philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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Mar 15, 2023 21:35:48 GMT
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Small update, over the winter I have noticed a wet patch under the fiesta and although I have not topped the coolant up and it is still visible in the header tank I obviously had a leak. I had replaced the radiator when I painted the car but that is 8/9 years ago now but I am still not impressed as it has done very little milage over that period. Anyway on looking for the leak it was obvious that the seal between the core and the plastic end tank on the rad was weeping. No problem I thought go on ebay they are about £50. Think again, nearly £200 for one if you can find one and then be back in the same situation at some point. So I opted for an alloy one at £235. I rubbed the duster over it and did a couple of laps of the estate to satisfy myself that it was OK levels wise and bled correctly and all appears to be fine. A couple of trades men working on houses on the estate nearly fell off the ladders trying to get a look which made me smile. I have a few months MOT remaining yet and waiting on discs and pads to turn up which will go on along with a fluid change. It is usable though and Curborough has a members day on Saturday so it would be rude not to go and have a go. I am doing well actually as I got my bike ready for summer a few weeks back so I have 2 Sunday options now.
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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I have had both petrol and diesel st versions and 2 x 2.0 tdci and tddi. As above injectors, flywheel and fuel pumps along with rust. If you buy one just treat the half tank mark as empty, I always did this and never ran into pump trouble. It's been a while but something changed on the engine when the side skirts were updated on St tdci models (dpf fitted maybe) I bought a 55 plate at the time to avoid that. I never gelled with the st tdci and I got rid, I would have another 2.0 tdci but I would be willing to throw it away if something expensive came up. Do you do many miles? A 1.6 petrol focus is more robust item in my experience you have to do a lot of miles to make a diesel make sense or a need for a bigger car. With fuel prices the way they are a petrol car doing approximately 40mpg is as cheap to run as a diesel doing 47mpg without considering the repair bills.
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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Speedwell pod tachophilsford
@philsford
Club Retro Rides Member 100
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Feb 27, 2023 15:08:37 GMT
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How much you looking for? I could be interested.
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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Childhood dream car for salephilsford
@philsford
Club Retro Rides Member 100
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Feb 22, 2023 12:02:07 GMT
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I have seen a few posts on Facebook over the last couple of years from the current owner and previous owner. The car does look well, the colour is perfect and I have always wanted one. I must resist.
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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Some nice repairs going on here but where do you stop? Are you going to work your way right to the front to eliminate all the rusty bits or call it a win and get back to driving it? I just want porsche progress. Lol. I bet the workshop is nearly finished now though which will speed repairs up? Joking aside it is great to see the progress,
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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No updates for a few weeks but I have not been sitting idle. First up I got some blinds up in the shed. Nothing fancy at approximately £25 for both and a little trimming later, it makes it look properly finished from outside and takes your eye of all the junk through the windows. Next up a couple of weeks before Xmas on a Saturday I had been out early for reasons I cannot remember but came home about 1pm and went to the downstairs w/c and it sounded like a tap was running which I put down to someone being in the shower or the upstairs toilet filling. I felt a bit rough and sat watching TV all afternoon. I went to the downstairs w/c about 6pm and thought to myself "what the hell is that noise" which now sounded like the fire brigade was running a hose off my supply. I dashed into the garage to find a cold water supply pipe to the outside tap must have frozen and split the pipe! Perfect! The inside of the garage was now like a disaster scene with everything sobbing wet after god knows how many gallons of water had been dumped all over my cars, bike and tools. I isolated the leaking pipe and spent a couple of hours mopping up but it was that weekend where the temp changed and everyone had condensation in the garage, which made drying it out even harder. So I dug the bike out and put it in the nice dry shed. This made me remember that the fork seals on the fireblade needed doing before summer as I had parked it last May due to these leaking and never getting round to it because of shed building antics. Now if I left it until the weather was better I would be back on outside jobs and no fireblade all summer again, so I made a start. Genuine seals in stock but I last did them about 9 years ago so I had a read of the manual which dried out after a couple of days once I took it out the box it had been in during the leak. It has cost me £130 for fork seals and fork oil plus I changed the engine oil & filter while I was messing with it. I am currently waiting for a polishing wheel to show up from China. I had little incident a few years back now with a fresh tyre that resulted in the bike being on its side which marked the generator cover which is polished. I have dressed this out and worked my way up the grades of sand paper but I need to polish it back up to put the fairings back on which should mean it is ready for the MOT. A side project running in between this was to put a few boards down in the loft to try and get a bit more storage, this section of the loft was unused and had no boards at all. It took longer to get that finished than I thought and I am still yet to put anything in there. I hope to create a bit of space in the rest of the loft. The rest of the boarding up there is not great and everytime I open the hatch I hear "YeeHaa". So with a bit of space created I hope to work my way round to make a better job of the rest of the space up there. There is very little height up there which means I am on my knees working which makes it hard work.
