It vibrates everything comes off

[wuvvum]

The Ducato van ran out of T&T recently, and it needs a bit of loving, bless it - apart from a patch on the driver's sill, a sticky handbrake and a non-functioning horn (the only obvious MoT fails), it pulls badly to the right (Halfords reckoned the track rods are rusted solid), synchromesh has pretty much gone on the lower three gears, and the diff whines like a bereaved labrador between 30 and 60. So it's pretty good for motorway driving (sits at 75-80 quite happily and the diff has quietened down by that speed), but the lack of a useable handbrake and the need to double-declutch constantly render it a bit of a pain in the arse on the local trundling about that most of my driving consists of.

 

So I decided to lay it up for a while and look around for another cheap van. Somehow or other I ended up with this.

 

 

Yes, it's an Iveco. It's the baby of the Daily range - a SWB low top with the old 2.5 non-turbo Sofim engine. I had a Daily a while back and thought it was a bit rubbish, but then it wasn't a very good one - I was hoping a newer, better looked after example would be a different ballgame.

 

Nope. It's still not very good. The gearbox is still notchy (and has that useless crawler first gear on a dogleg), the engine still sounds unpleasant when worked hard, the electrics are still Italian and it still ain't very quick. A combination of lack of power and low gearing means its comfortable cruising speed is 60 - any more than that and it sounds like it's about to blow up.

 

To be fair to the old thing, it's still got more grunt than the LDV Convoy (although it's noisier), and handles a lot better too, with more precise steering. Being a SWB version of what is basically a light truck means it's quite heavy unladen, but also gives it a fantastic turning circle, and this one has the benefit of PAS unlike my last one. And from what I've found so far the electrical bits do all work - it's just the random warning lights and dashboard flickering that are disconcerting. It's got five months' test on it too, and three months' rent, so should do me for a while. And it has a functioning handbrake and working synchromesh, so should be less tiresome round town than the Fiat.

 

The drive back wasn't entirely uneventful though - I got pulled by plod on the M11 as it was showing up as uninsured (I'd added it to my trader's policy on Wednesday lunchtime but obviously the MID hadn't been updated by Wednesday evening). Cue half an hour sat on the hard shoulder trying to convince plod that the slightly scruffy looking bloke in an old Iveco van crawling up the M11 late at night was in fact fully legal. Thankfully they eventually gave me the benefit of the doubt; unfortunately they also gave me a producer for MoT, insurance and both parts of license, and I have absolutely no fugging idea where my paper counterpart is. Arse. Still, at least the old crate got me home OK.

 

 

Then this morning I went to Melton Mowbray to pick up this.

 

 

I've always quite liked these old things for some reason (GR9 4 zipping down bus lanes when late for work ). This one was advertised in the "commercial vehicle spares" section on eBay, and therefore didn't attract the attention it might have done elsewhere, and was mine for the princely sum of £255.01, with MoT until February.

 

It's been converted to a manual gearbox with a later "banana" Transit engine and drives OK for what it is - certainly better than the automatic one I had before. It's not fast, but sits happily at 60 and will just about do 70 if pushed. Took me a while to get used to driving one again though - the A606 between Melton and Stamford was interesting, as it's quite twisty in places and these things handle like an elephant on a skateboard and have rather vague but very high geared steering. I did have a couple of moments when I thought the back was going to try and overtake the front, which was amusing. I made the mistake of mentioning to my work colleagues that I was buying it, and they have now planned a works night out in November consisting of a pub crawl in my taxi, with one of the girls in the team who's 5 months pregnant as the designated driver. Could be an interesting night...

[Cheggers]

Good grief man, do you spend your life looking for the ugliest shite on eBay??? - a couple of top Halloween purchases there

[Cavcraft]

And to think I used to look up to you

 

Can you not get a 2.8TD lump for it? Obviously that could be too much money/not worth the extra but to be fair they don't half bloody go. Black cab is a massive winner though, I hope you have plans to drive round your nearest town centre on NYE and make a small fortune taking pissed up birds in short skirts home?

[Lufthansa-Terminal]

Any chance of more pictures of the cab when you have time? Thought about buying an ex taxi before in this or FX4 flavour so would be interesed in what they are like to live with.

