THE GUBBERMINT ALWAYS KNOWS BEST

[M'coli]

Today I have fitted a new centre exhaust section to the Cavalier, and waxyled the underside of the car and inside the sills. I can't believe how much easier it is to apply waxoyl when it's 25º Celsius outside!

[scooters]

Passed my test in a 1988 BX19 d estate...a red one with very nasty aftermarket sunroof

 

Very down in the dumps today. Still in hospital still in pain but worst of all the bloody nurse who removed the catheter tore s one inch section of my ureatha about one inch in from my japseye. I am bursting for a piss and it comedy down the Willy to meet a solid barrier of scabbed blood...it can't yet through and hurts like you wouldn't believe..like one of those rusty brake pipes I removed last week being dragged through...

 

I still need the lop desperately...the only option is to insert a new catheter....

 

What is do annoying.about this is that it was a cock up....literally and could have been avoided

 

I am gonna pump myself full of skag and dream of BL Wedges

[tonedepear]

That sounds truly fucking miserable mate. Unhelpful but well-meant best wishes.

[Cavcraft]

Get well soon Scooters, +1 on what Toned said too.

[The Moog]

Chin up Scooters, just imagine all the fanny you will be fighting off when I drop off your new BX (stands for Bloody xcellent)

[Cavcraft]

Perhaps we should post up pictures of said flange, that should help his current predicament?

[theorganist]

The Allegro has just gone. Collected by a nice guy from Carnforth, he set out at six this morning. Thankfully he is not a Mini owner, althought I think he is a trader with a passion for Allegro's and AD016's, but I don't mind that at least it should see the road again, he said he will keep me informed of its progress!

 

We got talking about Banger racers apparently he says there are loads of them where he lives. He recently rescued a complete 1948 Lea-Francis from a Barn, it is seized up at the moment as it has been off the road 40 years. Apperently some local Banger Racers offered him £2,500 for it as it is, he says they will race anything around there.

[The Moog]

Careful ... flange pics below

 

[Negative Creep]

Got round to sorting my stereo by drilling out the 3 rounded off screws holding in the old unit. Also, look at my big knob.

 

[Guest]

  Negative Creep said:

Also, look at my big knob.

 

Please can you elaborate upon the massive knob? Is it an OMG YO JDM thing?

[Volksy]

Was there only one company manufacturing heater controls in Japan? Both the Toyota Corolla and Nissan D21 here have it.

[Negative Creep]

It is indeed a OMG JDM DRIFT bosozoku gear knob, I was bored one night and decided to buy the stupidest gear knob I could find. If it were in a dining room it would be referred to a conversation piece (as in "why the fuck have you got a dildo in your car?")

[dollywobbler]

Used the 2CV for my second trip to The Midlands this week. Must have clocked up about 500 miles. Despite the pain to the ears and the aches from muscles that have become too used to PAS, it was great. Didn't miss a beat. Ride comfort is so much better than the Saab! You really do have to DRIVE a 2CV though. I'm exhausted. What a wuss I have become! Shame there were so many dawdling Sunday drivers today, but then I almost didn't mind a chance to relax, roof back and enjoy the countryside. (at least, that's what I tried to tell myself!).

 

Got home about lunchtime, which left time to tackle a couple of issues on the BX. The fuel gauge doesn't work and the handbrake warning light comes on pretty much all of the time.

 

On the BX, you can easily tip the rear seat forward, lift up a large plastic grommet and access the fuel tank sender. Wonderful! Pulled out the sender unit and pulled it apart. Quite gunked up. Refitted it, also cleaning the electrical connections and voila! Fuel gauge appears to work.

 

Then moved on to the handbrake. Had to whip out the rearmost section of the centre console. With this done, it became obvious that the switch was broken. The plastic lug that should hold it in place had snapped off and the attempted bodge with masking tape to hold it in place was magnificent fail. Disconnected and removed the switch for now. It will be replaced at a later date.

 

This is all in preparation for my first big trip in the BX on Tuesday. I'm off to collect an estate-load of spares, including a new tailgate. There's a very silly plan to fetch some bits, fit them at my mate's house in Snowdonia, then drive home. It could go epically wrong but if I get stuck in Snowdonia, I could always kill time by getting the train to the summit of Snowdon and pinching that bloody Frontera.

