The Pursuit of Happiness

[Carl1981]

I recently joined here after lurking for a long while. I’ve enjoyed reading and admired some of the skill and perseverance in the restoration threads, but what I’ve really enjoyed about this community is the acceptance of any and every make and model in any and every condition. I am a serial buyer of shite cars that no-one else wants, I regularly spend too much saving something that no-one else would have saved. I love the rubbish motors that littered the streets when I was growing up in 1980’s brum (rotten old Austin’s and Rover’s, equally rotten old fords and the occasional Jag! Oh and my Dad’s canary yellow Skoda 120 GLS) so I thought I should fit right in here!

My history of car ownership started when I was 15, back in about 1996, with a 3 door Ford Escrot estate. Then an orange Metrot MK1 that I saved, sold and bought back to save again. There were lots of Metro’s and Escort’s and Fiesta’s in the early days (Fiesta's always ended up being referred to as Fiestangs!). A couple of Rover’s and then a brief fling with the french when I had a bit more money to spend! I’ve had several Xantias over the years as well as a 406 coupe and a few french hatch backs. In all, I think I’ve had about 30 cars now and have loved them all in one way or another!

Having only recently joined, I’ve decided to start a thread about my own fleet of classics shite. I’m always tinkering with one car or another and that will either be interesting to you guys or it won’t! I’m only really going to talk about the old and shitey cars that are still with me, and I'm going to stick them all in this one thread or you’d probably be bored to death!

The main thing is, like many I’ve read about here, old cars make me happy. I enjoy learning new skills, having those skills tested, meeting new people and experiencing new and different things. Old cars are something that I do because I want to and it makes me happy (most of the time), not because I have to or need to.

[Carl1981]

I wanted to start with the car that’s been with me the longest, my much loved £900 Jaguar XJ40.

She’s been with us since March 2009, I was on reduced hours at work due to the impact the global banking crisis was having on the manufacturing sector. This meant I had time to burn, the 2006 Citroen C1 that I was driving was OK, but it was too new and far too reliable to be anything like exciting. I ignored that I was earning 20% less than normal with a huge mortgage to pay and promptly set about hunting for a new (old) car. I saw a worn-out Jag for £900 and thought "I’ve always wanted an XJ40", So I set about selling the Citroen C1 immediately.

Afterall, what could possibly go wrong?

The Jag was no near as worn out as I’d expected and I bought her from 10 paces away from a thoroughly decent and honest bloke who had enjoyed his time with it but wasn’t using it anymore. This was one of the pictures from the sale advert...

She’d done 40k miles then and she’s done around 60k miles now and has never needed to be welded nor have any major repairs. She’s got the AJ6 3.2 in-line 6 coupled to an auto box, shes goes well and looks good to my eyes! The ride quality is superb, I’d go so far as to say it’s the XJ40’s party piece, excellent ride with great handling and road holding, why modern cars can’t be this good I don’t know.

The Jag was now renamed ‘Elsa’ by my wife, she ran us to and from hospital when my wife was in labour with our daughter, she has taken us on family holidays, got me to work every day and provided 3 years of reliable daily driving from early 2009 to early 2012. She’s never been worth much to anyone else and the low value was probably what kept it with me in the early days, house moves, hard times, good times, 2 kids etc. Her value has gone up a bit over the last couple of years, but she’s part of the family now and although we don’t really use her very much (other than the odd show here or there) the value is irrelevant, I would struggle to part ways with her now.

Over the years I’ve reconditioned the alloys, changed the drivers seat cover due to bolster wear, fixed a few leaks (diff and rocker cover), replaced V-mounts, replaced suspension bushes, sourced a set of replacement fog lights, and generally tried to stay on top of the cosmetics. She was vandalised in 2012 which saw her taken off the road for a year or so whilst I got the paint repairs sorted out.

A major minor issue in 2018 with dry solder joints in the fuse box affecting the fuel injection rendered the Jag undriveable. This caused some interesting virtually untraceable and seemingly random running issues and a lot of head scratching before she was eventually sorted out 6 months later. Embarrassingly, at the height of the issue we had to have some support from a nice man at the AA with a low loader, he had to help us get home from the National Jaguar Day in Warwickshire! Luckily the show was at quite a nice hotel and it was an exceptionally nice day, so the two hour wait for the man from the AA was spent on the hotel terrace sampling one or two of their range of refreshing beers!

