MattBLancs wrote: 11 Oct 2023, 08:01
Agree wholeheartedly on boring colours. Makes me sad that the "ever increasing grey-ness" is now polluting interior colour schemes and even window frames. Neighbour over the road has just had a big long fence on their boundary, then next day that was transformed into tedious monotone! Yuck.
There should be a law against dull, bland colours....
The two main colours I'll be decorating my house in:
The Bengal Tiger will be dominant with Orange Marmalade being used where things need to be a bit 'quieter' such as in bedrooms...
The photo does not do the colours justice... In real life they're a bit livelier
Jim
Runner, cyclist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
mickthemaverick wrote: 11 Oct 2023, 09:15
Just remember chaps, if you do go and stay over at Jim's, being too full of flapjacks, make sure you have your sunglasses with you!!
Jim
Runner, cyclist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
I agree on the colours in houses; though that particular pattern is not to my taste sorry.... I'm not keen on the "modern art" movement of the 60's and 70's, and prefer more classical styling.
But I do hate the obsession with plain cars we have now; and it saddens me that deep coloured burr walnut is being replaced with "piano black", "carbon effect" and "brushed aluminium" as cars become monotone and only reflect only a variety of shades between black and white.
In the same way I can't stand all these "black packs" where cars become black, with black wheels, black window surrounds, black tinted windows, black exhaust trims etc. etc. I used to love the chrome detailing, which used to contrast beautifully with the deep blues, greens and reds we used to see on older cars... and why can't we bring back 2-tone cars
Thankfully there does seem to be a trend starting for more interesting car colours; although White, Silver, Grey and Back remain firm favorites in the marketplace...
Getting rid of the small mountain of random parts and suchlike in the boot of the P6 was something I'd been wanting to do since it arrived.
So I now just have yet another pile to work around in the garage of course! That wheel is absurdly heavy.
Need to try to track down a battery cover at some point.
A couple of things I'd been looking for did appear while rummaging through the boxes. First being this.
A simple but quite important bit of hardware - the heat shield which should sit between the brake master cylinder and the exhaust manifold to help prevent it from getting cooked quite as badly. This has now been reinstated.
The other was a whole bunch of screws which belonged in the tail lights - the vast majority of these were originally missing, though both of them now have all seven screws correctly fitted.
Only missing one now, the bottom one for the nearside front indicator. Annoyingly despite having gone through all of my boxes of fasteners I can't find one with the right thread pitch which is long enough.
I had that apart today as well to resolve the issue with the non functional sidelight - just needed a new bulb. Though the lenses were both filthy and the whole light unit was full of dead spiders and general grime so I took the lenses inside and gave them a thorough wash. This predictably made the other one look visibly worse so that got taken apart too and given the same treatment.
Also finally got around to removing the plethora of stickers on the windows.
That was somewhat precipitated by the desire to *clean* the windows so I could actually see through them properly as the windscreen in particular was absolutely filthy. The rear windscreen still is - sadly it's been quite noticeably pitted on the inside by grinding/welder spatter so is never going to be 100%, though it would be far worse if that was the windscreen. Rear one being a bit pitted isn't the end of the world.
Current fleet:
07 Volvo V70 SE D5, 88 Renault 25 Monaco, 85 Sinclair C5, 84 Trabant 601S, 75 Rover 3500, 73 AC Model 70.
James ex BX 1.9
ex Xantia 2.0HDi SX
ex Xantia 2.0HDi LX
ex C5 2.0HDi VTR
ex C5 2.0HDi VTR
ex C5 2.2HDi VTX+
Yes, I am paranoid, but am I paranoid ENOUGH?
Out amongst the stars, looking for a world of my own!
This morning the P6 was booked in to The Garage over in Wolverton to get the wheel alignment looked at. First trip more than a few hundred yards from the house, of course in the rain. Of course the wiper blades haven't made it to the top of the to do list yet, so they're still ancient. Thankfully they do actually still have blades on them, and I was able to clean them up enough that they were functional, albeit emphatically not great. Sufficient for dealing with three miles of light drizzle though.
