The Car Thread

[bing]

It's daft @MadManMike because it more or less stops accelerating at 35mph, then will take ages to creep upto 55 unless you turn eco mode off, and even then it changes gear too early, which doesn't use all the torque properly, and uses more fuel. It only does 8.3mpg if I'm Lucky anyway 

[MadManMike]

8.3mpg, nice! haha

I got up to 49.2mpg in Eco Pro and usually around 48.7mpg in Sport, so it's not worth the hassle really.

[Jolfa]

On fuel economy, that twin engine Golf I built did 2 gallons to the mile, it was obscene.

Currently strongly considering getting myself an RS4 as an investment toy, think I'd kick myself somewhere down the line if I don't...

 

[MadManMike]

Some proper car-porno in Brizzle this morning:

And one of my friends has just finished building this, using a 2CV engine

[SamKidney]

Finally got to doing something on the new Civic this afternoon. Side skirts removed to reveal the cleanest sills I’ve ever seen on a 96-00 Honda Civic. Over the moon.

 

 

Also got the front end off and gave everything a de-grease and steam clean in prep for two small patches that need welding into the inner wings. 

 

I hope to get the dash board and all the associated wiring out over the coming week in preparation of swapping the current coupes wiring in when the time comes. There is differences in the wiring in these cars being different ages and I want to avoid buying another K swap conversion loom at almost £400.. 

Fuel and brake lines to remove along with the fuel tank before I cut out the spare wheel well and flat floor it to mount the swirl pot and pumps. 

[Luke Rainbird]

Looks tidy, Sam. Seems to be in great shape.

 

Rainbird update:

So, new year, new car.

After a frustrating 2017 of chasing numerous issues, fixing them and uncovering more (rinse and repeat), plus picking up a very tidy Platinum Grey LCR for my friend Chris a few weeks back, I had those urges every man knows all too well.

Hopped on a train:

15 minutes later I was back where I started

Passed this en route. Anyone know what it is? I think it might be a '59 Impala/similar (Here's looking at you, @Tom Booth ) 

Brief stop at Reading station. Last time I was here was December 2014, picking up the black LCR, when I met Jardo (TFs very own @Pashley26 ) for a lift in the RaceTaxi.

Some 5 hours after I left home, I arrived here

Was picked up from the station by a chap I'd spoken to online. Met his ridiculous RatDog.

Had a chat, he repeatedly told me what a gangster he was. Turns out he wasn't lying...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFgp0r8taRM

Lulz.

Keen to escape, I got on the road as soon as possible to start the trip home. But first...

A day trip to Bedford and a half tank of fuel later, I was the owner of another LCR. It's by no means perfect, but given it's 15 years old I can forgive a few niggles and I have a spare car to pilfer parts from now anyway. Having wanted a PG LCR for the better part of a decade I have finally ticked the box, and it's given me the bug again which can only be a good thing.

The car has covered more miles than I'd have liked at 150k, however when driving it feels as tight as any other 1.8t I've driven and there's a reasonable service history with it, showing a cambelt and waterpump change in Oct 2017 which is encouraging.

Issues needing addressing in no particular order:
- Splitter needs replacing
- Passenger mirror electrics not working
- Passenger front window motor failed
- Top lambda sensor failed.
- Intermittent Vehicle Speed Sensor issue.
- OSR jacking cover missing
- Inside stinks of chemical bullshit, previous owner was a vape mong

Mirrors were first - simply swap across the mirror with the black car and switch the plastic caps so it's the right colour. Incidentally the mirrors on the black car were Platinum Grey when I bought them years ago! Good chance to clean behind the base while it was off.

Next task was addressing the window regulator. Previous guy had ripped the old motor out and made a mess of the regulator cables. He kindly included not just one but two dead motors though, which was good of him.

Rather than messing about trying to repair the existing regulator and motor assembly, I just swapped across the part from the black car again. Either way I'd need to pull the entire panel from the new car so it wasn't much more work to do so, so I pulled it out and cleaned it up ready to go. Had to reseat on of the cables which was a little awkward, but a bit of thinking soon sorted that.