Fingers crossed she’s been very reliable again since having the fuse boxes resoldered.

She needs some work this year. She could do with a service and a set of tyres which are just running maintenance but do require some funds to be set aside. She also needs the aircon sorted out, it works well, but the compressor is squealling or causing the belt to squeal. It needs some investigation when the weather improves and allows some tinkering. I’m sure I’ll report back when I get to it. It could just be the belts need tightening or changing, writing this up has highlighted to me that the belts were last serviced in 2010! How time flies!

[Carl1981]

Going in order of when the vehicles arrived, my VW T25 westfalia.

She joined the fleet in 2015 following the death of our caravan. We still loved ‘posh camping’ and our young family was growing, but the wife had decided that she no longer wanted a 4x4 as a daily and I wasn’t going to swap my daily for something with towing capability so we decided not replace the caravan with a caravan, we’d get a camper instead. I’d had a ‘bay window’ back in 2001 for a year or so, that wasn’t rotten nor ruinously expensive to keep going, what could possibly go wrong!

I wasted no time in finding something suitable, just in case the wife changed her mind! We set off one Sunday morning in April 2015, bound for Kent to just have a look at a potential purchase and definitely not buy the first one we looked at buy a camper van!

I pretended to have a look around and make my mind up (I’d decided from the photo’s I got on email) and we agreed on a price very close to asking price. After a lengthy wait for funds to clear the sellers account, we headed for home knowing that ‘Norma’ was going to need some work!

She was cheap for what she was. She was a fairly original 1981 air cooled 2.0 Westy with a ‘pop-top’. The pop top had been replaced and the interior was nice and original, not worn out. The tin worm hadn’t completely destroyed the bodywork as she’d only been imported from warmer and drier climates about 10 years earlier.

She drove really well sort of OK, so I decided to risk a journey back from Kent to the sunny West Midlands. No fuel gauge added to the tension, the tension increased further when it started to rain and I was reminded that aircooled vw’s have shite heaters and demisters so I now couldn’t see where I was going!

The intention once home was to improve the van slowly and not to go wild with a resto. I had experience with rotted out campers. I had neither the time nor the money for a restoration, famous last words!

A first summer together provided great camping trips and much fun with our young daughter. We now knew that we liked ‘campers’ and ‘camper van holidays’ and we now knew for sure that we had a second little one due in January. It was decided the camper would be around for a few years so we should do our best to preserve her.

I went to see my mate about tidying up the bodywork. Very minor rust at the lower 3 inches of the body in general, bubbly seams and a couple of minor dents, oh and the 30 shades of blue that had been accrued through years of touching up and enthusiast shite repairs. My mate deemed the paint ‘beyond repair’ but the van ‘a good ‘un’. So I agreed to leave it with him over the winter for the seams to be repaired, the few rotten bits to be cut out and new metal let it and a complete respray. “15 hundred quid” he said “It’ll keep me busy through the winter” I nearly snapped his arm off!!

[Carl1981]

Spring rolled around, the van wasn’t ready. It had turned into a bit more welding on those scabby lower bits “If we’re going to do it, we may aswell do all of it” my mate said. The windows were also out and new rubbers had been acquired. But the van was back by June and looking great, the final bill a very reasonable £2500.

The van had however spiraled into a full project and many better parts had been sourced to make the van a much better example.

Another summer, subtle version of the original decals added back on, a few more improvements and an awning to help us cope when camping with what seemed like more than enough equipment to look after 10 babies! Disaster struck, on the way from Cheddar TO Cornwall for the second leg of the holiday, she dropped a valve. I didn’t know it was so catastrophic at the time, I thought ‘She’s running on three’, I repeatedly told myself that it was probably ignition components and I could sort it out easily enough when we got to our holiday destination. She got worse and the 155 mile journey ended up taking 6 hours, which an average speed of 25 mph! Now that’s commitment! 🤣

A new day begun, sun shining warm and bright with a week in Cornwall ahead of me, I was full of optimism that the spares I’d packed would save the day. Not so. I tinkered with the engine every day of that holiday on the way to days out, when we got back from days out and of course again as we left, not wanting to be defeated just before we left for the third leg of the holiday and visions of recovery trucks and long waits in my mind!

We limped back up the motorway to Evesham. The lack of power was terrible but so was the summer traffic. 10 hours was mainly due to traffic I told myself! I have to say that was the most stressful journey of my life, constant worry that she’d fail at any minute and leave us stranded with two young children on the side of the motorway. So stressful in fact, I came off the motorway somewhere around Bristol and followed the A38 all the way back up.

