What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread

[Slappy]

Witnessing the driver of an '03 A4 Cabrio putting up his roof at some traffic lights, then panic and set off when the lights went green halfway through. Then the shame of having to pull over 200m down the road when the thing got stuck at about it's maximum parachute capability...

[fordperv]

That wedge looks a nice motor

[cort16]

Got a bag of 50 Allen keys off Ebay for  99p

 

All the same?

[brickwall]

No... a totally mixed bag. Very large to totty wee.

[gordonbennet]

Ha, my old girl serviced and MOT'd today by my really old school MB indy, no advisories but he did mention the tail pipe is a bit on the thin side, so tomorrow i'm off round to a place who makes stainless exhausts to see about a new rear silencer and tail pipe in shiny stuff.

[dollywobbler]

The aluminium tape bodge on the BX's exhaust is still absolutely leak-free! I was expecting it to fall to pieces somewhere on the M25. Amazing.

[mattblack]

During a fire training session at work today I discovered that a middle aged lady colleague is well into her old cars, has owned a sit and beg pop, MK3 Capri and MK2 Escort and used to help prepare bangers and drive the recovery truck. We were disccusing the difficulty I had refitting the gearbox on the Cortina and she said she could have given me a hand...

[cobblers]

I suppose that would have taken your mind off fitting a gearbox. ATCNBE etc

[Honey Badger]

Ha, my old girl serviced and MOT'd today by my really old school MB indy, no advisories but he did mention the tail pipe is a bit on the thin side, so tomorrow i'm off round to a place who makes stainless exhausts to see about a new rear silencer and tail pipe in shiny stuff.

Would that be H A Locks in sunny rushden? His front yard is awash with old MBs I'd love to have a nose round.

 

Is there a decent stainless exhaust place in this area of northants, I might need a replacement exhaust for my Honda coupe and I've been told they are made of the purest unobtainium and unicorn tears and priced accordingly, so stainless is probably the way to go.

[gordonbennet]

Spot on Honey me old mate, we've been going to Lock's for years, no bugger knows old Mercs like them, most of our shiters would get a semi even driving past the place, don't for Christs sake anyone imagine that he's prepared to break anything there though, fuck me no that'd be akin to trying to hurt a tigers cub with its mum watching.

 

As for the exhaust, there's DB Tints in Warkton (easy find on the net), i didn't know there was anything other than posh houses there but apparently there's a small ind estate, i haven't used 'em but as its only 2 miles from my gaff its got to be the first call.

 

Apparently there's a LongLIfe franchise at Northampton too, and further afield Custom Chrome with a Coventry phone number, again both easy finds on the net.

 

This will be my first dabble into a custom made section, i don't want a barryboy drain pipe, i want something that looks nice and sounds right, annoys the hell out of me when 12 months after fitting a new tail pipe the bloody bend that goes around the rear driveshafts starts rusting, even genuine tail pipes don't last like the originals.

 

 

I suspect your Honda Coupe (like them a lot) is like the coupe version of my 124, things like the tail pipe are different, shorter than the saloons which are obviously in higher numbers.

[gordonbennet]

Righto, Honey Badger, for your info, the Warkton lads can't even look at it for two weeks, so i've been over to LongLIfe at Northampton (Far Cotton), the chap over there, Mark, is refreshingly honest and seems a decent enough stick, because of the shape of the rear box he can't use a proper silencer, he could put and unbaffled one in and shape to suit but it will be noisy and droning and doesn't want to do that to my old girl.

 

So, i doubt the Warkton lads will have much different to offer so another genuine or pattern part it is and put up with the short life.

 

 

Never mind, grin factor is we bought the H6 Outback linked to in the tat thread and will collect Monday, whether its still grin factor Mon night is another question.

[Junkman]

The aluminium tape bodge on the BX's exhaust is still absolutely leak-free! I was expecting it to fall to pieces somewhere on the M25. Amazing.

 

Never ever touch that exhaust again.

[dollywobbler]

I plan not to. Diesel exhausts don't generally seem to rot much anyway.

 

Another grin is imminent. We must surely be getting close to 1000 pages of grin now?

[Asimo]

I have found a load of my Dad's old Buff logbooks. That's what I call family history!

[Pillock]

Aaaah, suddenly it's clear where they're "logbooks". I always wondered, since nothing gets logged in them.

[HillmanImp]

Good point. I had never thought of why they were called that either

 

Well I am away from work for a week. FUCK YEAH! Probably a mountain of stuff I forgot to do but I no longer care and am having a can of beer and thinking about maybe powering up the Xbox to have a game of Forza.

 

Fuel pipes have arrived for the GT6 so its only a couple of electrical gremlins on the GT6 before its MOT time. Will go and have a crack at it tomorrow.

 

Without wanting to tempt fate, life is good.

[cobblers]

I fix electronics off buses for a living, occasionally we get something obscure or off a customers car or something Anyway, a speedo out of a 1991 Volvo 740 turned up on the shelf to fix. It was adding miles but the speedo wasn't working. I had it apart and an electrolytic cap had popped and dribbled it's fluid out, which had got underneath the IC that drove the speedo needle coils.  I desoldered the chip, cleaned it all up, bodged a couple of capacitors on and some wire links to fix the corrosion and plonked the chip back on before building it all back up. It fired up and worked perfectly first time, I was unseasonably impressed for what is such a simple job compared to my usual headscratchers.

