FatHarris - tales of a motoring moron *Herman Fixed!*

[fatharris]

Live collection Fred - not for me, I'm just the driver





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[fatharris]

Choice of conveyance after the Laguna decided to shit a wheel bearing



Chod spotted at Exeter



PC: 1 hurried along by coffee.

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[twosmoke300]

Shat a wheel bearing or ignored for the last 3 months cos local ?

[fatharris]

Shat a wheel bearing or ignored for the last 3 months cos local ?

Surprisingly, the latter. First heard it when getting dropped off for Good Thursday.

Anyway, 100 miles to go.

Exhaust loud.

Head thumping.

PC: 2

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[twosmoke300]

Translates to “ radio broke on Good Thursday “ 😂 

[fatharris]

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[fatharris]

Motor de-boned prior to heading home



Filled both motors and hit the road



And I've just got back in the door. Dan is buzzing about the Merc and I'm buzzing that the Mazda did 36mpg.



The Mazda did give me a mild panic at one point when I went to apply the brakes and the car both pulled to one side and failed to slow down properly, but I'm putting it down to thoroughly waterlogged, cold brake pads - they hadn't been applied in over 120 miles at that point and it had been lashing it down the entire time.

They were absolutely fine on the return journey, but I'll pull the pads out and check them sharpish.

Knackered now

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[fatharris]

So it's been a couple of months, so lets recap:

March:

There were a couple of days of no rain, which was enough incentive to take the hard top off the Mazda. Absolutely needed a wash there as despite the torrents of rain we had over the winter, Cornwall is still on a hosepipe ban.

Speaking of grubby motors, the Laguna was beyond filthy, both inside and out:

Some proper graft with a wash mitt and some of those wheel scrubby brushes brought out some decent results:

With that done, with Austin steering on the driveway, we parked the Laguna in the garage for a further scrub inside:

Forgot about this old phone! It was in the seat pocket. Finally binned it.

Found this weird old watch face in the spare wheel well

Once finished, it was parked back outside. Looked pretty decent in the morning light!

Naturally though, after one school run:

Needn't have bothered.

Herman was given a scrub up, and sent in for an MOT.

He had only completed around 1,000 miles in the past year and a bit, so it was quite relieving to see he passed. Now fuel has dipped below £1.50/litre, he is now going to be used a lot more regularly. His fuel economy still isn't right though and a long drive to Plymouth last week hasn't changed that. More investigation required.

Pulled over in the Mazda for this rather aesthetic shot on the way into work one day.

Ordered some keyrings from @ruffgeezerwhich came very quickly (cheers mate) and allowed the key cabinet to be a bit more presentable!

The boy got himself a racing kids seat upgrade when MrsH's coworker kindly offered it to us. Got bloody speakers in and everything! 

Used the Beat for a fortnight as the commuter, on the basis that it was the last one with fuel in before payday. 

How was it?

Fucking shite. The weather was persistent, heavy rain with high winds for the entirety of the fortnight, and the roof is still not watertight on the Beat, which meant that every time I arrived at work, the rain hat had to be set up and secured properly.

This REALLY needs a new roof.

Found a bumble bee wedged in the bootlid jamb. Plucked it out, gave it some food and set it on a wall to carry onwards - not really car related, but it was just neat to hold a bee.

The Mazda was finally washed and had a looking over for the MOT the following month. It was absolutely gipping.

Took two full washes, but it came up all right. The tape covering the front wings was due its annual change though, so I whipped that off. The metal garden wire I used to secure the bumper had snapped too, so that needed replacing with a stronger type of wire.

Once the wire was re-applied, the tape went back on, and the car deemed ready for an MOT. New wings this year though, definitely.

Finally, on the commute home one day, there was rather a large traffic jam. When I got to the front of it, I pulled over, as I recognised the person, and the car.

Yes, t'was my nemesis, the Fiesta. I had noticed it had kicked a wheel out of bed, in the same area I was working in a few months ago! Fearful I had fucked up when changing the driveshaft, I had a look in the afflicted area and felt exonerated.

Yep, the lower arm had snapped. Mercifully, that was the final push they needed to make the change, and the Fiesta was duly scrapped thereafter, replaced with a 2007 Civic diesel.

Good riddance!