I messed with it again in Evesham, declared the thing ‘fucked’ and limped home at the end of the holiday thoroughly miserable. I put her away in the lock up for winter declaring myself thoroughly ‘fucked off’ with old cars!

Time passed quickly that winter, I didn’t get around to having another look at the van. Or was I sulking and unwilling to have a look? I can’t remember now! Anyway, she didn’t respond well to me halfheartedly tinkering in the spring so I booked her in for someone who knows what they’re doing to have a look. First guy (normally very good) declared it ‘fucked’ and referred me to his mate who also had a T25, a rolling road and loads of experience in getting these running properly.

This turned into a painful experience, the second guy diagnosed the fault as a dropped valve and therefore it was only firing on three. He was amazed we’d driven over 500 miles like this, not only that the van managed it, but also that I had the stamina and perseverance to not throw the towel in and call a recovery truck. It’s not the end of the world he said, I can sort it. So the van was left with him and I was relegated to the dog house for spoiling the family holiday plans 😔

A month passed, it transpired there had been previous buggery with the engine. The head on one-side had been replaced and the new valve set didn’t fit in that side. A new head needed then, we opted to buy new for both sides. Then we decided to re-jet the carbs, replace all the gaskets, replaces the heat exchangers, new empi exhaust and so it went on. £3000 and three months later, I had a working van and it really was night and day compared with what it drove like previously.

A big shout out for Rolling Road Services in Lye, Chris is a great guy and really knows his stuff. He’s into old Fords mainly, but he has a T25 of his own and he knows carburetors inside out. 

So that was back in 2017 and touch wood she’s been great since then (apart from a small fire related to the leisure battery!). Although we have had to have localised repairs as the body refurb got to about 5 years old. A few more are required again this summer (I’ll probably DIY those now though) Oh, I also decided a new ‘old stock’ set of seat trim/covers for the cab was a wise investment (at 1am after a few Christmas beers) at £300 delivered.

I’ve just last weekend replaced the fuel lines and fuel filter, they were way past their best. I also swapped back from an Empi twin exhaust to a stock version. I always wanted an aircooled van with an Empi exhaust, but once I had one I realised they’re far too loud and I’m far too old to listen to all that row all the time.

But she looks a treat and goes well, we’ve had seven years now of family fun and she is firmly part of the family. A big deal for me is that the kids get to experience an old car and have fun with it, so that they can at least understand my interest obsession and possibly have an interest themselves as they grow up.

[motorpunk]

Welcome aboard! I love your good vibes, you'll fit in well here (avoiding the politics threads)

The reg on that Jag is vaguely familiar, although I'm nowhere near Brum. Strange. Anyway, fantastic cars and thanks for the stories. 

 

[Carl1981]

4 minutes ago, motorpunk said:

Welcome aboard! I love your good vibes, you'll fit in well here (avoiding the politics threads)

The reg on that Jag is vaguely familiar, although I'm nowhere near Brum. Strange. Anyway, fantastic cars and thanks for the stories. 

 

We're not in Brum these days either, although not that far away on the border of Bromsgrove and The Black Country. In the early days with the Jag we did a lot of shows up in north wales as a friend of mine with a '40 lives up there and we used to make an effort to support his local shows. She's been the length and breadth of the country with me though, so you may have seen her before, who knows.

Not been many shows on anywhere in the last few years, so we're looking forward to getting out and about again!

I'm just in the process of writing up my Metro, so another story is coming, this one has been a bit more painful as the Metro was dangerously close to the end when we took her on. Silly things too, so many must have been scrapped due to shortage of parts and indifference...

[juular]

1 hour ago, Carl1981 said:

The main thing is, like many I’ve read about here, old cars make me happy. I enjoying learning new skills, having those skills tested, meeting new people and experiencing new and different things. Old cars are something that I do because I want to and it makes me happy (most of the time), not because I have to or need to.

Liked for this bit! 

Messing around with old bangers has really helped dig me out of a hole.  I wouldn't like the stress of having to do it on a car that I need to use on Monday to get to work, but as something you can pick up and drop as it suits you,  and for the rewards and skills gained, working on old cars is hard to beat.  Moving to a new area and starting from scratch, it's helped me meet like minded weirdos too.  