[warren t claim]

Any chance of more pictures of the cab when you have time? Thought about buying an ex taxi before in this or FX4 flavour so would be interesed in what they are like to live with.

The Scimitar Picasso diesel is without doubt one of the worst vehicles ever made.

 

I made the mistake of buying a plated example as a taxi and I'm still regretting the decision 7 years later.

[M'coli]

whines like a bereaved labrador between 30 and 60

Bloody hell, I've never heard of a Labrador making it much past 20!

 

We are not worthy, by-the-way - you do have a nose for super autoshite.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Most kinds of 'black cabs' are HATEFUL. The newer ones are slightly less bad, but they are still pretty awful. A vehicle that's slow, rather spartan, uneconomical, with poor ride quality, only a tiny amount of room for luggage... I guess they could be interesting as a novelty shite purchase when you have a lot of other cars like wuvvum does, but it still is too miserable for me. I can't get my head round the idea that fare-payers get charged a premium price to take a taxi and have to endure a journey in one of these diabolical pieces of shit. Why can't we be like the French and have 607s instead?

[M'coli]

25 foot, that's all you need to know about the above post.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Turning circle? I bet the Pakistani cabbies in Leeds can do less than that in an Avensis.

[warren t claim]

I hope you own a grease gun.

[dollywobbler]

Moar top drawer Autoshite! Great stuff. Never liked the Metrocabs, despite being a Brummie. I've driven a rare, low miles FX4 and thought it was ace. Allowing for crapness...

[Lankytim]

That cab is great, i'd love to have a go at driving that!!

That IVECO is not as great. Sorry.

[Lord Sterling]

Wow, is this one of those, it was a great idea at the time sort of purchases? Hats off for buying possibly one of the worst and most hated vans 4 eva lyke.

 

The Black Cab looks great. Never driven one despite my mates egging me on to be a cabby. But I've this real urge to want to drive one though.

[Albert Ross]

You're going to have to get the pregnant girl to hurry up driving for the piss up... Room behind the wheel is limited enough without having a hitch-hiker up yer foof. Apparently.

[theorganist]

Excellent, love the Taxi particularly.

 

I really like the idea of buying random, unusual shite for no reason in particular!!

[maxpower]

i was looking at getting a black cab, but the prices quoted for a cab that has done a zillion miles was a bit o.t.t

 

and don't use the bus lane if it doesn't have the taxi licence plate on the back coz they will still fine you

[Pete-M]

The old Turbo Dailys were ace. There. I've said it.

 

Ok, they weren't ace in a conventional way, but they're spectacularly Italian. The massive rocker switches, huge ashtrays, nuclear heater, illegible clocks, massively variable gear selection and strangely 131ish pedal feel.

 

On the few days the things have nothing wrong with them they're great fun. They really don't find the UK climate at all agreeable, but I've driven a few in Europeland that seemed to work a lot better than ours do.

 

Metrocabs are weird.

[scooters]

Most kinds of 'black cabs' are HATEFUL. The newer ones are slightly less bad, but they are still pretty awful. A vehicle that's slow, rather spartan, uneconomical, with poor ride quality, only a tiny amount of room for luggage... I guess they could be interesting as a novelty shite purchase when you have a lot of other cars like wuvvum does, but it still is too miserable for me. I can't get my head round the idea that fare-payers get charged a premium price to take a taxi and have to endure a journey in one of these diabolical pieces of shit. Why can't we be like the French and have 607s instead?

 

Nonsense!

 

Black cabs are uber shite and the fact the are slow etc... is exactly why you'd want one. Is like to see a cheese eating-German welcoming- lamb in lorry roasting - shoulder shrugging- moral fibre lacking- layby shitting 607 clock up 500k AND run 24-7 on a two driver rota.

 

I can has love them and especially in metrocab shite spec...bus lanes here we come!

[scooters]

i was looking at getting a black cab, but the prices quoted for a cab that has done a zillion miles was a bit o.t.t

 

and don't use the bus lane if it doesn't have the taxi licence plate on the back coz they will still fine you

 

Get an old license plate from a different town. It won't work in Nazi cities like London where cameras will get you but safe elsewhere. A mate has been driving round Edinburgh in one for months ...even gets let out by other taxi drivers!