[fatharris]

April

It was just me and the boy for a couple of days during the half-term break, so I got to re-live my childhood by jamming a waterbottle into the rear wheel of his bicycle, in order to make it sound like a motorbike :mrgreen: 

Worked a treat:

 

The Mazda had one final tweak before the MOT - a quick adjust of the handbrake at the calipers. Nice and easy job.

Sadly, the Mazda did fail the MOT, but not as badly as it could have been!

Annoyingly, this had a replacement cat about 18 months/6,000 miles ago, so disappointing to see emissions problems so soon thereafter.

Ah well, onto the fixing. My apprentice got his very first toolbox for his 5th birthday and was keen to assist!

Straight into the headlight fault then. The edges of the beam were marked on the garage door and adjustment attempted, but you could feel something skipping within the threads, so it made sense to dismantle and investigate.

The threads on the adjusting screw were crusty, but otherwise solid, so were wirebrushed and greased up. This left the plastic barrel nut at fault. I had a scrap headlight frame assembly in the metal pile which was liberated from their precious  cargo. Once fitted, the headlight was adjusted to the original position, the lowered again slightly against the marks on the door:

As for the emissions, the car was given a full service, a half tank of momentum and a bottle of magic cat cleaner were all thrown together - teaching the boy how to check and adjust plug gaps:

Once complete, it was gently* driven back to the testing station for a retest, and I got to snoop over a lovely old removal lorry.

And a fucking enormous rubber band ball:

And mercifully, it passed the retest! This will be having a bit of a break as I'd really like to get underneath it in due course and give it a wirebrushing and reprotecting.

JUST KIDDING, I took the dog out for a walk in it the other day and reminded myself why I didn't do that very often.

I was ready for more car-related escapades, but then some high winds happened and decided to pull down part of my tree and part of my garden wall. Class.

After much fucking about, and working around the kids/work/whatever, we've finally got the damaged section of wall dismantled and the tree removed. Forcing this lot (and much, much more) through the wood chipper took an entire day! Bit more digging and we'll be in a position to rebuild - it's a Cornish hedge so primarily dirt and rocks, but when the other side of the wall is a 10ft drop into a shallow river, you have to be logical and careful with the work.

A brief day trip to Plymouth resulted in me spotting this beauty:

Too good not to share.

Finally, the first show of the year, the Cornish Mini Riviera Run open show on May Day bank holiday.

 

And whippies with my best mate on the beach.

 

 

[fatharris]

As a fun little aside, I filmed myself doing the driveway shuffle when I wanted to get Herman out of the garage and the BX in, and sped it up, just to show the sheer ballache involved in owning too many cars.

Took about 20 minutes to do all the moving about

[RoverFolkUs]

I can't remember the last time I actually saw a Laguna 1! Another car that just disappeared overnight!

[fatharris]

I can't remember the last time I actually saw a Laguna 1! Another car that just disappeared overnight!

This one is still in pretty good shape underneath and runs like a sewing machine, so will be with us for a long time yet!

Has got the MOT in August though, and it usually throws something at us for that

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[fatharris]

Well, it's a beautiful day for a collection. Heading back to my childhood city, so a quick visit to my parents and my best friends will round out the day.

 

[fatharris]

Five minutes to destination. Very scenic.

[fatharris]

I'm in love.

 

Still in Plymouth so a full write up will come in time, but @montytom is a bloody lovely bloke and even sloshed £20 in the tank to get me back.

He didn't even bat an eye when  somebody in a Volvo had a go at me for posing for the picture whilst he was reversing 😅

[High Jetter]

Well won. Am not jel at all. No siree...

[fatharris]

Got back home safe and sound. This drives lovely!

Decided to throw caution to the wind and try the sunroof. Mercifully it worked!

Love finding stuff like this in the service history 😀

Turns out it started life as a Rover Group manager's car!

So far, the antenna has decided to kick back into life and I have got the second remote fob working, so already on the road to improvement!

I adore this car. It picks up speed so nicely and everything appears to work!

[High Jetter]

Time for a Roffle, then? 🤣

[fatharris]

Time for an update:

BX

Finally had a  couple of hours free to further modify the chassis/boot reinforcement rail I had made the previous year.  A bit more bending, fettling and drilling produced this final effort:

This would allow the rail to meet the rear boot vertical closing panel at a slight angle, negating me having to find some way to induce a curve in the rail to match the original.

