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 Onslow's big day outModerators: Jump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] | |
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Pietaster |
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 Admin Posts: 1576    Location: Burnley, Lancs | Well, after months of planning, a truly epic and eventful drive home from Faringdon in Oxfordshire to Burnley I am now the owner of a rough and ready Rover 115SD in Blue, fondly named 'Onslow' after the character from 'keeping up appearances' First saw the car on eBay about a month ago, having wanted another diesel metro after the death of the first one I had it was perfect, a knackered 3 door in what looks like Henley Blue. Several emails and an MOT later I had secured the car for £350 and myself, Liam, Bing and another non member were headed to Faringdon with the intention of driving the car home. The car looked tired but all the fundamentals were in place, rust in all the usual places, the odd dent here and there, some interesting bodges under the bonnet and an interior full of dog hair. A typical metro then. On the plus side the engine ran well after fitting a charged battery, no rust in areas that would prove difficult to fix and no evidence of any serious accident damage so not to bad for £350. Having parted with cash we hit the road homeward bound in our new purchase. The initial signs looked good, the brakes weren't completely fucked (they only pulled to the left a little bit) the engine maintained a stable temperature providing you kept it under 80mph and it only had one seized radius arm, not bad for a car that had been stood for 18 months. After a brief bumble out of Oxfordshire and onto the M5 we took a service stop for coffee, only to discover that Onslow didn't fancy starting much, suspecting the battery we had fitted might be dodgy we settled for a bump start. A quick glug of diesel and any oil based shit I happened to find in the car (not limited to a litre bottle of 5/30 engine oil) to wet the fuel tank we continued up the motorway. As the sun set and we clicked on the worryingly dim side lights it was becoming clear that the apparently brand new alternator on the car didn't appear to be charging and we were running purely on what little power the battery had left. Fearing the worst we made another service stop to try and diagnose the alternator fault so we might have some lights before sunset. Without a multimeter fixing electrical faults tends to be difficult, so I took a punt at the exciter wire to the alternator being at fault and bodged in a bit of wire directly to the battery from the exciter terminal on the alternator. I was confident it had solved the problem as after a change of battery (we had 3 for some reason) the car started on the starter and we had full lights and everything was rosey, even the heated rear screen didn't seem to effect the brightness of the lights reaffirming my confidence that my bodge had worked. We steamed on up the M5 and M6 with no problems, until just as we neared Warrington we started running low on diesel. Not fancying breaking down we decided to pit stop in Warrington for fuel, where I made a fatal mistake and stopped the engine to fill up instead of leaving it running and open the filler cap with the second key. The car refused to restart and where before all the lights seemed nice and bright it had now all turned to shit, my bodge had somehow failed and the lights were threatening to go out. With no time to fart around with the alternator we bump started (second time) and forged ahead in hope of reaching home before the power ran out. We hurried up the M6 to the next services (charnock richard) to grab a KFC tea and a breather. To our horror KFC was fucking shut and the battery on the metro was now practically flat, meaning battery change number 3 and another bump start. This was our last push to home, the third battery we had was almost as flat as the second so we had to drive with only side lights and follow the tail lights of the support car. Upon leaving the M6 to join the M65 for the final 15 mile sprint to the man cave disaster struck, the fucking battery we had fitted and all the power of a peanut and flatlined on the slip road to join the M65, hence a stalled engine and no lights or hazards. Bollocks. Fearing annihilation by passing trucks or worst the police or even worst still the fucking highway patrol Gestapo, Bing made a swift U-turn to bring us the second battery so we could get the fucker started and off the motorway. A heroic up hill motorway slip road bump start later and we were moving again, albeit with no lights and brown underpants. Luckily despite a very tense and dark few final miles on the motorway we made it back to the man cave alive, only for Onslow to run flat a final time just as we were manoeuvring him inside! I traced the alternator problem to a burnt out wire within the wiring harness so it's all good now, and since I had another days insurance we borrowed the wide steelies and Toyo road pro's off the GTa and took him for a baptism of fire by driving him over Hardknott pass in Cumbria, we succeeded and even remembered to take some photos!   More to be added later!! Edited by Pietaster 1/5/2013 12:29 AM | ||
| OrangeManDan |
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 Border Crosser Posts: 3232   Location: Carmarthenshire, Wales | |||
| GoldRush |
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 Accident Prone! Posts: 325 Location: Isle Of Wight | |||
| Morey |
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 Events Organiser MP Admin Posts: 1923 Location: Somerset | |||
| Gandi69 |
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| Expert Posts: 11052  Location: Wolverhampton | |||
| Pietaster |
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Admin Posts: 1576 Location: Burnley, Lancs | |||
| Gandi69 |
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| Expert Posts: 11052 Location: Wolverhampton | |||
| LBall |
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 Elite Veteran Posts: 848 Location: Blackburn | Morey - 1/5/2013 10:52 AM Lmao is that Liam in the back pulling his rape face?! haha yep thats me. few shit phone pics of the sunday out. Matt fixes the wiring fault  On the ferry  senic pics       Its a great little car, a bit rough round the edges(quite literally in some places) but after fixing the charging fault we had no issues. | ||
| Morey |
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Events Organiser MP Admin Posts: 1923 Location: Somerset | |||
| AdrianSi |
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 Expert Posts: 8490 Location: Midlands | |||
| petrol_head |
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 drive it like its hired | hardknott pass is epic  | ||
| Gandi69 |
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| Expert Posts: 11052 Location: Wolverhampton | *edited* I'm talking bollocks, never mind  Edited by Gandi69 1/5/2013 11:27 PM | ||
| GTaddz |
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 Expert Posts: 2568 Location: Up in the lakes | You took it up hardknott pass! Effort! Take it you did wrynose pass too? The 2 pretty much link up. When youre next up that way give me a shout, used to live in penrith. Il show you some other epic roads. Kirstone pass, which also leads onto wrynose, honister pass, the struggle (just off kirkstone which has one of the steepest decents in England) and hartside summit with a cafe at the peak. Got to say the lake destrict is my favourite playground in all england. Oh, and nice car too | ||
| Gandi69 |
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| Expert Posts: 11052 Location: Wolverhampton | |||
| GTaddz |
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Expert Posts: 2568 Location: Up in the lakes | |||
| Gandi69 |
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| Expert Posts: 11052 Location: Wolverhampton | |||
| Saxokid100 |
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e469.jpg?memberid=3428&type=profile) dot dot dot Rally Spec Location: Northwest | Looks good project,glad you got in back in one peace....  | ||
| AndyDento27 |
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 Member Posts: 69 Location: Blackburn, Lancashire | |||
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