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I swear I'm going to write a post about last year and my effectively enforced massive clearout of stuff, but I still just don't have the mental space for it. It was worthwhile, though. It's made me really reappraise my attitude towards 'stuff' and how much of it I really just don't need. I'd be very interested in reading that... I'm about 5% away from being convinced to do a massive cull/purge as well.
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DeLorean DMC-12: Just to say I had! Definitely a list topper and for the same reason. Most of my other choices would be new stuff. An M2, M5CS, one of the new Corvettes, maybe a Scat pack Dodge or similar... But rather than cars I think my "want to drive control" is more like: wooo now I'm away down the slippery sloped rabbit hole of traction engines byeeee
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Feb 24, 2024 20:02:17 GMT
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Sure. Let's start with this: It was tight enough, time wise and space wise, but here we are, all moved... So yes the eagle-eyed (or bleary-eyed) among you will recognise that as the same yard that the first few pages of this thread depict. A decade has passed but I am back. Back in the old family home. Now it wasn't supposed to be quite like this. This has taken up ALL of my mental capacity. Due to... "circumstances"... I have to vacate this house and land, and that also means forgetting about over a year of renovation work. I don't have many photos from the past wintery months. So just some words. In November I got REALLY sick of not having a decent car to enjoy, and I bought another Impreza. A really nice, clean, rust free 2000 Turbo 2000 in Mica Blue. I enjoyed all the boost on the way home until the fuel line popped off going up a steep hill in Gloucestershire on the way home - in the pitch black. When I got back from that weekend jaunt to England, my mate asked me if I was interested in: and having carved out an afternoon with a mate to do some car shifting at work, I got him to come over to the house with his TDV8 RRS and drag the D2 out of the garden. Yes I had been looking for a few months longingly at Range Rover Sports. I was unwilling to chance one as they are frightfully unreliable, but one from a mate who had been using it daily for a while, which had already had the turbos and gearbox changed, which was a good price, which had a full year MOT (after he had the sills welded up!) ... that was more palatable. So I had to wait a couple of weeks for him to sort his replacement daily car out, but I ended up with a black Range Rover with heated black leather and this became the perfect winter daily car for me, and also extremely useful as I ended up buying out another car dismantler in November/December, and had a huge amount of cars to shift. So the Range Rover is still my daily car at the end of February, despite the 21mpg (ouch!). The Impreza ran out of MOT because I concentrated on buying a rust free one, even with only 1 month of MOT left. And my backup car is the red E46 coupe, which is still working 100% and never needs anything except servicing. It has been advertised for sale but nobody has come to see it, and I am OK with that. So that's it. Nothing has progressed with any of the other cars. The Camaro has been waiting on the front brakes to be rebuilt since October (still slowly ongoing) and then it will be put into storage maybe, or used. But everything right now is concentrating on moving. My big dilemma is: do I downsize my cars? And if I do - which ones do I let go? The biggest projects are some of the Skodas - and the most valuable are also the Skodas, surprisingly! The S110R and the Cabrio in particular - but they also some of my favourites. But, when you need a house, and the housing market is very strong, and you are self employed and can't get a mortgage, when you are pressed into a corner - what gives first?
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-A 1989 Mini Racing Green, with a 1275 Cooper engine. It was £800 in 2002. I really wanted it as my first car. However, my dad talked me out of it, when I was getting a deposit ready. Very similarly, in '04, first car options were a year old Seat Arosa in a dealer 4 miles away for £4k plus finance, or a BRG Mini 998 at a dealer just 2 miles away, £995 with 6 months T&T. Obviously I made a very stupid decision or I wouldn't be writing this now. I've made many regrettable choices but this one is right up there! Missed a Celica RA28 at 17 as well, guy I knew promised to give me one, a resto project, but he fell out with me just in time to not bother. Very strange fellow. And a white Peugeot 406 V6 manual for like £500 or £1000 in about 2007 or 08. I posted about it on here. Just couldn't raise the cash fast enough - back then I was probably £3.85 an hour. I turned down an R33 GTST but i don't regret that very much other than it's worth more now but I would have wrecked it. I did pass on a lovely Lancer Evo IV last year as well but I was busy saving cash. That's probably about it! More regrets of stuff I shouldn't have bought, or even worse, shouldn't have sold!