[wuvvum]

and don't use the bus lane if it doesn't have the taxi licence plate on the back coz they will still fine you

It does still have the taxi plate on the back - it expired end of September, but you have to be pretty close to read the date.

[wuvvum]

Can you not get a 2.8TD lump for it?

I had thought about it, but if I did that I'd really need to change the diff as well, or it'd end up like my uncle's old 1959 Mini - he'd dropped in a 1275 Cooper S engine but kept the 850 diff, so it did 0-60 in about 9 seconds but ran out of revs at 78, and did about 20mpg as a result. Although with a 2.8 TD and the crawler first gear I could probably quite literally pull a house down with it. Like you say though, probably more hassle than it's worth.

 

I hope you have plans to drive round your nearest town centre on NYE and make a small fortune taking pissed up birds in short skirts home?

Why only on NYE?

[wuvvum]

I took the taxi for a drive over to a mate's last night, and can confirm that the headlights are GR9 by Metrocab standards - to the extent that I can cruise at 60 on an unlit road and actually see where I'm going. Dashboard lighting is interesting though - the instruments themselves are backlit so the markings can be clearly read, but the needles aren't lit at all so you can't actually see where the needle is pointing unless it happens to be sat over one of the numbers.

 

Oh, and the ride really isn't that bad in the front - it's only the passengers on the rear bench that really get a rough deal ride-wise, and that's an inevitable consequence of being sat directly over a cart-sprung live axle unfortunately.

[Cavcraft]

Please post some more pictures of the Metrocab, have a weird love for these sort of things.

Does your Iv*co have that rather stupid accelerator pedal arrangement where there's a bolt in the bottom that gets stuck into the rubber matting? That was always a good laugh when you're overtaking three or four lorries on one go on the A5.

[wuvvum]

Does your Iv*co have that rather stupid accelerator pedal arrangement where there's a bolt in the bottom that gets stuck into the rubber matting? That was always a good laugh when you're overtaking three or four lorries on one go on the A5.

It hasn't got stuck as yet. Mind you, I don't think I'll be overtaking any lorries in any number of goes in this one. I seem to recall my last Daily suffering from stuck accelerator syndrome a couple of times though, now that you mention it.

[Cavcraft]

Seem to recall it's a fairly easy fix if it does have that daft bolt arrangement. Think we had a small washer welded to it to stop it happening again, though it's a long while (nigh on ten years) since I last drove one.

We had ones that were about 5.5 tonnes to 'compliment' some mega high miles Transits and a handful of Euro Cargos. For slowness (and the ability to make you want to kill the people who cobbled them together) though you really need to try a 75E14 with the hopeless four cylinder wheezer.

 

The 2.8 ones would go off the end of the clock (tacho) without trying and we often got complaints from people who followed us at daft speeds and got the telephone number from the doors.

I bottled out at 88mph down hill (near Llanfair Caerinion) and another lad had an 'official' complaint after being followed doing 95mph on a flat part of the A55.

 

Right, sorry for the digression, does your Metrocab have the Metro (car)/LDV type dashboard?

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

The 2.8 ones would go off the end of the clock (tacho) without trying and we often got complaints from people who followed us at daft speeds and got the telephone number from the doors.

I bottled out at 88mph down hill (near Llanfair Caerinion) and another lad had an 'official' complaint after being followed doing 95mph on a flat part of the A55.

 

Just how bloody deranged does one have to be in order to admit in writing that they broke the speed limit by a considerable margin only because they wanted to complain about a random person who simply couldn't wait to get out of an Iveco van?

[barrett]

Wuvvum, you are a mentalist. Must be up to nearly 20 vehicles again now, shirely?

 

Since someone on this forum pointed out the correct way to pronounce 'Iveco' I've been merrily saying IVE-ETCHO! out loud every time I see one I just love how it sounds... so thanks for now making me do it at my monitor.

[scaryoldcortina]

There are 2 metrocabs in the scrappy over the road from my yard if you need any bits.

[wuvvum]

Here's a few more pics for those that asked for them.

 

Rear view.

 

Dashboard.

 

In the back, complete with jump seats.

 

Titchy boot - just big enough for spare wheel, wheechair ramps and emergency fuel supply

[Lufthansa-Terminal]

Wow / how old does that dashboard and clunky switchgear look?

Nice one