[Lankytim]

Spent some quality time breaking up the rotten Volvo 244 over the weekend. The whole arse end is hanging, both rear boot wells and right across the rear panel at the bottom. With the rear bumper removed the rear panel could easily be pulled in and out by hand. It had been "repaired" in the past by sticking lengths of sheet ally underneath with bathroom sealant. Seems even pop-rivets were too much trouble! The hulk has provided a wealth of parts for my 240 estate "big bumper" conversion, although the all important front wings and bonnet are rotten! The passenger wing may be savable although i'm not too happy about using it. I could cut the leading edges off and stitch them onto my existing wings.. possibly! The panels behind and underneath the headlights were also liberated. Bolted AND welded in... what an arseache, Swedish twat!

[Craig the Princess]

Spent today lying on my back swapping Ambassador petrol tanks. The Brown one went to the MoT station last week for them to look it over "I should be able to weld it for under £2000" was the reply! So that will get done but in the mean time the red one's leaky fuel tank was replaced by that of the brown car.

 

The red car had an electric fuel pump in the tank, the brown a mechanical one so the pump had to be swapped over that also involved swapping over the servo's vaccum pipe from the manifold.

 

Both came off fairly easily, its a bit strange how they added the filler neck so the only way to get it out is to jack the car higher and higher.

 

Wire brushed the brown cars tank and sprayed it with red oxide, went in to let it dry. Got distracted and went out an hour later and my wife had fitted the tank to the red car! She's great!

 

Test drive was delayed by an electrical drain, then was ok. Indicators stopped working then came back, need to sort the relay connections out. The went to park it up and it wouldn't start. Then the battery died again. Jump start, no luck some sparks by the coil. Swap King lead, no luck, reset the points gap sucess, but now the alternator squeels like a pig. Humph!

[cobblers]

Swapped the flaky sill on the t25. Took three goes to get a replacement sill that was even marginally acceptable. Cheap at £30 though. Rather than pissball about putting little patches in, I just cut a great big hole and we put a full sill on.

 

I suspected foul play around this area, and found this. Yes, that is expanding foam and filler.

 

GREAT WORK!

 

We replaced the full sill and 2" up the side panel for £30 and 4 hours work.

Some cocknock a few years ago probably spent £15 on a tin of foam to do that bodge, then covered it in filler and sanded a fake seam into it, which probably wouldn't have taken a lot less time.

[barefoot]

Driving Test - 1980 - Austin Maxi HL

 

Brighton Breeze this weekend in the Bay.

Friday Donington to London - Dog suffers severe arsehole explosion on the M25.

Camp up at Hook Road Arena - get drunk.

Saturday London to Brighton - Park on the sea front all day - Dog suffers severe arsehole explosion on the beach.

Then off to the race course - get drunk.

Sunday topped up with fuel 206 miles 30.7 litres - 30.46mpg!

Back to Donington, collect cats from cattery

Stop off at the Co-Op for tins of beer

Then back home & 200 yards away from home a colossal great bang from the back.

Its the fan belt, taken out air hoses & vacuum hoses & shit loads of sound-proofing.

But made it home.

It couldn't have snapped in a better place.

Will be sorting it all out later today.

[254575]

Here is a suitably crap/seedy photo of mine and RobT's random autoshite meet at Warwick services last night

 

 

[nigel bickle]

Yah. First fail on my long term laid up Lancia Beta saloon.

 

Main beam not working ('twas yesterday), both front indicators not working (t'was yesterday) and an exhaust leak (gum gum all thats needed here)

 

I call that a result!!

[alf892]

I managed to forget mots on two cars.....in just one month

 

Mrs alf's daily a4 and my rover 12. both passed on friday afternoon but the rover refused to start immediately after the test.........turned out that the modern looking su type fuel pump was not in fact electronic (as I had assumed for the last 10 years) and the points needed some love. fixed for nothing

 

now need to do a cam belt on the a4.....apparently you start taking bits off at the front bumper until you get to it.......bits cost a fuggin mint.

[dollywobbler]

Took the BX for a run into town before the long trip tomorrow. It refused to start after being parked up in town and I had to borrow a hammer so I could wallop the starter. That seemed to do the trick. Note to self - don't drive anywhere without tools!

