MOTOR-BLOG from Coventry

Yes folks, happy new year. I hope you all had a lovely festive holiday, or Christmas as it used to be known in less politically correct times.

I’ve made a few bold New Years Resolutions which I would like to share with you as I sit here writing this, drinking gin and watching the Darts. Who says blokes can’t multi task?

Okay, so here we go - some resolutions in no particular order:

Finish some of my damn cars this year - especially the 2000 estate and the Austin Cambridge (stop sniggering at the back there - the awful Austin could be finished this year, possibly)

Don’t get anymore damned cars, in fact get rid of some: the Lancia and Suzuki I’m looking at you both, and the Peugeot 106. Yes it’s economical but really - does it suit me? An LPG conversion on the Saab is the way to go.

Especially as it costs me more to isure the little Pug third party as it it does the Saab fully comp with all the trimmings - ’tis weird but true. When I think about how much I spend on car insurance each year it’s really scary - if you think way beyond the naughty side of a grand you’d be about there.  

Buy that Panther Rio and own a pre-war car (Austin Seven?) by the end of the year.

Yes I know I’ve contradicted myself, but such is life.

Get married.

Move house.

The last two are already in motion and that’s how I’ve spent my Christmas break - sorting out the flat and organising weddingy things. It’s amazing how much junk you can collect over five years and we’ve had everything out, and chucked a lot of it away. I believe we’re now into bin bag double figures and there is still more to come.

This has meant that I have found several items previously thought lost - including the front of the Saab’s radio. Oh the joy to have something to listen to on my 3 hour daily commute apart from the crashing of the worn ball joint and the grinding whine of the failing power steering pump.

Now I can drown out both of these noises with a combination of BBC Coventry and Warwickshire for local chat, Brummie and Leicesterion (or whatever they’re called) bashing and of course, most importantly local traffic news. To Catthorpe or not to Catthorpe - that is the daily morning question. Then I switch to radio four for news and chat before switching to radio two for the Wogan show - Janet and john stories, that’s all I need to say. 

The way home is Chris Evans drivetime all the way. The joy of having a radio in the car again - now I can’t hear the Saab’s mechanical woes anymore I don’t have to fix them for a bit. Genius.

Speaking of the Saab, it’s been doing sterling work shifting tonnes of books and other crap from my flat to its temporary storage facility at my long suffering mum and dad’s. So now they not only have to put up with two of my cars, loads of spares and other rubbish, they also have hundreds of books and magazines cluttering up their spare room.

The reason for mving is simple - our flat is great, but the area is not. Now that the local kids have grown from quite sweet yet naughty children into trainee teenage criminals, we’ve grown fed up of the constant hassle, noise, breaking glass and damage to our cars.  

Plus the kids in question seem to discovered a little thing called fire, and we’ve had the fire brigade around yesterday to put out some of their handy work. They set small fires then load them with aerosol cans producing some quite alarming explosions. They also light aerosols and spray fire at the cars parked in our car park, which is nice of them…

The last time one of our neighbours remonstrated with them, five minutes later the back window of her Ford Focus mysteriously shattered by itself. Hmm. Time to leave dodge methinks, I can’t be doing with this hassle.

Our cars have been targeted too - Helen’s Volvo in particular. It’s had its bonnet dented and scratched down to the metal by a projectile fired at it (they were targeting the windscreen but missed). It has many and various dents caused by stones, bottles and footballs, and ditto with scratches too. It also sports a fine collection of footprints over the bonnet and roof where the kids have been climbing on it.

I went out this morning to find footprints all over the spoiler and boot of my Saab too. Admittedly, it’s a tough old bird but call me old fashioned if you like, but I still believe that cars are for driving not for makeshift climbing frames…

 

I also noticed a new dent too, but this was picked up this morning while we were in Sainsburys. It looks as if someone has swung into the parking space next to me and clipped the rear of the Saab on the way in. Very annoying. Mind you, if it hadn’t been for fresh removal of the layer of dirt that perpetually covers this car, I wouldn’t have noticed the damage.  

