THE GUBBERMINT ALWAYS KNOWS BEST

[Minimad5]

I own another FiestaThis one is a Mk3 1.1 SX And requires alot of work from the magic welding stickPictures shall be added to my already full Mk1 & Rebel thread (This will take time ... slow internet)

[Spottedlaurel]

Spent a pleasant few hours getting sorted for track day at RAF Marham tomorrow. I'm taking the Camry Sport, which does have good handling and grip so it should be interesting (its capabilities will far exceed mine).Utterpiffle's back from Germany for it, and he popped round in the MX5 with a set of wheels and tyres for me to take on his behalf. That's on top of the set of 15" steels I robbed off the Camry estate for me, so it's well-loaded. I'm not sure if it's what Toyota GB intended when they gave it that nice Connolly leather interior...Report and photos to come. I'm sure there'll be a good variety, with Retro-Rides and Autobahnstormers in attendance as well as Pistonheads.

[trigger]

Pretty basic pedal and pop Honda affair, similar to stuff like the Tomos moepd you could get from catalogues at a quid a week for the 300 years or something.

That's the one, I spoke to my neighbours son about it earlier, It was his uncles who's owned it from new, It's still only got 2000 miles on it, He's had a play and got it running now and plans to give it do his 16 year old son to learn to ride.

 

Here's a cheeky over the fence shot of it.

 

[sporty-shite]

 

 

 

leave them like that and just add salt water. OMG RATLOOK HOODRIDE SCOOT WIN etc.

[Cavcraft]

Believe it or not the rat look has hit the scooter brigade. Saw one that looked pretty good to be fair, though others were the usual ill thought out 'scene chasers'.

[trigger]

Spend a while this afternoon actually getting around to changing the oil in the 1602, Why is every little job always harder than you expect?.Couldn't get the sump bolt out without MEGA force and now have no skin on my knuckle or arm, then the oil filter was nearly wielded on and took ages getting off and then the bloody can of Castrol GTX i got from my dad's shed that's been then since 1988 managed to leak everywhere while pouring out from the extendable nozzle.At least the engine bay won't get any more rusty now!.

[Rocket88]

Less rust than expected shock! Dug the grot out of the Maestro windscreen surround, and was very pleasantly surprised by how little there was. Bit of welding / grinding / filling / painting [also found nearly full aerosol of the correct colour in the boot] job done. Something else is bound to go wrong to redress the balance.....

[j-j]

Christ! the semi automatic gearbox on the CX decided to stop playing yesterday - it had been getting harder to shift for a few weeks but yesterday evening wend from first to second and then tried third only for it to 'resist' - tried to match the engine and road speed and went for a shift - success! but accompanied with a big farty ZZZZZZZ! right as I was passing a cue of people at a bus stop.GR8 for giving you a 'red neck'Got back without changing out of 3rd, tried everything to check what was up - all systems worked individually just not together (?) and decided I couldn't be arsed to waste any more time on it as I was off out later - returned an hour later and it was all functioning correctly.do I just ignore it now? or do I get well pissed off at the annoyance of an intermittent problem ?

[greengartside]

BMW is in the garage having some faults fixed, namely..

 

1) Starter motor is duff (fixed with good secondhand one bought for FIVE QUID!)

 

2) o2 sensor needed replacing due to it giving horrific fuel economy - 22MPG was about average. I serviced it all and it made a little difference but not as much as it should have done (has been fixed)

 

3) The dreaded heater hose elbow joint that rusts out at the back of the engine was leaking like a bugger (fixed)

 

4) Temp gauge was going nearly in the red and no fan was cutting in, it's either a knackered thermostat or dreaded water pump failure. Thermostat should be delivered on Monday along with a new rocker gasket as it's weeping from the front.

 

So in the meantime I have had great 'delight' in having this machine for the past few days...

 

 

Has come in handy for taking stuff to the tip - got rid of my old single bed and mattress, no problem for this chap. Been pretty much driving it every day and have racked up about 300 miles so far..I say I think cos the mileometer is broken, thus it has stayed on 83016 miles for about 2 years...

 

Fiesta is ok, would have just been awkward to sort out insurance on it to use for the time being so I'm using the Slowda instead - hey, it's free and all i have to do is fuel her up now and again. Sweet.

[Pete-M]

1) Starter motor is duff (fixed with good secondhand one bought for FIVE QUID!)

