A long time ago in a Galaxie far, far away (and other shit)

[sdkrc]

Insight. Foresight. More sight. The clock on the wall reads a quarter past midnight:

What a motherflippin' car. Everyone needs to buy a MK1 insight right now. Thanks to @Jim Bell for being an all round cool guy and giving me a shot of his new pug 205.

 

Steering:

Direct. Light but responsive. 

 

Interior:

Modern, airy, TARDIS-like. I'm 6'1" and 19 stone. I didn't fit properly in an MG ZT but this allows me to fully extend my legs and I feel well supported. I managed to sleep in it as I found myself locked out of the flat at 2:30am

Driving:

Weird af. The really long gears take a long time to get used to especially when combined with the tiny petrol engine. It's not slow but you have to plan things well ahead like motorway sliproads. 

 

Gearbox:

Tight. Short throws. Notchy

 

Stereo:

A bit shit. Fair enough.

 

The history is interesting, the first owner was a part-owner of BMI and it was registered to a £2mil flat in London. The second owner was a director at a green energy company and kept every bill including the original autotrader ad. Insights say 'subtle wealth' to me now (excluding me)

 

It needs the battery drained, recharged, drained and then recharged again if I've done my research right. Just need to wait for a parking spot within reach of my window.

I averaged 70mpg on the 170miles home. 

I managed 86mpg on the way back from Stirling with a little effort and no assist. I reckon 100mpg is possible on a long night run.

[Jim Bell]

Glad you're enjoying it man. 100mg is easy to achieve over a short distance, just reset the trip meter and immediately coast down a big hill in neutral. If you can beat my 92mpg over 100 miles, I'll buy you a fine new hat. 

[sdkrc]

9 minutes ago, Jim Bell said:

If you can beat my 92mpg over 100 miles, I'll buy you a fine new hat. 

[captain_70s]

The future is now (20 years ago). Neat car is neat, impressive display of warning lights. 7/10 would know somebody who owns again.

Set about seeing if this thing will ever get an MOT again.

It's not actually dire (I mean it is, but y'know), starts and runs sweetly, has floors and sills.

Some prior repairs were of... Questionable quality. Some of the metal used in the thing's construction is thinner than I thought possible in an automotive application, I've cooked chickens wrapped in thicker metal...

[loserone]

So a bit of duct tape and a clutch and it's good to go?

[treehugger]

Eh? Where is the galaxie? Suppose I have to read back now. 

[Rod/b]

On 9/16/2020 at 12:43 AM, sdkrc said:

Insight. Foresight. More sight The clock on the wall reads a quarter past midnight:

 

 

FIFY

[hairnet]

On 9/15/2020 at 10:13 PM, sdkrc said:

do it while making a video to jims house then hit him with gauntlet :D

 

[Ghosty]

On 9/15/2020 at 9:43 PM, sdkrc said:

Civic prices never really changed at all... those prices are still what you'd pay today. 

[sdkrc]

Fleet update:

V90:

This was parked up for 6months due to the 'rona. I took the battery out and nuked it with this 'dumb' charger.

The engine turned over immediately and dropped down to a normal idle after about 90seconds. All fluids still at normal levels. The lambda light has now gone too.

2 of the tyres were absolutely farked and soapy water showed 1 was leaking at the rim. I took a wild gamble and got 4x fancyboy Goodyear tyres fitted. All of them hold air perfectly. £165 including fitting and balancing. Success.

Headlamp wipers now working after finding one of the connectors under the bonnet was unplugged. 

The brakes need doing, both pads and discs. The rear left disc was warm after a spin to Tescos. Stops fine but there's only a small amount of meat on the rear pads. Parts ordered.

Only significant issue beyond that is that it's running rich. Some googling suggests that it's a coolant temperature sensor in the engine as there are no error codes on the OBDII. This also explains recent MOT advisories on emissions. 

The interior is really well thought out and planned. It feels like they cared about longevity. Everything in this Volvo seems to be designed to work for years, to be easily maintained/replaced and to be simple. It's such a damned nice car.

 

[sdkrc]

Insight: 

The morning after picking her up (170 flawless miles) I got a dashboard of error codes. IMA and EML. Balls. A 5min Google suggested that my battery was weak and I'd need to go through a discharge/charge cycle or two.  Because it's a series of batteries that are daisy-chained, the whole unit is only as good as the weakest cell. 

I spent 1hr on the web trying to figure out how electricity works, bought a multimeter and then spent 3hrs down a rabbit hole of insight forums, mpg mods and Peter Perkins writings. 

I finally build up the confidence to even go near the IMA battery and everything's completely flat. 0 volts, NADA. Turns out I'd left the headlights on overnight and emptied the 12v. I recharge and plop it back in, no warning lights or error codes and the boost/charge are both working normally. Sweet. 

