Tommy's A-series Misery - Resuming normal programming

[cort1977]

3D printing to manufacture one-off things like this is very interesting.  I realise it's been going on in industry for years but pleasing to see the cost and availability filtering down to the likes of us. 

[MikeR]

On 20/04/2022 at 14:03, Tommyboy12 said:

It's a disaster! The Volvo's first mechanical failure! I've clearly bought a lemon... The tape player has stopped working...

The culprit:

I split the radio open and one of the gears has stripped on the motor mechanism. While it's potentially repairable if I could find the parts I'm going to fit something else instead purely because the radio element isn't working properly either. It gets horrendous loud static feedback despite being locked into a solid radio signal and makes it unbearable to listen to. That and a broken tape player means it's basically scrap. Unfortunately being a 'top mount' radio (as in its mounted high on the dash rather than low down by the gear lever) and the car being 30 years old it's difficult to find a radio surround. The surround for the standard radio is not a standard DIN size either. However! I have found a 3D CAD model of a facia plate for a standard DIN unit. So I've paid a company a whole £12 to 3D print me one in black while I source a harness adapter and a 'modern' radio unit.

Also, someone took some cracking shots at the Hubnut social on Saturday

the radio might have a amp wired to it that is mounted behind the "glove box " in front of the gear stick .

if you get stuck , I buzzed the wiring out on mine out years ago when I changed the radio and did a wiring diagram that I can post on here if you need it .

I see you have the volvo arm outa the window

[Tommyboy12]

The radio did indeed have a separate amp which I have left in situ with the new radio. I unplugged the loom for it all and shoved it in the under boot storage along with the old radio if in the future anyone can/wants to repair it. I think its scrap personally but some people like originality

[Tommyboy12]

Seemed appropriate to bring the Volvo today

[Tommyboy12]

Took the turbo Mini to Himley Hall mini show today. It always looks ridiculously low when parked on grass. I did also scrape my exhaust coming into the park 😅

[Tommyboy12]

It's been a little while so update time! The Volvo remains a venerable and reliable daily. It recently was on wardrobe transport duty. It swalloeed up the furniture up no problem. Not a surprise with this boot. It's proving a good car. No issues at all. It's comfortable to drive and cavernous. It's returning about 30mpg which is tolerable given my limited mileage nowadays.

The 998 mini finally ran this week! Until the fuel pump shat itself after about 2 minutes... A new fuel pump adorns my kitchen table awaiting fitment.

 

In other news. The new owner painted the Montego with a roller and brush... 🤦

[AnnoyingPentium]

Just now, Tommyboy12 said:

I wouldn't have minded that there blue had it been done by someone that wasn't Ray Charles.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

I was just about to share this.  It looks bloody awful. I see it's now known as 'The tiktok Montego'. Grrreat. 

The beginning of the end I'd have thought. 

[Tommyboy12]

3 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

I was just about to share this.  It looks bloody awful. I see it's now known as 'The tiktok Montego'. Grrreat. 

The beginning of the end I'd have thought. 

I was the one posting the tiktok videos 😅 I did pick up a bit of a following with it. Not sure if this guy is doing anything on tiktok with it.

But yeah I agree. It's not the best paint job. Lost a lot of character.

[Cord Fourteener]

4 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

I was just about to share this.  It looks bloody awful. I see it's now known as 'The tiktok Montego'. Grrreat. 

The beginning of the end I'd have thought. 

At least its being used...

[Cord Fourteener]

22 minutes ago, Tommyboy12 said:

 

Cor, now that's a boot.

Ideal. 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

9 hours ago, Tommyboy12 said:

It's been a little while so update time! The Volvo remains a venerable and reliable daily. It recently was on wardrobe transport duty. It swalloeed up the furniture up no problem. Not a surprise with this boot. It's proving a good car. No issues at all. It's comfortable to drive and cavernous. It's returning about 30mpg which is tolerable given my limited mileage nowadays.

The 998 mini finally ran this week! Until the fuel pump shat itself after about 2 minutes... A new fuel pump adorns my kitchen table awaiting fitment.

 

In other news. The new owner painted the Montego with a roller and brush... 🤦

I’m probably not breaking any news here , but every subsequent Volvo estate has got smaller inside. Even the 740 and the latest massive V90, which probably has less space than a Montego.

Talking of which , to misquote The Boss; “ It ain’t a beauty, but hey it’s alright”

[Matty]

11 hours ago, Tommyboy12 said:

painted the Montego with a roller and brush... 🤦

Oy, my car resembles that remark 😆

 

 

 

 

(Just to be crystal clear, it wasn't me!)

[Tommyboy12]

19 minutes ago, Matty said:

Oy, my car resembles that remark 😆

 

 

 

 

(Just to be crystal clear, it wasn't me!)

Theres nothing wrong with painting a car with a roller. But I can see the diffraction of light in the images from a rushed job with minimal prep. 

[Matty]

36 minutes ago, Tommyboy12 said:

Theres nothing wrong with painting a car with a roller. But I can see the diffraction of light in the images from a rushed job with minimal prep. 

