So what have you done to your car today?

[Doctor Gollum]

it was a full on youdon'tunderstandsogetthefruckoutofmyroom strop

And I'm guessing the car was no better

Well, it is 15 going on 35

[frostbite]

Keeping an eye on my ac pressure, a dodgy garage who did my mot frigged my high pressure line to leak slowly

[TheBoy]

Be a week friday if Vx were involved

Very rare I've had to wait more than 24 hours for non-stock VX parts in my experience. Only exceptions are parts that are over in Germany, even then it don't recall it being more than a week.

Me neither. I normally ring early in week, say Mon or Tues, and even if it comes from Germany, that nice man from Vauxhall will be banging on the door Friday morning (I always ask them to delivery Friday, as chances are one of us will be in to sign for it).

The one exception was inlet gaskets for the TD. Apparently they had to come from BMW, so took about 10 weeks

[paul l]

fitted replacement interior 

[TheBoy]

Not exactly "today" but did ~800 miles over the last week in the BMW; Northampton to Portsmouth, Caen to Omaha Beach, Omaha Beach to Le Mans, Le Mans to Gold->Juno->Sword and back to Caen, Portsmouth to Northampton.

I learned several things:

1) The Dynamic Drive (hydraulically actuated anti-roll bar) is well and truly donald ducked, so more often than not I effectively have a car with no front ARB and a stiff rear ARB (hello, oversteer)
2) I hate the BMW "bong" .. same bong for you're nearly out of fuel, the roof is up or "your car is about to fall apart"
3) French women are beautiful and when the sun is out and there's a beach nearby they don't wear much 
4) I really can't speak very much French so have no idea what the two girls who came up to me in Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer and asked me something (while wearing wet dresses & swim suits  ) were saying .. I want to believe they were saying "Hey Mister, please take us home and have your way with us" but it was probably more like "€20 sucky sucky?"
5) Despite having the lower arms changed before the trip the car is back to trying to wobble the front end apart under breaking (y'know, like an Omega with knackered front bushes) and clunks like the wheels are going to fall off over rough ground. Really must get that fixed before something really does fall off..

When I stayed in St Aubin sur Mer, I don't remember seeing hardly any French girls, let alone "lookers".  Mind you, that was during the 70th anniversary celebrations of the landings, so everywhere was just jam packed with veterans, and spent most of that holiday in the car, in traffic jams.

My droplinks failed on that holiday as well, must have been all those really vicious speed bumps they have around those parts, the clonking noise drove me nearly to insanity

[Nick W]

It had been idling for a couple of hours when the hose went, then run once for around 5 mins to confirm leak source, then for two minutes to load it, a further two minutes to unload it. This was repeated for getting it on and off the second truck and it was missing quite badly by the time I got it on the drive.

It barely idled when I sorted the hose out and eventually choked itself when I stuck it in gear. Plugs were badly coked and wet, so cleaned them at which point the battery died. Charged that and still no starting, so pulled them again and found them still wet with petrol.

De flooding these is a shit as they loose all compression once the bores are petrol flushed. Put about 10cc of oil into each bore, cranked it, refitted the fuses, along with new plugs and eventually it caught... took seven attempts to finally catch.

The Omega is a pain when it happens, but a minor inconvenience compared to this... it was a full on youdon'tunderstandsogetthefruckoutofmyroom strop

Sparkplugs don't like being flooded with fuel, and can be really awkward to sort out. Heating them up in the gas stove saves a lot of grief. BMW I6s and Jag V8s are really difficult to start after being flooded: you need to crank them over with the plugs out for ages, often enough to flatten a fully charged battery. The Jag is particularly bad for this, as you have to remove part of the intake manifold to get to one set of plugs.

[Nick W]

When I stayed in St Aubin sur Mer, I don't remember seeing hardly any French girls, let alone "lookers".  Mind you, that was during the 70th anniversary celebrations of the landings, so everywhere was just jam packed with veterans, and spent most of that holiday in the car, in traffic jams.