[Carl1981]

‘Molly the Metro’

Since purchasing the Camper Van back in 2015, I’ve not added to the old car fleet really. I did swap my 2012 A4 for a 2014 BMW 5 series on a whim in 2016, realised that was a mistake and swapped again to 1 series convertible (E88) 2 years later. The E88 was quite old being 2010, but absolutely mint and only 28k on the clock. That was too small for the family (took me 3 years to realise accept that) so I’m now in a Jag XE (a bit like the A4 but has character). The wife swapped her Jeep Renegade (which was absolute dog shit) for a VW T5, but none of those cars are relevant here!

The Jag and the Camper were both behaving for once, so there was a car shape and sized project 'gap' in my life.

I really love having a bit of a project on the go, especially through the winter, it keeps me sane. The winter of Covid 1.0,  I had built a summer house in the garden (they were all the rage at the time, so we had to have one!) but I had nothing to get me through the coming winter and I was really hankering after a Metro. I’ve wanted one since forever and I’ve watched the good ones get horrendously expensive over the last 4 or 5 years and thought I would be priced out of the market.

Then last September, my wife surprised me, she said I could have a Metro for my 40^th birthday. I immediately showed her the ones I’d got my eye on already (Don't we all have a watchlist? 🤔). We quickly established that Gta’s were over her budget and so were decent early cars. I’m not keen on the 100 series, too stylised for me I think and they seem to ride really high at the back? So it looked like a tired bASe Rover Metro would be the most sensible and satisfying way forward...

[Carl1981]

Gumtree turned a good candidate up for me, a limited edition Tahiti, but in true BL/Rover fashion, it's a base spec really 😂.

But it was a bit too expensive and a bit too tired. I went back to the search. Nothing suited. The little Tahiti kept popping up, the price kept dropping. I caved and called the guy again, I bid a cheeky low offer and promised the car would get restored to a good(ish) standard and a deal was done. I ended up taking the car at half of the original asking price and whilst it had too many doors and too many faults, it did have a character that was getting under my skin before I’d even collected it!

The car wasn’t far from work, so I nipped out, paid the man and bought the car back to the office. This gave half the people I work with the chance to rip the piss out of me and the car. The other half swooned over it in a way that I really wasn’t expecting.

This affect that the car has on people happens more with this one than with any other car I’ve owned, ever. Generally people love it and just about everyone has a Metro memory of their own to share. I really like owning this car so far.

The plan when we got the car, was to simply use it and keep it in reasonable condition and try not to let it fall apart. Well I just can’t help myself it turns out. Within a week I’d spent half the purchase price again on service parts and and NOS spares.

These photo's are from the day I collected her, they really do flatter her, she wasn't great up close. I'd given her a clean but not much else at this point...

My daughter immediately named her 'Molly the Metro' and she's becoming the kids favourite car!

She was treated to a full service, I even replaced the coil and flushed the coolant as reliability would be key if we were going to use the car regularly. Plugs, leads, cap, arm, air filter, oil and filter, greased the trailing arms and suspension joints etc and oiled that plunger/damper thing in the SU. That’ll be the most thorough service she’s seen in a long time.

The fuel filler was borked and whilst I was impressed that a tank of fuel seemed to be about £27 of E5, I was less impressed that about £2.50 of that was going all over the floor whenever I tried to fill her up. It turns out that fuel fillers for these are made of 100% unobtainium. So some sort of expert repair imaginative bodgery was going to be required here. I parked that issue for a bit whilst I generally used the car and fitted things like NOS wheel trims and bonnet vents to stop her looking like I rescued her from a scrap yard and generally tried to improve my mojo in relation to the car which was clearly at a point that it could go either way, the list of faults was long and the car could easily end up scrapped before the next MOT if didn’t really commit to it.

 

[Carl1981]

So I went to see my body work friend about the rear arches and the rusty scabs on the tailgate. The car had been the victim of some cheap repairs involving painting over the decals and sticking new ones over the top again, but these repairs had saved the car up until now so I won’t complain too much. You can also see how bad the wheel trims were in these pictures.

My mate undercharged me again, I tried to pay more, he refused to accept. The car was gone 8 weeks but came back looking great. Unfortunately, my friend had to have heart surgery just before Christmas and he’s not been too well since. He hasn’t opened the body shop since and at 75 years old, I’m not sure he will. I truly hope he recovers well and has a long and happy retirement if that’s what he ends up doing, I’ve known him 20 years and hes been a friend of the family for near 40 years, sad times.

