The new news 24 thread

[wuvvum]

Just driven back from Norwich in the Movano and came very close to hitting some deer.  Not those poxy little Muntjac things either, these bastards were the size of fugging ponies.  Three of them at the side of the road, I saw them and started to brake, good job I did as the stupid fuckers just wandered straight out in front of me.  The Movano actually stops pretty well for a van - had I been in my old Boxer I would probably have twatted straight into them.

 

They are splendid creatures though, to be fair.  I switched the beacons on to warn other traffic then attempted to herd them off the road with the van - they eventually found their way through a gap in the hedge and buggered off to do whatever deer do on a freezing cold November night.

 

Also, I saw a shooting star.

[Bobthebeard]

Just been to the local cinema to watch Spectre and I insisted that we went in the Mercury. Mrs Beard was dubious... "It's freezing, will it start when we come out? Don't want to be walking home" Etc. "Can't we go in the Honda instead" blah blah.

Of course it started. No problem. Mrs Beard commented on how pretty the green digital dash looked by night.

Then she spotted the fuel computer part on the dash. Fuel remaining, 10 gallons. Distance to empty. 105 miles.

Hmmmm.

Anyway, I may be the only person who thinks this, but I thought that the film was about an hour too long and (despite all the visual action stuff) was a bit boring.

But then again, I couldn't wait to get out and prove to Mrs B that the car would start!

[philibusmo]

Not sure why, but this just happened

 

That really does require congratulation. That looks utterly fucking dismal, top purchasing action there Mr G.

[spike60]

Fleet News: I've been spending a bit of time recently trying to sort the garage out to improve the working conditions in there, as some will have seen in my project posts I've got a single garage which has a tendancy to fill up with parts, tools and junk alarmingly quickly.

 

So far in the clearout lots of junk has been evicted, the walls have been whitewashed, the storage rearranged and this weekend new lighting and electrics have been fitted. Theres a bit more work to do on it but I'm hoping once its done I can have a big winter push towards getting the V6 Scimitar GT on the road. The new lighting has made a massive difference hopefully I'll be able to grab a photo later in the week.

 

In other news the GTE has been clocking up lots of miles recently as you can see in this picture:

 

Red Car, Redcar

 

I take it you were on the way to the South Gare for some boaty stuff? I was down there on sat morning killing time waiting for the MOT slot, the sea was pretty wild.

[richardmorris]

U R NT RONG.

I thought it was a 240 at first, but no it's a Jeep.

Yep, but did you spot the odd alloy wheel?

[purplebargeken]

 

Changed the central light cluster in the Almera to one that actually works with the doors rather than when you jiggle the switch.

Then fitted LED SMD lights to it:

 

Fuck! I wondered what that light in the sky was. You can see it from London.

[Richard]

Oil change on the 850 yesterday. The last time I changed the oil I considered using the thinner oil that is recommended for later V70s with that engine, but decided to use the grade recommended for the 850. Since then I've discovered that Volvo actually now specify the thinner oil for the 850 too.

 

Thanks to Station's ramps it was a simple job and there was almost no spillage. The old oil wasn't too unpleasant by diesel standards and I managed not to drop the sump plug in the bucket. All good. I remembered to take the bucket out before reversing off the ramps. Then I noticed the expanding black puddle around the bucket, there was a crack half way up it. BASTARD.

[Craig the Princess]

Collected the yellow allegro estate from Birmingham yesterday post NEC show.

Seems the thermostat has become stuck open, which it wasn't on the way there resulting in a freezing cold drive home. Car now tucked up for Winter wearing more wax than a Madam Tusards' model of Big Daddy.

Also one of the ACI stand organisers have us some Allegro front mats which was extremely kind.

 

[dollywobbler]

Alas, it seems Alexg's Belmont dreams have been shattered by an Ebay twat.

[Cavcraft]

HH-R, on 22 Nov 2015 - 5:52 PM, said:

My sister/BIL hired one to move house as well and the rear door handle mech fell apart TWICE when fully laden so the back door wouldn't open. Shite.

