The new news 24 thread

[Parky]

I do like a nice Panda. I need to get rid of the daily and get something that will fit in the Garage as Mrs P's 500x hasn't a hope in hell of going in there.

 

Lots of small cars to choose from but I have the horn for a black 500 with some Martini stripes on it or a base Panda. Small Italian cars get under your skin don't they?

[cobblers]

 Blue and me phone/usb connection isn't the best either.

 

Understatement of the year right there. The USB is completely useless unless you just put one album on it. 

I "presumed" that it'd be updated for the new full colour 7"  TFT dashboards so instead of just showing a dozen characters of the track name like on the old 7 segment types, you'd be able to scroll through folders etc.

Nope, just a dozen very small characters of the current track name in the middle of a massive empty screen, with a 3 second delay each time you skip a track.

 

Luckily it has AUX in and the USB socket supplies power so with a £12 ebay bluetooth audio reciever/remote you can make it usable.

[doobietoo]

Its 4.45am on bank holiday Saturday, rather than being in bed having a well earned lie-in I am up and dressed ready for a 400 mile round trip from Dorset to Stafford, which if the GPS is to be believed is North of Birmingham, dodging crazy people who only usually drive from home to work and back in their anonymous self driving cars but all think they are the worlds best driver, to cut some parts off a car that most of them would hate on sight. I have some tools which include an angle grinder and an extension lead, Some quite large A/F and metric spanners and a flask of coffee.
Such are the trials and tribulations of the Autoshite way of life...

 

quite looking forward to it if I am honest

[dollywobbler]

Survived the first night in the caravan. It's quite pleasant really, especially with the gas heater! Bloody cold overnight, but heater soon had us toasty again.

[chodweaver]

Trying to be diligent, I put the Renner through a pre-mot check yesterday. And now there is a to do list. But the most worrying thing is that, on yesterdays performance, it will completely fail on emissions, unless a new set of plugs and an air filter have a miraculous effect. A suggestion made by the tester was that some fuel additives might clean up the emissions a bit too, but I have no prior experience of this. If I do all the other work required but it's still unable to pass on emissions, I guess it'll either be off to the bridge (which I can't really come to terms with) or I'll be in the market for a 2.0 FaRT engine out of a goona II and an extra project that I hadn't bargained for.

Depressing...

[stripped fred]

Just picked up a secondhand battery from a scrap yard in Leicester, £15 less the £10 I got for 3 old batteries. I've not been to a scrapyard or 'vehicle dismantler' as they're caused now for a long time. It was like a scene from a disaster film. There was barely room to get in with cars, engines and gearboxes piled up at the entrance. Looked very disorganised. Are there any where you can actually walk round and look at the cars nowadays?

[stripped fred]

Survived the first night in the caravan. It's quite pleasant really, especially with the gas heater! Bloody cold overnight, but heater soon had us toasty again.

I hope you kept things well ventilated? Don't want a dead DW.

[dave21478]

Just picked up a secondhand battery from a scrap yard in Leicester, £15 less the £10 I got for 3 old batteries. I've not been to a scrapyard or 'vehicle dismantler' as they're caused now for a long time. It was like a scene from a disaster film. There was barely room to get in with cars, engines and gearboxes piled up at the entrance. Looked very disorganised. Are there any where you can actually walk round and look at the cars nowadays?

 

Scrap value is so low that all the yards I have seen in the last couple of months are stockpiling all scrap, waiting for prices to rise again before clearing it out to the recyclers.

[stripped fred]

Fiesta 2-0 dogs, I've been ridiculously unlucky recently. Two dog strikes within 2 months. First one I was doing the speed limit (30MPH) and came across the brow of a hill and hit a black Labrador who was sitting in the middle of the road at 7 ish in the evening. Practically pitch black on an unlit country road. Knocked at the owners house and gave them the fright of their lives, dog was escorted off to the vets and hasn't been seen since. Gave me and the girlfriend a bloody good fright as I thought it was a child Id hit. Crack in the bumper and a load of missing paint was the injury to the Fiesta....

 

...and then yesterday evening about 5 ish I hit another bugger, he ran out from behind a wall straight into my path, I slammed the brakes and hit its arse and it ran off into a field. Another crack in the bumper and more damaged paint was the result + more shock and quite a lot of anger. Why don't people Keep their dogs behind gates? Don't let them wander onto the public highway!! Could have caused a serious accident.

I was following a car a few years ago and a dog ran out in front of them. It went under the car and became trapped. I got out to help but the dog was jammed tight. The woman in the driver's seat wouldn't get out as she was worried about seeing it and quite upset. Finally managed to get her to shift and as she was a very big woman the suspension raised about 3 inches and got the dog out easy. Took him to the vets in the back of my company sierra estate and he was ok.