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I had an awful, awful year on every front, from an ideal house purchase getting very messy and being mucked around with that, my mum being dragged through court for something she didn't do (as my dad was 20 years ago as well), my (sadly alcohol-dependent) ex turning up mid-year looking like she'd straightened her life up and just as I started to get sucked back in the same problem reared its head again, and staffing issues at work. Never got near any cars except the Camaro which broke down the night before I was to take it on holiday, so I took the Bini instead which then broke down on the way home. Resolved a few of those issues in November in the form of taking on a couple of very good staff, and also a "sod it" moment in which I blew a wedge of house money on a Range Rover and a restored Impreza because I was sick of driving chod while also lending three good cars to other people... So this year starts off with me working very hard to resolve the other points, also having just bought out another business competitor I have a 90% market stake (educated guess) in my specific target market, so will be pushing hard into that. It's a HUGE relief to not have to worry about what to drive everyday and not putting any targets on myself to finish (or start!) any projects - they'll get done when they get done and the sooner I have a house with lots of shed/garage space the sooner I can concentrate on doing some of that too. Best wishes for this years goals for everyone reading and/or posting and maybe there will be a happy review in 12 months time
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Dec 29, 2023 13:48:51 GMT
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just because you can doesn’t mean you should An unusual take on what was surely a very rusty Discovery. Like redratbike says - you really shouldn't... That rear section made from next door's old decking does not look particularly appealing! A bit of steampunk meets thunderdome... The wooden "boot" would be better maybe as a pickup section / standing position for the roof mounted turret, but other than that, slap on a set of wide steel wheels with knobbly tyres and I absolutely would...
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Dec 26, 2023 16:33:54 GMT
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(Un)fortunately almost everything I have already has a toy version already available... except a Skoda Favorit (there is a very rare one but whatevers) Bing has no idea what a Favorit is, but, I could work with this...
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Dec 26, 2023 16:26:10 GMT
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All Qashqais are forever now called Nonsense Kiwaja in my head. Had to have a go but seems it doesn't quite know what a cube is, and after many tries I couldn't get it to do a black bonnet/hood. This was the best it could do. Easiest way to see a cube in toy format is just look for the Matchbox one from a decade ago
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Dec 16, 2023 13:39:32 GMT
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Saw this today at Aldi A friend of mine uses a green one for his daily car ... I will NEED one of these to send him at Christmas!
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Dec 16, 2023 11:41:32 GMT
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This one is pretty impressive...
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Nov 28, 2023 10:15:41 GMT
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Nov 28, 2023 10:08:02 GMT
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a snow covered mountain range with a field full of custom cars and a fairground at sunset (looks like a great event) Other than the 2x enlarged prototype Beetle in the foreground which would be something of a show stopper! I would lust after that. Giving me strong Fisker vibes too.
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Nov 24, 2023 11:15:50 GMT
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Nov 23, 2023 15:27:40 GMT
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a camaro Z28 station wagon... and a 3rd gen one...
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Nov 23, 2023 15:21:20 GMT
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I think the data these programmes draw from is heavily biased towards America data(or just images which are highest in volume across the source data) , so sometimes it just can't grasp or has insufficient reference points for European models.... hence why the Mk1 Granada comes out like this... That is gorgeous! With your info I tried making myself a nice cadillac street-rod Ya no. This Cougar/Ford LTD mashup ain't anything like my pro-street '77 deville brief! What about an Olds 442 for the modern day? Yes! OK it looks exactly like an original one with a set of 24" wheels added, but I'll take it.