 

Oh, and one more new years resolution - I promise to blog more regulary this year, although I seem to remember saying something very similar around this time in 2008…

Oh, and we’ve got another new car over Christmas. I won’t say what it is just yet as I haven’t picked it up, but suffice to say it’s not my usual sort of thing at all - it has a current MoT and is in great condition. Cheerio for now!

Yes boo to MoT time indeed. As you’ve probably gathered one of my fleet has just failed the dreaded MoT test, and to make things worse it was Sabine my SAAB 900 Turbo. I’ve owned this car for the best part of 3 years and it’s never even had an advisorary before, well, it did fail last year on a tyre but as I knew about that and it passed within an hour of the fail courtesy of a brand new Firestone, I don’t count it.

Realistically though, for a car which is 20 years old this year the fail wasn’t a big deal really. First up, it needs new brake pads up front - a service item at best. The Flexihoses need replacing too - 20 years is probably a long enough service life for such a crucial part of the braking system anyway, so I don’t begrudge that. The problem lies with the brake lines though - they’re a bit rusted around the ferrules which may make removing the old flexihoses troublesome, so it may be quicker just to replace the brakes lines with copper items while we’re at it.

So there we are, my first proper fail in the SAAB. Still, I’ll feel better driving around with new brakes, lines, hoses and fluid, so it should be worth it. It’s just a shame that I’m off on holiday next week and I won’t be able to get the work done for a week or so…

I’m telling you, you wait for ages for a semblence of summer to appear and when it does it’s ruddy muggy - no good. Plus Germany are at this moment beating Poland in the Euro cup thingy with 20 minutes to go. Come on Poland, you can do it.

We’ve been out and about today and it’s been lovely - but it would have been more lovely if I was out in the Vitesse. It only needs an MoT and some insurance then I’m laughing - even Helen has been missing it, so it’s now up on my priority list. I’ll get some insurance then book it in for a test - but not before I put the SAAB through. I should have MoT’ed it last month, but you know how it is - woulda, coulda, shoulda etc.

I’m a bit worried about the SAAB actually, it’s picked up a clunking noise form the front offside suspension. I’m sure it’s just the bushes, but will this be an MoT failure - or not. I hope not, as even though the price of running it has gawn through the roof I’ve really started to enjoy running it again.

Still, I’ll have to see what happens on the test - roll on Thursday…ÂÂ

Another fun filled week. Firstly on Thursday I gave Fuzz a lift back to PC Towers. On the trip I told him how great my SAAB 900 is. ‘It never breaks down,’ I said. ‘It’s never been any trouble. The best £275 I ever spent,’ etc etc.

Now normally I’d never tempt fate like this in any of my other cars, but Sabine the SAAB? Well she’s a different matter. In my two and a bit years of ownership she’s never let me down (except once when I went on holiday for a week and left the lights on. The battery went flat - my bad not hers). So it was a bit of a shock when on the way back the exhaust snapped in half. Bugger.

Luckily it was a workshop day and luckily Big John Simpson (welding supremo) was still there. So it was up on the ramp and the exhaust was welded back together. How long it will last - I just don’t know. I’m a bit mystified by it to be honest, as the metal was shiny and thick where it had fractured - it literally had snapped. This suggests to me that the problem may lay elsewhere - perhaps a snapped hanger or rubber somewhere putting extra pressure on this part of the system.  

Anyhoo, that’s that, so a new exhaust may be on the horizon. Abbott Racing, here I come…

Yesterday I was tasked to fix the exhaust on Helen’s Volvo (yet again). Anyone who read the old blog will be familiar with this saga, but for those of you who aren’t I’ll recap. When my girlfriend passed her test just before Christmas 2006, we had to find her a car. I wanted it to be a safe machine, she wanted it to be faily modern and nice to drive. I wanted it to be cool… With that in mind the search began. As she had just passed her test and we were skint - it had to be cheap to buy and insure.

By this time it was after Christmas and there weren’t many cars for sale. We went to see a Mark 2 Golf  which looked great, but was obviously an end of life vehicle. It drove like a piece of you know what and hardly anything worked on it. Plus despite being a 1.6 litre (I think) the insurance was £700 a year. Coupled with the £500 asking price and the fact it needed to be taxed the answer was no thanks.

