THE GUBBERMINT ALWAYS KNOWS BEST

[seth]

Yeah, its part of Hampstead Garden Suburb (Ossulton Way, N2 if you want to google it) so there are pretty tight planning laws. There are quite a lot of streets of these type of houses as the area was built up in the '20s & '30s.I was just lucky that there wasn't anyone parked and the cars parked on drives could be lost behind hedges (you can just see the corner of a roof!) and there's some wheelie bins just out of shot on the right.There is one road in particular, a cul-de-sac call Lytton Close (also N2) I would love to do a photo shoot or something in but there are just too many cars. Looks like the Google car didn't go up it but you can see in the end. The houses up there are just stunning.

[Cavcraft]

Long weekend looming, plan on finishing Astra arches and scooter spare panels, getting some spot light brackets, mirrors and mirror arms and hopefully having a run over the border into Lladudno for a scooter rally.Should be a few hundred going all in, promises to be a good day if the bad weather holds off. Only going for the day rather than the weekend.

[FredTransit]

FredTransit in road tax shock - breaking news! Had to buy 12 months instead of 6, cos they had run out of 6 month tax discs!!!To explain, I had to leave one of the lutons untaxed due to an aresey MOT man, so wanted one for this month. By the time it passed, my Post Office had run out of 6 month tax discs, and weren't getting any more in.

[j-j]

This is getting silly now! If you recall from my spottings thread I've been seeing a disproportionate number of Vauxhall Vivas in Glasgow of late. I spotted another one..... This time I was driving so no pic - I was joining a traffic lights roundabout in Rutherglen and there to my right was a VIVA on the roundabout at lights! I gave a wave and think I got one back (had to look back to where I was going..) It was another blue one (not impossible that it was previously spotted but I think it is a new one) and looked in ace condition. But MAN!!! what's going one here!?! is there some specific 'Viva Glasgow federation' or something? Anyway, it was a pleasure to see.

Had to buy 12 months instead of 6, cos they had run out of 6 month tax discs!!!

That's a blimmin pain innit? I didn't think you were obliged to do 12m. Couldn't you have went to a different PO?I must admit, I very seldom get 12 months as I feel the amount saved is not enough (and with an old shite barge you never quite know that it's going to be on the road for the whole year )

[FredTransit]

I could have gone to another PO, but the van was, by then sat on the street with no tax (though insured and tested). In the past I have had trouble with some POs as our trade insurance doesn't match all of the vehicles as most PO staff are only used to Mr & Mrs Smith going in with their (matching) docs for their one and only car. Ah well, it's done now and I don't need to think about (this one) for a year.

[ayd]

might have found a 1989 Micra GLX...sounds promising, going to see it on Sunday, fingers crossed

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I got a nice fat envelope from the DVLA this morning - all my car's previous registration documents It's had nine owners including me, and between 1994 and 2000, changed hands five times! Longest ownership: July 1979 - April 1994. Shortest ownership: July 1998 - August 1998. Well worth the five quid if you don't know much about your car's past. DVLA form V888.

[pogweasel]

Today I got ass-raped for the best part of eighty quid for a new battery for my BMW (again), think the last one was a case of pays your money and takes your choice as it's lasted less than a year before being totally goosed. Then had to endure the utter ass-clenching horror of being driven about in said vehicle by mrs_pog. Brake. Brake. Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!!!

[Guest]

Well worth the five quid if you don't know much about your car's past. DVLA form V888.

Download from here....http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg ... 065303.pdf

[j-j]

Well worth the five quid if you don't know much about your car's past. DVLA form V888.

Download from here....http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg ... 065303.pdf

I'm keen on doing one of these but what would you say is your legitimate reason for the request - I'm thinking 'general nosey curiosity' might not bode well.

[trigger]

Does it also tell you the names and addresses of the last owners or just the dates it changed hands?

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I'm keen on doing one of these but what would you say is your legitimate reason for the request - I'm thinking 'general nosey curiosity' might not bode well.

