vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Sept 22, 2022 19:05:37 GMT |
Getting ready for another Safety Dad Tat video and I had to just test a little something out...  Aye, that's just the right amount of utterly tasteless. |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Sept 25, 2022 17:19:22 GMT |
 This corner of the Maestro is pretty close to perfect now. There's a few items I'm still trying to source: Weepul - the little pompoms with googly eyes and a sticky-backed felt base shaped like feet Turtle Wax dashboard air freshener - Ideally in red and that doesn't smell of anything any more, I don't like air fresheners. Fuzzy dice - got a plan for this one actually... Tow bar with 'comedy' ball cover Knuckle Buffers or a cat tail or a trapped arm, for the tailgate Holiday pennant window stickers - I want to get ones to match places I've actually been in this car, which isn't many at the moment. Graduated interior sun strip in grey, black, or red Side graphics of some sort Aerial topper - I know they existed, I just can't remember what was out there beyond the Disneyland ones Fuel economy computer - early digital device that stuck to your dashboard, super basic, super pointless I'm just going to keep loading the car up with tat until it feels right really. Proper bit of 90s maximalism with no attempt at all to be cool or stylish. If Radwood had an uncool uncle at a wedding reception, this car would be it. |
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PhilA
Posted a lot
Byte Wizard
Posts: 4,676
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Sept 25, 2022 17:43:16 GMT |
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Had a few of the Weepul fuzzies back in the day. They're probably still in a box somewhere. Various brand advertisements on the tags, like ABB and Festo etc., sourced from trade shows.
76 ball aerial toppers or raccoon tails.
"Got a tiger in my tank" tail to hang out the fuel filler cap from Esso
Requires something Mr. Blobby in there also. Cringing at the thought.
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Sept 25, 2022 17:57:26 GMT |
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It does not require something Mr. Blobby, nothing requires that. 76s and raccoon tails feel a bit more late 60s early 70s to me, although that might still work here since the idea is making it look like it's own by someone on the elderly side who might have carried some things over to this from their old car.
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PhilA
Posted a lot
Byte Wizard
Posts: 4,676
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Sept 25, 2022 18:11:32 GMT |
It does not require something Mr. Blobby, nothing requires that. 76s and raccoon tails feel a bit more late 60s early 70s to me, although that might still work here since the idea is making it look like it's own by someone on the elderly side who might have carried some things over to this from their old car. Failing that needs a temperature gauge/compass for the dash. That was a prerequisite for our cars. |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Sept 25, 2022 18:26:35 GMT |
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I do have a compass, as it happens. Still waiting on the strong tape arriving so I can fix it without using wood screws.
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eurogranada
Europe
To tinker or not to tinker, that is the question...
Posts: 2,324
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Sept 26, 2022 7:54:43 GMT |
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I had that Garfield in my first car. Gifted by my girlfriend of the time. I still have it today. Maybe put it back in the one of teh cars. Tonight I'm picking up a fuzzy gift for the Granada...
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Sept 27, 2022 18:22:41 GMT |
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Let's go back in time a bit to when I was fitting brand new headlights and a decent bumper corner.
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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I'll be doing video write ups eventually. I simply haven't had time or headspace for it lately due to other commitments, you know how it is. One of those was spending about 11 hours today to make a 30 minute video for release tomorrow because what even is time management anyway. I decided it was absolutely vital that my fifties car got some fuzzy dice. In brown.  |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Tried to do the rear brake on the Princess today and while it is back on all four wheels now, it hasn't gone as well as I would have liked.
I do have a blow torch, I can't light it. Every time I tried to get an ignition source up to the blow torch, the wind kept blowing it out before the torch could be lit. Talk about frustrating. So that stuck union is still stuck.
I did get the brake cylinder compressed properly due to getting some C clamps, that went very smoothly, but there's some black rubbery gunge that was oozed out that made me a lot less confident about using the cylinders so I've ordered a new pair complete with special E clips. Did I mention I've managed to misplace the special E clips I bought especially for this job already?