Took it out to Paisley to pick up a car with my dad. 170miles at 86mpg. I absolutely love this thing. Hope to keep it very, very long term.

The boot has so much room for activities too.

[sdkrc]

Not my fleet but this has been on the forum before. 

A cheap 2.5l A6 C4. 

Interior is clean with a very faint whiff of dug.

Clutch and gearbox are perfect. The nicest biting point of anything I've ever tried. Tyres are good, suspension looks ok and the engine sounded/felt OK. Discs and pads have enough life in them.

It smokes under full throttle but we believe this is fuel injection pump timing. This would also explain why it feels marginally down on power.

When it got back home there was some pressure in the coolant expansion tank. 

Trying to figure out whether it's the head gasket on its way out but there are very few signs to figure this out without a compression test or the ability to take it out on the road.

No milky oil cap

If there is white smoke from the exhaust it's extremely faint.

Engine temp didn't do anything crazy on the 15mile drive home. 

Coolant colour / consistency is fine.

If it is HGF, this is probably a nice enough car to save. It really is well built and a pleasant place to be.

[sdkrc]

Visa'n'Galaxie:

Welding. Both need some welding. I've been talking to a guy about space in a unit so I can learn this indoors but he's been very slow to get the ball rolling. Looks like amateur street welding is on the cards (fun fact: the sport of amateur street welding was popularised by @captain_70s when he was repairing *insert any car owned by the captain*)

1.2mm sheets arrived.

Metal nibbler from Amazon arrived.

I'm also off work for the next few days. The stars are aligning.

[DodgyBastard]

5 hours ago, sdkrc said:

Not my fleet but this has been on the forum before. 

A cheap 2.5l A6 C4. 

Interior is clean with a very faint whiff of dug.

Clutch and gearbox are perfect. The nicest biting point of anything I've ever tried. Tyres are good, suspension looks ok and the engine sounded/felt OK. Discs and pads have enough life in them.

It smokes under full throttle but we believe this is fuel injection pump timing. This would also explain why it feels marginally down on power.

When it got back home there was some pressure in the coolant expansion tank. 

Trying to figure out whether it's the head gasket on its way out but there are very few signs to figure this out without a compression test or the ability to take it out on the road.

No milky oil cap

If there is white smoke from the exhaust it's extremely faint.

Engine temp didn't do anything crazy on the 15mile drive home. 

Coolant colour / consistency is fine.

If it is HGF, this is probably a nice enough car to save. It really is well built and a pleasant place to be.

I owned this for a short while, the guy I bought it from had modified a v70 fuel pump to fit which was always a little bit noisy, I swapped it for a Lada Riva and when the recovery truck brought the Lada here the Audi refused to start, it was later diagnosed with a knackered fuel pump and I had to fork out for a refurbished one for the new owner.

[DodgyBastard]

5 hours ago, sdkrc said:

Visa'n'Galaxie:

Welding. Both need some welding. I've been talking to a guy about space in a unit so I can learn this indoors but he's been very slow to get the ball rolling. Looks like amateur street welding is on the cards (fun fact: the sport of amateur street welding was popularised by @captain_70s when he was repairing *insert any car owned by the captain*)

1.2mm sheets arrived.

Metal nibbler from Amazon arrived.

I'm also off work for the next few days. The stars are aligning.

 

You're welcome to come to my unit and try welding indoors.

[sdkrc]

That's dead sound, thanks. I may take you up on the offer eventually. Need to 1. Learn the basics first & 2. Get the car roadworthy again so I can actually get it to Fife

21 hours ago, DodgyBastard said:

You're welcome to come to my unit and try welding indoors.

 

[sdkrc]

2 things today. Very unproductive

1. Nissan brakes. I'm new to the wonderful world of caliper wind backs bit it seems the Primera has some proprietary version which ever so subtly didn't match mine.

No dice. 60mins in the rain trying to figure out a way around it with limited tools. Wheel now back on sans disk/pads/some brake fluid. Borrowing a set later and will take a look again. 

 

2. Galaxie. Metal nibbling

This thing needs torque. Took me 20mins of struggling to realise this was the key. Now it's VERY FEST, MUCH SPED. Cut myself quite badly before removing the final piece. More rust than I'd anticipated but c'est la vie. 

[sdkrc]

In other news I drove the Volvo to B&Q. Very nice. Dryest car I've ever owned.

[sdkrc]

Not the best execution but I was trying to capture the atmosphere of being in the back of a 1.2 Nova Merit at 4am as a kid on the way from Leeds - Brighton 

Turn the sound up

[Matty]

Looks like it was filmed by a fella hiding under a blanket on the back seat like in old scary films. Nice one !

[sdkrc]

Goodnight sweet prince.

RIP you damp, musty steed

[blackboilersuit]

Can't save them all and you already have a fleet so full of win. Sometimes there's just not enough love to go round and someone has to take a hit for the team so that others can blossom.