I wrote something like "I request information held on this car's previous registered keepers to create a history file for the vehicle" which translates as 'general nosey curiosity', but I think that's acceptable if you only want information on your own car.

Does it also tell you the names and addresses of the last owners or just the dates it changed hands?

It's photocopies of all the old registration documents they have on file, so you get all the information there is on the V5. I got seventeen pages, everything from the original logbook right through to the V5C I sent them when I changed the car's colour. Took about two months.

[Guest]

Was in town today to get a haircut. It's not a place I particularly enjoy as the ongoing city centre development has gradually removed anything I liked - the old market house, etc.

 

Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across a superb tat shop inside a former discount foods place. Inside there were a load of old Haynes books, audio equipment, strange clothes - basically just a secondhand market shoved into a shop.

 

But in the window they had one of these:

 

Managed to haggle them down to £4 because I thought the "Memo" button was missing, turns out that's just what they look like. Excellent! Have no idea what I'm going to do with it, probably just add it to my collection of radios that I don't need.

[scruff]

Today I made my Series 1 look like it is finished.

 

 

However it isn't but I am getting there. I've just rebuilt all four hubs with new seals and studs, the front brake cylinders (£££!! to replace) have been re-sleeved and new shoes & drums, new cylinders on the back, new flexis, new copper brake pipes throughout. Still got to put the loom in, get a patch sorted on the front dumbiron, find a fuel tank (new ones are £££!!)... oh and put the engine back in. Got a replacement flywheel as the old one was cream crackered.

 

[r.welfare]

Lovely! 1600 or 2-litre?Yesterday I had *lots* of fun doing a coolant flush and change of thermostat on the Avensizzz. I'd like to meet the Toyota engineer responsible for the siting of the thermostat housing and, more pertinently, it's two mounting nuts, and set a pack of dogs on him/her.Not only do you have to take the alternator off (GR8 fun, as you need mega strength and three hands to loosen off the tensioner but hey, I had a new belt to go on anyway) to get to the housing, but you can't even see the lower nut let alone get a spanner on it. As for a socket, forget it, as there's too much a/c pipework in the way. Ended up bending a long 10mm spanner to near-90 degrees with a lump hammer which *just* allowed enough clearance to undo the nut, in a turn-remove-put back on-turn manner. Just hope the damn thing doesn't leak now as there's no way of getting a torque wrench anywhere near it.

[Pillock]

More fixage on the Golf...The washers were fubared, so I picked up a new washer pump from the scrapper (*). I could hear the old one working, but no water out of it.Straight push-fit replacement, wet shoes whilst I connected the front and rear pipes up. Tried pulling the lever for the front washers - nothing. Oh! Maybe a blocked hose then. Tried the rear by pushing the lever..... water came out of the front. Bizarre.So I swapped the pipes around, even though it was exactly the same pump and that's how they came off (to the point they needed rerouting to get some slack to swap them over), and now pulling the lever made the fronts work. I can't get my head around how that happened (I expected my swapped pipes to make the rear one work) but at least the front works!Also refitted the backbox on the hanger, it had slipped off a rubber and the bend was hitting the rear beam under full throttle.I feel quite bad listing things I've had to fix on the car, since it was bought from an AS member, but it was still a bargain and it's still only niggly minor-cost things I've had to do. In the week I need to get a slow puncture fixed on the front left, needs a blast of air once a week or so.(*) Not a bad result - Lambda sensor, washer pump, smoked repeaters and a load of interior plastic trim oddments for a tenner. My local place does their own version of that U-Pull-It fixed price spares thing.

[Station]

I changed the entire exhaust on my dad's Bravo thingy. You have to take the handbrake cable out. I realised this after I'd put the new one back in. I then realised it wasn't sealed properly, so took it out again, sealed it and then reassembled. I turned the engine on to dry the sealant. My dad says 'Should I rev the engine up', at which point he jumped in and revved the engine up, at which point the wet sealant blew out, and I just sacked it off as I couldn't be arsed.