There'd previously been ludicrous quanities of butyl tape on the panel, which is pretty commonplace as the factory seals on these were diabolical. Took a while to remove but did so and has been replaced with a more realistic amount and bolted back up to the car. All tested and working fine, so door card hung and another job ticked off the list.

So the list now looks a little more like this:
- Splitter needs replacing
- Top lambda sensor failed.
- Intermittent Vehicle Speed Sensor issue.
- OSR jacking cover missing
- Inside stinks of chemical bullshit, previous owner was a vape mong

Relatively logical process to sort that out:
- Splitter gets replaced
- Top lambda from the old car
- Need to investigate VSS, not sure of cause at this point
- I have spare jack covers, but need to find correct paint which is proving a little less straightforward than usual
- INSANELY DEEP CLEAN NEEDED. Thorough wet vac needed, plus I hope to steam clean what I can. Exterior could also do with a proper going over when I get a decent weekend to spend some proper time on it. Would like to give it a really good clean before it gets too much use so I know it's protected as well as possible.

So that's where we are. Grey LCR has finally happened, Black LCR isn't all that happy about it...

[MadManMike]

Looks really GUD, that

I still love the Leons, that blue one I had was awesome, other than being 90bhp. In hindsight, I should have sold that and gone straight to the Eunos, bypassing the black money pit I bought instead. Especially when I think what kind of 5 I could have bought for that £2k.

Ah well, it's all good.

 

[dann2707]

Mike's right that does look really gud. Gud write up too 

[JD™]

Gud. 

[Tom Booth]

'59 El Camino esé.

Did the stripper turn up dude? Doubt she survived the oxygen starved box though..

[CurtisRider]

On 2/11/2018 at 9:33 PM, MadManMike said:

And one of my friends has just finished building this, using a 2CV engine

Any more details about this @MadManMike? Has he got a build thread at all?

[MadManMike]

6 hours ago, CurtisRider said:

Any more details about this @MadManMike? Has he got a build thread at all?

He's not the internet type, nor the take photos type, so no build thread unfortunately. I think it took him about a year to build in his garage.

I can find out more info, but from what I saw when he got the kit, it's a bare metal frame that he painted black and the panels he had to make himself from sheet. I believe it comes with instructions / templates, but the body is made from just sheet metal.

It uses a 2CV engine, 2CV clocks and steering wheel. In terms of suspension, I'm not sure, but I think that may be 2CV also.

Couple more bonus pics as you're interested:

I can find out the name of the kit if you're looking to build one or just want to read up on it...?

[Tom Booth]

I hope to God it doesn't use 2cv suspension

[SamKidney]

Very Morgan-esque. Lovely. 

Ive been lucky enough to drive an original Morgan 3 wheeler with the Jap V Twin up front. Hand controls are tricky.. but the sound is something else. 

[CurtisRider]

On 2/13/2018 at 7:34 PM, MadManMike said:

He's not the internet type, nor the take photos type, so no build thread unfortunately. I think it took him about a year to build in his garage.

I can find out more info, but from what I saw when he got the kit, it's a bare metal frame that he painted black and the panels he had to make himself from sheet. I believe it comes with instructions / templates, but the body is made from just sheet metal.

It uses a 2CV engine, 2CV clocks and steering wheel. In terms of suspension, I'm not sure, but I think that may be 2CV also.

Couple more bonus pics as you're interested:

I can find out the name of the kit if you're looking to build one or just want to read up on it...?

Fantastic, thanks Mike! Yes if you get a moment that would be great as this is just the sort of thing I've been wanting to build for a while now, preferably with a wooden frame as I mainly work with wood these days anyway

[Luke Rainbird]

Folk who are semi-competent with electrics, and therefore far more qualified than myself, a little help would be appreciated.

I'm retrofitting bixenon projectors to a spare set of Leon headlights. I actually pulled them apart and physically installed the projectors a while back but life got in the way and I'm only now getting around to wiring them in. I've seen lots of conflicting information on whether it's necessary to install additional relays, resistors etc in to have them function correctly, and would like to keep it all as simple as possible (as is about my level!)

The wiring in the headlight looks something like this:

The factory low beam will be replaced by an HID kit, so those wires will be redundant.
The sidelight will remain as is, so no wiring needs to change for that.

