At the moment it's hard to tell as they are pulling like a bitch to the right, so don't like stepping on them too hard. Hopefully i'll find out whats causing it and get them sorted coz it's doing my head in

However, from what i can tell they do feel better, but they are still bedding in at the moment.

I've done it again, the dreaded Evilbay

Yeah they aren't really my cup of tea, but they were silly cheap for what they are, just thought i'd sling them on the Volvo just to see what they look like.

I think i'll just sell them on as IMO they don't really suit it, but i'm a sucker for a bargain.

Anyway they are these, and they look like this:

Not done much to this recently except for clocking up the miles.

But when the engine was swapped over it was noted that my brake fluid was cooked.... so many months later i got round to flushing the old fluid out and replacing with Halfrauds Dot4 racing special.

The thing is i've got all the air out by bleeding them but the brakes seem no better, infact possibly worse, i've checked the Master Cylinder by pumping the pedal up then starting the car, the pedal drops so this is working correctly i think. However when my pedal pumper was pumping the NSF you could hear the pedal "clunk" down and it wouldn't return as freely as it should do.
The pedal feels ok but is hard to make the brakes lock up so something isn't right, plus the steering wheel now shakes when braking

It's not loosing fluid anywhere so guys, any suggestions.

Here's the old filth i removed





I also thought as it's getting near winter and the gritters come out i thought i should give it a good wash, hoover and polish.

I am a dirty boy!!







These were secreted in footwells and hidden underseats





Clean and shiny








Lastly today i thought i'd try out something which had been bought up over on RR a while ago. Why waste money on bumper back to black products when there are cheaper methods available and just as easy to do. So away with you crusty grey bumpers, hello shiny blackness, all courtesey of a £1.99 bottle of Linseed oil of which i barely used any. The results are pretty good, i just wonder how long they will stay nice looking for?

Anyway pics explain a lot better than my waffle- Before





During







After






Rear end before





After

GAVN looking cool man.
You are indeed a dirty dirtbag dude. Youre mpg mustvebeen shot to she-hat lugging all that rubish round with you dude!
Did you get that shine with a machine pollisher man, or just a hand job?
Looks very much improved and that linseed oil seems to work a treat. Carefull of your rubbing rags though. they can spontaniously combust, ive heard...........................
Your fluids look interesting man..... drink more water?

Nice work, bumpers have come up amazingly! Hope it lasts too Even so, if it doesn't use much can always re-apply

I am a dirtbag, and funnily enough the only non water bottle in the pic wasn't mine, i can't do bubbles they don't agree with me

I am a fan of the good old hand job technique none of this messing around with machines and the like!
I did spend £25 or so on a poncy car wash kit consisting of car shampoo, then a wax and a bumper gel but the results didn't last so i tried the Linseed oil. Started removing the detritus at 2 then hoovered it washed, shammy'd, waxed car and wheels was done at 6.15

All in the bumpers only took 15-20mins but will go over them with a dry cloth tomo to remove the excess, and as mentioned if it doesn't last it doesn't take long and is cheap to do, win win.

magnumpi wrote:I am a dirtbag, and funnily enough the only non water bottle in the pic wasn't mine, i can't do bubbles they don't agree with me

so i tried the Linseed oil. Started removing the detritus at 2 then hoovered it washed, shammy'd, waxed car and wheels was done at 6.15

All in the bumpers only took 15-20mins but will go over them with a dry cloth tomo to remove the excess, and as mentioned if it doesn't last it doesn't take long and is cheap to do, win win.

Me and my son have been using Linseed Oil for a while, brings the GLT rear spoiler up great, so long as it don't rain soon after

No don't worry, nothing too bad, i've not smashed it up or anything.

I did however go out just for a "i'm bored and want to get out the house" drive earlier and as it was wet it would be rude not to have a bit of slidey fun (flame me all you like i really don't care) anyway i thought i'd experiment with 3rd as i usually p*ssy out and use 2nd. However my 1st oops came while doing this on an empty roundabout and i managed to 180 it and stopped milimeters from a curb, lucky me.

Alas i carried on pottering about after doing 80 pointless miles or so on my wrongly calibrated mileometer, i started heading home and went through my local town, the feds were out in force and sure enough as soon as i passed one parked up out they pulled and followed me. As per usual being followed by the Police protocol ensued and i stuck to just over 30mph until they put their blues and twos on and pulled me over.

Now i like to keep up to date with my cars tax and Mot so got out and chatted with them, he seemed nice enough, then said "so is it Tax'd and Mot'd", me "yes as far as i'm aware it is".

