collection mission to SPAIN!!!! COMPLETED IT M8

[danthecapriman]

1 hour ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

'KIN NORA

Only had a blowout didn't I, on the flippin motorway as well. Thought 'Jesus they need to sort this road surface out' then looked and saw there was nothing wrong with the road surface at all. Pulled over next to an orange telephone and found the RH rear tyre flat. Fuck!!! The last thing I want is to be fannying about beside the Autoroute. Now get this. This very morning I decided to check the spare. It was present, but almost flat. I pumped it up at a service station and it held air but was very badly cracked on the sidewall.

So, I got my hi-vis on and changed it. Wish id timed it as i was FAST AS FUCK. I reckon 6 mins between stopping and setting off again. I thought 'this spare isn't going to last 2 minutes once it gets some heat into it' but to my amazement it held on and I left the motorway 10kms later.

Driving along I was thinking 'Jesus I've got a right problem here. Now I've got not 1 but 2 shite tyres and no spare!!! And it's a holiday weekend and I've got to do 600 miles on Sunday!!!! And I can't wait till Monday and go home a day or two late cos my Volvo is clogging up some poor sods driveway in Peterborough!!!! HOLY SHIT OMG ITS A FUCKING DISASTER AAAAARRRGGHHH-

After about an hour of driving and stressing I went past this place.

Now obvs it's in the shiters DNA to crane his neck when passing a yard full of knackered old shit cars. In doing so I saw the word 'pneu' and also that there were 2 geezers stood in the doorway despite it being 6.10 on Friday evening. I thought 'there's bound to be a couple of 13" tyres in amongst that lot he can sell me' so did a quick U turn and went in.

He had a great workshop full of rammel including a 2-dr Jeep Cherokee in full yellow and black 'Renault Service' livery. I explained the problem, and said I was open to any ideas including secondhand tyres or even a new pair of a different size, as long as they were 13 inchers. After some ratching he turned up a new pair of 155/80 13  tyres from well known liquorice allsort recycler 'Habilead' 😀 I told him that would solve my problem and to name his price.

€130 the pair!!!! LOL he clearly detected the stress in my voice but I would have paid more tbh just to get this problem outof the way. Cash only so I had to zip to an ATM and come back, but at least I have some raw materials to keep the job rolling.

Hopefully I can find someone to fit these for me tomorrow. To my surprise my mum has a flippin compressor (has your mum got that? If not ask her why not) so if all else fails I'll have to find a big hammer and some metal bars and fit em myself (and get vibration white finger driving home on unbalanced 'Habileads'). Jesus!!!!

That one post there has got to be one of my favourite single posts ever on this site! 
Once realising you and the little brown rig had survived the blow out, that comment about the road surface is brilliant!😆    
What a blinding stroke of luck that was finding those tyres too.

1 hour ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

Apart from that, 'Doc Brown' has been going absolutely great guns. I left the Autoroute at Limoges then drove across country to Poitiers then Chatellerault. All on RN and D (dépertementale) roads. The last bit from Poitiers onwards was 'all time great drive' material. The weather cooled a bit and I was just zipping across open countryside in the evening sun at like 70-90kmh, which is the Simca 1100 'sweet spot'. Just check out these roads

Attempted a cheeky Vmax near here, got to an indicated 115 (about 72 mph) then remembered the lousy state of my tyres so slowed down again. Anyway it was glorious, just perfect driving conditions and I was able to really bond with the small brown car. 

Here we are at Mutha B's gaff having a brew. 1100kms covered so far. Fantastic!!!

Those roads do look great, but, just look at how well kept and tidy they are too. 
If that was this country the road would be a patchwork of ancient surfaces and bits every man and his dog had been digging up and patching up, but also like a section of the Somme with craters and pot holes everywhere. 
The grass verge would be left long too, probably covered in rubbish and bottles of piss and definitely not have that beautifully kept straight edge to the road surface.

Glad this is going so well so far. I wish I had the balls to just go do something like this!

[egg]

On 09/05/2024 at 07:51, egg said:

internet broken confirmed!

