March 2002
All right I'll start the inevitable thread.
Great show great topic, however:
Why didn't the give the handlebar tash guy a script and let *him* present the whole thing showing the trained experts doing all the work in detail.
They don't need the four amateurs or even Lee Hurst.
Still no matter how badly done a show on the restoration of a Tiger Moth is not so much a step in th eright dierction as a 4 hour motorway drive in th eright direction... Read more
We appear to have fergie on top of Andrew in recent postings. Read more
The "cars on mars" thread reminded me of this:
In a Jeremy Clarkson article in the Times JC pointed out the recent findings of satelite mapping of the moon.Recently a satelite photographed every inch of the moon but to the surprise of the researchers no trace of the Buggy (motoring link) or equipment used by the Americans in 1969 could be found.
JC suggested two possible reasons for this:
1). Alien space wombles had cleaned them away.
2). The Americans never landed on the moon.
The latter will agree with conspiracy theories that have been around for years.The landing on the moon was filmed in a studio.
Makes you wonder...... Read more
OK, Master Mates.
Martin.
Recently my Daughter-in-Law was travelling along the M62 at peak hour.On the opposite side of the motorway,a lorry laden with wood shed part of its load and continued on its way. Pieces of 3x2 bounced along the motorway over the central reservation,hit the bonnet of her car went through the windscreen at face hight at an angle,smashed the sun visor and embedded itself in the roof inches away from her face,causing her facial injury.Another piece went through the passenger side removed the tax disk and stopped at chest hight about a foot from the passenger seat.NO OTHER DRIVER SAW THE ACCIDENT they must have had their eyes closed.Eventually a motorist stopped and called the emergency services on his mobile. She has now lost her NCB and had to pay the first £350 of the accident The question to my saga is how does one contact the M I B? To try and refund damages.Any help anyone can give. Read more
Andrew wrote
"So have some sympathy for your much maligned traffic cop."
AIB van on the way to an incident, funnily enough it was also west bound on the M62, travelling quite quickly, well OK then absolutely harry flatters, maybe even flat in fifth? ;-) (it *was* an Astramax)
Anyway a Beemer on the eastbound side attacked the central armco at a fair old rate of knots and highish incident angle. Van driver sees the beemer rise up in the air, and start to somersault over the top, so welly is kept hard down. Beemer landed in lane 3 westbound behind AIB van, rest of journey to incident accompanied by strange smell from van occupants.
So, Ive read the older posts re. Mondeo 2.0 DI (NOT the new TDci, the old TDDi) and poor economy, strange power delivery... but - Im still considering purchasing one! Am I mad? Have the things improved with age?
We are looking at an estate for a company/private hack that will get used and abused... dont want anything fancy so its between a mondie or vectra diesel... whats the latest consencus on mondeo 115 diesel? Read more
I've never spoken to anyone who didn't like their Octavia but there again I've spoken to more Mondeo drivers and most of them like theirs too.
When I had a V6 Mondeo I thought the only thing wrong with it was the thirst.
Can anyone help??
306 TD saloon. Dull knocking coming from rear, possibly nearside. I've changed the rear suspension mountings and shockers. I've removed the parcel shelf and secured the spare wheel carrier. I've emptied the boot and taken out the jack. I've checked the security of everything, even pulled out the side panels and checked the seat belts. I've checked the exhaust. I'VE CHECKED EVERY BLOODY THING AND ITS STILL THERE!!!!!!!!
Does not seem to be linked to rough surfaces but slight undulations.
Please, please someone help me!!!!!!!!!!!!
Andrew. Read more
Any chance that the noise comes from a door against its frame? This used to happen with 205s which had a rubber block at the top of the rear door, meant to bear against the bodywork. Often had 1mm of gap, enough to make a gentle impact when cornering.
Well this one amazed me. There is this website "The Internet Archive", www.archive.org/ , that claims to have made a record of all (some/many ??) the webpages since the mid 1990s.
Could hardly believe it but a little bit of snooping about and for example here is the HJ page from 18th October 2000, before the current layout....
web.archive.org/web/20001018092645/http://www.hone.../
Is there nowhere to hide on the net?