[Shep Shepherd]

Took The Volvo on a quite pleasant 50-mile round drive in order to give it some exercise and to get it above 50mph for the first time in weeks

 

Also re-insured TV2 with the AA for over £400 less than my current insurers (the highway robbers Kwik Fit) wanted

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Bulkhead ruined by brake fluid again. Repainted it in gaudy gold Hammerite, because the gold was £5 per can due to it being a colour no same person would paint a thing. Then I went to Halfords to buy black paint to respray my driver's door (looks shit, so matches the rest of the car now) and they had the big tins of VIVID YELLOW Hammerite on sale for £5. Awesome.

[ashmicro]

Diagnosed another dud E46 dizzler, getting good at this. Fuel pump this time. The owner saw me working at the other one a few days ago. eGay prices for seconhand (non-recon) pumps is as much as 400 notes. Davy "The Legend" Jess from railwayautospares.com has a known good one from a low-miler. He's dropping it off at my parents' house tomorrow. 80 bills, and he'll replace it if it goes tits up within 6 months. WIN

[Cavcraft]

Oh dear God.

 

I've just been to view a Mk3 Transit that's been partly camper converted. Now I knew it was a bit rough from the seller's description, but nothing prepared me for the abject horror of the reality of it in the flesh.

I actually felt a little sorry for the owner, he'd only had it a couple of weeks and blatantly didn't have a clue about anything automotive: the body was rough and hand painted bu the chassis was just something else: gaping holes, enough yellow chalk to keep a toy company in business for a few months and terminal rot everywhere you looked around the back.

 

I asked the lad how come it had no MOT when he stated it had and he pulled out a test certificate dated in August. This year. He said he did an on-line check and it showed it was tested, so I pointed out either the previous owner worked at the MOT station or bribed someone he knew that did. There is way in this world that heap of crap ever got anywhere near MOT standard and it was honestly so bad it was a potential death trap. You could even see a couple of places where someone had half heartedly started grinding back to find clean metal then must have realised the utter futility of even starting to bother welding the damned thing up.

As I say I felt a bit sorry for the lad though how or why he didn't look underneath it I don't know. Suggested a few options for him including speaking to VOSA as they'd probably get him to bring it to an approved test centre but I warned him that if they saw it they would probably give him one of those (GV9?) prohibition notices and make him take it away on a recovery truck.

[Mike D]

I changed the plugs, leads, rotor arms and dizzy cap, airfilter and one windscreen wiper (shop gave me a wrong one) on this old crate earlier

 

 

I've been using it daily for my 25 mile work commute and it's doing sterling service Oil and filter next week, and when my rocker cover gasket arrives i'll give the tappets a tickle with the feeler guages

[Mike D]

Oh, and I sold the Camaro on saturday. No V8s left

However, I am off to Essex on Saturday to buy a beetle

[Negative Creep]

That pickup is awesome. I want it.

 

 

Got my new wheels on, with 5mm spacers they fit on and there's no wheel wobble - hooray! Except the tyres are too big and scrapes on a speedbump even at standard rideheight - balls. So I need some smaller tyres than 195/70/14. Original tyres are 185/70 but on a larger offset, Tried some wheels wthi 185/50/14s but they look comically small. A trip to the friendly tyre place becons.

 

 

Also, the CV boot has split - fuckbeans

[simmo]

  alf892 said:

now need to do a cam belt on the a4.....apparently you start taking bits off at the front bumper until you get to it.......bits cost a fuggin mint.

 

I did the cambelt on my W-reg (face-lift old shape) A4 yesterday and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, after the bumper comes off you unbolt the front panel and pull it forward so the rad and AC hoses etc stay connected. I took the the headlights out as well but may not need to.

GSF do two cambelt kits one has the damper (£100+) and the other doesn't, I think about £50ish (I blagged some discount) you can remove, check and lock out the old damper with a drill bit and refit, Haynes say you can do this in the car but for the sake of a couple of bolts its a lot easier in the vise. If you get the cheap set and then decide you need a damper later its about the same amount when I asked.

 

[dollywobbler]

Wow. Look at all that space! I R JELUS! Longitudinal engines are far more sensible.