The new news 24 thread

[vulgalour]

This is just all the work it needed to get it sorted.  I'm looking at the cost being spread more over ten years than 8 months, future-proofing as much as I can.  I suppose I'm just picking up the bills other owners didn't and hopefully the car will reward me with many years of motoring in return.  I'd like to see at least 10 out of it if I can.

[Bren]

MILs Dog had to be put down today at the ripe old age of 14, MIL and MrsD are in bits and I am more than a little sad. This I have realised is the down side of having a pet.....

Awful to lose a pet that has been a faithful companion.

[OwdChina]

Where are you going to be? Are any local shiters with a spare car able to do an AS rental?

That's a good idea for sure, but in this day and age with speed cameras and VOSA on the prowl and auto number plate readers everywhere I no longer feel comfortable borrowing a car..........because looking from the outside it just seems to me that the whole system is now set up to capture any minor infringement and penalize anybody they can for whatever they can regardless of circumstance, which sounds a bit harsh, until it dawns that only the cops issue tickets over here, whereas it seems the UK has every electronic device in the universe tracking every movement, speed, location and general "legal" requirement of all vehicles at all times.....................I always try to stay within the law but a lot seems to be over the top these days and I wouldn't want to see a friend facing prosecution for some silly thing I may have unknowingly done..................................Yes my country has gone to rat shit.........oh well.  

 

Edit: After re-reading........... No offence intended, it's just the way I see it.

[Kiltox]

Enterprise will do a tiny shit box for 90 quid a week - don't prang it mind with a £1000 excess

[artdjones]

You can get a years excess protection insurance for around £50-60.It also covers damage to the underneath of the car which is not covered by a lot of the car hire companies insurances.

[Lord Sterling]

Had a phone call last night, there may be another car heading my way. Wasn't expecting that...

 

All will be revealed upon my return and once car has been collected...

[egg]

The Fusion has had a broken bumper the whole time I've had it (18 months). Observing the rule that one must have a Ford with gaffer tape on it.

 

I have had a scrapper replacement that is more scuffed, but less snapped, in the shed all winter.

 

I've got it out today for a bit of a clean up with G3 and touch up paint. I'm investing my energies in that and letting the bloke who did the Mondeo suspension arms fit it for me tomorrow. CBA to roll around on the street trying to fiddle with this...

 

 

 

 

[vulgalour]

Current bumper held on with inadequate amounts of gaffer tape.  New bumper the wrong colour.  Perfect!

[egg]

Hopefully that is a trick of the light and the new one is the wonderful 'Magnum grey' that the old one was!!

[OwdChina]

Enterprise will do a tiny shit box for 90 quid a week - don't prang it mind with a £1000 excess

 

 

You can get a years excess protection insurance for around £50-60.It also covers damage to the underneath of the car which is not covered by a lot of the car hire companies insurances.

Yey........... finally figured out how to use multiquote..........I iz improving.

Anyhoos, American licence holders have a different problem.

This also in UK.

http://autoshite.com/topic/21318-ireland-wtaf-seriously-wtaf-aka-car-rentals/?hl=wtaf

[cort1977]

I still have a UK license Meowdchina, I thought they gave it to you up to age 70 when you passed the test?   Did you give yours up?   Come to think of it I believe the photocard has expired on mine and I didn't renew because they wanted 20 quid to do it, a nifty little stealth tax.

 

I have been thinking about renting cars in England/Ireland when I go back in the summer as well.   I actually have two UK registered cars in storage in Ireland at the in-laws, only trouble is they are SORN, uninsured, untaxed and have flat batteries and square tyres so likely not much use.  

 

I have thought about buying a 500 quid bit of shite from someone on here on a sale or return basis i.e. I give them the full price, hopefully return it undamaged in 2 weeks and sell it back to them with a suitable difference for the hassle.   Only issue might be insurance but could maybe use day insurance for the period.   WCPGW?    Got to better than renting a boring and getting involved with Enterprise or whatever.

[OwdChina]

I still have a UK license Meowdchina, I thought they gave it to you up to age 70 when you passed the test?   Did you give yours up?   Come to think of it I believe the photocard has expired on mine and I didn't renew because they wanted 20 quid to do it, a nifty little stealth tax.

 

I have been thinking about renting cars in England/Ireland when I go back in the summer as well.   I actually have two UK registered cars in storage in Ireland at the in-laws, only trouble is they are SORN, uninsured, untaxed and have flat batteries and square tyres so likely not much use.  

 

I have thought about buying a 500 quid bit of shite from someone on here on a sale or return basis i.e. I give them the full price, hopefully return it undamaged in 2 weeks and sell it back to them with a suitable difference for the hassle.   Only issue might be insurance but could maybe use day insurance for the period.   WCPGW?    Got to better than renting a boring and getting involved with Enterprise or whatever.

The rules have all changed, that much I do know. On my last visit (six months ago) I was lead to believe that it is no longer possible to rent a car with the old paper licence. I had to use my American one, and that was where the add ons and extra costs came into play. If you book online they don't tell you about this, I only found out when picking the rental up at the airport. As did Clanger.

Buying a shitter then flogging it on upon leaving is prob the best way to go, but it's a bit short notice for me to arrange any of this before I land. Plus there is the chance that the paperwork will not arrive before I leave..........it's a bummer i'll just have to live with.

[oldcars]

Went to pay for the Regal today and see if I could get it going well enough for the 12 mile drive back. No battery obviously! I can at least confirm that it has an engine and I reckon it will go without too much effort. The throttle sticks open but helpfully the engine cover has been removed so you can just knock it off at the carb. And I can fit in it, which is lucky.