[Matty]

On 9/15/2020 at 9:43 PM, sdkrc said:

Insight. Foresight. The clock on the wall reads a quarter past midnight:

What a motherflippin' car. Everyone needs to buy a MK1 insight right now. Thanks to @Jim Bell for being an all round cool guy and giving me a shot of his new pug 205.

 

Steering:

Direct. Light but responsive. 

 

Interior:

Modern, airy, TARDIS-like. I'm 6'1" and 19 stone. I didn't fit properly in an MG ZT but this allows me to fully extend my legs and I feel well supported. I managed to sleep in it as I found myself locked out of the flat at 2:30am

Driving:

Weird af. The really long gears take a long time to get used to especially when combined with the tiny petrol engine. It's not slow but you have to plan things well ahead like motorway sliproads. 

 

Gearbox:

Tight. Short throws. Notchy

 

Stereo:

A bit shit. Fair enough.

 

The history is interesting, the first owner was a part-owner of BMI and it was registered to a £2mil flat in London. The second owner was a director at a green energy company and kept every bill including the original autotrader ad. Insights say 'subtle wealth' to me now (excluding me)

 

It needs the battery drained, recharged, drained and then recharged again if I've done my research right. Just need to wait for a parking spot within reach of my window.

I averaged 70mpg on the 170miles home. 

I managed 86mpg on the way back from Stirling with a little effort and no assist. I reckon 100mpg is possible on a long night run.

I know I'm months behind, but had to revisit this. The restraint in that text message! I'm not that polite when I'm not locked out in the middle of the night 😆

[sdkrc]

Small fleet update.

Galaxie:

Tragically untouched. I enjoy buying, collecting and driving cars but the mechanical knowledge and desire to fix is severely lacking. I'd like to learn one year but this won't be the year for a variety of reasons. This means I'm more than likely not going to be doing artisanal street-welding on the Galaxie. I will however get her running and working before summer next year.

 

Volvo:

This has been my daily for several months. I thought there was some potential HGF at play when I woke up one morning to a low coolant light and an increasing amount of white smoke from the exhaust. No real oil cap cream cheese however.

Took it for a long drive within 5 miles of home and with an eye on the temp gauge which sat just above centre.

Stopped and checked the coolant by intelligently* taking the cap off on a warm engine. Coolant bubbled over almost immediately. I've taken the cap off on warm engines before and I've not seen it do this.

I'm now fairly certain it's not HGF but a series of other things which add up to similar symptoms. Coolant hasn't dropped at all since, zero bubbles in the coolant when idling, no milky cap etc.

Current prognosis: heating fan not starting, fuel system running very rich, too many short journeys without long ones in between. She's now off getting some remedial work done with the aim of passing an MOT.

 

Primera:

£187 from the scrap man who was once again not impressed with the number of brake discs I'd hidden in the boot.

Bought for £540 in March 2018. Driven 22k miles. £750 on bits and bobs including labour. Very pleasant and economical motoring. 

 

Audi A6 / Citroen Visa:

Neglected. No immediate plans to un-neglect

 

Insight:

Driving this a handful of times per week and it's still great. I'm not keen on using her on salty Glasgow winter roads. Still has 3/4 of a tank from when @Lacquer Peel had a shot ages ago. Current issues are condensation and charging/discharging the hybrid battery through my flat's window when there's no rain.

New vehicle:

Requirements checklist: <£2k, family sized or bigger, good at motorways.

Things considered: Citroen Synergie, Phaeton, Peugeot 807, Audi A8 etc.

Research done: zero

Please ask me about my extremely large jaguar X type

[loserone]

15 minutes ago, sdkrc said:

Please ask me about my extremely large jaguar X type

 

Please, tell us about your extremely large new fleet member

[RoadworkUK]

I will now spend the rest of the evening listening to DJ Shadow.

[Jim Bell]

That looks imposing and impressive. 

And aggressive. 

[Lacquer Peel]

Impressive car, impressively quick downfall. 

 

[sdkrc]

 

[sdkrc]

Here she is in all her low cost, high liability glory misfiring, juddering and throwing an EML  10mins after a completely faultless test drive.

The impression we got from the viewing was that it had been mostly loved for 150k and the last owner hadn't really bothered. Tyres are mismatched, cracked, mystery brands from Ali express. Headlights are mega faded and there's little in the way of recent bills. 

Exterior is spotless, gearbox seems to behave and the engine ran perfectly for the 7min test drive.

Got home and had a quick check through, no OBD2 readers were working so I ordered one off Amazon.

A misfire on a single cylinder doesn't look too bad. Switching that coil pack around and checking the engine code confirmed it was just the 1. Coil packs were mismatched and the failing one appears to be original...170k miles in

Scrap coil packs ordered in the meantime. Brand name set probably going to get ordered in January