We made it there in one piece - albeit having discovered that these tyres have about as much traction off the mark in the wet as industrial grade Teflon. Wheelspin at 900rpm, no problem! Yeah, they'll be getting changed soon. Actually seem to handle braking just fine, but trying to pull away anything other than exceptionally gently they're not a fan of.
Guys there were their usual efficient selves, and took a lot of interest in the car. Tracking wasn't actually anywhere near as massively out as I'd expected, though it was definitely out. Having it sorted has definitely vastly improved the straight line stability, previously the car wanted to wander all over the shop when you were trying to drive in a straight line. We did have one bit of near excitement on the way there, in that the temperature gauge crept up very nearly into the red on the way there before the thermostat opened and it calmed down - sitting here under normal conditions.
So I will be replacing that in case it's sticking. That's a failure we could do without.
I took the opportunity to stop on the way home to grab a couple of photos to commemorate the car effectively being released back onto the public highway.
After we were home I changed the oil & filter again.
Aside from wanting to flush out any remains of the slime that was in there when the car arrived, having just had the heads off I was always planning to treat the first fill after the heads were off essentially as a flush to ensure there's no debris I've introduced getting stuck anywhere.
The drained oil was still a little cloudy, but nowhere near as bad as what originally came out.
In case you don't remember, this is what came out the day the car arrived here.
That's after it had settled out for a few minutes too. You can see why I was planning on doing a couple of changes one after the other.
No noticeable moisture gathering on the oil filler cap any more it looks like - this used to be literally dripping wet whenever you took it off. This is after sitting overnight too so did represent a full heat cycle.
Later in the day I had a couple of errands to run, so took this out again. She's officially burbled her way to a supermarket to pick up groceries now, that feels like a decent landmark for a car that's been off the road for an indeterminate period of time.
Handling was further improved by me actually checking the tyre pressures - which I thought I'd already done, but apparently not. Especially as they all had north of 40psi in - nearside front was nearly 50! I imagine this was done while the car was in storage to help avoid them getting flat spotted. Which sadly hasn't worked, one of the rears is definitely out of round. I'm really annoyed with myself for not checking that sooner though, no excuse for that.
Things I've got out of today's driving - probably 20 miles or so in all.
[] Possibly sticky thermostat when cold.
[] Reversing lights don't work.
[] Light metallic click from somewhere in the rear end driveline when coming on/off the power. Hopefully just a UJ needing some grease.
[] Rear tyre(s) are flat spotted which becomes very obvious if you try to exceed 50mph.
[] Kickdown cable still needs a tiny tweak - I've gone too far the other way again now and she won't drop into 3rd at all until 42mph even when coasting. Suspect there's going to continue to be a bit of going round in circles until I get that spot on.
[] Brakes have actually woken up surprisingly well after a few hard stops. I know the rear discs are quite rusty so aren't going to be 100%, but they feel decent and she pulls up perfectly straight.
[] Low end acceleration even when being deliberately really gentle is such that you almost invariably find yourself being held up by modern traffic almost the moment you pull out of a junction.
[] The burble is addictive.
[] Heater does work, albeit currently sans blower.
[] I keep looking for a nearside wing mirror that doesn't exist.
Aside from the brief bit of anxiety before the thermostat opened (and it may just be like that - this is the first time she's been out of a 20mph zone really, so I would expect the engine to have warmed up a lot faster than when I'd been testing before) that's not a bad result I reckon. Not even any maddeningly annoying squeaks or rattles in the cabin which have made themselves known yet.
Sounding a good deal happier than a week or so back, that's for sure!
Not a bad place to be starting from I think.
Got a few things on my shopping list now.
[] Oil pump/filter housing gasket.
[] Full coolant hose set.
[] Set of rear brake discs/pads as the discs are in pretty poor shape. Fronts have obviously been replaced relatively recently. Discs aren't cheap, but you can't put a price on safety. I might measure them to see if they can be faced, but realistically it probably just makes sense to change them. Haven't actually looked today since we parked up, but this photo from when I first inspected the car shows they weren't looking great.