I bought an auto gearbox + transfer box for the old Rangie Turbo for a fiver. Sold the transfer box for £25. Which was nice.Won't be able to use the Rover much tomorrow as I'm off on a mission in the afternoon and it's one that the Rover is unsuitable for (too many people / luggage etc)Might pop along to the Game Bird on the E.Lancs in the evening and see what the Yank crew bring out to play.

[Minimad5]

I HAZ OIL LEAK x100 and i cannot see the source

[pogweasel]

Fired up the Maxi for the first time in ages, as was swapping stuff betwixt garages, still runs lovely though the osr brake appear to be grabbing ALOT (couldn't push it out of the garage, so had to get it running to drag it out under it's on steam!), couldn't get it to free off fully. Then got accosted by "that man" who always appears when you are in or near an old car to tell you a load of stuff you already knew and a load of stuff that's actually totally inaccurate.

[trigger]

I met one of 'them men' the other day who was telling me all about his old 1987 F reg Jag XJ-S, I told him don't you mean 88-89 F reg?, He said no definitely a 87 on a F.

[Timewaster]

I met one of 'them men' the other day who was telling me all about his old 1987 F reg Jag XJ-S, I told him don't you mean 88-89 F reg?, He said no definitely a 87 on a F.

To be fair to him, it probably sat unsold in a field for at least a year before it was bought bu some hapless rich fool

[CIH]

I'm fetching the Porker tomorrow woo!

[Mike D]

I wire wheeled the rust away from the inner lip of my capri front arch and valance yesterday, then kurusted it, etch primed it and lobbed some Ford paris blue on. Gr8! Not so gr8 is that it's Caspian blue, but it'll keep the weather off til i get 1/2a litre to do the other bits with

[Spottedlaurel]

Yesterday, Utterpiffle, Wuvvum and I spent the day going round and round RAF Marham at the charity trackday there.

 

 

Mine, ready for action. Adding a smidge of air to the tyres and taping over the lights was pretty much it for prep after a good clean-up, empty out and fluids check the day before.

 

 

Wuvvum in action in R21 Turbo.

 

 

My support vehicle! My boss was with me, this is one of 10 old cars he has and I thought as he does a lot of car stuff with SCCON and on historic rallies he'd be good to have with me. One of the RAF guys runing the day said they'd like to have seen it go round even though it wasn't booked in, better not tell Julian or he'll be gutted he didn't get it on the track.

 

 

 

This Gordon-Keeble was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Wonderful to see it on the track, I did a few laps in company with him as we carried similar pace through the bends. He could pee all over me on the straights, but most people take it easy on them as they're so long. There's little point going above 100-110mph as that's about the right speed to have fun launching into the corners.

 

 

I was taken out for a few laps in this. Sub-100bhp 1.6 engine, but wow the bloke can hurl it around! His brother is equally competent in the Omega Evo behind it. They're both very generous with their time, going out with newbies like me and giving advice on lines. Sadly the Skoda rally car they also had there got rolled by another driver, which was a sad start to the day (everyone OK, just shaken-up).

 

 

My tyres at the end of the day. The Camry's a relentless understeerer of course, and there's a big bend which can be taken fast but does eat tyres. Had I done more laps I'd have swapped the fronts and rears, but as it was I just needed to get home.

 

 

So I chucked the 15" steels off my estate onto it. They've got enough tread to keep me going for a bit. I might not get the alloys re-shod until I know if I'm doing the next trackday (hope so!) as I don't want to trash an expensive set of tyres. Also, the car rides better on the 15's

 

Us three 'shiters each did 140-160 miles with excellent reliability. There weren't many cars present and the track at 3-3.5 miles long is massive (see below) with lots of run-off areas, so excellent for a first-timer like me to gain confidence. The Camry was rather impressive if I do say so myself and probably surprised a few people, possibly just by being there!

 

 

Track diagram, courtesy of Robgt2 off Pistonheads/RR, the chap with the Nova.

 

Top day out!

[dollywobbler]

Nice pics. That Gordon-Keeble is a mega dose of OMGs!! Definitely a dream car for me.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I put my P100 pickup truck up for sale on R-R this morning at 10.30. By 11.45 I had a £50 paypal deposit in my account! 'Sold too cheap' is the instinctive reaction. Maybe, but I sold it for £200 more than i paid, and I've done 20k in it in the 12 months i've had it! Now thats what I call bangernomics. (Admittedly I've had to put the spanners on it a few times like).Also, I dropped it off for an MOT this morning. Got the call at 4pm: 'Yeah, it passed', what a joy!Looks like the Rover 220 will be hitting the road next week, can't wait!