 

Had a Convoy in front of me doing 25.5 MPH on a NSL road the other day, I forgot about those piles of shite belching out smoke, being caned and still going dead slow everywhere. I feel a bit bad saying it but thankfully they're thin on the ground now.

 

Say what you want, but when I was driving a 1.7 'O' series Freight Rover in a previous job, the gaffer bought a (second hand) LDV400 with the 2.5 turbo diesel. It was like an effing rocket compared to the FR.

Shamefully, a few years back I got two LDV200 pick ups, an LDV200 crew bus and a Transit diesel crew bus and deliberately left a 350 model behind as it look knackered. My mate at worked got it and weighed it straight in away  

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Coldest day here since 2013, Merc started ok at 04.00 which was a bonus, only had it a couple of months so an unknown quantity.

Got home at 7 and decided to de-ice and start the rest of family's cars

96 Rover 600- starts first time.

00 Seat Arosa- starts first time.

07 Freelander- just about starts- warning lights everywhere relating to systems not available because of low voltage.

10 Fiat 500- didn't want to know.

 

Just about to go and give Eurocarparts £111 for a couple of batteries- not the end of the world I suppose.

Have to wonder why the 2 newest cars can't handle a bit of frost though.

[derskine]

360 Is proving difficult to start on cold mornings.

It does start after 10 seconds of cranking though.

I'm thinking thermal time switch or cold start injector but I'll check the dizzy cap first.

[Cavcraft]

dollywobbler, on 23 Nov 2015 - 09:37 AM, said:

Alas, it seems Alexg's Belmont dreams have been shattered by an Ebay twat.

 

 

What's happened?

[dollywobbler]

My suspicion is that it didn't make enough money, so they pretended it had already sold elsewhere. 

[Alexg]

Not sure why, but this just happened

 

 

Hmm...

 

I googled the chaps mobile number and found it advertised elsewhere for £800, which may explain what's really happened. No big deal, I was only going to smoke it about for a few weeks before punting it on.

[UltraWomble]

What's happened?

 

Translating as "we sold this too cheap".

 

I see a paypal payment and stealth Krujo/cabbage style collectioning thread (with apologies to Mr G if Im out of order posting this)

 

EDIT - Beaten too it!

[Alexg]

I see Twitter followers

[UltraWomble]

I see Twitter followers

 

In my defence its either stalking people on Tw@tter and Facebollocks or buying shit on eBay - enforced time off work and an inability to walk makes life a bit dull otherwise.

[Alexg]

It all sounded good. One owner, 10 months MOT, all old MOT's included and described as very good condition - plus only 1/2 hour train from my local station. It was in the Parts Section with no reserve ending just before midnight so prime for some bargain hunting ebay-snipper action. I might follow it up from a spoof email address to check the sellers not telling porkies.

[Craig the Princess]

Smells like Grimsby docks to me.

 

Do you have his address for Argos catalog shenanigans?

[Bobthebeard]

Have just this minute spoken to Purplebargeken.. The Oldsmobile has been loaded up and is heading North.

Lovely!

[dollywobbler]

Today, I removed the Nippa's steering wheel and put it back at a slightly different angle. Wheel is now straight when you're travelling in a straight line. Nice.

 

Also Cap'n Tollied the windscreen to try and stop water pouring in. Carpet is still sodden. Annoying. That's despite a high-speed hoon with the heater on. I have at least proven that the Nankang winter tyres are up to brisk driving.

[Craig the Princess]

Today, I removed the Nippa's steering wheel and put it back at a slightly different angle. Wheel is now straight when you're travelling in a straight line. Nice.

 

 

 

 

Congratulations. Any tips on how to do it? I think my sucess rate when doing this is about 1 in 50.

[Coprolalia]

Octavia failed it's MOT on rear seat belt mechanism. 

 

D'oh!

[Bobthebeard]

Have just this minute spoken to Purplebargeken.. The Oldsmobile has been loaded up and is heading North.

Lovely!