[Tayne]

Trying to be diligent, I put the Renner through a pre-mot check yesterday. And now there is a to do list. But the most worrying thing is that, on yesterdays performance, it will completely fail on emissions, unless a new set of plugs and an air filter have a miraculous effect. A suggestion made by the tester was that some fuel additives might clean up the emissions a bit too, but I have no prior experience of this. If I do all the other work required but it's still unable to pass on emissions, I guess it'll either be off to the bridge (which I can't really come to terms with) or I'll be in the market for a 2.0 FaRT engine out of a goona II and an extra project that I hadn't bargained for.

Depressing...

I'd give it a bloody good Italian tune up and then get some BG44K and run that through over a week or so.

 

How far off are the emissions?

[Craig the Princess]

it will completely fail on emissions, unless a new set of plugs and an air filter have a miraculous effect. A suggestion made by the tester was that some fuel additives might clean up the emissions a bit too, but I have no prior experience of this.

An I right in thinking it has been laid up for a while? The white Rover was the same until the engine was given a really good thrash to get up to full temperature.

After that the emissions were within the test limits.

 

Edit: Like Tayne says above ðŸ‘

[andy18s]

I was following a car a few years ago and a dog ran out in front of them. It went under the car and became trapped. I got out to help but the dog was jammed tight. The woman in the driver's seat wouldn't get out as she was worried about seeing it and quite upset. Finally managed to get her to shift and as she was a very big woman the suspension raised about 3 inches and got the dog out easy. Took him to the vets in the back of my company sierra estate and he was ok.

1 of the Huskies in the Mrs rescue was run over by a London bus some time ago

He was almost completely "de-gloved"  (skin peeled ) down his left hand side and was saved by the local fire fighters

Max has gone on to have many skin grafts and still has a fair way to go

You may have seen him in the press lately as he is back at the hospital for more treatment

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-3563802/Camilla-meets-onesie-wearing-Siberian-husky.html

 

He is looking for his long term foster.Despite his injury as he is a pup he is a complete ball of energy

[For Fiats Sake]

Ugh, what a horrible phrase "de-gloved" and worse image.  Hasn't the dog been through enough without having to meet professional sponge Camilla?

[Richard]

When I got the 850 it had the sunroof switch disconnected and the leading edge held down with a spring clip. When I plugged the switch in I found that the sunroof worked as it should, except that the leading edge flapped around.

 

I asked about it on the VOC forum but didn't get any answers, except that it was likely to be very complicated. More googling suggested that a piece had broken in the mechanism.

 

I decided that an entire new sunroof assembly was the way to go. Two people (both from Dunfermline, one from this forum) offered to sell me one, before sheepishly messaging me again to tell me that the car they were breaking didn't have a sunroof after all and I finally managed to get a unit at the end of last year.

 

Today I decided to have a go at fitting the new assembly. With my car being a saloon that meant removing all the seats, seatbelts, visors and trim panels so I could drop the headlining. All these bits are 20 years old and made of the brittlest plastic available to mankind of course. After some thought I decided that trying to repair the existing sunroof in situ was the lesser of two evils. I looked up how to get the glass out and found this guide.

 

http://volvospeed.com/volvo_repairs_how_tos/volvo_trim_parts/sunroof_adjustment_removal.html

 

With this picture

 

 

The screw on the right in the picture (along with its counterpart on the other side) adjusts the height of the leading edge of the sunroof, and they were loose on mine. FUCK'S SAKE. At least it turned out to be a five minute job instead of the entire day I was expecting but I wish I'd thought of it two years ago.

[chodweaver]

An I right in thinking it has been laid up for a while? The white Rover was the same until the engine was given a really good thrash to get up to full temperature.

After that the emissions were within the test limits.

Edit: Like Tayne says above ðŸ‘

 

No, it's getting daily use and long runs too - Edinburgh and London in the last three weeks. I do however drive it like a wuss, but on the test, we ran it at 2.5k revs till the fan came on and it was still a good way off a pass on any of the measurements.

So you recommend a 'dealer's decoke' as my Dad used to call it?

Sent from my GT-S5830i using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[Tayne]

Yes.

Make sure it has enough oil in it and rag it down the dual carriageway in third.

[drum]

Alfa 147 bearings were droning.

 

The wear was such that the inner race had come loose from the bearing.

 

Torqued up to 16 stone/two foot (that's a new torque unit).

 

As usual with this Alfa, it wasn't as simple a job as it should be because the lining fell off a brake pad, the slider pins were seized as was the piston in the caliper.

[chodweaver]

Yes.

Make sure it has enough oil in it and rag it down the dual carriageway in third.

I should mention that it has 243k on the clock, so if the engine is toast, it doesn't really owe anything. Also, I'm running it on 10w40 when the standard recommended grade is 5w30 - my thinking being that it has rather bigger gaps than when it was new and a thicker oil will, er, fill them up. (Other, more sane reasoning may be correct.)

[Bren]

My gas cooker has had an inoperative hob for months.

 

Sorted today with a suck from the dyson - chock full o'shite.

 

While I am diligent with my vehicles, I cannot say that I am with anything else.

[Ghosty]

Old Man went for the tyres for the rimz_yo today, and while he was gone the spigot rings and centre caps for them showed up.