Well no apparently it's had no Mot since 03/11/09 oops number 2. Totally my fault for not keeping up to date but i was wrongly under the impression that when they computerised the Mot system a while back they sent you a reminder but apparently not

"You've got a sidelight out aswell" Me, "No i haven't it's because it's a parking light", he walked round the back "No they are both on, you've got a light out", "oh sorry i didn't realise". "Where's the exhaust?", Woman copper "it's on the left hand side", man cop "Oh yes so it is", "you seem to have a bunch of grapes hanging off the back of your car", "yes i know i do"

Anyway they sat me in the back and were pretty sound really, gave me a £60 fine for failing to have a valid Mot which is obvioulsy a fare cop then gave me an escort home which was nice of them

Anyway moral of the story is make sure you are all up to date with your paper work. Better get a horn sorted ASAP then really and fix my bulb, whats the rules regarding wrong engine numbers, am i gona get screwed on that ?

Have some recent pics just because:

magnumpi wrote:Anyway they sat me in the back and were pretty sound really, gave me a £60 fine for failing to have a valid Mot which is obvioulsy a fare cop then gave me an escort home which was nice of them

As a comparison, here in Finland, without a valid yearly inspection on the car, if the cops notice, they'll write a fine for 10 "day fines" which is a nasty income-dependent thing... (The Germans have it too, Tagessätze) but at a minimum 6 euros per day, and the sky's the limit. The calculation formula is a bit complicated, but for example, if you make 1500 euros per month after tax, then the fine is 20 euros / day = 200 euros in total.

Nastier, though, is that they will take the registration plates off the car and you'll only get them back after a successful yearly inspection.

We don't have a points system here yet but something equivalent: if you're caught speeding (and get a fine for it), or do something else in traffic that is punishable by these "day fines", and do any of these three times within a year, or four times within two years, they'll take your driving license off. An accumulation of small fines usually means it's gone for a month.

OOps indeed.
Turned out well enough in the end man.

Ive bever missed an MOT...... Forgot about Tax a few times though!
And they DO send reminders.
Which is of no help at all if you move hose once every eight months.

shes looking lush dude! Ashame about the MOT thing but unfortunately it's one of those genuine mistakes. Hopefully you won't encounter it again. As for engine numbers as far as i'm aware it's not something they check. The only thing I can think that may get you is if your engine gives off more emissions than the original as the system will test for the emissions of the original engine if you get what I mean? Get some redex in it and give it a good blast down an a road, make sure the engines nice and warm before you take it in for test and hope you have a nice tester lol. Good luck

I've no idea what the engine numbers fine etc is, but I get stopped quite a lot (mainly for not having a focus or astra as far as I'm aware) so have been doing everything I can to sort it. After 4 months, I think I got my new logbook yesterday

If you need a set list of instructions how to go about it rather than trying to muck about getting the info from the DVLA, give me a shout.

Nomead- That system sounds pretty scarey and dare i say it elitist? Maybe a good thing though as here you could be a dole scrounger and you'd get exactly the same fine as a multi million pound earning footballer, although they normaly don't pay anything other than their solicitors fees Mr loophole i think he is called and they more often than not get away scot free .

VND- Well thats exactly what i thought but the cop said it's not a requirement of the DVLA, more down to the discretion of the garage at which your MoT was done. Maybe i should move house more often then

Griffo- Cheers, it was looking quite tidy as i'd washed it the day before get the nasty road salt off of it, i even jet washed the underneath to get rid of the rot maker. Hopefully the immisions won't be too bad, or atleast with in the allowed tolerance.

Chris- I may well be in touch about swapping the numbers over on the logbook, although i rang them a while back and it seemed straight forward enough but maybe it's changed since then.

The Police did say the DVLA "may" contact me to reclaim what i owe them in missed revenue but i shall just have to wait and see about that one.

nah they wont check the engine numbers as many people mot cars with engine conversions not declared to insurance and such like

You don't forget taxes in Finland, specially not if you have diesel car as fines can be quite heavy, even heavier if they caught you driving with veggie oil, easily can end up being thousands that one must pay, you can stab a person, fines are not too expensive and first timer don't get usually a jailtime either, but there is no way forgetting of taxes.

For example my house tax (you need to pay tax from owning a house here) is around 40 euros, but as I forgot to pay it I had to pay almost 70 euros and that was not even bad, I think

Soon my MOT is due also, bye bye 120 euros and probably they pick something irrelevant to just get retake which costs anouther 20-30 euros...