Today I mostly .....

[GvidoR]

Changed oil and filter on the Astra. The sump plug is torx 50, which I thought was weird.



Picked up a few VW bits the other day as well.

[GvidoR]

Put in some LED licence plate bulbs.



And also reserved my free Windows 10 upgrade.

[chainsawdaz]

Free windows 10?! What,how?

[Neil Chowney]

If selected to be one of the chosen ones a windows icon will appear in the bottom right hand tool tray on the windows* desktop. Click to be enrolled in the free upgrade.

























* FAO Mac users. This is the operating system that the rest of the world uses. It does not concern you, please go back to sleep....

Hi Mary.....

[Zelandeth]

Today I mostly...

Started dragging the Saab back into the land of the living after its six month vacation under the tree in our garden. It was laid up there back in October when the alternator started playing up (it still is, reckon it just needs a new set of brushes as it sorts itself out for a few starts when whacked with a screwdriver) and the MOT ran out.

Took it in for an MOT today expecting this to give me a list of things to add to my list of niggles, and was honestly shocked that it only failed on one thing...This.



(technically it also failed on a duff brake light bulb - but I don't count that as I'm sure if it hadn't been for the welding it would have been a "fix it when you get home" given the sensible approach of the guys there.

Don't reckon that's bad going really, especially given the poor thing hadn't turned a wheel since October until this morning.

[Neil Chowney]

Found an old photo of my first Lada with the original 1600 engine.

Boondocks.jpg (499.48 KiB) Viewed 17767 times

Once again Billy-no-mates has to sort out his own soggy electrics.........

[GvidoR]

Picked this up yesterday for £179 with MOT until 12-12-2015.

[GvidoR]

Impossible to kill? Well, that's good to know.

I replaced the bumper and got some OEM hub caps. Total cost: £14.30

[GvidoR]

I'll keep that in mind, thanks.

Today I removed that awful window tint.

[Zelandeth]

Today I mostly...Yes, it's 6:15 in the morning...

Have been up all night because BT are playing around with the telephone service in our area it seems, and it keeps going down for 20-30 minutes then coming back up. How do I know this? Because we have an intruder alarm - which triggers the alarm if it loses comms with the receiving centre...So about every 30 minutes since midnight I've had *BEEEEP* *BEEEEP* *BEEEEP...* from downstairs, and had to go and silence the blasted thing.

To say I am displeased would be something of an understatement...

They of course claim that there are no faults in our area.

So I'm now sitting here basically waiting to see whether it's going to go off again...

[Hannesb]

I feel your pain...

[Zelandeth]

Got the Saab back from the garage with a fresh MOT. That hole actually turned into quite a tricky little bit of reconstructive surgery once the rusty metal was out, think five separate pieces of metal were used in the end to form the quite complex shape.

Also spent most of the afternoon and evening building our new shed (so I can get my garage back!). 90% done now. Two roof panels and the trim pieces left to do.

Will be up and on the road before 4AM tomorrow to head down to the Goodwood Festival Of Speed...going to be a long day!

[Zelandeth]

Just back...been up for roughly 21 hours, slightly knackered!

Highlights of the day many and varied, but seeing the Napier Railton on the move is always fantastic to see (and hear!), but the stand out one for me today was seeing a car from 1905 being properly belted up the hill - quicker than much of the modern metal! Those are two brave (and slightly mad) men!

I have to confess to having a massive soft spot for the pre-war land speed record cars...they are such fantastic bits of fire-spitting brute force engineering...28.5 litre 4-pot anyone? That makes a noise that makes anyone grin as it goes by.

The rally stage is always good fun too (especially when the wind co-operates so you can see anything), though sadly there was no sign of the Riva up there this year...and I ask the same question again...where's the Estelle? There were even a couple of class competitors there this year, so there could have been a bit of friendly rivalry like there is between the Escorts etc. ...though the 60s Escorts are as always a huge laugh to watch going sideways around most of the circuit. ...and watching a Saab 96 get air never gets old.

[Hannesb]

...rediscovered my shocking ineptitude when it comes to using a MIG...

My right hand inner wheel arch appeared to have a hole in it; of course it turned out to be a two-part item (with quite a bit missing) upon closer inspection. During the musings about how to make a template to replace the bottom third of said arch it occurred to me that rather than using bits of cardboard to try and get the right shape and size I could just use the left hand one as an example. It turned out to need some surgery as well, but at least it was almost complete. Many, many minutes of cutting sheet metal later I had two bits in the right size and shape, but my skills at welding are woefully inadequate. Still, the metalwork is done, just waiting for the stonechip to dry before I can put the rubber bits back on and then (hopefully) refit the two arches.

Should have just bought new ones...

[Zelandeth]

Today I mostly...

Replaced the radiator and A/C condenser in the 107. What a faff!

Mainly because I discovered something interesting about how the radiator is mounted in the 107. At the top it has two plastic pegs which slot into holes in the slam panel. Fair enough, I figure the bolt/brakets must be at the bottom. Nope...The bottom has two identical pegs which fit into holes in the bottom front crossmember. You have to remove the bloody crossmember to change the radiator. That is held on by six bolts made of cheese (I need to go back later and drill out the two which snapped when I looked at them), but to get to those you have first remove the entire front bumper and the big plastic impact shock absorber thing - which is held on by about three thousand bolts and plastic clips, most of which you can't see.

Job done now, and in the grand scheme of things it wasn't really that *difficult* - just that it was ten times harder and more time consuming than it needed to be - I'd swear that design had been done quite deliberately to ensure that the dealers can charge every minute of labour they can possibly get away with when changing a rad. Which being one of those stupid hybrid ally/plastic affairs you're going to have to every so often.

Having said that...the ones on the 1.7i Nivas had plastic end tanks and I don't recall ever having problems with them...

Oh...and I hate doing the whole bleed and test procedure in a car which doesn't have a temperature gauge...