a sort of half-arsed 'he's the Dacia man' as the receptionist pointed to a bloke trying to sell someone a Clio, and we asked where the cars were. A point out of the window and 'I think they're the ones' was about the best we got, and outside were two new cars with absolutely shit all details, except one had 'DIESEL' in 9 foot letters on the top of the windscreen. It seemed a pretty crap way of attempting to shift motors it must be said, so we just jibbed them.

[Richard]

Dacias seem to be selling astonishingly well around here.

[andy18s]

I'm sure I saw an ad for the Suzuki Swift on 0 deposit and 0% pcp on the telly........

[anonymous user]

I did consider a Dacia, before I bought the Alto, the main Renault/Dacia dealer in Cardiff was exactly as Cavcraft experienced, I gave up and walked out.

 

I did get a better experience with a small Renault dealer in Bridgend, unfortunately they didn't have a cheapy one for me to have a look at, and by the time they did I'd bought the Alto. There do seem to be loads on the road around here, the Logan/estate appears to be a popular taxi and loads of Dusters about. I don't notice the Sandero much, but that could be because it looks like so many other things.

[Anglevan]

Took my l300 camper for its mot on Friday, couple of minor advisories which are easy fixes.

Decided to go away in it for the weekend to celebrate and just got back. Great little thing and must do an update soon. Now to cracked on with some other projects.

[RayMK]

Decided to visit Billing Aquadrome today, where the AVAS brigade have their annual show.  Loads of Vauxhalls, Bedfords, Opels and a Bitter provided interest.  I was amazed how calm the Vauxhall Victor F type owners looked when steady, heavy rain set in (F type Victors were so good at rusting that British Leyland applied similar principles to the Marina - it's good for turnover).  Perhaps they knew that filler cannot rust.  Actually, I did not spot any that had the tell tale bulges of filled repairs.  They were all very smart, as were all the later Victors. 

 

Much less enjoyable and rather embarrassing, I had taken my mobility scooter to the event (its a large venue) and, just after consulting a site map board in the pouring rain to see where the hell I had parked my Pug  205, one rear wheel dropped into a small deep pothole which was hiding its depth by virtue of muddy water.  Being a three wheeler, this was the excuse it needed to get  in to a more stable attitude i.e. on its side.  Fortunately, I fell quite gently on to the soaking wet grass and then had to get my foot and arms out of the tangle of handle bars and umbrella.  If in the unlikely event that a fellow autoshiter was among the three or four people who rushed to my aid, righted my capsized craft and made sure I was ok, a big thank you is in order.  Meanwhile, I am reflecting on the fact that this year I have tripped over my walking sticks in Halfords, damaging my knee (April: more or less recovered) and now tipped over in a machine that can only do 4mph.  Giffermanship seems to be everything it's cracked out to be  .

[Pillock]

Aaah, that explains why every time I've been out in a car Friday or Saturday, there's been some sort of shiny Vauxhall heading south.

A motorhome towing a HA van was the highlight, but I was in the outside lane of the M1 doing sixteenty fathoms per minute so no pics.

[Sigmund Fraud]

The windscreen washer pump of my daily Megane stopped working earlier this week. The fuse was OK, so further investigation was necessary. I drove it down to the unit this morning, expecting to spend "no more than half an hour" fixing it.

 

Being a Renault, the washer bottle is placed in the most inaccessible area the designers could think of, this being the offside front wheelarch.

 

So the front wheel and arch liner had to come off, the latter being held in place with a dozen of those cheap, fiddly trim clips that snap as soon as you touch them. Then, I had to take the washer bottle off the car - a job that would have been fairly painless, had the bottle not been completely full of screenwash...

 

Completely soaked, and mumbling various obscenities, I disconnected the wiring and checked it with my multimeter. The little screen showed 12.8v, so it was clear that the pump had given up the ghost.

 

An easy fix, then. All I had to do was find a place that was open on a Sunday, within walking distance of my unit, and keeping a 20 year old Renault washer pump in stock.

 

As you would expect, such a place does not exist.

 

I considered the option of putting everything back together, ordering a new pump off ebay, and repeating the whole process next weekend. Being far too cheap and lazy for that, I decided to take the pump apart.

 

This is how they look :

 

The body of the pump consists of two parts, which clip together. Using molegrips and plenty of swearing, the body came apart, revealing a tiny electric motor that looked as if it had been at the bottom of the sea for the past few decades. It was, unsurprisingly, completely seized. I gave it a bit of TLC and a lot of WD40, and was eventually able to unseize it by gently turning the little axle with my pliers. I then put the pump back together, reconnected the wiring, pulled the wiper stalk and was pleased to hear it whirring into life !

 

Reassembly was the reverse of removal (apart from the screenwash incident - the bottle was now empty !). The car has fully functioning washers once again, and my pump rebuild SKILLZ have saved me £6.50... Well worth* the hassle.

 

[dollywobbler]

Another 400 miles in the XM this weekend. Gosh the Peak District is a busy place. Had the ABS light come on again at one point, but this self-cured. At which point the remote central locking went on the blink again. Clearly, the gremlin is working its way around.