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Last Edit: Feb 1, 2023 22:30:36 GMT by philsford
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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I like this, what a perfect retro daily driver.
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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Mk2 Mondeo TD salvage yard find philsford
@philsford
Club Retro Rides Member 100
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Dec 21, 2022 18:49:49 GMT
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Just like old times. I think this could last you until you retire with your low annual mileage. You know better than most on how many miles these are capable of with routine servicing. You have dropped on with this, the only thing that could have made it a better deal is if it was an estate.
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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I know what you mean when the weather is dragging your enthusiasm down. Were you not building a workshop for this type of activity? Is it possible to do a bit on the porsche to dodge the bad weather of outside and return to this once the weather is more favorable?
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Last Edit: Dec 4, 2022 19:44:55 GMT by philsford
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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Back in May when I put the decal down the sides I decided it needed some bling wheels to finish it off. 13“ wheels in a front wheel drive friendly offset are few and far between and I wanted to avoid the popular wheels that are on most fiestas. So I ordered some Image split rims, after trawling the website I decided on these. I wanted the center's to match my seats and decals but I had only got my imagination to tell me what it was going to look like. They wanted extra money for any red other than pillar box red which was obviously no good. So if I wanted a different red I needed to supply a RAL code. I ended up buying a colour chart so I could put it next to my decals to try and get as close a match as I could. So RAL3003 was my pick. I was in luck as someone had just paid the extra for that colour and the guy I was dealing with said he could probably do mine out of what was left which meant "NO EXTRA CHARGE" So I ordered a set of 4 which required a 50% deposit. 12-16 weeks I was advised but I couldn't do anything other than wait. Not as quick as I would have liked but 16 weeks later they phoned me to tell me they were ready. I only live about 10 miles from the factory so I collected them to knock the £50 delivery charge off. I was now suffering open wallet surgery and that is where they sat for about 8 weeks as I was still building my shed and patio which was also hoovering up my disposable income (see my other thread). Over those 8 weeks I had been looking for a deal on tyres and frustratingly Toyo's like I had on the XR2 steels were out of stock everywhere, why not swap the tyres off the steels I hear you ask. Well if I have to use the car to go to work as an example in winter the steels would go back on. So the only non ditch finder brand in my desired size of 175/60/13 was yokohama and were ranging from £80-120 each delivered then there would be fitting on top. In the end I got a deal of basically free fitting at ATS on a black Friday deal and they worked out at £275 fitted for the 4. Not as wallet friendly as the Toyo's were but £50 cheaper than Demontweeks who were the cheapest up until the ATS deal came along. So I had them fitted on Friday and after doing some running repairs on my wife's car this morning I thought I would put them on the car. First thing that happened was they were catching the caliper on the front. It was the bolts in the rim causing it which had excessive thread through the nut. I had 3 options here, dress the caliper or cut every bolt down or get shorter bolts. I decided to dress the caliper and touch the paint up. But I may get some shorter bolts as if I put new discs and pads on the issue may return due to the calipers moving outwards due the extra material. Considerably later in the day than I thought, I had them on. Apart from turning it around in the street I have not driven it but I like the look of them.