I did get the outer drum on. It was a fight. I cannot back the shoes off as far as I'd like so they're dragging rather more than I want them to, it's an adjustment issue but I can't seem to adjust them as I'd like them. Pretty annoying.
That leaves me with rear brakes that don't work and technically front brakes that don't work either since the main hydraulic line is open due to that seized up union. That means the car can't safely be driven anywhere.
Do I want to have to dismantle it all to fit the new brake cylinders when they arrive? Not really. Do I want to fight even more with that stuck union and possibly have to buy even more tools and materials to try and sort out a brake line that might need cutting? Absolutely not. What I want is some magic fairy brakemother to come along and make this job go away because doing anything with drum brakes can get in the sea.
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Frankenhealey
Club Retro Rides Member
And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider's name was Death
Posts: 3,754
Club RR Member Number: 15
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What I want is some magic fairy brakemother to come along and make this job go away because doing anything with drum brakes can get in the sea. When you find a fairy brakemother send them on to me afterwards as the Goddess needs all four wheels looking at  |
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PERILS of Penelope Pitstop hereThe Goddess Transporter hereThe Frankenhealey hereFrankenSnail - Vulcan Power hereTales of the Volcano Lair here |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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I suddenly feel a whole lot better knowing it could be that much worse  |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Right then, Lanchester news. There's a new video popping up on Tuesday dealing with the rear lights so I can't tell you how I fixed those today because it'll contradict what's going on in that video... watch this space for more on that. What I can tell you is that the rear lights now work properly and the upgrade to the headlights from BPF to H4 went very smoothly and is now completed. Sidelights have been moved into the headlight bowls so that the original sidelights can become indicators, they take an indicator-sized bulb rather than a dinky sidelight one and are in a really good place to be seen, they're practically ready to go aside from sorting out the historic earthing problem the sidelights have which I have some ideas about. Anyway, front lights in pictures because everyone likes pictures, right? No lights.  Sidelights.  Dipped beam.  Main beam.  That means at the time of writing I've got sidelights (front and rear), headlights (both functions), interior light, dash light, and number plate light all working now. I have tested the semaphores and the stator tube wiring and they do appear to work, I just need to connect the stator tube wiring to the main harness and need to get some relevant connectors to do that. Wiring for the flashing indicators is now all in place and just waiting on me getting the last few bits to complete that installation. I have all the parts for the horns, including a Land Rover horn push spring that's as close a fit as I could find to what the car should have, so those are pretty close to being ready to connect too. After that, I'll eventually wire up the auxilliary lights with the fogs on a separate switch. I think it would be sensible to fit a rear foglight to the car since it might find itself in foggy conditions of an evening or early morning and anything to make it more visible is going to be a good idea. The driving/spot lamp will probably also get a separate switch rather than wiring it into the main beam circuit, that way it can be used only when necessary. For now, the auxilliary lights are just for show. It's progress, that's the important bit. Felt good to actually get things moving a bit again after being unable to for a while. |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Oct 11, 2022 18:33:33 GMT |
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Now to contradict the above with the latest video.
When I recorded the above I didn't know what the issue was, now I do. For the sake of video narrative, I'll let you know what the problem ended up being in the future.
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Oct 11, 2022 18:45:39 GMT |
  I also found this www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364010959862 which has a couple of small items our car could do with and have contacted the seller. In an ideal world I'd buy the whole car and strip it at my leisure but I simply haven't the time or money to do that currently even though I do have a space on the drive it could occupy. Certainly made me feel a lot better about the condition of our car. |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Oct 25, 2022 18:03:39 GMT |
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Fresh video time and we're back to the Maestro. Three separate garages visited for this one.
