Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Just had a look at the new radiator - it has two threaded brass holes on the offside facing the engine  which the one in the car does not have. I have checked online and all the radiators for sale for the 2.2 have these. Can they be bunged up or do I have the wrong radiator?

Just fitted a set of dials / clocks / instruments (call them what you like) to Sons Civic .
Long story but after me messing around with them due to an airbag light that wouldnt go out, just before the MOT, they werent working properly anymore.
Disappointed to find that the replacement set have 30,000 more miles on than the original set, despite being advertised as having almost exactly the same mileage. 
Got to fit an exhaust rear box to it at the weekend.
Hoping to fix its various little issues before decent weather arrives so I cand start into the list of various *little issues on my own two cars.

* C1 needs a replacement steering column due to knackered PAS motor, which requires the removal of the  complete dash assembly before starting the actual swap over.
If it gets too much, or doesnt solve the problem, then it will be down the weighbridge, and replaced by a cheap milk float, aka Nissan Leaf.

There was a leasing deal on Leapmotor,s a few months ago, which was three year lease at £200pcm, with one month deposit, and 10,000 miles a year.
No doubt a loss leader just to  achieve market penetration, but if I had known at the time, i might have been tempted.
Would still have kept the Omega as a second car though, just as it is now.

As for your Merc - no point trying to make economic sense of it. Its your hobby that gives you pleasure and thats all there is to it.
Some people spend disposable income on golf bats, for reasons better known to themselves, people like us choose to spend it on cars. 

It could, not unreasonably, be argued that the type of person leasing a brand new Astra wouldn't dream about owning a twenty year old anything Not that it feels like a twenty year old car...

I've owned less reliable new cars, but I think if I had to deal with the main dealer/manufacturer interface on a regular basis, I would be seriously considering my life choices.

Yes, never had no functionality.

And whilst ranting about Cisco - it's a daily chore in my professional life - their useless crap servers....

Like all server manufacturers, they provide an out of band management capability, provided in Cisco's case by what they call Cisco Integrated Management Console, or CIMC.  And it goes non responsive all the time.  It has a watchdog timer to restart it should it go unresponsive, but apparently that runs from the CIMC itself, and therefore goes unresponsive itself at the same time.  Cisco's solution, rather than fix the bloody shit?  Suggest we do a 260 mile round trip to pull the power cables out for 2 minutes.  The irony of having to do that to fix out of band management is lost on them.

I mean, when was the last time you saw an HPE iLO of Dell iDRAC lock up?  I'm guessing never.

Lol Ive a case with HPe currently about their ilo functionality on one of their new servers

Ah, but I bet its not locking up all the time, and basic functionality is always available.

iLO (and it's forerunner, RIBLO) has always been rock solid, with the issues on earlier versions around java version on the client browser not matching, and the unpatched iLO4s eating their NAND through excessive writes. But they always still worked.

Unlike Cisco shite.

I mean, I know it's your hobby and you'll end up with a really nice car, but is it really worth throwing all this money at? If it were mine, I think I'd be shitting myself about now.
If the unthinkable were to happen, what would the insurance payout be like?

For me, that wouldn't be an issue, in that I wouldn't be borrowing money to do the upgrades, and I'm sure DG is the same.  And once the money is spent, well, it's spent and not worth considering.

I would be more clenched had I borrowed a lot of money on an expensive, and generally less reliable, 15-20yr old car, worrying that major trouble could make the car worthless.  Not that I would ever buy a post 1980s Merc. Ever.

As to DG's comments about leasing/HP, as I've said loads of times before, it will work for some people.  Company schemes often make it a no brainer - like tunnie's EV tax avoidance scheme, or Mrs TB's old scheme when she was at Rover.  But even non company schemes are beneficial, as bro found out 3 or 4 times, when he HAD to have brand new S Classes every couple of years.  Before he too, rightly, said he'd never have another Merc. Ever.

And whilst ranting about Cisco - it's a daily chore in my professional life - their useless crap servers....

Like all server manufacturers, they provide an out of band management capability, provided in Cisco's case by what they call Cisco Integrated Management Console, or CIMC.  And it goes non responsive all the time.  It has a watchdog timer to restart it should it go unresponsive, but apparently that runs from the CIMC itself, and therefore goes unresponsive itself at the same time.  Cisco's solution, rather than fix the bloody shit?  Suggest we do a 260 mile round trip to pull the power cables out for 2 minutes.  The irony of having to do that to fix out of band management is lost on them.

I mean, when was the last time you saw an HPE iLO of Dell iDRAC lock up?  I'm guessing never.

Lol Ive a case with HPe currently about their ilo functionality on one of their new servers

I mean, I know it's your hobby and you'll end up with a really nice car, but is it really worth throwing all this money at? If it were mine, I think I'd be shitting myself about now.
If the unthinkable were to happen, what would the insurance payout be like?

In DG's shoes I'd definitely want an agreed value insurance policy that's for sure!

It's true I could have leased a new Astra for £3,279 down and 47 x £379... So using some spectacular man maths, the 30 months I have had the car for would have cost me £14,649 for the new Astra. I have spent ~£13,300 on the The Proper Car (cost to change, retrofits and maintenance, including the gearbox replacement), so I am still ahead and I own the car

When you put it like that 

Finally got hold of the reinforcement frame to tick another item off the list on The Proper Car.

How much is this project going to cost you, and how much do you think it will be worth at the end?

Less than I paid for the car, and more than I paid for it. In that order.

Although it's a moot point, as the doing of it is reason in itself to do it. Arguably, it's only been possible because I have been able to do it... it would have made even less sense to pay someone else to do the work.

It's true I could have leased a new Astra for £3,279 down and 47 x £379... So using some spectacular man maths, the 30 months I have had the car for would have cost me £14,649 for the new Astra. I have spent ~£13,300 on the The Proper Car (cost to change, retrofits and maintenance, including the gearbox replacement), so I am still ahead and I own the car

Put another way, some people spend every weekend chasing a football team (from a place they have no actual connection to) around the country/Europe on the off chance they win something just because their mate at primary school supported a rival team and did so 'because their dad did'...

I've had someone drive into the side of a £100 car the day it passed its MoT having spent £400 on welding for the MoT. Shit happens and sometimes it sucks.

Life's far too short to get that depressed