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Last Edit: Dec 3, 2022 21:15:30 GMT by philsford
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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It has effected them re. City Powdercoaters. They are about 40% down from where they were. Some folks like me, have just stopped using them however. I never recollect Brum being quiet. I lived around the area for years in my youth, and frankly, it was always busy. That’s going back almost 30 years ago now. On the roads leading up, like Soho Road, it would take an age to get up. Some rather rose tinted views here. Leamington and Warwick are worse than they use to be. As @akku said, like it or hate it, the pollution levels did come down alot with Covid Unfortunately, City Powdercoaters will be seen as a dirty, medieval business these days and them being forced to close or relocate won't be seen as a loss to the council, who will undoubtedly sign off on another tower block full of £500k apartments for 'urban living'. I use Redditch Shot Blasting and Coating now as it doesn't cost me £8 to visit them. Birmingham city centre is hell to drive through now compared to how it was 15 years ago. When I was at Uni there I used to drive into the centre all the time. Now, everytime I go its a mission just to work out exactly which roads I'm allowed to use, not being a taxi or a bus, and the traffic is a lot worse IMO. I wouldn't mind so much if there was somewhere secure to park outside and walk in, but there isn't anywhere I'd be confident the wheels would still be on my car when I got back to it! Agreed the traffic was never quiet when I was first taxi driving 20 years ago and for the 10 years I did the job Birmingham was a dailey destination, I could do the city centre and back in an hour back then if you caught the traffic right and knew your way about but at the wrong time of day it was hell. As for parking at City Powder Coaters I always manage to park outside the door.
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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It is all about money. If they need more money they will make the zone bigger or change what emissions standard is acceptable to raise revenue. So far my closest area to charge is Birmingham which I did go into a fair bit years ago but it was never somewhere I went through choice but I have not been since the charges came in. These days I can only think of city Powder Coaters as a place I might need to go which is inside the zone, I wonder if their trade is down since the ULEZ came in? To be fair I do have a couple of compliant cars at my disposal if I needed to go but my daily is not on the allowed list for Birmingham but is OK everywhere else according to the checker. If you live by a zone and the same council are running the zone and where you live it will probably effect you sooner or later.
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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Nov 27, 2022 18:27:41 GMT
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Well the weather is getting worse so I am on inside jobs now. First up today was finish the inside walls off. I got 4 sheets of 18mm plywood dropped off in the week so I trimmed it up and screwed it on. I had previously spent the odd hour doing some fiddly bits round the garage door with the offcuts from the original 18mm plywood. Last one is from the summer when the shell moved over to its new home.
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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Nov 27, 2022 18:16:24 GMT
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A mate spotted this in the current issue of Classicford.
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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Nov 18, 2022 20:21:08 GMT
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Not sure if you have seen this picture or not as I think you said you didn't do Facebook.
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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Nov 18, 2022 20:14:44 GMT
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This picture popped up on Facebook which is the only picture I have from the photo shoot.
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Last Edit: Nov 19, 2022 23:52:39 GMT by philsford
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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Oct 19, 2022 19:11:06 GMT
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Building looks great, that's going to be one strong patio, our 1930's house stands on less foundation! I have gone a little OTT but I don't want to do it again so hopefully this patio and shed will last long enough that I don't have to do either of them again.
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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Oct 19, 2022 19:08:14 GMT
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Workshop looks great. Wish I had seen this before you bought the cladding, I work for one of the better composite decking and cladding suppliers and could've wangled some staff discount! I will keep that in mind as I have a plan with composite decking boards to make my little retaining wall a bit better on the eye.
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philsford
Part of things
Posts: 733
Club RR Member Number: 100
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Oct 18, 2022 23:15:27 GMT
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Well I had a look at my house roof issue and changed a joint on the spouting along with re-pointing the affected brickwork and thought that was sorted so promptly ripped the patio up. However the issue I have is only apparent in a massive downpour which I am struggling to recreate with the hose. I still have the same problem of the mortar looking wet after a good downpour. I am going to have to take some tiles off above the area for a better look but to do that I need to finish the patio to give me a decent base for my little scaffold setup. So I dug out the area that will be patio and mini Philsford no1 even helped. We concreted some edgers in to stop the new patio sliding away from the house like the old one. I am perhaps being a bit harsh on the old one as it's probably been down 40 years but I don't want to be doing it again so am trying to do it in a way that a jet wash and repoint will be as much as I will ever need to do in the future. The next job if get all the pavers in to give a visual/decorative edge. I have not taken any photos but anywhere where there was no slabs before I have put 300-400mm of hardcore and whackered that down before the block pavers were done. Then today I have laid out a few slabs dry so I know the first one goes in the correct place to try and eliminate problems as I move along. My father in-law has gone on his holibobs for the last month so progress has been slow on my own along with fixing the wife's car in preparation for the mot but he is back tomorrow and I have got to the point where the slabs can be laid permanently. I am laying them on a full bed of concrete the same as the first area we did between the garage and the shed.
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