Apparently the Lithuanian chap who is bringing the car likes biscuits and going out clubbing. Ask Ken. 😊

I could be in for a long evening!

[darkfour]

It's the Turkey Rod Run this coming weekend at Daytona and I'm rushing around trying to get one car fixed so that I can attend in "style".

 

The Dart has been having overheating issues where the gauge would slowly creep up to near the hot end and stay there. The radiator is fairly new as is the thermostat and water pump and it never used to do this but it's not driven that much. I back flushed the system and swapped in a new thermostat but no change it's still running hot. I looked in the top of the radiator and it was looking a bit crusty so time for the big guns and I dumped in a bottle of CLR, ran the engine for about 30 minutes and then let it sit for a few hours while I went to a bar.

 

Drained, flushed and refilled with antifreeze and then started the car. That's when I noticed water dripping into the passenger footwell, damn I've blown the heater matrix. As it's still in the mid 70s here and mostly sunny I don't really need the heater at present so I bypassed the heater matrix and took it out for a drive. Everything was going great for the first few miles and the temp was holding in the middle of the gauge...but then it slowly started creeping upwards. Pulled over to the side of the road opened the hood and saw that it had thrown the fan belt. With ZERO tools on me I had no choice but to call Mrs DF to come and collect me. Got home grabbed my tools, jumped in my daily, went to the parts store and picked up an new fan belt. Fitted it and drove the convertible home. I'm happy to say that the needle remained solidly in the middle of the temperature gauge so looks like I've fixed that issue. Now i need to get a new heater matrix and get that installed but that can wait.

 

So onto the Plymouth..

 

Finally got the it all back together at the weekend after fitting a new radiator, electric fan, relays for said fan, new transmission pan and gasket and it was time to fire her up and see if the cooling issues have been resolved….except she wouldn’t start. The fuel has a habit of draining back into the tank when it’s up on jack stands for a long time. Sucking gas through the fuel line and a can of easy start normally fixes this issue but not this time. I went through 3 batteries worth of charge and it still wouldn’t start. I'd also fitted new HT leads just to add to the non starting issue. Using my handy dandy inline spark tester I could see that the ignition was working ok so time to take the carb apart and clean it.

 

This is what I found. Surprisingly the local parts store had a rebuild kit for and Edelbrock 4 bbl carb on the shelf. I think it’s overdue and that brown sludge in the fuel bowl was nasty. It's still in bits on my bench at the moment as I've run out of carb cleaner...2 large cans don't go as far as you think. I think I may have to soak the carb body and reading around various hot rod forums Pinesol disinfectant cleaner (similar to Dettol) works wonders on these things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[purplebargeken]

Mr Beard was going to ask the transport guy for some help 'moving the Olds onto the drive'.

 

 

 

Ar galite man padėti stumti automobilį ant disko prašome

 

 

I took this to be a euphemism for some 'hot Lithuanian disco action with post event biscuits'. I may have mistyped the Google translation outcome somewhat. 

[dollywobbler]

Congratulations. Any tips on how to do it? I think my sucess rate when doing this is about 1 in 50.

 

No airbag helps. On the XM, I had the wheel angle adjusted when the tracking was sorted, which is another way of doing it.

 

So, I knew the angle the wheel was at with the wheels straight. I vaguely lined it up, removed the steering wheel hub cover (once I'd found the carefully hidden screw), undid the main nut, pulled the wheel off, put it back on straight and refastened everything. The wheel is on a splined shaft, much like a windscreen wiper arm (for those who don't know). Test drive proved I'd got it about right. Sometimes in the past, I've had to have a couple of goes. Trickiest thing here is finding a straight section of road...

[Bobthebeard]

^^ Apologies Ken. You iz correct.

"Can you help me push the car onto the drive please"

Sent the guy the text and he say yeah!

I spik Lithuanian.

[Bobthebeard]

In a similar topic, can everyone please stop selling cars on here now please? Mrs B claims to be at her 'wits end with all the shite cluttering up the drive'

Just stoppit please! No more temptation!