The Chat Thread - Where does the time go? - WC 22/07/24

[HoTWire]

Hey Folks!

Another week, another weekly chat, your place for stuff that may not warrant a full thread or stuff that is just going on right now that you want to share.


Real life is pretty hectic again at the moment, and I managed to get a cold for the first time in a couple of years so last week and this weekend just gone have not been great.

It also meant I didn't do any car shows in July (so far) and I had been planning to do one a month.

Still Gathering and Quick60 are coming together and I'm hopeful we'll have an absolute belter of a year on both of those.


What you been up to? Anything good going on?


Previous Thread: forum.retro-rides.org/thread/227341/chat-thread-back-refreshed-wc

[droopsnoot]

I've done a couple of railway-related events recently - Llangollen Classic Transport weekend at the start of the month, and a smaller show alongside a miniature railway behind a local pub yesterday. Llangollen suffered from the rainy weather, though there's always the railway line to go along, but yesterday stayed dry. Next weekend I have a choice of either the VBOA gathering at Sywell, or the Oulton Park Gold Cup - I'll be doing the latter as it's a lot closer and I believe that there will be two classic Vauxhalls on the track.

In the shed, I'm still trying to clean out the pitted rusty areas on the roof of the project. It's slow going with the spot blaster because I've only got a 50l compressor so it hasn't really got enough power to do the job. Added to that, sometimes there's a bit of moisture in it because if I put the water trap in line, it's got barely enough power to pick any media up. Add to that the need for overalls, a breathing mask and a full face mask, I can't really do more than about 45 minutes each afternoon, and can't do that if it gets really warm again.

Oh, and tidying up.

[stealthstylz]

Not done any fun car stuff, but I have managed to get all the drivers side welding done on the Carlton.





And then done all the coatings etc to try and stop it from doing the same again.



Then faffed about for ages emptying the car, putting all the interior back together on that side, then moving the car over on the drive, stripping the passenger side interior out then poking holes in it.





It's got rot in the same spots as the drivers side but nowhere near to the same level. Bit sad I won't have it done for the Gathering but the weather has really been against it this year. Hopefully get it finished in time to squeeze some sort of car show in before the winter, otherwise I'll go a bit further as ideally it could do with the subframes out and cleaned up which is a nicer nicer autumn/winter job than trying to weld stuff up.

[misteralz]

This week I'm cursing casual thieves, as my T5 failed its APK on a rear caliper. The one I had a spare of in stock. Cycled over to the garage with it in my pannier, popped in to say hello, popped back out and it was gone. What makes it worse is there was a polis there, and what makes it even worse was he was just like 'aye, happens'. Prick.

[igor]

Your polis are about as much use as our police then, which is not much.

[stealthstylz]

Jul 23, 2024 6:36:47 GMT misteralz said:

This week I'm cursing casual thieves, as my T5 failed its APK on a rear caliper. The one I had a spare of in stock. Cycled over to the garage with it in my pannier, popped in to say hello, popped back out and it was gone. What makes it worse is there was a polis there, and what makes it even worse was he was just like 'aye, happens'. Prick.

I'm unsure if we're talking about the bike, the pannier or the Volkswagen T5 rear caliper. Very niche thief if it's the latter.

[misteralz]

The pannier with the caliper in it.

[Dez]

After breaking this doing this last weekend, I thought I’d best get on with fixing it.


Damage. Quite impressive really.


Spare wheel I had stashed away wasnt as quite as good as I remembered-


So I made a good one out of the two-





Still, who else has spare of 90 year old wheels sat on the shelf for eventualities like this? 🤣

[akku]

Selling cars, buying cars...

Having a slight moment of clatity I've sold a bunch of cars.

The Austin Seven and the Rover 3500 both went the other week. This week or so I sold the Dutton and the Austin hot rod.




This was a bit of a bind. the buyer drove all the way up from Maidstone to Derby where this one was in storage, he arrived later than planned due to our shocking road network. Then he paid by bank transfer and his bank held up the payment nearly 2 hours because they thought the transaction was fraud because they "didn't recognise what Austin 14 is" so then I can hear the conversation on the phone to Nationwide....

"Its a car"
"No, its not a scam. Its here, its on my trailer now."
"Derby, why?"
"Yeah well I just want to get off home as its 5 hours drive really, can you just pay the seller please"
"No he's here as well. I think he'd like to go home too"
"No, its not a garage, I just bought it off a guy selling it"
"No, its a project, I can't test drive it...."

and so this goes on

Eventually I get the money and off he goes.

He seems a sound chap, he has restored another Austin hot rod which was built in the 70s and he loves slot mags

Anyway.

Sold the Dutton and the fellas came with a trailer with no winch, which I thought might be an issue but it loaded up fine and they were gone too.




So you may be wondering what that old green thing is on the lawn there just keeping out of the way?

Bought a 1936 Austin 10 Sherbourne off a mate who picked it up somewhere. Its had 2 owners from new! One from 1936 to 2017, the other 2017 to now. The second owner fitted it with a Morris Minor 1098 engine and box which makes it more fun than stock. It does need some work but its up an usable which is the main thing, I need less "non working projects"








Oh, and the XK40 on the lawn there? Thats a funny story...