[Mike D]

I borrowed a crocodile jack from work today and set about the dent on the Capri's wing again. It's looking much better, it wants a couple of bits of rust repair and then some wag, but i reckon it'll look alright. It's quite satisfying doing it myself

[MrDuke]

I managed to 'improve' on the slight damage to the 740's front wing today, while reversing in behind next door's skip. It's now progressed from a tiny, barely noticeable dimple to a full-on crimp, with impressive paint loss. That'll teach me to procrastinate instead of getting it on eGay Really must bite the bullet soon, there's hardly any petrol left in it...

[Pillock]

I FIXED SOMETHINGMy Golf came with a waterpump, courtesy of sporty-shite. Well obviously it came with one, but it came with a spare too as the one under the bonnet was grumbly.I had a thrash around last night and decided that it was running way too hot, so decided to swap the pump today. Garage quoted 1.5 hours, or £70 in my terms so I thought I'd get spannering.11am: Unclip hoses, drain water onto feet. Change shoes.11.15am: Remove alternator and support bracket, start to remove 10mm bolts holding pump into housing. Wipe grease down leg. Change trousers.11.30am: Realise bottom pulley has to come off. Find two of the bolts come out fine, but two strip the hex heads. Swear a lot. Hit things. Swear more.1pm: Go to the garage at the bottom of the road, borrow a proper impact 6mm hex driver. Find it makes no difference. Swear.1.30pm: Try to take pulley off pump. Realise that I cannot do this, as I've taken the belt off already and now nothing stops the pulley from spinning. Swear more.2pm: Try to take cambelt cover off, take all breather hoses off for access. Realise cambelt cover ain't coming off without bottom pulley removal. See 11.30am.2.30pm: Realise I can remove thermostat housing with pump attached, and them remove pump from that. Start putting all the bits back on that I didn't need to take off.2.45pm: Realise the two bolts that came out of the bottom pulley don't go back in, they don't bite at all. Seems it was previously bodged with acres of threadlock. 3pm: Have to walk to car spares place for liquid gasket as I lost the one from the new pump.3.30pm: Fit pump, reassemble everything, fill with water. I've got hot heat in the car and seemingly no leaks. Need to go and get some antifreeze as it's pure water in there at the minute. So a simple 4.5 hour job, and a great sense of satisfaction. It's the first thing I've done on my own car in years. Saved £65 though after liquid gasket purchase. All I need to work out is if two bolts intead of four on the bottom pulley is bad.... it's opposite ones not next to each other.Oh, and the alternator doesn't tension the belt enough on the tightest setting, you have to take the bolt out and let it tension further. I think this also might be bad, and the sign that a new belt is needed.

[ayd]

went to look at some shite as I'm long overdue a new vehicle in my life but what they failed to mention was it was absolute pants, didn't start, hellofalotofrust and was an auto not the manual they had advertised it as.......the hunt continues.......on a plus note did find 7 scissor jacks when clearing out the shed at the weekend.

[Spottedlaurel]

Been mucking about with wheels and tyres:

 

 

Estate ended up with very worn tyres and 17" alloys off the Sport after the trackday.

 

 

As Sport needs its rather healthier tyres on 15" steels, happily resulting in a better ride.

 

 

 

Then I finally got round to getting new tyres on the refurbed alloys that Datman chucked into the Laurel when I bought it. The ones on the steels were ancient, leading to comic amounts of squeal when cornering. It now drives much better, though not sure if it looks any better. Still got the steels and hubcaps if I want to give it a different look.

 

The only other news on this car is that I keep driving it and enjoying it.

[trigger]

The only other news on this car is that I keep driving it and enjoying it.

I bet you do, It's a lovely old thing, I was impressed with it, I also like the alloys, but I also like the steels with the red hub caps too...

[Angrydicky]

Got the 2CV insured a couple of weeks ago and have been using it ever since

 

[dollywobbler]

Excellent. Good timing for some roof back weather! Well, it was. Today, mine's sitting in the office car park being rained on.

[Angrydicky]

Excellent. Good timing for some roof back weather! Well, it was. Today, mine's sitting in the office car park being rained on.

No rain here! Just to make you jealous, I've had the roof back all day

[dollywobbler]

Bah! Not fair! Should have used the 2CV yesterday when it was nice.

[seth]

I've just lowered the back of the Hillman a bit more (I can hear you clicking on the rolleyes smilie from here!) so went out to get some snaps. On the way home I entered a different time.