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Oct 28, 2022 21:48:01 GMT |
Remember that Lanchester I mentioned being broken on eBay? Bought something from it. Took a while, a lot of back-and-forth with the seller and Bristol being a six hour round trip has meant collecting things just hasn't been possible for me as I couldn't find the time outside of work to physically do it. Happily, Weird Car Twitter stepped into the breach and someone is willing and able to collect from Bristol and get the parts to me in Maidstone.   The thing is, I didn't want the whole boot lid, I only wanted the smaller black interior trim panel that goes over the lock mechanism. However, if the frame on this new lid is sound, it may be sensible to simply clean it, rewire it, and swap it whole onto our car. The new lid hasn't got a big dent in it like the old one, and it might even have the correct countersunk bolts for the hinges that ours is missing. I won't know exactly what I'm using or swapping until the panel arrives. The only other item that was worth me bidding on were the seats. They're ruined and rotten, naturally, but the rexine on the back of the front seats will be useful. The brown would do for the B pillar trim we don't have as well as the kick panels that are missing. If there isn't quite enough brown to do all three, the black would also work for the kick panels and there's quite a bit of fabric wrapped around those dinky seats. The leather looks too far gone to salvage, sadly, so I doubt that will help replace the damaged sections on our existing seats, but we'll see. Maybe it's not totally ruined in person. Mostly though, I'm just grateful for the car community at large being able to help out. Nothing is particularly easy for anyone at the moment, so these acts of kindness and generosity are very welcome indeed. I couldn't do half the things I do without the help of other car enthusiasts, whether that's with knowledge provided, parts collected, or help fitting things. So if you've ever helped me out, know it's appreciated and kept me going so many times. I only hope I manage to pay it forward often enough to keep the balance. |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Oct 31, 2022 15:54:07 GMT |
The season is upon us once again.  |
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Another Lanchester video for you. When it arrived, the interior light didn't work, in this video we investigate why and, happily, get it working.
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vulgalour
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 6,689
Club RR Member Number: 146
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Nov 16, 2022 21:51:00 GMT |
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Good news! The car community has once again been amazing and helped me out when time is short. It's so short, in fact, that I've had to knock video editing on the head for a couple of weeks so there'll be a bit of a break until I release another.
Lanchester - Complete boot lid and some brown Rexine is on its way to me. This is excellent as it sorts out some of the harder to find bits of trim. Not sure when it's being delivered but it just so happened someone could get it from Bristol to Maidstone so I'm happy to wait for that to happen when it happens.
Princess - NOS headlight mounting panel for £2, something that I thought was a typo, but apparently not. I don't need said panel, it just seemed rude not to at that price and you never know what you might need in the future. Another rarity was a front wheel arch repair panel. This will allow me to chop out all the rot on the passenger front wing and replace it in one go and then use the good bits of the front wing to fix the rear wing on the same side. Amazingly, it came up for sale on a friend's doorstep and they were able to collect it, Lincolnshire is a fair old trek from Maidstone and now I have the wiggle room to go and collect from them at a more convenient time. The Princess is still grounded at the moment, I simply haven't had any free time to even look at the rear brakes let alone try and finish fixing them, I do think I might end up shipping this off to someone else (or shipping someone in to do it on the drive since getting it anywhere with no rear brakes is going to be challenging) just because of my lack of time.
Maestro - is plodding along just fine. It's started letting water into the boot when it rains really heavily, looks to be coming through the driver's side rear light unit so I assume parts of the plastic are no longer bonded fully. Nothing I can't drive around, I have a de-fogging routine that works just fine. I did have a blip in the fuel economy a little while ago where it dropped to 17mpg urban combined with pretty sluggish performance. Then one day it just seemed to clear itself and now it's returning nearer 29mpg urban so I'm guessing it was a bit coked up or something and has just cleared it out now. I still need to do the tappets and an oil change wouldn't go amiss, but again with the lack of time and the copious amounts of rain lately preventing me from doing so.
We just keep on keeping on in the meantime. I do still want to do those write ups for the videos, they just take ages, so if you want to get up to speed on things your best bet is to stick a video on and have a watch if you haven't already. I promise they're not totally boring. Also, if you've subscribed or interacted in any way with the Youtube channel lately, thank you! There's been a bit of an uptick lately and I really appreciate that.
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