What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread

[cobblers]

I did the brakes on my Ibiza today and I was expecting everything to go horribly wrong. The rear calipers are notorious for seizing (and the handbrake didn't work right) and the front calipers are notorious for having the pad retaining pins seize solid on a 3 year old car, so bad that the caliper needed removing and sending off for refurb.

 

Everything went as well as I could have hoped, new disks and pads all round (taking wanky drilled and grooved ones off) have transformed how the car stops. It was rubbish before, squirrely and noisy on braking, plus the ABS was always cutting in. It turns out that both offside calipers would have hardly being doing anything because the pads needed hammering out of both.

 

Also put a £10 ebay remap file on my mates Golf with a £8 MPPS lead and now it is 140bhp instead of 100, so he gave me some home stereo stuff to say cheers. Top stuff!!

[Cavcraft]

If Britain First had dogs...

[andy18s]

Changed the front discs and pads on SWMBO's D3 this morning

What can I say but Every bolt came undone without any sort of spray on assistance !

Even the little countsunk bolts holding the discs came off without a fight,and that is unheard of.......

Pads had around 5mm of material left on them but the discs had a good 4mm lip on either side

They have only been on for 18mths or so when she bought it,and we insisted on new being fitted

 

Managed to get rid of a slight wobble under braking as well so peace is restored in the house

 

Popped into Shrewsbury and managed to pap an 83 Ital estate !

 

[vulgalour]

I know who owns that Ital, and so do a few other Autoshiters.  It replaces a Sherpa Coupé.

[D Spares & Tyres]

Finally managed to get the rear number plate from DMB fitted.

From this....

To this...

Looks 1000x better I'm sure you'd agree. Also put a new pair of tail light bulbs in as one had silvered badly. It's the little things of course. Next up is to clean her again and think about rust-proofing the underneath. Any tips on what to use?

1/3 waste diesel engine oil

1/3 diesel

1/3 waxoyl

 

And ditch all that poxy Ford carpet under the arches

[TagoraSX]

[eddyramrod]

Apparently I'm an MG owner, again. 

[LC Torana]

Apparently I'm an MG owner, again. 

You've bought a diesel Maxi, haven't you?

[dollywobbler]

I know Halloween has been ruined by Americans, but had a fantastic night out. I love the creative efforts, especially female ones.

[fred]

Vulgalour interest maybe

 

The ''Cursed one ''

Is getting better - having a professional velour car cleaner coming in to sort the interior out, jet washed the engine bay - Will be doing the body work over the winter and respraying the whole lot in Vermillion

 

After massive cleaning -

 

No stopping the man !!!   

[philibusmo]

Oh no, someone has removed the fuel pump heat shield that I carefully sculpted out of tin foil over many seconds.

 

Get him to put a heat shield back in as gravity feeding fuel into the pump every time I needed to hot start the car did get annoying.

[Parky]

Loads of trick or treaters was somewhat annoying during the Rugby but they were all wee nippers so cant get too upset. At one stage I put on my sons Horses head when I answered the door. Made a fit Mum laugh and terrified her son!

 

He looked up at me with genuine fear in his eyes poor lad. I held out the bucket of sweets and neighed and as he took a bag of Maltesers he looked up at me and with a tiny cockney urchin voice said :

 

Fanks Horsey!

 

I am now known as Horsey which ain't a bad nickname in all honesty - ladies.........

[Parky]

Oh, and less significantly my tax bill for 2014/15 was less than I had budgeted for (opens eBay in another tab)

[tooSavvy]

... so why the long face?

 

TS

[hairnet]

Apparently I'm an MG owner, again. 

6

[nacho man]

 

This came yesterday. Miss T saw me all excited and just uttered "saddo"

[The Moog]

I just did a confused.com quote on the Skoda FS here. With only 2000  miles a year it came back as .... £800!

 

Insurance roulette FTW 

[dollywobbler]

Further to Halloween win, Professor Alice Roberts posted this pic. WIN.

[Richard]

I just did a confused.com quote on the Skoda FS here. With only 2000 miles a year it came back as .... £800!

 

Insurance roulette FTW

When I started driving in the late 80s some insurance companies used to put tables in their adverts. I never used them but the numbers were similar to what my broker would come up with.

 

You could have a good go at estimating the cost of insuring a prospective purchase - a 1.0 would be Group 1, a 1.3 Group 2, 1.6 Group 3 etc. Foren cars would be a group or two higher, as could cars with a big body for the engine. Not many sales fell through because of unforeseen insurance costs.

[scaryoldcortina]

Back from the wedding!

 

Something funny happened - because of the hotel being in the middle of nowhere there was no mobile signal for anyone, and because their wi-fi was broken next to none of that either. Everyone put their phones away and for two days we all talked to each other, it was great.

[richardmorris]

Stopped at waitrose on the way home this morning ( got lost on a walk in thick fog so came home early) and was walking away from the car when someone sounded their horn, I ignored it and then they became more insistent with a couple of beeps so I turned round to see another w124 coupe in azurite blue parking next to mine. We waved. His was a 95 N reg 220 with leather and more visible rust than mine and nonstandard alloys and tinted windows which made it look a bit gangstered. First one I've actually seen since buying mine three years ago though.

[richardthestag]

Neighbour is having bother getting his chainsaw started, I offered to "av a luk"

 

just how fucking old is this thing?

 

 

Anyway I grinned while cleaning it up, no spark was down to gummed up magneto, pull start is orrible and needs to come apart and no fuel is getting through. It has good compression though

[scaryoldcortina]

At least 26 years!

[phil_lihp]

Very good to see the Princess back in action and receiving some TLC.  Phil's probably taken years off his life with the amount of grief that car gave him but it was worth it in the end and it does also remain the only BL car I've ever driven.  It was surprising in many ways, the engine pulled nicely and it handled well, plus it was very comfortable.  Keep us posted on progress!

[richardmorris]

East German politcian gunther shabowski who fudged a press conference and let slip that restrictions over crossing the Berlin Wall has just died today.

[Cheggers]

The new Ms_Chegg flew to Poland this morning on business. I've just received a message saying "Have taken loads of pictures of shitty old cars...the things I do for u!!!"

 

Verdict: Keeper

[trigger]

I came out of a restaurant this afternoon after a overpriced meal to be confronted by this sexy Trecel.

 

 

[phil_lihp]

Good spot, they're rare.  Makes me wonder though, what was the Tercel's market?  Apart from the rather odd 4x4 estate, it seems to be the same size as the Corolla, or have I got that wrong?

[mat_the_cat]

it made me smile that someone who I didn't really know remembered my little routine so well and also the chip, bacon and egg bap got put onto the menu

 

My local takeaway knows what I want every time I phone up

[michael1703]

Had a weekend doing nothing in my beloved suffolk

 

Saturday:Woodbridge shopping,lattes,ciabattas,sea bass,dog walking in sutton Heath,night dog walking in our village,then dog friendly pub.

 

Today southwold, lunch on the pier,lots of running and stick throwing on the pier and then the best food I've tasted

Here http://twomagpiesbakery.co.uk

 

Knees are knackered as I've walked over ten miles