He gave the car a strange verdict ‘It’s pretty good actually, it fought me all the way in trying to get it to look right and bits of it have been painted badly before, but I’ve tried to fix that the best I can without getting into a full respray. It’s not rotten or anything, it’s just a shame it’s a Metro’

This gave me renewed enthusiasm for getting the fuel filler sorted in his honour 😂

[Carl1981]

Fuel filler pipe bodgery...

First job was getting the old paint off, most of the metal came off with it unfortunately 🙄 The strange thing about this really rotten pipe is that the rest of the wheel arch and wheel well are not rotten at all, neither is the fuel tank neck and neither is the sub frame?? The corrosion protection that Rover specced on these fuel fillers must have been woefully inadequate.

This is worse than expected I thought! Anyway, a motorsport flexible fuel filler was obtained, the upper section of the old filler was ‘brazed’ back to health and treated to the same protection that modern Nissans have on their fuel filler systems.

It was pig to refit as we were missing the original securing bracket half way up the tube, but I got around that by fabricating a separate bracket to wrap around the tube and then fasten to the original bodywork mounting. This was probably the most difficult issue to resolve so far and having this sorted means the car has a good chance of surviving now.

[Carl1981]

Having the fuel filler refitted, I decided it was time to test it out, so off I went to get some fuel. This didn’t go well, We were in the midst of a fuel supply crisis, I couldn’t get E5. So I put a bit (£15) of E10 in it. Mmmm, that’s 2/3 of a tank showing on the gauge, it’ll be fine I thought. It wasn’t, she was virtually undriveable within a mile or two of leaving the fuel station. She coughed and spluttered, she wouldn’t idle, she’d rev up but not if she was in gear, when you could get her going she kangarooed like mad. Oh dear I thought, what I have done and how long will this last, have I really buggered something up here? Will there be any lasting negative effect 🥲

We tried to get as much of that fuel out as we could, but that wasn’t easy. I topped what was left up using an additive to make E10 the same as E5 and to try to protect the fuel system. I then topped the tank up with E5 when the gauge dropped to ¼. She improved mile by mile and ran better and better again. Until she got back to ¼ of a tank, she started to play up again, would idle, wouldn’t rev and stuttered at random. Great.

I got in a huff and did what I always do when an old car won’t behave, I banished it to someone else’s driveway and pretended she didn’t exist for a while.

She rewarded my childish appropriate response when I came back to her after a month, by having a dead battery. I charged her up and tinkered a bit, generally checking the things I’d already done and making sure I hadn’t done anything to make the car play up. General tinkering and time with the engine idling had dropped the the fuel level and the light was on now, so I thought I’ll take her to get some more fuel again. Afterall she hadn’t stuttered or played up at all over a couple of weekends of tinkering on the drive.

As soon as we pulled off the driveway she tried to die on me. Wouldn’t have any revs or power at all. She didn’t like pulling up without cutting out and wouldn’t pull away without choke, at all. Fuck.

I made it to the petrol station, put £28 of E5 in and planned to take her back and shove her back under the hedge from where I’d just got her! But she pulled out of the petrol station great, do I dare to put the choke away? Maybe in a minute I thought. She drove great, the stuttering was getting less, I daringly tried to accelerate and braced myself to be catapulted back and forth in my seat, but she just purred away. I pushed the choke away and drove around a little more, then I thought I’ll find a hill! She sailed up, finally she was fixed! E10 petrol was seemingly the cause all along.

She played up a bit (nothing like as a bad as before) again last week as she got near the bottom of the tank, but topping up with E5 again saw that disappear pretty quickly, hopefully whatever remnants of E10 are or were lingering in the tank are now watered down enough that it won’t affect the car going forward.

[tom13]

I'm not far from that place in Lye. Need to try them out it seems. Loving the T25 looks really nice now. Although it still looked great before.

[Carl1981]

Molly almost immediately rewarded me by losing her brake lights 🙄

I know these use an electrical switch, like the later mini's do. So I set about testing the switch and adjusting the position of the switch. This went well, the switch responded well to cleaning out with electrical contact cleaner, testing out of it's mounting bracket showed brake lights performing as expected. Excellent, something that has been simple to fix I thought.

Then, being the ham-fisted, sausage fingered, clumsy oaf that I am, I dropped one of the two retaining nuts somewhere down the back of the pedal assembly and carpet. Fuck. 