Jeez, no wonder AS has been slow! 😲 

[RobT]

1 hour ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

To my surprise mum has a flippin compressor (has your mum got that? If not ask her why not) so if all else fails I'll have to find a big hammer and some metal bars and fit em myself

'Venger boyz revisited 👌

[Cavcraft]

Don't reckon they'd take too much persuasion to part company with the rims, especially the now flat one. Guessing both the bigger ones would go on the back, so hopefully you'd not have to worry about the balance.  Bonus is they've got to be an easier size to match in the UK (155/155-80 tyres were on shit loads of cars back in the day) compared to 145s.

 

 

*Habilead tyres is an anagram of 'readably shite'.

[mk2_craig]

Why be winner when you can be leader?

[Essex V6]

1 hour ago, egg said:

Garage Patrier goes down in AS folklore then...(street view)

 

Loving the fact that every motor in the photo is French!

[Essex V6]

45 minutes ago, Sigmund Fraud said:

Tell me about it ! I had a high-stakes job interview yesterday afternoon, but instead of brushing up on my management speak or memorising the company strategy and organograms I spent the entire morning checking the progress of Mr B's madcap adventure.

Don’t suppose any of the questions were about Simca’s?

[wuvvum]

I think my favourite bit from today's posts is that Mr_B stops at a random garage in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, and Spottedlaurel immediately recognises it and knows the location just from the photo.  I know the phrase "it's a small world" is very over-used, but sometimes it's scarily accurate.

[warren t claim]

Does anyone here have any experience of Simca's when they were current? IIRC, our local Talbot dealer ran a van version until about 1985 but that's about it. I don't even remember driving any around the auction ring in 1988 as they'd all disappeared by then.

[Mr Pastry]

2 hours ago, warren t claim said:

Does anyone here have any experience of Simca's when they were current?

Not enough to make me an expert, but I have driven the rear engined 1000s which seemed pleasant enough for a small family car but not very exciting - did not go fast enough to experience the infamous handling.   Then we had Horizons on the fleet when they were new.  I thought these were a good package, roomy, comfortable and quite easy to work on.   They had a very odd feel to the steering, but you got used to it.  Overall, likeable and more interesting than the ever-present Escorts and Fiestas, but didn't seem as solid or well built as a Ford. 

[Spottedlaurel]

Even at the biggish French show I went to last summer I didn't see any, but I have seen a handful on previous trips:

 

 

Plus a van on a wet day in 1980!

[Sham]

My mother had an 1100 when I was about 6, sadly I don't remember much except that she had it for a long time and she liked it. It was also brown.

I'm loving this thread.

[Surface Rust]

On 27/04/2024 at 07:37, Surface Rust said:

Don't forget your tyre levers!

Looking forward to this! What happens if it fails the CT?

I apologise, I think the tyre dramas were my fault for foreshadowing way back on page 1!

Glad to hear it didn't impede progress thanks to your F1 pitcrew skills.

[auntiemaryscanary]

1 hour ago, Spottedlaurel said:

Even at the biggish French show I went to last summer I didn't see any, but I have seen a handful on previous trips:

 

 

Plus a van on a wet day in 1980!

I like how you remember that you have an appropriate photo from 1980, but more than impressed you can actually find it!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Day off from driving today, just going to try and find someone who can fit these tyres for me

[EyesWeldedShut]

6 hours ago, warren t claim said:

Does anyone here have any experience of Simca's when they were current? IIRC,

One of my part-time summer jobs aged 18 involved driving a blue 1100 van owned by the local car fixer-upper - run into town and pickup parts, drop people off - that sort of thing. I don't remember it as being anything weird or outrageous to drive. (Other stuff I drove for him included a Datasun 1000, Fiat 124, Escort Mk1 van (hammerite finish - ooooh!) so you can see what I was comparing it with).
My dad bought a Horizon from new in 1983 (1300 I think) and that was less archaic in places but still felt like the Simca van to drive.
Child bride's father bought a new Simca on a P (1976) plate - they took it with them for a three year stint in Hong Kong in 1979 and she says it never came back alive following attacks by virulent, Asiatic tin worm.

[Blue 850]

Day off? Better take little blue Simca of the F5 then...

[tooSavvy]

Hows about a 'scratch repair' nail brush Met Bronze + this....