 

A 'step' was added to the top face of the rail, to allow it to sit flush with the existing metalwork at the top, and some spot weld holes drilled into the boot floor:

Once that was all done, there was nothing left to do than to clamp the rail to the existing bracket (very tight, to straighten the bracket) and weld it together.

Now it's all prepared, it is an insert-interference fit into the existing rail and when I get some more free time, I'll get the surrounding metalwork prepped ready to weld in in permanently. Hopefully sooner than next year!

 

[fatharris]

Rover:

What a whirlwind three weeks this has been already!

I had a quick check of the paintwork when I got back from the collection and attacked a section of it with some cutting compound - this had little effect and I'll revisit this at some point. Very peculiar defect though, appears to be below the lacquer.

The day after, it went to it's first show as an exhibit, completely unprepared and unwashed. It did draw considerably more attention than I was expecting!

 

And unlike the Beat, this had room for the entire family! My daughter finds the atmospheric dump valve PSSSHHHH'ing hilarious

Whilst using it for the week, it became apparent there were a few more jobs required on it than expected. The main one was the Rover dribbling out the front bumper and marking territory:

Didn't take long to find the cause:

Yep, a power steering return line leak. So it was time to test out the ramps I acquired from FB marketplace and get on with a fix. Power steering return lines are NLA on 600's and pricey when good ones come up.

The bumper came off with minimal confusion and after a bit of faffing, the power steering return line was removed:

Five seconds with a wire brush found the pinhole cause of the leak. A tale as old as time, and unfortunately my usual repair of self-amalgamating rubber tape and ty-wraps wasn't going to cut it this time.

After weighing up my options, I elected to source some braided hose line, and replace the affected section. The hose ends were soaked in very hot water to soften the ends and enable me to force the hose further onto the pipe. Hoseclips were added, and a new p-clip mounting bracket was bent into shape, before the pipe was re-fitted:

    

Whilst the front end was dismantled, the headlight protectors were removed and were cleaned thoroughly, as they were minging on the rear face! The intercooler was also removed, to give it a bit of a de-grease and pressure wash, as the power steering fluid had built up at the bottom and clogged the vanes.

Called it a night after that.

[fatharris]

The following morning, I elected to do a few other odd jobs around the car.

First up was relocating the boost gauge - I didn't want to drill into the dashboard or anything daft, so the ashtray insert was pulled out and a small hole drilled into the back to allow the pipeline through. This is temporarily held in position with some high-density foam, and is out of sight when the flap is down.

Found this weird box in the passenger doorcard - a quick ask of the 600 owners group told me it was a box holding several relays and that owners tend to keep a working spare in the car.

The rears of the foglight were looking pretty ropey, so a quick wire brush and a coat of silver hammerite should give it a few more years.

The lower intercooler hose clip had to be cut off when I removed the intercooler the day before, so a new one was sourced. Bit nervewracking trying to angle grind a jubilee clip off whilst in situ!

Whilst in the area, the brake and clutch fluid was flushed through and bled:

The backbox was giving a bit of a knock, a quick glance underneath found a torn exhaust rubber. Luckily, I'm tight as fuck, and I happened to know where there was a spare exhaust rubber available, not connected to an actual exhaust.

      

Thanks Beat!

Other work carried out (but not photographed) was removing the washer jets and blasting them with HP air to clear a blockage, re-mounting the wonky third brake light and taking up some slack on the throttle cable.

With the intercooler pressure washed and refitted, the front underside brushed with used engine oil for rustproofing, and the engine ran/power steering system bled and successfully leak-checked, it was time to re-fit the front bumper. I elected to replace the forward plastic fixings, as they were clearly not the originals, and ineffective in their job.

A lengthy test drive proved the pipe repair was fully successful, although the ABS light came on about five miles into the journey. Sensors are notoriously unavailable and £LOLZ when you do find one.

Whilst on the test drive, the stereo decided not to respond to 19 out of 20 attempts to turn on via the power button. This fault was traced to an ISO stereo loom power feed coming loose from the pin, losing supply to both the stereo and the bluetooth kit. This was easily resolved and the cassette deck was pumping out the dulcet tones of early 90s grunge music once more!