What's a roller? The previous owner of mine did it all with a brush. All of it! 🙂

[juular]

 A roller job can look better than a rattlecan job with the right technique, but that looks a bit rushed and the colour choice is.. well..  gopping. It's the kind of car that should wear its miles and the dark blue was just right.

[dave j]

I quite like it, but then I painted my camper with a roller! At least it shows someone is caring for it, and it's not a car someone is likely to spend a couple grand on respraying!

[sharley17194]

On 5/19/2022 at 10:17 PM, Tommyboy12 said:

I was the one posting the tiktok videos 😅 I did pick up a bit of a following with it. Not sure if this guy is doing anything on tiktok with it.

But yeah I agree. It's not the best paint job. Lost a lot of character.

Having spent a lot of time round that Montego i honestly didn't think you could ruin it more....any then he goes an does that. It was awful before now its just an insult to montegos.

[High Jetter]

Amen. Travesty.

[Tommyboy12]

The Volvo is proving a venerable camping steed this week. I even treated it to some photos around Elan Valley.

 

[Noel Tidybeard]

how is "henly blue"ish an insult to the car that wore it best of the "M" cars & the 2/400s

[Tommyboy12]

More pottering around Wales taking more pictures of the Volvo than the scenery. It's returning a semi respectable 30mpg on average. Im sure some of these are 2023 calendar worthy 😅

Also spotted this beauty

 

[mk2_craig]

Great spot !! Crop out that white thing on the right and that could pass for a 20 year old photo.

[KitKat]

Love seeing this get used!! Elan Valley is a wonderful place too. Has that intermittent start issue caused it to fail to proceed yet @Tommyboy12?

[Tommyboy12]

13 hours ago, KitKat said:

Love seeing this get used!! Elan Valley is a wonderful place too. Has that intermittent start issue caused it to fail to proceed yet @Tommyboy12?

Nope. Always starts fine. It stumbles and doesn't always idle smoothly on hot restart but I gather that's fairly common with these.

In fact I've only lifted the bonnet to check the oil!

[Tommyboy12]

It's been a while. About time I did an update!

Firstly the Scooby has gone! I never really bonded with it and I wasn't enjoying the welding work. Gone to someone big into their Subaru's so will probably see the road again at some point.

The Volvo continues to be the venerable daily. Although my version of daily post-covid is only needing to drive maybe 3-4 days a week and I travel abroad regularly too so it can sit for a week or two sometimes. To be honest it will be going soon. I'm enjoying owning it but I have two new cars incoming and not enough space.

The white Mini has had lots of new parts while I continue to run in the engine. After I replaced the fuel pump the camshaft got bedded in with a 20 minute thrashing then the starter promptly packed up. Then the starter solenoid packed up. So far it's still only managed about 30 minutes of running. MOT is on Friday. Should pass ok.

The turbo Mini (not photographed for some time unfortunately) continues to run fine. The oil still gets too hot for my liking but the oil pressure remains fine at speed. I continue to work on trying to bring the oil temps down.

Lastly, new additions! I bought my first Renault. A Mégane 225 to be precise. It has been in a front end crash and has been painted by Stevie Wonder but it was really cheap and will make an ideal track car which is my intentions with it. It's completely standard and has stacks of receipts so should make a good base.

The second new addition is incoming but won't arrive for a few weeks. An MGF. It's actually my mother's old car but she's too old to get in and out of it now so it becomes my problem instead. Should arrive in a few weeks. Depends when I can get up to collect it.

[Tommyboy12]

Does washing cars class as an update? The weather was good the other night so seemed rude not to.

Its all very boring apart from that. Everything is working as it should which is most unlike me! The White Mini was treated to a new MOT the other day. Needed a few shims taking out of a ball joint, the handbrake adjusting, and I had to rewire the numberplate light. Other than that it was a pretty easy pass.

 

[Tommyboy12]

Well I suppose it's time for an update! Since last time I have spent a lot of time on my Minis which are my truest passion to be honest.

The turbo went on a road trip round the peaks with some friends. I absolutely love the power but it's hard to use when everyone else is running a third the power output! 😅

The white Mini went for a Dyno session a few weeks ago. It was tuned by a chap called Peter Baldwin. He is apparently very well respected amongst the old school tuners and I would say he was a very knowledgeable bloke. He managed to squeeze just short of 60hp out of my little 998 and over 60lbft of torque. Standard it was 34hp so a sizeable improvement! I built the engine knowing it was primarily for hooning about at low speeds so the camshaft, distributor, exhaust and carb are all appropriate for solid mid-range. I'm really chuffed about. It pulls really nicely for a small bore A-series and is really nice to drive now. It stacks up well against stock 1275s now.

I treated it to Stanford Hall Mini show with some friends too. We put on our best effort and just abandoned the cars when we arrived.

In other news the Mégane is fine. It gets used so rarely that I am only course to put 6,000 miles on it in a year.

Also the Volvo went... Great car but I couldn't justify it sitting there doing nothing 😢

[Tommyboy12]

I treated my Mégane to a pair of new rear lights. Its a bit chavvy and the murder spec lights it came with are absolutely horrible. It looks so much better on standard lights.

As the purpose of this car is to hoon round the track I'm not too worried about looks but the lights really were horrible.

[mk2_craig]

You’ve done the right thing there!! Are the stickers next to go?