It was a meeting of the Daimler & Lanchester Owners Club and I was going down in my Majestic. Only the poor old thing overheated on the motorway, and kept overheating so I had to get the Big Yellow Taxi home. While waiting for it to recover me I checked Marketplace, found a 1988 Daimler Sovereign 3.6 for sale near my house, checked the seller wasn't a ghost, insured it and then went over in a taxi from mine when the Majestic was safe back on the drive. So I jumped in and drove a grand's worth of old XK40 250 miles in one night...

I survived.

Its a decent enough car with a bunch of faults. I quite like it. I am told there are just 6 of these left on the road. Its the early type with the digital dash, single wiper and so on. I even got to give it a run round Goodwood which was fun.








Other than that, the Country Squire has been being useful fetching and carrying, and the wipers have stopped working so thats current panic to fix them.







thats Alan. Alan lost a bushing down inside the scuttle. Silly Alan. Alan worked it all out though which is more than I would have, electrickey. Pah.

[igor]

I rather like the Austin 10. Sensibly upgraded for modern usage without losing its character.

[mrbounce]

Got called into a meeting yesterday afternoon which was a proper bar steward. Was told my job no longer exists and I will either have to apply for a new job I am not qualified to do, or move to a different team from where I will have to battle with several other people who have done the job before. Or get made redundant. Seriously contemplating option 3, even if I don't get a pay out.

In other news, I haven't done anything else on the Midas.

[zeberdee]

That’s not good news .

Hopefully it all works out for you & it’s a blessing in disguise .

🤞👍

[vulgalour]

I am now commuting several days a week in the Princess. It's not very far and it's less miles than I normally do so it's no real hardship. Hopefully this new job makes it easier to save up for the next house move in about a year's time.

[stealthstylz]

Jul 22, 2024 17:21:41 GMT stealthstylz said:

It's got rot in the same spots as the drivers side but nowhere near to the same level.

Only took 3 days to prove myself wrong. The bit I showed isn't as bad as the drivers side was. Unfortunately that was the positive and I'm now gonna have to rip the dash out to fix the inner wing/bulkhead as it's gone through. I also investigated what looked like a rusty spot weld and now I've got this to repair 😂😂😂😂 oh well it's only metal and welding

[igor]

Jul 25, 2024 12:41:11 GMT mrbounce said:

Got called into a meeting yesterday afternoon which was a proper bar steward. Was told my job no longer exists and I will either have to apply for a new job I am not qualified to do, or move to a different team from where I will have to battle with several other people who have done the job before. Or get made redundant. Seriously contemplating option 3, even if I don't get a pay out.

In other news, I haven't done anything else on the Midas.

Bummer. Been there. Best of luck.

[misteralz]

Been there as well. Take the money and run. I did, some didn't. A few months of dogshit morale and the second round of redundancy several more were out without anything more than statutory.

Anyway. 964 passed its biannual APK without so much as an advisory. Happy with that.

[skinnylew]

Think I covered my current status in my post. Not driven for 17 weeks and will be a while more before I'm allowed to, but I'm still breathing thanks to our NHS so I'm grateful for that!

[ChasR]

Where do I start?

Last week was stupid.

-Monday was a semi Herculean task at work due to work politices and divisionists within the firm
-Tuesday was ridiculous. Despite being subject to a full day audit, I had every man and his dog asking about me. Absolutely ridiculous. If I didn't have a mortgage, I'd have walked out frankly.
-Wednesday was a little calmer as it was later on.


Monday probably wasn't helped by me trying to fix my Passat in hindsight. I:

-Changed the lower front arm, so it no longer creaked like a Galleon ship
-Attempted to fit the underday with stock fixings. They were annoying, so I gave up and carefully zip tied the gearbox and engine undertrays back on.
-Cleared all of my stuff out out of the car

All of this was because I sold it. I may do a mini thread on it, as it was great to rescue an average car that had some potential and make it more of a swan. I thought it scrubbed up well anyway.




However, selling it was a pain. It had a BIN on eBay. From the guy being keen, he then went radio silent. Thankfully, the chap who bought it called, and so the deal was done with him. The car is now with a B5.5 Fan. It's a pleasant feeling to give the car a new lease of life.








There we have it. A nice old girl turned around, and helping someone out. So I'd be back to a 2 car gang. Yes, yes I would....

Not before however, I added some 10mm spacers onto my 325d. The pre-LCI models had the rear wheels sit in alot, so much so, that the M-Sport 18" wheels came in two variants : pre-LCI and LCI. the LCIs gained around 7mm a side on the rear.

Before:



After:




I also washed the NC50 for the first time in my ownership. It was filthy after LeMans, so it took care of that as well:



I then went to the GTi Mk2 day at Curburough. It's a nice morning out to be fair:








Do you remember where I said I was a 2 car band again? I lied. The M3 now has some company again. Riskier company, might I add.













It's a 2002 Mercedes R230 SL500. This particular example was owned by a friend's parents. Is it fault free? Of course not! But it is a 1 owner 61k car with no rust ; it lived in a garage for most of its life, and then Spain. Not bad for something which is 22 years old now. It's fair to say I will have some 'fun' with this. Some bits of the car do truly scare me mind you!

[igor]

Chimney sweeping day here. Got them both done then cleaned up and painted the one rusty spot on my Pulsar ready for wof/mot next month.