I had everything out, seats, carpet, sound proofing, everything. Could I find that stupid (and as it turns out bespoke to that one purpose on earth) odd sized stupid nut? I think not!

Fleabay to the rescue then, I found one for £3 delivered, great. 2 days for delivery, great again!

I took two weeks of waiting and letting the supplier know it hadn't arrived before they despatched a 'second' one to me. I carefully and nervously refitted the switch, being extremely careful not to drop the retaining nut, and success we have brake lights again!!! 

[Carl1981]

I decided to treat Molly to a thorough clean to reward her for running properly and having working brake lights again. This did three things…

1.       I found that my mates paintwork had micro blistered, only on the taligate, but still dissapointing. As I said earlier, he’s not well, so I’m not going to trouble him with it. If he comes back to work I’ll get him to flat it back out and do it again. If he doesn’t come back to work, I need to find a new body shop and prepare myself for proper prices ☹

2.       Gave me a chance to fit new better waist line seals on the windows.

Before:

After:

3.       Made me think about the scabby chrome trim in the bumpers. I found this a while ago

And I thought, yellow bumper trims would look way better than tired chrome. So I’ve given it a go and I think it really improves and cheers up the overall look.

I’ve now taken back possession of the Metro for daily duties. The wife had been using it for last week or two to save money on fuel. I really love this car and the positive reaction she gets from people, I really have never had another car like it, even the bright yellow bay window camper didn’t get such positive reactions from people.

I’m really looking forward to getting out to some shows in her this year, she’s not the very finest example going, but she’s certainly saved for now and probably looks better than she really is.

I’ve also got her booked in for a suspension rebuild with H&HS Ltd, that’s happening in May. The suspension is way too hard in this car, Metro’s (whilst never a brilliant ride) were much better than this one is back in the day.

[Broadsword]

Welcome, you have a fine fleet there. Always happy to see more Jaaaaags here!

[Carl1981]

13 minutes ago, Broadsword said:

Welcome, you have a fine fleet there. Always happy to see more Jaaaaags here!

Thanks. I'm currently at two Jags, one modern and one shiter. The shiter is my favourite though! Off to the Jaguar Breakfast Club meet on Saturday, it's XJ40 day so I shouldn't miss it really. I'll have a look at your posts shortly and see what flavour of Jag you're into.

[eddyramrod]

Welcome!

You're probably right about the Metro suspension, after all it's 30 years old now.  Here's one I had a decade ago when it, in turn, was 30...

It had been sitting around for some time and the suspension was right down.  You're seeing it here just after it had been pumped up.  The ride was still awfully hard, not like I remembered my previous Metro at all.  Where was this, you may ask.  It was in Paphos, Cyprus, where I was living when I joined AS.  This is one of two cars that came back with me, both of which I sold off ASAP to try and raise some funds.  If I'd kept it I would undoubtedly have had to do the same rebuild as you are now facing.

Good luck to you!

[Carl1981]

50 minutes ago, eddyramrod said:

Welcome!

You're probably right about the Metro suspension, after all it's 30 years old now.  Here's one I had a decade ago when it, in turn, was 30...

It had been sitting around for some time and the suspension was right down.  You're seeing it here just after it had been pumped up.  The ride was still awfully hard, not like I remembered my previous Metro at all.  Where was this, you may ask.  It was in Paphos, Cyprus, where I was living when I joined AS.  This is one of two cars that came back with me, both of which I sold off ASAP to try and raise some funds.  If I'd kept it I would undoubtedly have had to do the same rebuild as you are now facing.

Good luck to you!

Loving that metro van, that’s exactly the style of Metro I really wanted, I love those base spec lights at the front 😍
The orange one I had around the time I passed my driving test looked very similar, but was very, very rusty.

[Matty]

7 hours ago, Carl1981 said:

once I had one I realised they’re far too loud and I’m far too old to listen to all that row all the time

Made me chuckle that. I take it your the same age as me. Happens overnight, you go from "that sounds mint" to "I wish it'd shut the fuck up" 😄

[Shite Ron]

I like the fact you have two very smart L reg BL cars, it must look like 1994 outside your house,  I mean that in a very good way, both great colours too.