 

.... as a Welcome Home, for TheBoll 😉👍

🚙💨

[Richard_FM]

When I was young my next door neighbours had a Simca 1100, which was replaced by a Lada Riva estate or 2.

[danthecapriman]

4 hours ago, Spottedlaurel said:

 

 

 

Cor, that sun baked Crapi can come live here. It’ll have a blue friend then too! That’s the sort of thing I’d love to go over there and drive back.

 

I don’t really have much experience of these Simca’s tbh. Very occasionally I remember seeing one around, usually quite rough looking by then, and I do remember the Dodge branded van version, mainly because as a kid I knew the Dodge brand - big American stuff! But this one was not!! 
My grandad had a Horizon for quite some time. He got it as a used car after his mk1 Fiesta got written off by a big pipe rolling off the back of a truck coming around a bend in the opposite direction. 
I always remember going in it as a kid with my cousin, it was green with a lovely soft springy beige interior. He had it quite a long time but it did deteriorate quickly… not all of that was the cars fault or build quality either!! It always felt very tinny and quite ‘light’ in its construction though. My uncle had an Escort mk3 estate at the time which seemed much more robust and solid. Didn’t have the character or as nice an interior though. 
The Horizon eventually became so rusty my uncle called it a day on it! He was a skilled welder and he used to do all the car repairs for my grandparents and the Horizon just got so rusty underneath it was becoming difficult to find anything solid enough to weld to anymore so it was retired. Replaced by a Y reg Metro. 
That wasn’t the end of the green Horizon though! Grandad sold it to a couple of guys who rebuilt it as an amateur rally car! It never saw the road again though. 
But, if I ever saw that car again (unlikely as that is!) I’d buy it in a heartbeat to restore.

[Split_Pin]

My lasting memory of an 1100 is of a blue example, very similar to the ripe one posted above, laying dormant in a driveway with a flat OSR rear tyre, for several years. This would have been the early 1980s and I would have been about 3 years old. 

Or when I was in Menorca in '93 and one came trundling along the road as I was retrieving a ball and it peeped its horn to warn me it was there.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Got an appointment at 'Nor_Auto' at 2 pm to get my tyres fitted. Costing €57!!! Between the train strikes and these tyres I'm in for about £250 of unexpected costs but what can you do? It's all gonna have to go on the credit card & get sorted out later.

[tooSavvy]

I'm *getting an 1100. Repaint bronze to follow...

I shall 'add' your touchup panel colour mix, as a tribute 👍♥️

🚙💨

[egg]

20 minutes ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

Got an appointment at 'Nor_Auto' at 2 pm to get my tyres fitted

In 'track Bo11' I'm guessing in Perrusson or Chatellerault?

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Loches!!

[egg]

2 minutes ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

Loches!!

Ah OK, also called Perrusson branch online.

Looks like it's on a generic suburban industrial estate

[lesapandre]

37 minutes ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

Got an appointment at 'Nor_Auto' at 2 pm to get my tyres fitted. Costing €57!!! Between the train strikes and these tyres I'm in for about £250 of unexpected costs but what can you do? It's all gonna have to go on the credit card & get sorted out later.

Cost of the tyres in the country and now fitting are about average for France. You are not in any way being fleeced.

Those panels - I'd have a go at hand painting and flatting back. 

Looks great fun. 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Yeah I don't really feel like I'm getting done over. It's just what stuff costs innit!!!

 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Right here's where I'm at. Got one burst tyre (Now in the boot). One MOT fail tyre:

(Told you it was bad)

And one former spare tyre:

Basically I have 3 fucked tyres and 2 new ones. I think the cracked one is more dangerous than the worn out one. So I'm going to ask to replace the ruined blowout tyre and the cracked former spare, fit the news on the front axle and move the MOT fail to the spare. I feel theres still some risk that NOR_AUTO will say 'were not touching this absolute  disaster area' but we'll see.

[wuvvum]

5 hours ago, Spottedlaurel said:

Plus a van on a wet day in 1980!

It's a shame that's a still photo and not a video - with CX and 604 wiper action in the same shot Dollywobbler would need a change of trousers.