He came back, and he's gone all blue forum - from the original idea of 225/50, and then on to 225/45... he's got 205/45/17. stretch_yo. Contis on the front and Michelins on the rear.

 

Anyway, they're fitted. 

 

Car before:

 

rimz_yo before:

 

 

And after:

 

 

 

:grin:

 

How good is that?! 

 

Unbelievably, the car also rides smoother and quieter now.

Front springs still not done due to time constrains (Old Man is overworked at the moment), but they'll be done next weekend. 

Did some work on one of my bikes too but that's in the open forum.

[trigger]

I have a quick question, on my Audi 90 it runs quite lumpy when cold and improves a bit the warmer it gets, it also has a tapping sound like a blowing exhaust manifold when you drive it, now is it possible that the tapping could be in fact coming from a knackered injector seal?, would that cause that noise and could it cause lumpy tickover? How do you tell if a seal has gone?

[Lord Sterling]

Today has been mostly sitting in a Peugeot 205 Diesel driving northwards to Stockton and eventually South Shields, so it was a bit like being at work (I drive and deliver cars for a living) except this was for Shiters. Delivered some Rover floor mats to chez_Vulgalour and delivered said Peugeot to Wilson x 2.

 

So an interesting car to drive, the Peugeot 205 is actually a really good car, fast, comfy and frugal too. Plus some great Shiters also met.

 

Now on the way back home via train.

[For Fiats Sake]

After yesterdays dealer negotiations leaving me with a headache and feeling a bit sad about trading in my one and only built just for me to my spec car, I wanted some fresh air.

Weather has been four seasons in one day all week up here but I was determined to do a little exploring of the area with the sunroof open in the red panda.

Despite having to close the sunroof due to sleet at one point I enjoyed a 60mile round trip, skirting around Haworth, across to Burnley and back via Hebden Bridge and my namesake village of Midgley.  The brown sign for "Midgehole" always makes me chortle.  I would have took a few pictures but lost my phone.  I'll take the route again, it was stunning scenery and nice and quiet.  The dog had a good sniff around a country path too.

Getting home with the sun shining I decided it was time to put the four large lounge ornaments onto the selecta.

 

Befores and Afters

 

 

Bloody balancing weights are rubbing on the calipers though.

 

 

Should be okay on a standard car that doesn't have the bigger brakes fitted.

 

Left them on for now.  I've a couple more sets of alloys being refurbished, also got some 14's I could try but should really got some longer bolts first.  I robbed the current ones off the donor car.

 

Oh and I broke a centre cap too.

 

 

 

 

[tooSavvy]

My Savvy is running 6.5x14JJ alloys, from a SatriaSport.

 

I fitted identical wheels (set of 4) on the back and one spun clean but the other nipped against the radius arm...

 

Bought 4x Honda Civic (4×100mm) 5mm ally spacers and all was well. However clip on weights fouled the arm = stickon at the back/clip on front as stickon caught on the strut flange...

 

FfinnElll grrrrr.

 

Look very nice though

 

 

TS

[catsinthewelder]

Today I bought some body armour and dug my bike helmet out of the loft. I'm racing the mower tomorrow, we only got it drivable yesterday night and I haven't driven it yet! Oh fuck.

[Asimo]

I have a quick question, on my Audi 90 it runs quite lumpy when cold and improves a bit the warmer it gets, it also has a tapping sound like a blowing exhaust manifold when you drive it, now is it possible that the tapping could be in fact coming from a knackered injector seal?, would that cause that noise and could it cause lumpy tickover? How do you tell if a seal has gone?

 

Injector seal is only resisting a bit of suction on an N/A petrol engine and I can't see that making a tapping sound. Old seals just fall apart when you disturb an injector. Easy and cheap to replace all the seals though. (Unless something unexpected happens........)

[cort16]

I have a quick question, on my Audi 90 it runs quite lumpy when cold and improves a bit the warmer it gets, it also has a tapping sound like a blowing exhaust manifold when you drive it, now is it possible that the tapping could be in fact coming from a knackered injector seal?, would that cause that noise and could it cause lumpy tickover? How do you tell if a seal has gone?

 

Have you tried getting a willing* volunteer you put their hand over the exhaust when it's cold to see if the tapping gets louder when there's some pressure in the system.

[danthecapriman]

Finally got round to changing the broken rear light cluster on the Transit today.

The grey outer trim was broken in two places and there were lots of cracks and splits in the lenses. Someone had also broken off the fixings on the back and used two completely wrong type of self tappers to secure the light. The old broken one works fine but looks tatty.

 

Old, broken one.

 

Brand new genuine Ford no less! This thing cost £90 plus post from Germany. I couldn't even find a used one in this country.

 

Nice new one in place with correct shiny new screws.

[beko1987]

I hope your not going to post in the grump thread that someones backed into it next week...

[danthecapriman]

I hope your not going to post in the grump thread that someones backed into it next week...

I hope not too!

The light cluster that I took off was dated 1988 so that wasn't the original either. I think someone at the BBC, where the van came from, had trouble reversing!