CurtisRider

Something like that is not out of the question but also not high on my preferences list I've also been looking at pick ups and quite fancy a Navara, specifically the Outlaw but if I buy something like that I need to check what it is capable of towing as I'd like to get a trailer+license at some point

I haven't seen Prawns but I did see Robin had a cool 5 series. Not keen on an E46 unless it was really cheap as my parents have one and it looks and feels so cheap inside, it makes my Vauxhall look like a Roller. The Passat Tom had looked good, earlier Passats are mingers though. Something like this would be great, not sure on running costs though but they look baller: https://www.gumtree.com/p/bmw/bmw-530-d-touring-sport-/1175843393

I'm getting the itch for a car change (not the Porsche). I want something bigger than my Astra H and preferably a bit more pokey too but I'm not that fussed as long as it's bout the same minimum (1.9 120bhp currently). I keep looking at 9-3 Aeros as they are silly cheap now and I loved my 9-3 sport. The thing that bothers me is I think I will be doing quite a few miles so a diesel is necessary most likely and I think an estate would be really useful (TTID is an option I guess!). The other choice is I go for a pick up for more space but that won't exactly be great on fuel and I don't need that extra space all the time. I don't care about having a super new car and it would be nice to have something that is like an old couch for the motorways, if only they made a 9000 Kombi....

I'll get photos soon and make a for sale thread

I've merged both my On One Inbred and my Giant Trance into one bike as I'm finding it increasingly difficult to get out on rides and I can't justify having two! I really enjoy having a hardtail, the Giant was a little too good at smoothing everything out and rougher terrain was no hassle making it less fun. The money from selling the spares I can use towards buying stuff for my workshop. I think I'll ditch the Hope/DT wheels in favour of the lesser SLX/Rockrider wheels which have been perfectly good enough for the past 3 years just without the lovely clickyness. Do these prices (without postage) sound about right for the parts I have left? Giant Trance X5 frame and shock, resprayed but chipped heavily on the rear triangle £150 Rockshox Pike forks (worn bushes but still really plush, recently serviced) £50 Bare Deore cranks with BB £30 Hope Pro 2 hubs on 26" DT rims £150 Sunline V1 bar and stem £30 On one single speed kit (chainring, sprocket, spacers, KMC kool) £15 Tektro Auriga brakes, new pads £20

Forgive my ignorance...why does the pulley need to come off in the first place?

I cut and routed the beech surface and used the left over bit as a back, just needs a little more fine sanding and then some PU varnish to protect it a bit. I did wonder about routing out a recess in the middle so that screws and stuff don't fall off but then I realise I CBA and a magnetic tray will be fine anyway.

Spot on, I'm liking those ideas! I already have several decent benches so extra surface space on this is probably unecessary. I have 8 4.5" grinders so a few can live on this and the rest on my welding cart (that'll have the MIG, TIG and plasma cutter on it). I'm going to order some new castors that are braked as this thing likes to run away! There's a bracket on the back that I I could use to mount a power strip+cable tidy. I need to make some drawer dividers at some point, currently I'm using it to store a bunch of wood working power tools as I'm running out of space in my garage but once it's in my new workshop I can chuck in car stuff.

The rolling cabinet thing I got for a tenner was a bit tatty and I didn't like the surface either. A quick sand and the draws are now black on the front (stayed white inside for visibility) and the scratched body is clean blue again. I have added a magnetic tool holder strip and the little chrome lip things will be ideal for lin bins with a little modification to get them sitting level. I have laid a nice piece of beech kitchen work surface on top (needs trimming), I think it'll look pretty nice and that then gives me the option to run a vice if needed as it should be beefy enough. I can't decide whether to bother with the side table part or not, alternatively I could put a power strip on there and some brackets for angle grinders, impact gun, etc?

