The grumpy thread

[Talbot]

There's a very good reason lap belts are no longer legal for use in cars. (and haven't been for a fair while).  I wouldn't travel in one.

[Zelandeth]

Definitely better safe than sorry.  Especially as campers tend to be really hard on tyres given they're always hauling a lot of weight around and tend to sit around a lot.  The tyres on mine always look a little low, even despite being run at 65psi.

Fitting additional seatbelts is a headache I need to figure out one day as we really need an extra one.

[brownnova]

10 minutes ago, Talbot said:

One thing that you could do is have a frame made up that accepts ISOFIX kiddie seats, mounted rear-facing behind the driver.  That way the seats can be mounted for travel, then removed and stored when you get there, thus not interfering with the bed/sofa area.  Would be an interesting little project.

That it would. I’ve mentioned the problem to the chap who is welding my 2CV as he loves an engineering challenge. Isofix would be Ok, but for the fact that none of my other cars have isofix so our seats are not isofix ones! 

8 minutes ago, 3VOM said:

I think mine (Talbot Express Autohomes Highwayman) had two lap belts in the forward facing seats secured to a bar under the floor and hopefully attached to the chassis.

It is the third point which makes it a challenge. Lap belts would be more doable. 

4 minutes ago, Talbot said:

There's a very good reason lap belts are no longer legal for use in cars. (and haven't been for a fair while).  I wouldn't travel in one.

Now that’s a whole other issue… the 2CV for example only has lap belts in the rear, but again local welding chappy is going to have a look at that when he welds up the green one and see what he can do to safely fit three pointers… 

[3VOM]

Unless you put half a roll cage in the 2CV you can't do 3 points in the rear. It's one reason they stopped selling them, the C pillar hasn't got the strength.

[wuvvum]

39 minutes ago, Talbot said:

They would need to be attached to steelwork somewhere

It's a Talbot Express, good luck finding any of that.

[brownnova]

8 minutes ago, 3VOM said:

Unless you put half a roll cage in the 2CV you can't do 3 points in the rear. It's one reason they stopped selling them, the C pillar hasn't got the strength.

I’ve seen a couple of ways, and may well see another one this weekend. But shall see what the chap I have contacted comes up with. 

[Talbot]

To the tune of National Express by Divine Comedy:

It's a Talbot Express, and the body's a mess, it'll make you cry.
There's rust everywhere, it ends up in your hair, when you take a look.
Terrible gear-change, all across the range, except left-hand drive.
There are not enough seats, to give people the treat, of a holiday driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive.  Everybody sing!

 

[Fumbler]

6 minutes ago, Talbot said:

To the tune of National Express by Divine Comedy:

It's a Talbot Express, and the body's a mess, it'll make you cry.
There's rust everywhere, it ends up in your hair, when you take a look.
Terrible gear-change, all across the range, except left-hand drive.
There are not enough seats, to give people the treat, of a holiday driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive.  Everybody sing!

 

Heard National Express on Radio 2 today funnily enough! I'd be lying if this didn't make me chuckle a bit.

[artdjones]

I suppose lap belts on a rear facing seat would be safe enough, as any frontal impact force would be taken by the seat, not the belt.

[Talbot]

only if the seat has head restraint, which the existing seats in the back of most campers don't have.

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, Talbot said:

only if the seat has head restraint, which the existing seats in the back of most campers don't have.

A lot of campers have side facing seats which doesn't really help matters at all either!

[PhilA]

Y'all have seatbelts?

 

Cor. How posh.

[LightBulbFun]

30 minutes ago, PhilA said:

Y'all have seatbelts?

 

Cor. How posh.

ill have you know that all the seats in my car have full 3 point seatbelts

and even the option for a full harness should you need it

(because a regular seatbelt kinda falls flat on its face when you only have 1 arm and no other appendages to act as anchor points)

[PhilA]

15 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

ill have you know that all the seats in my car have full 3 point seatbelts

and even the option for a full harness should you need it

(because a regular seatbelt kinda falls flat on its face when you only have 1 arm and no other appendages to act as anchor points)

I opt to be flung around and smashed like a ragdoll and/or be impaled upon steering column and bits of dashboard.

 

It's great. If I survive, I'll get an Invacar.

[Jerzy Woking]

Just been watching the Olympic 1500 metres final for women. First thing of the Olympics I've seen.

The commentary by the BBC was appalling. Laura(?) Muir won silver and the commentator said things could not have been better for her. Er, perhaps getting gold would have been better.

