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Skoolday Kollekshun Fred - I iz an idiot!


Saabnut

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As I have decided that I have far too much shite, I have made great* progress and have sold one car (one of the Saab 9-3s which I had replaced with a 9-5. To keep the reduction in fleet size going in the same veign, I have two Kollekshuns to do in the next 8 days. I am doing this right, no?

The first kollekshun was scheduled for tomorrow and is local (by up here standards) being only about 100 miles away and requires the use of a trailor due to unreliability, but due to everything going to plan* the generous seller (and fellow shiter) has agreed that I can delay for a week. This has freed me up to concentrate on the slightly* further away one. As I had some notice, I was able to book a ticket down bt train for a (relatively) bargainous price with the added advantage of getting a first class ticket. The journey will take four trains with transport to the station by my fleet and a lift organised for the final 20 miles at the other end. The challenge is to drink/eat enough of the provided coffee on the trains to break even. We shall see.

Now to the car. I have known this one for over 20 years. I have never been in it. It spent its first year as a manufacturers demonstrator then has been with its current owner since who has decided his Yaris is all he needs now. In the last 2 years it has covered 200 miles - none since returning from its MOT.  The total mileage on it now is 106k. The throttle position sensor has been faulty for the last 5 years. I plan on driving it nearly 500 miles back. WCPGW?

As to the car, I last saw it about 5 years ago. I know what fuel it uses. I know it is a Badermatic. I seem to remember it is green. I have no idea if it has cloth or cow. I have already paid for it. Any guesses to what I am going for on Tuesday and hopefully driving back on Wednesday? I will neither confirm nor deny before the big reveal but it will be fun to see if anyone gets close (or being Autoshite which of the first three respondents gets it exactly right!)

Kollekshun will be detailed here on Tuesday - Live no less!

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Well, nobody has come close so far :-)

Just finished packing for the trip tomorrow as I have some parts to collect this evening for a fellow shiter, and don't want to be rushing about. First train of the day is from Laurencekirk at 0950.

I will give a clue as to what the collectee is:

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That is my collection kit, yes TWO valid and in date recovery service membership cards! As you can tell, I am confident*

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Halfway there by number of trains if not distance 

having done 2 x coffees, 1 x orange juice 1 x bacon roll and 1 x piece of date and ginger cake on train no 2 I reckon I am not doing bad

no picture of the outside of the train as it was waiting for me but here is where I am sitting in Edinburgh awaiting departure 

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image.thumb.jpg.a715bd5f55d86c9cc3454b5c781157b6.jpg

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59 minutes ago, Broadsword said:

First class rail tickets can be very good value for money if you get a cheap advance ticket at an odd time. At the prices I've paid sometimes, I'm pretty sure the cost of the food and drink exceeded the value of the ticket.

 

The inner skinflint in me is liking this for next train journey. Free tea is always good... 

Watching this thread with interest. Hope its something French. 

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Halfway there by number of trains if not distance 

having done 2 x coffees, 1 x orange juice 1 x bacon roll and 1 x piece of date and ginger cake on train no 2 I reckon I am not doing bad

no picture of the outside of the train as it was waiting for me but here is where I am sitting in Edinburgh awaiting departure 

image.thumb.jpg.775a916f034652cdd74fd53a4ddf40ce.jpg

image.thumb.jpg.a715bd5f55d86c9cc3454b5c781157b6.jpg

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Well, I failed miserably with the live updates, but total success with the Kolleckting.

Got up early this morning, lovely bacon sarnie provided by the PO and about 0930 went out to wake the beast from its slumber. @DVee8 gets a virtual pint, which I will happily exchange for a real one when we eventually meet

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It is probably one of the tidiest Disco 1s left, with 106k miles. The previous owner has owned it since 12k miles in 1999 and it has never wanted for anything. Lots of touches with it, like roof bars (never been fitted), towing mirrors, France road maps from the 2000s etc etc. I took the photos then realised my phone was almost dead. Plugged in my charger and found the first problem, the cigarette lighter socket does not work. At this point I decided to sacrifice the updates and turn off my phone in case I needed to call a breakdown service on the way home!

Set out with half a tank of diseasal and instantly found the declared problem of a fault on the fly by wire throttle system resulting in a hesitation at low throttle. Within about 10 miles I discovered something far more serious - the thermostat must be stuck as it does not get properly warm so the heater became a "take the chill off" rather than a heater so whilst it was not unpleasant, it was not toasty. By coincidence I set out at 0950, the time I boarded my first train yesterday.

As I headed up country, it became obvious the throttle problem is causing more than a hesitation, it completely lacks power. It slowly gathers momentum rather than accelerate, but eventually it will get up to 70mph and then hold it fine apart from the steepest hills. The advantage is it uses very little fuel, and the half tank got me to Carlisle. Filled up at Tesco (I had forgotten the size of the tank - £103 at 124.9 a litre, shocked to see the next (shell) station on the top of the M6 was charging 149.9 a litre!) which had the advantage of letting the heat soak into the engine so it was briefly pleasantly warm. It also showed up the throttle problem was getting worse with a wider flat spot (and accompanying EML which goes off as soon as you get away from the flat spot) and a tickover now of 1750 rpm. Still, should make fault finding easier.

Yesterday, I got off the last train at 17:25, being smug that all trains had run on time and and congratulating myself on getting a cheap ticket, today I arrived home at 1620 having used less fuel than the cost of the ticket.

Tomorrow I will give it a good going over, and in particular explore the cubbies, nets etc as the PO said he has left all sorts of things in it which I might find useful. He left his CDs in the changer as he "had nothing else to play them on" - lots of brass band and musical soundtracks may be looking for a new home :-)Oh, I forgot to mention the best bit. It has a working CB in it! Not seen one of those since I stopped using my old one in the early 80s. The PO used to use it when they went on holiday towing the caravan to France with his friends in convoy, although he did say it tended to be a bit quiet on there these days!

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