 

No idea if it's a common problem, but I would imagine all of them are going to fail this way sooner or later.

[Richard]

It's a very common problem, 7/9 series Volvos with a full set of working instruments are rare. I believe £70 is the going rate for the repair you did.

[dollywobbler]

I can see cobblers gaining many fans north of the border...

[KruJoe]

850 speedo heads suffer the opposite: the speedometer works but the miles stop ticking over. I'd have left mine but I need the miles to judge the LPG tank level. What fails there is a match-head-sized cog between the tiny drive motor(!) and the numbers.

[Richard]

850 speedo heads suffer the opposite: the speedometer works but the miles stop ticking over. I'd have left mine but I need the miles to judge the LPG tank level. What fails there is a match-head-sized cog between the tiny drive motor(!) and the numbers.

Mine has done that, but the trip computer has a trip counter function, which is handy. I've bought the gears, I just need to take the time to fit them.

[KruJoe]

It's not that much of a ball-ache by all accounts. Just an hour or two. There's a really good tutorial with (LHD) pictures, it may be on Matt's Volvo forum. I got my Volvo man in ChiangMai to do mine, only because he charges peanuts for labour and he's done dozens of them. I did take the reel of numbers (with cogs) out of my breaker here, just coz I could, and I'm cheapskate mingebag.

[Honey Badger]

Spot on Honey me old mate, we've been going to Lock's for years, no bugger knows old Mercs like them, most of our shiters would get a semi even driving past the place, don't for Christs sake anyone imagine that he's prepared to break anything there though, fuck me no that'd be akin to trying to hurt a tigers cub with its mum watching.

 

As for the exhaust, there's DB Tints in Warkton (easy find on the net), i didn't know there was anything other than posh houses there but apparently there's a small ind estate, i haven't used 'em but as its only 2 miles from my gaff its got to be the first call.

 

Apparently there's a LongLIfe franchise at Northampton too, and further afield Custom Chrome with a Coventry phone number, again both easy finds on the net.

 

This will be my first dabble into a custom made section, i don't want a barryboy drain pipe, i want something that looks nice and sounds right, annoys the hell out of me when 12 months after fitting a new tail pipe the bloody bend that goes around the rear driveshafts starts rusting, even genuine tail pipes don't last like the originals.

 

 

I suspect your Honda Coupe (like them a lot) is like the coupe version of my 124, things like the tail pipe are different, shorter than the saloons which are obviously in higher numbers.

 

I did'nt know there was an industrial estate in warkton either, it's only down the hill from where i used to live.

 

Unless the village blacksmith is branching out from horseshoes into something a bit more technical these days

 

The Honda V6 coupe exhaust is a specalist fitting in it's entireity as far as i know, with twin back boxes, it's an Honda OEM only part if they can get hold of one, so a stainless may well be the only route I have.

 

Guy at work mentioned JCweldfab in wellingborough, I havent used them but they might be worth a bell.

 

http://www.jcweldfab.co.uk/

 

I've heard that Mr Lock can be a little protective about his forecort display, I'd still rather spend hours in there than in croylands next door though, definately nothing in there as nice as the old Benz coupes and saloons.

 

The Outback sounds like fun, I'm a big fan of the 3.0 Legacys.

[gordonbennet]

I'm definately losing it, spoke to my lad earlier on, roles seem to be reversing and now he's my elder, anyway he knows i'm a bit bloody forgetful so suggested i check the breakdown cover is still valid ready for the Outback collection trip Monday, sod me its like me Mum's be reincarnated.

 

Anyway so i did do as i was told and checked, sure enough the bugger ran out in August, just renewed it.

 

My Mrs reckons her daughter's become her mum too, but then SWMBO is still doing a fair impression of a gaggle of St Trinians third formers in full Minnie the MInx mode.

[rml2345]

850 speedo heads suffer the opposite: the speedometer works but the miles stop ticking over. I'd have left mine but I need the miles to judge the LPG tank level. What fails there is a match-head-sized cog between the tiny drive motor(!) and the numbers.

This is the other common failure on 7/8/900 series Volvo speedos. Apparently resetting trip whilst moving, or with the ignition on, or when there's an R in the month can kill the plastic cog as it is made of cheese.

However there's plenty of good walk through guides online and stripping the instrument pod is surprisingly easy. I got pretty good at it as the one on my 740 was quite troublesome for various reasons.

[KruJoe]

Had a surprise visit today from a couple of Autoshite mentalists in a freshly rebuilt Caro.

 

 

Bit o' class.

[KruJoe]

And I just took the grin thread to 1000 pages

[phil_lihp]

Not a bad way to do it, not many places you'll see the phrase 'freshly rebuilt Caro'!  Looks good.

[beko1987]

Dude Where's My Car on some channel called ComedyCtralX

 

Aaaaaannnndddd theeeeeennnnnn?

[wuvvum]

The new Attorney General of Crimea.

 

Would.  Repeatedly.