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Nov 23, 2023 11:41:17 GMT
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I asked for a Skoda 4x4 from 1981... And got a Volga... An FSO... ...and a Wartburg So I asked for a 2005 Skoda Estelle... and got a Polo with a boot In vain I asked for a 1998 Skoda S110R... ...and got this Audi and so I asked for a 1980's Skoda sports car and it thinks I need a Corrado I've 12 more go's to try to create something I'd actually want...
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Nov 23, 2023 11:31:53 GMT
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Ok I've had too much fun with this not too share AI might be the most exciting area of technological innovation at the moment, or possibly the beginning of the apocalypse, but I've been using Bing Image Generator to create weird and wonderful images of cars. I find coming up with the prompts and waiting to see what it triggers to be a really fun creative process. Make yours here: www.bing.com/images/createAnd post the results below a small honda hatchback from 1968, lowered on wide steel wheels a white british roadster from 1992, with a broken windscreen and yellow wheels, parked in a scrap yard. Vintage photograph A bertone designed hatchback concept car from 1991, lowered on red wheels, in the petrol station at night. Side shot 1997 peugeot mpv concept car, lowered and stanced. Parked in a barn, covered in dust with a dent in the wing, on steel wheels A small green german pick up truck from 1988, lowered on 15 inch japanese wheels, driving fast in the rain. a 1982 fiat rover convertible, lowered on bronze wheels, broken down at the side of a busy motorway. a 2001 vauxhall range rover metro, lowered black wheels, covered in dust and parked in a garage a 1994 ford vauxhall citroen van, with a roof rack, lowered on bbs wheels, stuck in a muddy field in the rain Other than the Fiat Saxo I think I would lust after every single one of these. Especially the Nissonda AS13 Kouki Vtec.
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Nov 23, 2023 11:13:23 GMT
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The moral of this story is to buy a classic/retro van for reliability . . . . And put fiat wipers on it as a backup. In a massively ironic turn of events the wipers have ceased to function on my newer generation Ducato
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I see you've used your Fiat wiper linkage to hold your struts in.
A couple of years ago I used my Fiat wiper linkage to hold my engine in!
Ducato recovery truck, engine mount snapped about 200 miles from home. Had a feeble 1 inch strap spare so I looped that around the wiper linkage and some part of the engine a few times, and, it made it home!
It only rained a little bit so it was totally fine
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Six month restoration build for a client and collection has already been pushed on a month and then another fortnight, with lots of things taking more time than thought, and finally it's this Saturday at noon. yesterday afternoon after a big push it was looking very promising. Then it wouldn't go into gear. Could not see any issue but it's a box I'd repaired, so in the evening (by which I mean 8pm to 3am) I changed the box over for another one... with the same issue. Much more fiddling and it turns out it's the shifter linkage, which is fouling by the slightest, merest amount but it's just enough. So, found another linkage that would work. Built all back up again. Found in my haste that I'd broken a pipe when ripping the box off in middle of night. That's adding insult to injury after I'd realised changing the box was a waste of many hours. Only access to the said pipe was to remove the servo, bracket and heater matrix. Did all that lying upside down. Tried to bleed clutch for quite a while. Realised the master cylinder was faulty. Spent 2 hours replacing that. Got it bled - slave cylinder randomly decided to explode inside gearbox. Managed to fish all the parts out of the box via magnets and hopeful thinking. Fitted another one. Couldn't get a gear. Pulled the slave back out (which means dropping the box, every time) and measured it and found the hydraulic pin on it was 4mm shorter than it should be depsite matching part numbers. Figured that was the cause and changed that for yet another one, and bled the system again (almost used the whole gallon of Dot4 now) and it made no difference.
Sitting here at midnight trying to figure out why the clutch will not disengage when the pedal is pressed. Pedal is firm, fluid is bled. Starting to worry that the new clutch isn't the right one... Also would like to sleep.
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