 

Also had a serious sounding enquiry about the Dyna. The chap wants to drive it back to Carlisle... WCPGW?

Photos of Regal please 

[plasticvandan]

a 6 volt mgb battery (the type where they have two 6v batteries in the boot to make 12v ) are the same as the originals

[tooSavvy]

TESCO sell 3 brands of Wiper blade.

OWN = £4

Bluecol = £7

Michelin = £11

I have just lobbed 1xN/S 18" & 1xO/S 22" Bluecol on MrSavv

No streaks, No smears & No squeaking!!

http://www.tesco.com/direct/bluecol-win ... 1-6452.prd

TS

[AlabamaShrimp]

Went to Costco this afternoon. Spent a bit too much...

 

 

Edit: after looking at a few Amazon us reviews it turns out the tyre pump is crap so it'll be going straight back

[twosmoke300]

A hybrid jack - does that pillage the earth for raw materials and never return quite the mpg you expected ?

[Fat_Pirate]

Bought one of these today, to tackle a driveshaft swap on my Berlingo.  The nut needs tightening to 320NM, so rather than pay over £100 for a torque wrench that can achieve that I paid £36 for this instead.

[oldcars]

Itv 4 just now classic touring car race from 90s

[Alusilber]

So, this evening, after some years as a mere armchair shiter, I haz finally taken the plunge into Properly Old Car ownership. Not really shite, either in terms of price or (as far as I can tell) condition, but it is 35 years old, smells faintly of engine oil and vomit, and, of course, Is Not a Proper Porsche.

[panhard65]

I have done it again and bought another car thats 1 a week for the last 3 weeks. I really should stop looking on ebay, but an allegedly solid midget for 600 quid seemed a bargain.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1978-mg-midget-/152034614067?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&nma=true&si=%252BGXa9HUxRreNHMzmcViV%252BGfXWFY%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

 

[tommotech]

I have done it again and bought another car thats 1 a week for the last 3 weeks. I really should stop looking on ebay, but an allegedly solid midget for 600 quid seemed a bargain.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1978-mg-midget-/152034614067?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&nma=true&si=%2BGXa9HUxRreNHMzmcViV%2BGfXWFY%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

midget.JPG

Good work, the hardtop is worth almost half the purchase price if it's decent.

[For Fiats Sake]

How about a FREE 1108 engine from a similar Panda that just* needs a head gasket / cylinder head rebuild if that falls through?

That would be very useful ta.

[For Fiats Sake]

Had a great day fiddling around with bits and pieces.  First job was to move the blue clx off the garden, flat battery was changed for a charged one and took it for a spin  up and down the hill to blow the cobwebs off.  It was bought as an unfinished auto to manual conversion, needs a gearbox mounting and possibly a bearing.  The old auto gear stick is still wired in, I was told to cut and join three wires so it could be removed.  This obvs didn't work and I couldn't find my multi meter to work out the correct wiring.  I also changed the rear interior panels that came with car for speakerless holed ones.

For an experiment I applied some rainx glass polish with the polisher then treated it with rainx clear.  Made the job a bit easier using the polisher but it's awful stuff to get off when its dry.  Screen feels really glossy now.

 

I've agreed a sale of the Black CLX panda, delivering that on Saturday just over the pennines to Mancs.  I'll use this to fund garage repairs for the blue one and taxing a few cars for over summer!

 

The colour and white CLX started without incident but the Selecta was flat as a fart, charged all afternoon started him up and took that one up and down the hill - amazing little car, loads of pull and rides like a much bigger car!

 

The Y10 wouldn't turn over so that's on charge now.

 

I finished off the day by emptying the contents of three boots into the garage and have an emptied the donor car ready for stripdown.

 

Found a good set of alloys and tyres in the Y10 ready for a panda much better than I remembered!

Took the 5 wire wheel style alloys out of the Micetro - need blasting and repainting and three new tyres.

Put the chunky off road tyres in the garage and made a mental note to order two new ones.

I've have two sets of panda seats now in the garage, a front bumper and an old but good used panda carpet.

 

Just felt really good in my shirt sleeves in the sunshine pottering about doing little bits and pieces giving the fleet a bit of love, the modern daily even got vacuum'd out too.

 

Sorry for a wordy no photo's post - was too busy!

[omegod]

Went to Costco this afternoon. Spent a bit too much...

 

20160331_155037.jpg

 

Edit: after looking at a few Amazon us reviews it turns out the tyre pump is crap so it'll be going straight back

I have that jack, quality piece of kit but very heavy ! 

[daveb47]

Ovlov had flat battery ftp yesterday,

Had recent new battery but had noticed that max voltage when running was only 14 volt.

But it started ok using my recently purchased mini jump start unit.

So next job is an alternator & found one on ebay for £33 inc postage but using code that someone posted on here yesterday dropped it to £27.

Cant be bad.

[dollywobbler]

14v is about right for a charging battery isn't it?

[LC Torana]

14v is about right for a charging battery isn't it?

Yes. Close enough.

 

(13.8v is healthy "on-charge" voltage for a battery on a dynamo, 14.4V with an alternator.)

 

But in practice, it depends on the state of battery charge.

[Tetleysmooth]

Has anyone got purplebargeken's mobile number?

 

If anyone has, could you drop him a quick text and let him know I've sent him a link via pm to a mowtah he may be interested in.

 

It's a Saab 900 2.3 auto with 12 months test, going for £150.

[daveb47]

Yes. Close enough.

 

(13.8v is healthy "on-charge" voltage for a battery on a dynamo, 14.4V with an alternator.)

 

But in practice, it depends on the state of battery charge.

It was typo,should have been 13 volt.