 

Final job was swapping out the LED cluster in the interior lights for standard filament-type bulbs - This photo provides a decent comparison, and shows it was a the right choice! I've always preferred filaments for their omni-directional light spread.

 

 

Here's a bonus picture of the Laguna picking up a huge pallet. That has the MOT booked for Friday so fingers crossed!

[beko1987]

Looks flipping wonderful inside! Good work so far

[fatharris]

The following morning at 0300, we were woken up by the sound of a car alarm going off in the village. 

Assumed it was just somebody in the village, until it went off a second time and I looked outside and saw indicators flashing on my driveway. Oh dear.

This was quickly narrowed down do a faulty door open switch, which was already snapped when I got the car.

Whilst a new one is on order, the internal contacts were removed to prevent it from operating and setting the alarm off inadvertently, this meant I wouldn't risk losing the electrical connector in the door pillar.

   

I was more surprised that I didn't know it had an alarm until that night :lol:.

Still, whist I was in the tinkering mood, it was time for one of the more mundane tasks to be completed - take the doorcards off and give all the window/locking mechanisms a damn good lubricating!

Spotted something gold and glinty whilst working in this area...

...well, a fast Rover is still a Rover!

Eventually, the time came to give it a bashing with a sponge and some water, as well as a hoover! There was a lot of accumulated filth in seal apertures and crevices, so it took a lot longer than anticipated (It was up on ramps to apply used oil to the rear underside)!

However, it cleans up nicely, despite the cosmetic flaws:

The following day, we loaded the car up and headed off to Silverstone - myself and a friend were volunteering at the British GP as Track Safety Team. Despite the cars size, the boot space was quickly used up and space became very tight. Still, for the most part, everyone was enjoying the ride, and we got to do a dogleg to meet up with Alex in his Lexus and have a quick photo opportunity:

So, we set off for the final leg to Silverstone - not long to go now!

Unfortunately, as I was stretching the legs on the Rover down a dual carriageway about 10 miles from our destination, there came a thunk. 

Shortly thereafter, there was a loud bang and my gearstick retreated downwards into the centre console, with sparks flying out of the back!

There was a layby about 1/4 mile away, so I sheepishly limped it up onto a kerb, and adopted the position, with all the passengers and Alex showing deep concern for what was happening.

 

 

Oh no wait, the other thing.

This was the sight that greeted me:

The bolt for the gearshifter steady rod had undone itself over time, fallen off and the rod twisted itself off the gearbox. Not ideal.

Luckily for the passengers, Alex had a stash of beers in the boot, so they cracked on whilst I cracked on with a temporary repair. The bolt had long since fucked off and I wasn't fancying doing a loost article search of a dual carriageway for some reason :lol:, so the rod was pushed back onto the gearbox and two tywraps were used to hold it in place. 

Eventually, keeping off boost and taking our time, we eventually arrived onto the volunteers campsite.

So, whilst I was out marshalling the practise session on the Friday (0530 alarm!):

Alex and my mate hopped into the Lexus and went all around Northampton to source the bolts and washers we would likely need. He even stopped in to see a Rover specialist to get further advice on what bolts etc would work. He got back in around lunchtime to catch the remainder of the practise sessions. I'm not much of a motorsport fan, but I very much enjoyed the entire thing.

Fast forward to 7pm, I've been on my feet all day, I'm tired, and now I have to crawl underneath the Rover to repair it more permanently. Jacking options were limited due to us being on a downhill grass slope , so I elected to jack it up enough to get the spare wheel underneath the subframe crossbrace. There was juuuust enough room to get me underneath to work in the area. I was very grateful to find that the bolt shank hadn't snapped in the threads so a bit of blind fumbling resulted in a properly bolted in rod.

Not much in the way of photos of the rest of the weekend, except for my view of the actual F1 race - couldn't get closer to the action if I tried!

But as soon as that was done, we rushed to the car (the guests had already packed the car in the morning) and we headed straight into the nightmare of 'Leaving Silverstone'. The campsite was only about 1/2 a mile long, but it took nearly three hours to get out - at one point, we were stationery for two hours, so we got out, went to the toilet, got food and watched some Netflix :lol:.

