Today I mostly .....

[Zelandeth]

Ah, sadly I'm one of those people who refuses to touch Facebook. First thing it did on my grabbing an account there (mainly so nobody can use it to pretend to be me - have played that game before), was to start trying to reconnect me with former school classmates. I've never communicated with any of these people any way other than face-to-face, nor given Facebook permission to access my contacts, information on where I went to school, grew up etc...nor even my actual name. ...yet it still immediately started to try to reconnect me with a bunch of people I've spent the last 15 years trying to forget as they made my life a living hell when I was at school.

It's frightening what they can work out from an email address it seems...as that's all they've got!

[Zelandeth]

Thermostat on the Skoda changed. I'd planned to put the original water pump back on as it's now been proven to be nothing to do with the overheating problems - however gave up on that for now on account of it being *really* well stuck to its housing. So decided to ignore that, put things back together (including a half hour fight with that 2" long bit that connects the water pump to the heater hose return line.

Given it another quick once over today prior to the MOT tomorrow - just need to pick up another set of wiper blades then we should be good to go...then it's fingers crossed time.

Will also be taking the Activa over for the test as well, so that will be my first time actually even sitting in that car...Not expecting any problems with that though knowing the gent who owns it and his attention to detail!

[Zelandeth]

Had to fill the Xantia up today, ended up doing an unexpected (rapid) longer run yesterday so it was a bit lower than I usually let the fuel gauge get - still well above empty though. I'd forgotten how big the tank in these things is! £74 worth of fuel disappeared into the tank...ouch.

[Neil Chowney]

.....cleaned all the gutters on the house and garage and polished all lthe gutters, soffits and boarding.

Put up a lot of outside crimbo lights.

Sorted out leak on pond.

Put up two new outside lights.

Started looking at a new expresso machine and grinder........

[Neil Chowney]

Tree's up and illuminated

[Andrew353w]

Had to fill the Xantia up today, ended up doing an unexpected (rapid) longer run yesterday so it was a bit lower than I usually let the fuel gauge get - still well above empty though. I'd forgotten how big the tank in these things is! £74 worth of fuel disappeared into the tank...ouch.

I've just sold mine! Pathetic as this might sound, I was in tears as the new owner drove off down the road in my 204,000 miles Xantia. I sold it primarily because we needed a tougher car for the lanes, tracks and rutted fields of Devon to where we plan to move and I now own a 2011 Subaru Forester. I'll always miss the Citroën, though! The tank has a capacity of 65 litres (according to Citroën...) but I once s-q-u-e-e-z-e-d 72 litres into the tank! That hurt my wallet more than somewhat!

[Zelandeth]

Had to fill the Xantia up today, ended up doing an unexpected (rapid) longer run yesterday so it was a bit lower than I usually let the fuel gauge get - still well above empty though. I'd forgotten how big the tank in these things is! £74 worth of fuel disappeared into the tank...ouch.

I've just sold mine! Pathetic as this might sound, I was in tears as the new owner drove off down the road in my 204,000 miles Xantia. I sold it primarily because we needed a tougher car for the lanes, tracks and rutted fields of Devon to where we plan to move and I now own a 2011 Subaru Forester. I'll always miss the Citroën, though! The tank has a capacity of 65 litres (according to Citroën...) but I once s-q-u-e-e-z-e-d 72 litres into the tank! That hurt my wallet more than somewhat!

They're an easy car to get attached to. I spent a lot of time regretting moving on my old 1.9TD, though it made sense at the time. I needed space on the driveway, and it was the car with a few issues at the time.

Imagine there may be scope for another one in your life at some point, it's quite possible still to pick up one is pretty good order for not much money. Prices will rise I'm sure in time, but I reckon it will be a good while before they really get expensive.

I'd not planned on getting the Activa, but I sure as heck wasn't going to turn down the opportunity when it turned up! Aside from the uncanny ability it has to dispatch corners and roundabouts with seemingly no regard for physics, it's by a long shot the quickest thing I've ever owned. Second possibly to my Renault 25 Monaco, up there as the most comfortable too. Heated seats you could cook dinner on have been most welcome in the last couple of weeks!

Think I may well have seen your for sale thread over on FCF, do you know if the buyer's a member over there too?

[Neil Chowney]

another leak on your pond Neil? It's a Niva pond!

It's the fish... they're drinking all the water..

......i've told them to cease and desist....

if it carries on i'm going to grass them up to the local heron and pass their address onto him......

[rid54]

... looked at my Niva, concluded that I didn't need 4WD to get to my "country resort" and drove off in a PT Cruiser for a few days away from the Christmas hysteria, in the backcountry of Örebro county in Sweden. So far all seems good. No boars in the garden, no badgers in the house and the fireplaces draw nicely.

A very happy Christmas to you all!

[Tom.]

[Zelandeth]

Spent entirely too many hours reading up on the rise and fall of the Invacar. Fascinating little machines, and I rather fancy one of the later ones. Something tiny and manageable to take to shows just for fun.

I also like seeing something that was once both almost a label of shame in society and seen as something of a mechanical joke having come full circle to an object of interest that people enjoy seeing and investigating. Seeing Lada having do just that (I liked them when they still had very much that label) has been quite an interesting journey.

Sadly finding one of these is likely to be something of a challenge as the vast majority were scrapped in a massive cull in 2003. There are also loopholes involved in getting them road legal, though that is apparently a lot easier than it used to be.

Glass fibre body, single seat, three wheels, kerb weight of well less than half a tonne, and a Steyer-Puch 600cc twin cylinder engine at the back. Don't reckon that would actually be as slow as rumour would have it... especially with a few tweaks...

Just what I needed, something else for the list. Great!

[Andrew353w]

I knew a guy who had one and a few years ago he took me for a ride in it; him at the controls & me sitting on a box next to him... never again! They're frightening things at anything over about 20 mph although this impression may have been enhanced by the driver weighing in at way over 14 stone and me at a good 13+ stone!

That said, the noise was terrible and the ability to control it were frightening! I owned a 1995 Reliant Robin for a few years and that took careful handling, but was a "walk in the park" compared to an Invacar! Still, buy one (if you can track one down!) and get the itch scratched!

[Zelandeth]

Yes, it's worth stating that its intended purpose would be purely for entertainment purposes rather than really being intended as a serious form of transport!

[Zelandeth]

Well, yesterday...

Stuck the now charged battery back in the 107. Really need to take it out for a run shortly.

Let the Riva burble away to itself for an hour or so with the heater on full blast to get some of the damp out of the interior. It's not entirely water tight.

Tested out the CD changer in the Xantia. Wasn't expecting much from a 21 year old changer, but it actually seems to work absolutely perfectly. Not ever likely to see much use as the (original) head unit has a line in socket anyway, nice to know it's there though.

Also have (seemingly inevitably) started actually looking around for an Invacar. Really need to move on the sick Saab and ideally the 107 before I get anything else, but given there are probably well less than 100 of them left, they don't turn up for sale all that often. So I'm starting to dig now. If one appears in the short term it's not as though they take up much room...

[Zelandeth]

Today I mostly...

Failed to find my spare Xantia heater blower in the garage. Not ideal as the one in the Activa has progressed now from "temperamental but usually works when I hit it" to "dead." A friend just up the road has a spare though, so no big issue.

In other news, possible new project car spotted...Needs quite a bit of cosmetic surgery though.