The factory halogen high beam has an earth to the casing and a single purple/black wire to the bulb itself. 
The solenoid for the bixenon flap is a 2-wire affair (red and black, though that's irrelevant I suppose)

Can I simply wire the solenoid wires to the high feed and earth and expect it to work?
Surely provided there's a live feed to the solenoid to activate it, and it's above a threshold voltage, the flap will flap.

[RobinJI]

Sounds right to me. 12v is 12v, the only thing it could change by not being a bulb is the current draw, but it's very, very unlikely that a little solenoid has a higher draw than a halogen bulb, so it should be safe with the factory wiring. Also, while it's a slightly sketchy attitude, if it doesn't work, that's why Seat put a fuse in for you . 

I believe the HID bulb should also draw less current than a halogen, so there shouldn't be any need for any new relays for what you're doing.

The only thing I can think of that could cause issues would be if the original halogens used a twin filament lamp like a H4, because they cut the feed to the dipped bean when they switch to full, meaning your flaps would be open, but everything would go rather dark. In which case you'd want to sort something out with a relay to remain open for both dipped and full beam, but the flaps to open only with high. 

[Luke Rainbird]

Cheers man.

Stock setup is all single-filament bulbs, so that shouldn't be a problem. The solenoid should only draw a small amount, so I plan to try it in parallel with the halogen full beam first and if I have any issues I'll try and think about it a little more "properly"

[CurtisRider]

*Boring question about retrofitting projectors that i've probably asked before but forgotten the answer*

What are the legalities of fitting a projector unit? If you had a bash and the other driver claimed your lights were blinding them and caused the incident then would that void your insurance as they aren't E marked? I've got some spare headlights and some projectors ready for my Vivaro+Porsche and even though I intend on making them safe, I don't want to cause myself hassle down the line.

[Luke Rainbird]

I expect it'd come down to being E marked or not. It's possible to bit complete units that are, so I'd imagine they should be ok but I don't expect retrofitting the projectors yourself quite meets the requirement, even if the projectors are individually ok. That said, whether it'd be picked up or not is another matter again. If you take the time to properly align them etc they should be undetectable from another driver's perspective. 

[Danny]

13 hours ago, Luke Rainbird said:

The factory low beam will be replaced by an HID kit, so those wires will be redundant.
The sidelight will remain as is, so no wiring needs to change for that.

The factory halogen high beam has an earth to the casing and a single purple/black wire to the bulb itself. 
The solenoid for the bixenon flap is a 2-wire affair (red and black, though that's irrelevant I suppose)

Can I simply wire the solenoid wires to the high feed and earth and expect it to work?
Surely provided there's a live feed to the solenoid to activate it, and it's above a threshold voltage, the flap will flap.

So the projector has a flap/solenoid to switch it between low/high beam?

On your car does low beam go out when you switch to high beam or do they stay on?

Sounds like you'd need to power the HID with the low beam 12v/ground and then power the solenoid/flap with the high beam 12v.

[Tom Booth]

Jennys mini has started acting up on the stop start so we decided times come to get shut of it.

Life long goal realised and I've bought a 2001 silver 3 door Corsa with manual EVERYTHING.

With 22k genuine miles on it, full service history and interior is practically brand new, all for £125

Gives us the opportunity to offload the mini, look for a good replacement and get that sorted with no pressure really.

 

[george_seamons]

As Danny says, just wire the solenoid to the high beam positive and ground, it works perfectly that way (I did the same thing with my Leon, and had no problems)

[Luke Rainbird]

2 hours ago, Danny said:

So the projector has a flap/solenoid to switch it between low/high beam?

On your car does low beam go out when you switch to high beam or do they stay on?

Sounds like you'd need to power the HID with the low beam 12v/ground and then power the solenoid/flap with the high beam 12v.

Yeah, the HIDs replace the low beam so that's a direct swap, hence not mentioning them. The solenoid just needs to activate when there's power to high beams, hence the simple thinking. Seems to be a winner by all TF reports, cheers gents

[george_seamons]

Life Tip: Put HID's in the main beam too, that way you have "double main beam", which is like football stadium when its lit up...absolutely amazing on dark country roads!