[Carl1981]

11 hours ago, Matty said:

Made me chuckle that. I take it your the same age as me. Happens overnight, you go from "that sounds mint" to "I wish it'd shut the fuck up" 😄

That’s right, it happened sometime in the last two years, because 4 or 5 years ago when the Empi exhaust went on thought exactly that ‘sounds mint!’ 😂

it annoys that much now I’ve gone to the expense of changing it again! 

[Carl1981]

11 hours ago, Shite Ron said:

I like the fact you have two very smart L reg BL cars, it must look like 1994 outside your house,  I mean that in a very good way, both great colours too.

The ‘80’s and early ‘90’s are a real sweet spot in cars for me. They were getting good enough to be reliable(ish) and not fall apart, but easy enough to fix at home.

the reason I seem to have gravitated towards 1994, is they’re cheap! Or at least they were when I got them. It wasn’t deliberate.

I love earlier stuff too, we have a couple of vintage Jowett cars and a 1950’s Jowett Jupiter in the family, which I love, but they’re not really cars you can daily drive or just enjoy driving. As they’re not really mine nor shite, I’ve not mentioned them as pert of this thread, but I will probably drop and update on here when we go to any shows with them.

[Metal Guru]

I think the reliability improvement from the mid 80s was almost entirely due to electronic ignition being introduced.

[Carl1981]

I’ve been getting the Jag ready for the breakfast club meet tomorrow…

first job was the air con, the belt was really loose but in good condition , I’ve tightened that up for now and I’m hopeful that’s why she’s been squealing sometimes.

not easy to get too, my arm looks like it’s had a fight with a cat now.

I then looked at the engine bay full of dust and cobwebs, that’s no good with the first show of the season upon us…

with that done I’ve given the interior a quick once over…

then time to give her a wash, but first I remembered I’d got a NOS part to fit! 😀

[Carl1981]

The boot lock trim was looking tired (up close)

so I fitted the new one…

what a faff, the boot liner had to come out. So did the number plate lights. The rubber between the trim and the boot lid has a life of its own, so you need about 7 hands to do this quickly! Took well over an hour in the end.

so final prep is a quick wash…

and now it’s snowing 🙄
 

a satisfying day of tinkering though!

[Carl1981]

Breakfast club meet was good, nice to get back out and about in an old car!

well supported by ‘40’s too…

[Carl1981]

Well not a lot has been happening the last few weeks, other than work. I’ve just not had time to progress my projects mess about with the cars unfortunately…

but today has been very exciting indeed, the Metro has been treated to some much needed love.

H&H have been around and replaced the hydragas system and it’s made a huge difference to the car, far beyond my expectations.

this was midway through the work.

when they arrived they checked suspensions travel and ride height. The only suspension travel we had up front was the flex in the tyres. The ride height was way down on where it should have been.

all four units have been replaced and the system pumped up to the correct ride height. Quick test drive, check the ride height and pump up to correct height again and the little beast is entirely transformed.

a recent before…

And now, look at that gap between the front wheel and arch 😮

 

can’t recommend these guys enough, great service and they really know there stuff!

These little cars have a surprisingly good ride when the suspension is working properly  doing anything at all!

[Carl1981]

Unfortunately I won’t get to use it much over the coming few days as I’ve got to finish relaying the driveway before anymore car activity can take place.

MOT on the Metro is due in a couple of weeks, first one in my care. So I’m utterly shitting it and desperately trying to work in some time to get the car prepared   trying to fit in a relaxing afternoon of MOT prep and definitely not finding more issues that need to be sorted out.

luckily the little bit of welding that she needs can be done by a mate at work next week. Welding isn’t something that I’ve learned to do, I imagine it’s way beyond my skills and patience!

I’ll be sure to get some photos of the work taking place and share the fail sheet  new MOT certificate with you at my earliest opportunity!

[Carl1981]

A bit of welding has happened …

 

not the best picture, apologies.

unfortunately I only have one picture of the repair…

and it’s not finished, and it’s the other side 🤣

The repair is much tidier now it’s done and when I next get to make progress play with the car, I’ll take some more of the repair being finished off and painted.

its MOT style repair rather than resto, but again it saves the car and gives it a chance to fight another day.

We couldn’t find any other rot under this, which was surprising, so now it basically needs any loose under seal stripping off and sorting out and a general refresh underneath.

the MOT is expired now and I have too much on to get into finishing the repairs and taking it for an MOT, but hopefully I’ll get it done in June.

oh yeah, and she’s started running lumpy and rich when on choke, which is disappointing! Seems ok when warm, but I always panic about HGF on these 😂