@Tom Booth She's at Millbrook, hence the frustration @AdamAllen I struggled to get a genuine Sachs set up for less than that when I got one for my Astra, even that was a mistake price as most were £100 more and they decided to go through with it

@Tom Booth Where were you? I didn't spot you, I was in a bit of a mood I was driving with a white 944 for a bit on the M1, we looked badass! I'm going to be in the Mansfield area quite a bit for at least the next month or so to visit my girlfriend in hospital

@Mikee I absolutely adore mine, I think it is a a great little car. Don't buy one expecting it to be quick (mines a 2.0 na, you can get a turbo or a 2.5 version too which have a bit more oomph), but that's not really that important, it is a really fun drive in standard form and mine in its current form (15" steels with wider tyres, coilovers and a RARB) is superb fun as well as still being a comfortable GT cruiser as intended. Think of it like a more roomy non convertible MX5 in that they are great handling and fun in the twisty bits but not so hot in the straights. Running costs really depend on the base car and your abilities to fix it. Most things are fairly cheap as they are shared with VW/Audi underpinnings, some parts seem very expensive in comparison as they are Porsche specific but if you shop around you can pick up bargains still. The only difficult parts of this car are the clutch (either engine out or as its transaxle you remove the gearbox, drop the rear suspension, slide the torque tube over and do it that way) and some have rusty tanks that need replacing (gearbox out, drop rear suspension). The rest of the car is fairly easy to work on, most are rot free apart from the battery tray. If you like to modify them then engine swaps are not as simple as dropping in a VAG lump, the 5 cylinders fit as do the V8s theoretically but these are not exactly budget options. I'm hoping to fit either a 1.8t or a 1.9TDI to mine, I just need to make an adaptor at some point. 5 stud stuff can be fitted so a host of wheel and brake upgrades are possible. Some people fit GT kits but they are generally considered more hassle than it's worth (I disagree because they look great!). The car was my daily for a year, my car of preference when I bought a different daily (astra cdti) and this year it mainly just does nice days as it's a faff getting it out of the car port with 2 other cars in the way! As a daily, it's the usual old car woes in the winter, seals get old and aren't cheap to replace but once done it's just like any other car If you need any help @RobinJI and I both have one so between us we can answer most questions.

Just hosed the car down as it was covered in dust from sanding, pretty happy with how the sills look actually. I also fitted new bonnet insulation, not sure if it'll make any difference really though!

I shoved on a tin of Alpine white and it doesn't look amazing but a massive improvement over what was there before! I'll get proper side on photos once I can clean the car. I'm going to paint the lip part black once this has hardened and then it can stay like this until next summer when I should be in a position to paint the whole thing I'm thinking stay with white on top but the lower half will be prosthetic limb beige. I haven't done much prep on the wings as they both need welding so the paint in that area will be stripped off again soon anyway!

Eurgh, I didn't realise that rattle can stone chip had a smooth finish, I've tried speckling the paint out by only depressing the button a little way which has kind of worked. I don't have a compressor here so I'll just whack a few coats of alpine white on and call it a day until I'm back on the farm. The whole car needs a respray anyway so at least for now it looks tidier and the rust is at bay! Had so many weird looks from neighbours, they don't understand why i'm wrapping my car in gift paper

That happened to me, fortunately my engine is non interference but it did stump me for bloody ages! And my flywheel was put on in the wrong position so ignition timing was a total nightmare, it's all sorted now after the clutch had to be swapped.

It's been a while since I have had time to do anything to my Porsche, I decided today I should crack on with sorting the sills as the stone chip was peeling, faded and some rust was appearing on the lip underneath where it has been bent from people using the wrong jacking point. I've not gone to too much effort with stripping it back, a quick wire wheel, sanding and rust treatment is all that's needed as I will be using stone chip again then body coloured paint on top, this should make the sides of the car look a little deeper and the car should look lower too as the body appears to be closer to the floor (that's how it looks to me when I have seen others do it). I wanted to avoid going back to the metal where possible as this can mean the galvanised surface is removed, obviously where there was surface rust I had no choice!

Yup, Spoons are great seats!

Check your pollen filter, I bet that's mega skanky!