I’ve always liked Volvo 480s’ and so does Helen, but the insurance was too much again. So why not a 440 I figured? It’s the same car as a 480 underneath, has a high level of safety and reliability, and because of the ‘old man’ image they are cheap to buy. So we found a low mileage (70,000) 1993 440. We got it for £425, it had tax and MoT and was an automatic. It drove really nicely too and the insurance was £400 - not bad for a new driver in a 1.8 litre car.

Within two days the exhaust fell off. It had been crudely welded back together - but you can’t weld rust and it was never going to last. I hadn’t thought to check the exhaust when we bought it… That’s OK I thought - I’ll just get a new one. Except it was the downpipe that needed replacing - and these are only available from Volvo and cost - gulp - £250. So that’s why it was traded in…

After taking one off a scrapper for £15, we got it fitted - it was the wrong one… We bodged it together but it was still blowing. I was just about to bite the bullet and pay the money for a new one when I found a local exhaust manufacturer that made their own version. the cost? £60 including VAT and delivery. Now that’s more like it. How can Volvo justify £250 for a two foot length of bent metal pipe? What a rip off.

When I got the new one fitted - the fitters broke the rear of the exhaust getting it on. To be fair to them, it was very rusty, so I bought a new rear section from Nyanza Autoparts - my local factors. They had one on the shelf and it cost a reasonable £80 all in. So my friend Scott and myself fitted it. Sorted.

Until it started blowing again - at the only part we hadn’t replaced - the cat. After bodging it a few times with silicone sealant (yes I know, don’t write in but it did work for a while) it was the same story - Volvo wanted hundreds of pounds for one, Parts for Volvo wanted around £120, so I went to the little firm who supplied the down pipe. £74 including delivery and VAT. Sorted. 

Yesterday I fitted it. It all went well as the bolts holding it on were fairly new (we had replaced them when we fitted the new exhaust) and had smeared them with copper grease at the same time..

After speaking to a few people, I was advised that a new Lambda sensor (or as I call them, a Lambada sensor) probably wouldn’t be needed. After getting the old cat off it was apparent why it was blowing - the unit itself was fine, but the mounting bracket was so rusted it had fractured. 

The Lambda sensor was seized solid too, so I had to resort to the ‘big spanner, bloody big copperheaded mallet’ school of removal. In doing so, the threads got damaged on the sensor (or it had been cross threaded when it was fitted - hard to tell really but I’ll take the blame). With it approaching dinnertime, and with my local GSF car parts about to close I had to make a judgement call - buy a metric tap and die set and restore the thread, or bite the bullet and buy a new sensor?

I decided to buy a new one as the car needed to be back on the road asap. So it was off to GSF in my mums’ Punto. They had one for £21. Back to the house and, disaster - it was the wrong one. I had told them it was a five wire sensor - it wasn’t, it was a three wire. my mistake. Bugger. So off I went to GSF again. This was not a wasted trip. Despite the three wire sensor being slightly more expensive, the nice bloke let me have it for the same price and we had a good chat at the same time, which is always nice.

Plus I bumped into a bloke I knew - he restored a Beetle on Discovery home and Leisure in a programme called ‘Beetle Crisis’. He’s also done another TV programme called ‘Campervan Crisis’. Have you seen them? I haven’t unfortunately as I don’t have those channels. He lived around the corner from my parents and also has a Herald called Harold - hence us becoming friends. He’s moved away now, although bizarrely enough to a village right close to Peterborough where I work. Small world eh?

Anyhow, The Volvo now has a completely new exhaust from front to back and is now as quiet as a Volvo 440 can be. Thank goodness for that - I just hope that the SAAB’s exhaust holds out until I can afford to replace it. To celebrate I got my Vitesse out of the garage for a bit of a service. This is only the second time it’s been out since I let the MoT expire last September I’m ashamed to say. All I have to do now is fit the new Automec copper brake pipes and she’ll be ready for Mr MoT man.

After the recent Triumph Spares day I’m dead keen to get it back on the road again - I’ve really missed that car…