 

While not shite (but mostly shit), I've been freshening up my missus's MGF. I replaced the seats with rather nice leather ones, and also a red/black steering wheel, and also changed the mudflaps, two had come off and disappeared due to kerbs. I've also changed the front tie rod ends, front indicators and brake pipes.

A bigger job was changing the steering column for a PAS one. This involved removing the PAS loom from the main loom, and then transplanting the lot into the car. It is a massive improvement, these things are tricky to park without PAS!

 

Next on the list were the rear calipers. After countless outbids on ebay, I decided to just disassemble them myself, thanks to a thread on Rover 800 forum posted up by Minimad. The reassembly is frigging impossible, and I will have to fabricate my own compression tool to get the highly sprung mechanism back to together again, just like a fabricated my own long nose circlip pliers:

 

 

Filthy caliper:

 

 

Clean!

 

 

This trick didn't work:

 

 

This morning I sprayed her wheels black. They were silver, then white, which are impossible to keep clean.

 

 

Rattle cans "F.T.W." - I'm getting good at this rattle can jobbery, even though I've got a fairly decent industrial compressor (which never gets used). Bit o' gloss black, and then loadsa lacquer.

 

 

 

I've got to rebuild the calipers now (both sides ) and replace the headlight unit.

[M'coli]

Today I fitted my new vice to my new bench! I've only lived here for 9 years and 19 MOTs...

[trigger]

I bet your misses loved you for rebuilding those calipers on her kitchen worktop!

[Station]

I was cursing like a ship's parrot so she left me to it. It's her car anyway!

[155V6]

While not shite (but mostly shit), I've been freshening up my missus's MGF. I replaced the seats with rather nice leather ones, and also a red/black steering wheel, and also changed the mudflaps, two had come off and disappeared due to kerbs. I've also changed the front tie rod ends, front indicators and brake pipes.

Have you still got the original steering wheel?,I may be after one for the Express.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I A-framed the Maestro down to the workshop last night, final A-frame journey before the truck is sold!Amazingly i drove right past some VOSA fellers, who either didnt notice me, couldnt be @rsed, or were already preoccipied with something else, cos they left me well alone!!!

[whitevanman]

I A-framed the Maestro down to the workshop last night, final A-frame journey before the truck is sold!Amazingly i drove right past some VOSA fellers, who either didnt notice me, couldnt be @rsed, or were already preoccipied with something else, cos they left me well alone!!!

RESULT !!!

[155V6]

Just changed the rear struts & shocks on the MG,all went smoothly,nothing seized or broken .Still got to do the fronts though.

[pogweasel]

GR8 news!

After luzzing out on horrendously expensive new tyres, a new battery, loads of other "minor" jobs etc, my BMW has rewarded me with a farty exhaust blow. Moar costs I could do without. I am going to have to give this vehicle a stern talking-to. Look, do you want you wheelarches repairing this year or not? WELL??

I <3 OLD CARZ.

[trigger]

I've had to splash out on a new tyre today as one of mine was bald on the Passat.I wanted Dunlop Sp Sports as that's what is already on the car, Rang one garage which is the cheapest in town who wanted £78 and had to order it in , then tried the local tyre and exhaust place i use for my mots, £68 and in stock, Result!.My dad's just bought a 07 plate Focus TDCi which only has 12000 miles on it that needs a pair of new front tyres already, Continental Sports Contact 3 at £126 each!.

[Milford Cubicle]

PArt-worns FTW

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Just put some 'Stomil Eggmaxx' remoulds on, they are literally a 'major contribution to road safety' in that they actively help to eradicate cheapskates from britains roads.

[trigger]

Cheap tyres are a false economy really, I bought a pair of ditch finders when i had my ST24, I fitted them to the rear then one day driving to work in the wet i had it sideways at 40 mph on a slight bend on a main road because the road surface changed type, I pooed myself and decided not to be such a cheapsake after that.The way to look at it is when your racing around with your family in your jalopy at 70-80mph, that's the only thing between you and the road, I've seen cheap tyres strip themselves before now with lumps of rubber flying off.

[Milford Cubicle]

A lot of the cheapskate brands are owned by the 'premium' brands, and often 99% as good.