Rear bushes on the Astra are looking ropey, so hopefully i'll get the new ones I just ordered fitted up and the handling should improve (not that it seems bad right now). For the workshop I got myself another budget rolling cabinet substitute, for £20 i'm not grumbling! A nice thick gauge steel, 75mm castors and ball bearing drawers. The fold up surface is kind of handy, but both bits of surface will be replaced with something fresh, along with a bit of paint on the cabinet and it should be good to go it totally fills the back of my Astra (with the seats down). I also picked up this SIP trolley for £40, it was new but needed the draw fixing which took about 10mins. It probably wasn't really worth buying at that price but looked handy with the slimmer draws for smaller tools. I still need to sort the red one out with wheels and a quick coat of paint, then I can stop worrying about mobile tool carts....

So I decided I would hold out on a rolling cabinet unless something came along for the right price...but I also kind of need a unit to drag about in the mean time. ECP have these Sealey topchests on offer right now, use the code: Discount25 and it makes them £33.74! Sealey drawer unit I then found a very small steel cabinet for £10 on Gumtree, it has bearings on the lower draw but no the upper ones, I may add some soft close bearing units I have sitting in the garage just to make it all work smoothly. Im going to attach wheels to the base, add some angle steel so the topchest will sit happily on there, then respray it red with black draws. I may also fit some different handles I have spare from an old project just so it looks smarter. That should do the job for now! I've got some non slip matting coming to line the draws (I have a few other topchests). This should be far better than the cheapo units and cheaper too. I also wanted extraction above my welding/grinding areas, but the vent arms are pretty pricey usually at around £400+. I got this for £13.50 off eBay This has angle adjustment, a massive bearing unit to allow it to swing and some spare ducting. I have a fan already so this should be quite an easy thing to hook up. I also bought a nice steel hoover unit with loads of spares for £10, my workshop is slowly getting well kitted out for not much

Also just because I'm not sure where else to post this (and it's going to be used for car stuff) I thought I'd show one of my bits of bodge tool making that i'm working on. For some reason I wanted a knife grinder, It might be because they look a bit mad but otherwise i'm not entirely sure why as I don't make knives... I do however want a belt grinder for smoothing edges of steel, profiling tubes, etc. A normal belt sander is usually too wide and a linisher tends to have short belts that get very hot too quickly then snap, so I wanted something a little better and for little to no money as it's not really an essential tool right now. Typically these knife grinders seem to be available in the states and the belts aren't really available over here so I found the closest I could that was readily available off the shelf. I recycled most of the stuff on this so far, the motor is from a water pump from the bath that came with my house, the alloy pulley is from a very decrepit belt sander i was given years ago that was totally worn out, the frame materials are all reclaimed from old desks that i've pulled apart, the longboard wheels were £10 and the belts were £1 each! The front can be adjusted to different angles, and also extended forwards if longer belts are to be used. I now need to make the main frame secure to the motor mounting frame, fit a tensioning spring (I think I have something suitable somewhere), I have a damper from my old Saabs auxiliary belt tensioner with will smooth everything out. I also need to incorporate some sort of alignment so that the belt can be adjusted side to side, as well as a bed on the tilting head so that the belt has something to rest against when something is pressed against it. Finally a switch will be added with possibly a work light too just because I have one handy. I've also been making a disc sander for the wood workshop but I'm having issues getting the disc to run true so I'll need to find a new pulley and try again! Fortunately I haven't finished fitting the table yet so I can work around that.

Those adjustable top mounts do tend to have bearings in them but not the same kind as what normal types have and will be more susceptible to wear unless covered/maintained regularly. . I went to Porsche 92Forty yesterday (Celebration of the 40th anniversary of the 924)and it was really good. For some reason Ronan Keating was there and he parked his Mercedes in the middle of the display cars, his car was promptly moved on! My car and I enjoyed 60mins around some bits of Silverstone, it responded well to it all which made me feel quite happy that all the work I have put into it isn't a waste! The instructors commented that my engine was more perky than the others and they were surprised my self built suspension was so good compared to stock. My brakes were a bit smokey after each 20min session though, but i'm assuming that is fairly normal as they were getting used rather heavily. It did give me the bug to go again, although more ooomph is needed!

I've just hit that stage in life, I'm looking for a tow bar for my Astra so I can get a caravan. At least i'm not considering one for the Porsche (yet).

I know, I've got a good selection of things already but this is all mega upgrades as mine is quite light duty in comparison. I can't go to far wrong as long as it's the right price, can always sell and upgrade again!