March 2010
Driving home 11pm at the weekend I was followed for several miles by a BMW X5. For the first time in my life I started to understand the warnings on the news which state 'the following news report contains flash photography'. Every time the BMW hit even the slightest undulation in the road, the lights seemed to flash in my rearview. Switched to dim, started to get me in the wing mirrors, drove me potty.
In the end pulled over let her past.
Anyone had the same sort of experience? Read more
The Speedometer, Rev Counter & mileage readout have suddenly stopped working. The warning lights do work ok as does everything else.
Checked the fuse for the instrument module which appears ok... Read more
With respect to Tommk4: The cleaning of the contacts on the back of the cluster is a sort term fix and more often than not does not solve the problem. The intermittent problem you have described is often a precursor to instrument failure - I hope not. My speedo played up for several months, until one day it just stopped working altogether. Typical Ford electrics :(
Hello there.
Was just wondering if it is possible to fit Ford 95 ABA 610208 AA pretensioners instead of Ford 95 ABA 610208 AB units. From the information that I can track down on the internet, there does not seem to be any vast difference between the units apart from the AA and AB sufixes and the year of models fitted to.... Read more
In the Ford part numbering system,AA to AB in the suffix denotes a minor change and should be interchangeable.
I just found this 2007 video of banger racing for pre-1970 cars. At first glance it looks like sacrilege but I suppose most of these cars were not worth restoring beforehand or had been restored once or twice already.
Warning - contains images of a Standard Vanguard being shunted!!... Read more
My uncle did a lot of banger racing in the 70's and early 80's. The cars came from the local scrappie - anything that could be procured for twenty quid and which would run for long enough to race was fair game. He reckons he destroyed cars which would be worth tens of thousands today. Of course, this was when the cars were plentiful and not yet classics.
He reckons a rotten E-type once turned up at a meet he was racing at, and was smashed and destroyed within 2 laps. Makes you cry just thinking about it.
Just to say thank you very much for letting us know.
I just joined and uploaded a sample album - for family out East. While doing so I noticed that you can upload a pic from your mobile phone.
But i`m struggling to understand it.... Read more
I thought you'd taken a surreal picture of a Citroen. Come to think about it, if any car were suitable for a surrealist, it would be a Traction Avant.
Received this unsolicited email this morning
cut&paste... Read more
So, what`s new? are you monitoring those frames on the Sherman?.
I like that 'the Sherman', get banned if i tell you what swmbo calls it....
Some weeks ago, I posted about my interest in retiring my old petrol Mondeo estate and replacing it with a 1.3 diesel Astra estate which had been run as a hire car by a good friend. Well, I took the plunge and the Astra is now mine - or at least, it will be when the documents come back from the DVLA.
I liked the idea of £90 ved and lower insurance ....... and the increased fuel economy and, frankly, we didn't need an estate quite as big as the Mondeo.... Read more
We've had at least one turbodiesel in the household for the past 7 years or so, but I do remember the adjustment needed to drive them effectively after years of petrol power. The power delivery is completely different. Most diesels make peak torque somewhere around the 2000 RPM mark, and if you aim for this as a target in daily driving, you will find the engine pulls strongly when needed, and returns optimum economy. The simplistic answer is do everything a gear higher than you would in a petrol - so a third gear overtake would be done in 4th, and there is rarely a need to exceed 3000 RPM in daily driving.
Also, take advantage of the diesel's lack of engine braking. If you're cruising at, say 40-50 mph on an A-road or a busy motorway, select a high gear and you will find you can keep up barely touching the accelerator pedal, with "feet off" driving a realistic proposition as the car barely slows when you lift off. Our Golf will show 70-80mpg on the computer in these conditions. Of course, if you need to accelerate hard, you'll need to drop a gear or two, but it makes for economical cruising.
Any suggestions for water temp change fluctuations?
Car is a 2000 2.0 Petrol BORA.... Read more
Symptoms mirror those I had on my 2001 2.0 litre petrol A4. Changing the temp sensor solved it.
Is it my imagination, or have garage air lines got worse?
There is a Texaco filling station near me and the air line has been out of order for over a year. Our local Morrisons has what might kindly be described as an 'eccentic' line (it forgets the set pressure after every tyre and charges 10p per minute for the pleasure).... Read more
Yes, they just pushed on, but they had a decent compressor that would deliver the air in seconds. I don't think the fag lighter in a car would be capable of supplying the current required and how big would the compressor need to be and would you want tocarry it around in the boot?
I've yet to find a compressor suitable to replace a footpump, but I'm getting fed-up with the poor quality of available footpumps. One has recently had a very poor seal with the valve and another 'blew off' the built-in gauge. It was designed to be fitted eith just a couple of turns of a plastic thread.
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Yes - some people post stupid comments . . .
It might just have been me . . . . . . ....