Once the traffic started moving, a new problem started emerging. The clutch was advertised in the roffle as having a high biting point but not slipping. We were four lads in a fully crammed car, and moving uphill one car length at a time. 
The engine bay started getting very hot and the clutch started overheating terribly - it was suffering from the total lack of moving air around the engine bay. The engine idle speed was getting higher and higher (presumably because I took too much slack out of the throttle cable), but more importantly, the biting point of the clutch pedal started getting even higher than it already was. At the time, I had no idea what was actually going wrong, but I started shitting bricks when the biting point got higher, and higher, until it eventually went past the pedal's rested position - putting it in gear and lifting the clutch pedal completely would result in a slipping clutch.

Eventually, we limped it to the top of the hill and kept shutting the engine off during stops, which seemed to help, as did coasting downhill and taking it easy. Once we got out of the traffic misery and onto the dual carriageway, the sun had started to set and there was plenty of cooling air through the engine bay, and the biting point quickly returned to the normal position.

We had set off from the campsite at 1730 - I got through the door at about 0400. Parked the Rover up for the week and used Herman for the commute. During the travel up and the traffic getting out achieved 32mpg, which isn't too shabby.

Roll on this Friday - it's my turn to pick the boy up from school, and I decided last minute to take the  Rover to do the collection duties. I parked it about 1/4 mile away at the top of the hill behind another car, and a red Fiat immediately parked behind me. I bimbled down to grab the lad. 

On the way up, I noticed a bit more traffic. Eventually, I noticed that traffic going up the hill were swerving to avoid an obstacle in the road.

My arse collapsed when I saw what the obstruction was:

THAT WASN'T WHERE I FUCKING LEFT IT. I told the boy to stick to the pavement and keep going uphill whilst I did big sprints to get the car out of the middle of the road.

First thing I did was check I wasn't being an idiot and leaving the handbrake off.

Thankfully I had applied it - I even went back to the car to grab a brolly before heading down to pick the boy up and there were no untoward creaks.

A quick inspection showed only minor damage.

I know, I know - I should have left it in gear, wheels turned etc, but I changed cars last minute (Herman is an auto) and I was in autopilot mode. No excuse really, but it never gave any indication of only being on slightly.

The front bumper is pushed in a bit, and the headlight protector is damaged, but this car is definitely fighting me at every opportunity.

However, this situation played itself off as good as it could be - the only damage was to my car - I'm extremely grateful that it didn't hit anyone else's car - or worse, especially given the length and slope of the hill. Definitely changing my parking habits from now on!

So, that's me caught up - I'm still not sure what I'm going to do yet with everything.

[grogee]

On 4/10/2023 at 11:50 AM, fatharris said:

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Wow I used to have one of those old army coats. Are they cool again now? 

[beko1987]

44 minutes ago, grogee said:

Wow I used to have one of those old army coats. Are they cool again now? 

The chap wearing it is very cool 😎🤣

[2flags]

I remember these, They were definitely a step above the norm. Managers car. If you had one of these you were going places. 

[HillmanImp]

57 minutes ago, grogee said:

Wow I used to have one of those old army coats. Are they cool again now? 

You are 45-50, yeah? 

[Stinkwheel]

4 minutes ago, HillmanImp said:

You are 45-50, yeah? 

I think that’s optimistic if he had one of those when they were previously cool 

[Angrydicky]

Great update.

600 rear calipers always seem shit, mine certainly are. It needs the handbrake pulled on much higher than you did there to get it to hold on an incline, so I always leave it in gear when parked on a hill for this reason! I’m surprised it always seems to pass the mot, but there we go.

PAS oil cooler pipes, they all do that sir. I got lucky with a good secondhand set from a breaker but even those were starting to go. I have heard it’s Honda overengineering and there’s no real need for an oil cooler for the PAS fluid. So you can just bypass it by removing it and joining the ends together. The benefit of this is that the ends of the pipes are already flared for the rubber hoses to clip onto so there’s less chance of it leaking.

That box of relays is a new one on me and I’ve driven 600s for a few years. Is it only applicable to the Ti? Mine have been the lowly and unloved Honda engined models.

[HillmanImp]

13 minutes ago, Stinkwheel said:

I think that’s optimistic if he had one of those when they were previously cool 

He would be in his 80s now though wouldn't he, if he was an original mod. 

If he is, rethphectht due. 

I'm possibly assuming wrong here he's a 90s reject mod like me. 😂