Practically Classics Forum

Reminds me of the sort of student transport I used to see parked up outside halls of residence when I was a student. Legal but not concourse by any means.
I remember one Mk3 cortina with the wing rusted through in the normal place on the top "Repaired" with a disembowelled large Fosters tin artfully inserted

I miss seeing student transport kind of vehicles out and about. I know it's a sign of economic woe and all that, but it beats seeing row after row of shiny finance-mobiles.

Been finding myself very short on time just lately so there's not been a great deal of opportunity to work on the car. That doesn't mean I've not done anything at all, it's just taken longer to get an update together. The very, very important news is that a headlight arrived!


Then we had a weird problem. If you turned the headlights on the new passenger side one would be very dim and go even dimmer on main. We checked the wiring, the bulbs, earth points and the lot and nothing could be found as the cause. Mike then put it all back together and now the driver's side one wouldn't come on at all with dip beam. Curious, I unplugged things and plugged them back in again and hey presto, everything works. Renault + electrics = no surprise there.

Sidelights (which have to be on for the headlights to come on)


Dipped beam.


Main beam. There is a more noticable difference in person.


Spotlights!


I should just about be able to see where I'm going with all of those on. At the rear, the replacement light lens were fitted. I need to replace the driver's side unit completely as the one I was sent has a reflector in it while the one fitted doesn't, Ijust haven't had the motivation to grub around in the still muddy wheel arch to do it. You don't access the rear light clusters from inside the car where all the electrical connections would be nice and clean and dry, you do it in the inner wing where the rear wheels can cover them in crap. Hadn't realised how faded the old ones were until these were fitted.


The horn on the Renault was deader than a dead thing so grabbed a bass tone escargot from the Princess stash which suits the car surprisingly well.


Struggling to find anywhere to put my manual reversing light switch, there's not really any dashboard to fit it to. It does match the interior really well so it will find a spot eventually. The red telltale will be a nice visual reminder that the reversing lights are on. This is the cheaper, easier option to fit as the gearbox reversing light switch isn't compatible with the type of reversing lights fitted to the car, they need a separate switch for reasons that were explained to me but that I don't really understand.


Got the inner sill 'carpets' fitted and plonked the lower parcel shelf in place but haven't had time to bolt it down.

Important things happened today because the starter motor was returned all nicely refurbished.  I had planned to do the windscreen sealing since the new sealant arrived this morning but starter motor playtime was much more exciting.  Turned out the bearings were shot, the arm that engages the solenoid was snapped and it was half full of water.  Now it is not and works lovely.


Then set about putting the hoses back on and finding out what's missing or not.  The carb has a weird set up (to me at least) with a breather pipe from the rocker cover and what I assume is a vacuum pipe from the the manifold to  T piece.  The T piece is broken and the vacuum pipe has a bolt in the end of it but a replacement is already sorted.




Unfortunately after stripping the radiator down and taking it to a local company it turns out that it is knackered.  It's repairable if I can't find a brand new one, I don't want to buy a second-hand one.  The steel crimped section between the plastic ends and the aluminium fins has blown on one corner which is quite likely what contributed to the signs of the car overheating in the past.


Now for the important bit.  The battery was a bit flat when we tried this but nothing ventured, nothing gained, we gave the engine a quick go on the starter.  No fuel in the car and I haven't set the ignition timing, this was just to check everything turned freely.
http://vid845.photobucket.com/albums/ab ... 615-07.mp4

I'm still excited about that.

have you booked the mot yet?

There's a bright orange 1979 Vauxhall Carlton on eBay just now, its listing is illustrated by the usual variety of images among which is the one I've attached below, which shows the R6's long lost sister, just thought that this was sufficiently interesting to post here, my apologies if my R6-related joy should ideally be elsewhere than in this build thread:



Note the similarity between the registrations of the pair, different yet close enough to be mistaken by someone who sees the blue one after having consumed a quantity of fine Guyanese rum since last looking at the one featured in this thread!

just how much rum john?

A sensible quantity.

Does rum come in kegs or barrels?

john has it delivered by the tanker load...

I'm sure I remember something in the depths of this thread's history about the keeping up appearances Rover 213.
There is a guy in this facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/127519529899/
who has one for sale inviting offers. (disclaimer, it may be a 216)