Then stating that everyone in the Stadium wanted Muir to do well. Maybe all the Brits there, but everyone? Really? 

They ran out of things to say, so went on to say that she is probably a great vet too.

I won't be watching any more. BBC can go to fuck.

[reb]

It turns out my landline hasn't been working since at least Wednesday, ffs! No web chat option for customer service so I need to go out to the yard and wander about to try and get some signal to phone them because no signal in the house. The website says to try a corded phone before phoning them, so I need to remember which of the eleventy billion boxes my rotary phone is in. It's probably still not going to work.

[chaseracer]

I solved the 'no rear seatbelts' issue with the Dyane by removing the rear seat.  The BX GTi chairs up front made rear legroom a bit marginal anyway.

[Zelandeth]

So sick of how frequently I seem to be getting stuff that's dead out of the box lately.

SMB to SMA adaptor (in this case to allow me to plug the antenna into my new car stereo, apparently a lot of DAB+ sets use these tiny connectors)...would be far more use if there was actually any continuity through the centre pin.

[artdjones]

The man who designed the starter installation on the 1.6HDi was evil. That is all.

[High Jetter]

4 hours ago, reb said:

It turns out my landline hasn't been working since at least Wednesday, ffs! No web chat option for customer service so I need to go out to the yard and wander about to try and get some signal to phone them because no signal in the house. The website says to try a corded phone before phoning them, so I need to remember which of the eleventy billion boxes my rotary phone is in. It's probably still not going to work.

Or pop down your local charity shop and buy a cheep one, ask if you can plug it in there to test it first. Always a good idea to have one for use in powercuts.

[Fumbler]

I'd be remiss to say I'm getting fed up to the back teeth with my car not starting reliably at all. If I could turn back time I'd have just thoroughly cleaned and rebuilt the old carburettor to save wasting money and a fuckton of time.

Oh, and Billy Bigbollocks in the Range Rover behind me, who tried to force me into a "keep clear" zone at the lights when I had no space, can go on a long walk off a short pier. Arrogant impatient twat.

[twosmoke300]

30 minutes ago, artdjones said:

The man who designed the starter installation on the 1.6HDi was evil. That is all.

I see your 1.6 hdi and raise you a Touareg v6 tdi starter ( rhd)

[High Jetter]

I'll raise you both with a Lancia Beta Montecarlo, and cash in.

[chaseracer]

2 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

I'll raise you both with a Lancia Beta Montecarlo, and cash in.

But will you 'brake even', unlike the car... 😉

[artdjones]

2 hours ago, twosmoke300 said:

I see your 1.6 hdi and raise you a Touareg v6 tdi starter ( rhd)

At least it's a Berlingo I'm doing the clutch on ( on my drive). A C5 ii is even worse, as the huge nose means that the starter screw that comes through from the engine side is easiest accessed by kneeling on the rocker cover and reaching down. 

[sheffcortinacentre]

I'll trump you all with mk1 Reno 5

[Crackers]

5 hours ago, chaseracer said:

But will you 'brake even', unlike the car... 😉

...which will instead "breake eventually"

[twosmoke300]

11 hours ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

I'll trump you all with mk1 Reno 5

A toe tag one is a full days work 

[brownnova]

2CV camp weekend! 

About an hour away in a normal car, 90 mins in the van (had to go the long way round to avoid single track lanes and a very low bridge just outside my village plus 45mph on hills). 

So why am I writing this from the seamless WiFi of my own home?

Smallest member of the brownnova clan decided 10 minutes from the campsite to do an exorcist style vomit everywhere and proceed to carry on vomiting all evening, so we decided to load the 2CV up and come home. That’s family life, that’s not the grump.

However, at 10.30pm with a sick baba, grumpy teen and a worried wife is not the time when you want the throttle to start sticking on intermittently… 

[danthecapriman]

The council have been out most of this week and will be into next too resurfacing the road. So far they’ve planed off the old surface down to the old concrete base. Of course they’ve fucked off for the weekend now. 
Problem is, the roads drains are now standing proud of the surface so after heavy rain they can’t drain the water away! Heavy rain like we’ve had overnight and into this morning… 

Thats not all. To stop the bits of old tarmac and crap going down the drains they’ve fitted plastic poly sheet over the grates! And they didn’t remove them either so the road was literally filling up with water between the curbs, it looked more like a canal than a road. Luckily none of the water managed to overflow down the driveways on this side as they’re all slightly down hill of the road.