David Read more
Sasha is now very happily involved with an Australian guy by the name of Dave trying to save the Gibbon and Siamang species from extinction through a project in Bali. I've bought them a URL: www.baligibbons.com and linked it to Sasha's old webspace, but it's up to them what they do with that. My connection with Indonesia comes from the fact that my wife's parents came from an island that was absorbed into Indonesia and my sister in law is invloved in a business in Bali.
HJ
Has anybody come across similar incidents?
Within a 6 week period I have had two friends both driving on the M20 in Kent at different times both being - for want of a better description - sideswiped by a left-hand drive foreign lorry.
It seems that the lorries, both with trailers, were pulling out from the inside lane to the centre lane when they hit the cars. The fact that the lorries were left-hand drive coupled with their height presumably caused a blind spot which meant that they couldn't see any approaching car that was in the process of overtaking them.
In one case the lorry didn't stop, the assumption being that he did not even know that he has hit anyone. The car was spun around and thrown onto the hard shoulder without the driver really realising what had happened. He was very shocked, car badly damaged.
The second incident hospitalized the driver. Again car badly damaged. This time the lorry stopped. It had an English driver. The attending police officer said at the scene that this was the THIRD such incident in two days that he had attended.
Last week my husband was held up on the M25( East Grinstead area) because of an accident. When traffic resumed flowing he passed a foreign lorry with trailer together with damaged car. It is reasonable to suppose that this was a similar kind of incident.
From hereon in I shall be giving all foreign plated vehicles a very wide berth indeed.
Not all accidents on motorways, it seems, are caused by excessive speeds.
Rita Read more
A major blind area on both UK and foreign lorries is actually just behind the cab.
As the mirrors are about 8 feet off the ground they look straight over anything in that area and if you don't want to be there when the lorry turns.
It has now been confirmed, in writing by Mercedes, that water gets into the dash board. They say " its not a fault but a characteristic" and it is not enough
to damage component parts!
Well I have already had a new Blower motor for ACC, new dash board screen
and computer relay which are housed under the dash.
You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that you do not need any damp
atmosphere in a electronic compartment.
Maybe thats why I have computer problems, like power failure for no obvious
reasons, when travelling at 70 mph on motorways. Then the dealer says
that there is no problem with the car although I've nearly killed myself. AND
they are not interested in trying to sort it out for their VALUED CUSTOMER.
AND I'm not the only one, I know of many other owners not happy. On the
verge of going to court.
Anybody else out there with similar problems?
Colin Read more
Colin,
Another thought - Would it be possible for your post be translated into German, French, Dutch etc and posted on all sites similar to this, maybe even dedicated Mercedes sites?
There must be enough expertise i.e multilingual web surfers out there that could assist.
The wider european market might throw up enough examples to back your case.
One last thing - if as stated by Mercedes that rain water doesn't cause component problems would it be unreasonable to suppose that the fault therefore lies totally within the bowels of the computer. For example, either (I coin a phrase here but it seems relevant) piss-poor programming or just inferior micro chippery.
Go to it,
Rita
FIF,
Lets have a full real life user report on the fab Fabia then S.
David Read more
DAvid,In about 197x at the hight of my Dr. Fever I looked into getting one for myself and I think my memory is right... it was an old doner to use even then, but the intent was never to go more than 30-40 mph for me... the real one at the show has quite a few nice add ons due to the BBC prop dept... when I made my inquiry they said that had sold about 180 kits so perhaps there are a few around some where... old kit cars tend to end up behind the barn like old landrovers rather than going to the scrapheap I think.
best
Randolph
Browse
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Salvage Squad was generally derided here, with good reasons, but the Gypsy Moth programme was very interesting. It might be interesting to make a programme of a video diary of some restoration projects, rather than the contrived 2 weeks Challenge Aneka type race format. It would probably only get shown on Discovery in the afternoon for the sad old gits like us.
I thought the engine unseizer was hot oil, not WD40. I'd think WD40 has too many volatile solvents to make the technique sensible. It would probably detonate the vapour.
On Scrapyard Challenge the other night, one team built a model plane, one built a blimp. So after trying the bits of polythene, the airship team prised open a car boot to find a roll of abandoned airship material (Xylar, Mylar?). One of the plane builders had the good fortune to discover a 12" wooden propellor amongst the scrapped motors. Remarkable coincidences, contrived seems an inadequate word. It made Salvage Squad almost plausible.