We had several holidays in in Normandy when I was a kid(I'm 47 next month, where has the time gone ), until my uncle moved from Paris to Provence and sold his cottage. That was at a fork in the road called Vindefontaine, near the Atlantic coast: when we went to the beach you just drove onto the sand when the road ran out and considered it crowded if you weren't alone. We visited the D-day beaches each time, seeing the wreckage exposed by low tide was a spooky experience then and I expect it still is forty years later.

[2boxerdogs]

Just driven to South London & back in the V8 today to see my elderly aunt lovely drive air con icy cold & car cruised beautifully there & back averaging 29 mpg . Great choice of music in the CD changer some days are just perfect.😎

[STEMO]

Just driven to South London & back in the V8 today to see my elderly aunt lovely drive air con icy cold & car cruised beautifully there & back averaging 29 mpg . Great choice of music in the CD changer some days are just perfect.😎

Weather must have been hot then? 

[aaronjb]

We visited the D-day beaches each time, seeing the wreckage exposed by low tide was a spooky experience then and I expect it still is forty years later.

It still is. Although I imagine there is less of it now - in fact, very little remains on the beaches besides at Arromanches where several of the concrete Phoenixes are still in place and one of the concrete extensions to the pier heads is half on the beach at low tide (as it was when we arrived) along with half a dozen or more Beetles (the floating bridge pontoons) on the beach in a line.

Awe inspiring feats of engineering that I can't imagine Britain being able to accomplish today without ten years of red-tape and HSE studies..

The museum at Arromanches is excellent too with wonderfully detailed models of Mulberry B - we managed to tag along with an English speaking (American) group so got the guided tour of the museum.

I'll definitely go back at some point when there is more time - we only had half a day at Omaha and the cemetary and half a day split between Gold, Juno & Sword, and they all deserve more time.

When I stayed in St Aubin sur Mer, I don't remember seeing hardly any French girls, let alone "lookers".  Mind you, that was during the 70th anniversary celebrations of the landings, so everywhere was just jam packed with veterans, and spent most of that holiday in the car, in traffic jams.

As far as I can tell the population is about 80% 18-25 year old females, all of whom are stunning and all of whom were on the beaches in bikinis that may have had something to do with the weather, though..

Do tell... I'll bet there was a pretty broad selection! 

Well in terms of the racing, I'll take a Corvette C7.R please, thanks but back in the realms of reality .. we stayed on the 1st Tickets secured campsite at Bleu Nord and in our little compound there were probably 30 or so cars.. a few stand out - Ferrari 360 Stradale, several Porsches (996 911, 997.2 Targa, 997 Turbo, fairly sure there was a Cayman S), a Bentley Continental GT, a V8 Vantage, an MGB, C3 Corvette.. the list goes on. Oh, and my mates H2 Hummer with straight pipes carrying four of them and all their stuff, plus my 645Ci which seemed hopelessly outclassed

(A lot of mundane vehicles too - Audi estates, Volvos, a Defender, Range Rover etc etc)

[Viral_Jim]

Well in terms of the racing, I'll take a Corvette C7.R please, thanks but back in the realms of reality .. we stayed on the 1st Tickets secured campsite at Bleu Nord and in our little compound there were probably 30 or so cars.. a few stand out - Ferrari 360 Stradale, several Porsches (996 911, 997.2 Targa, 997 Turbo, fairly sure there was a Cayman S), a Bentley Continental GT, a V8 Vantage, an MGB, C3 Corvette.. the list goes on.

Very nice!  I haven't been to the "proper" Le Mans in about a decade. However I've been to a couple of Le Mans classic events in recent years with my father in the e-type. Great events! But as you say, always left feeling outclassed and impoverished  .

[Jimbob]

Taken big blue for mot.....and now we wait....

[Jimbob]

Taken big blue for mot.....and now we wait....

Sailed through with no advisories.

[Viral_Jim]

Good result 

[STEMO]

Taken big blue for mot.....and now we wait....

Sailed through with no advisories.

Excellent news, Jimbob