[] While I have the rear brakes apart anyway I'll probably get the calipers rebuilt by Bigg Red just as insurance against future issues. They're a faff to work on being inboard so I just want these to work.
[] Full set of brake flexible lines as the front ones are a little perished and I'm not taking chances with brakes.
Current fleet:
07 Volvo V70 SE D5, 88 Renault 25 Monaco, 85 Sinclair C5, 84 Trabant 601S, 75 Rover 3500, 73 AC Model 70.
Another 'Big Engine Beast' that has landed comfortably on her wheels when you 'adopted' her.
James ex BX 1.9
ex Xantia 2.0HDi SX
ex Xantia 2.0HDi LX
ex C5 2.0HDi VTR
ex C5 2.0HDi VTR
ex C5 2.2HDi VTX+
Yes, I am paranoid, but am I paranoid ENOUGH?
Out amongst the stars, looking for a world of my own!
Great to see you and P6 yesterday Zel She's absolutely lovely
Rp0thejester wrote: 12 Oct 2023, 22:44
What would the car cost someone after all that work has been done!? No I'm not buying, just intrigued
A well-sorted P6 goes for a lot of money but, like my Bluebell, once you've put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it, monetary value goes out of the window... They become priceless...
I'd say, if you wanted a really good P6 - and Zel's is well on its way - you're looking at 5 figures all day long...
Jim
Runner, cyclist, duathlete, Citroen AX fan and the CCC Citroenian 'From A to Z' Columnist...
NewcastleFalcon wrote: 13 Oct 2023, 10:06
...Fuzzy background, in focus moving car...bit of photography to try on yours Zel
I've tried that a bit with some panning shots before, but haven't had an opportunity to use that much depth of field like that in this sort of setting. Kind of tricky without a bit of open space and an extra driver.
-- -- --
I've built up a bit of a shopping list over the last few days. Not making the same mistake as with the head work and have been deliberately waiting until I had a decent list before starting to order things.
[] Coolant hose full set.
[] Thermostat.
[] Oil pump/filter housing gasket.
[] Wiper blades.
[] Fan & PAS belts.
[] Rear light cluster gaskets.
[] Front side light/indicator cluster gaskets.
[] Replacement for a couple of missing light cluster screws.
[] Radio aerial.
[] Windscreen washer bottle.
[] Hose to re-make the brake servo vacuum line.
[] Full brake flexible line set, as the front ones are starting to perish a bit.
[] Rear brake discs & pads.
Which I've done a bit of prioritising of as with that lot all in the basket I was looking at a subtotal that was north of £700.
I'll do the brakes in one hit hopefully once the P4 sells/when the car will largely be off the road anyway during the winter proper. There's nothing on there which I believe is in danger of imminent failure based on my inspection, just things like the hoses want to be done before they degrade any further and I want to future proof the system against problems having the chance to develop. While the rear discs look sub par, the rear brakes *are* contributing and the handbrake will hold the car on a reasonable gradient. I had a look yesterday and they have scrubbed up quite a bit from the original situation, but really do still want changing. Realistically, the salt is going to be here in the very near future so she'll not likely be leaving the drive for a while once that happens.
The cooling system though given the state of a couple of hoses is more in danger of sudden catastrophic failure in my opinion (bottom hose in particular feels rather squishy and has visibly ballooned a bit at one end) so I'm getting that ticked off first.
Current fleet:
07 Volvo V70 SE D5, 88 Renault 25 Monaco, 85 Sinclair C5, 84 Trabant 601S, 75 Rover 3500, 73 AC Model 70.
Given rear brakes / handbrake are functional, I'd be tempted to try a quick clean up of those disks in situ - quick dress up with angle grinder flap disk, spin the wheel to reveal the next bit and repeat.
That plus back in use might be enough to avoid needing replacement. Worth a shot I'd think
sorry.... I'm not keen on the "modern art" movement of the 60's and 70's, and prefer more classical styling.
