Taxi tantrums,the worlds most reliable car starts playing up.

I had a problem with the old taxi. The problem started as a minor one with the car being hard to start if parked facing uphill. gradually it got worse,I traced it to air getting in via the top of the priming pump on top of the filter.

I cut the top off and welded a plate over it (I think the diaphram was leaking).

. This got the thing running but air still got in and only by revving the engine hard every few minutes would it keep running it was also down on power.
Eventually I rigged up a temporary system using a squeeze type priming pump and a couple of inline filters. This seems to work well,so I've decided to leave it alone for the time being.

Welding up the fairway doors part two.

The rot cut out left a bigger hole over half the door skin to bottom

is missing
After welding in some plates the seams were skimmed over with filler.

Welding up the back doors on the fairway taxi taxi

The door skin on the old fairway taxi was starting to come adrift. I took the door off and turning it upside down found the bottom of the door had all but vanished.
Even the thick metal that holds the door seal had broken up into pieces. I made a couple of sections to weld in,the repair wont last for ever but I did find even on ebay doors for these are hard to find and/or expensive. The doors like the rest of the vehicle rot badly,water comes in through the very poorly designed seals.

Car boot bargains,they just keep coming.

Went to a car boot this sunday. Julies car boot near Yarmouth. I did a stall to get rid of some stuff but came back with a load more.

I bought a compressor,a spray gun,tyre inflator and an air line. Also some old cast iron seat ends,an old but nice and solid petrol engine compression tester and some odd spanners. The spanners will go up for sale on the web site. I think now ebay seems to have shot itself in the foot again and choked off many small sellers that car boots are now going to be a better place to find the odd bargain. certainly for selling smaller items ebay is no longer as attractive for buyers or sellers as it once was.

A bit of woodwork on the car .

One problem that the rover P5 and P5b have is water coming in at the ends of the windscreen and rotting out the metal behind and spoiling the trim especially the ends of the dashboard.
The wood fillets in the corners discolour and delaminate. I removed the wood from the drivers side nd the back of it was pretty badly damaged. the screws securing the panel are hard to locate but on this fillet they had started to give up the ghost anyway.

The area behind the panel was in reasonable order,some surface rust treated with fluid film. The panel was repaired and then fitted back in. Originally I had removed it to replace the furflex trim around the doors. This is secured with tacks to some strips recessed into the door openings.

Sound proofing the Rover P5b.

I noticed when I took the radio out of the rover that some of the soundproofing felt had been removed from the dash panel area. I took the radio and the panel it fits into out and replaced the missing material.According to a couple of people I spoke to there should be more material behind the glove box and I have replaced this too.

More car boot booty.

Took a load of stuff to the car boot,I'm clearing a relations house. I bought a couple of old computers and was amazed to find they both worked (I only really wanted the case of one) I also bought an old drill powered drill sharpener. I've never had a lot of luck sharpening the smaller drills with a grindstone but this did a perfect job on the one I tried.
Result!

MOT on the rover p5b. No tax and no tax disc.

I took the rover for its MOT today and it passed with no advisories. Due to its status as a historic vehicle (a reminder of when this country had a thriving car manufacturing industry) it qualifies for free road tax. Its tax disc is marked as no payment made. The EU in another interference in English affairs are proposing to do away with tax discs,our weak government will go along with this as they allow the Germans and others to do more damage to this country in peacetime than they ever did in war.
How long before these parasites want old cars off the road ?

Repairing and restoring.some old leather car seats

The seats in my rover p5b were pretty grim but I had a secondhand set also in very poor condition to practice on.
They had been painted and were very hard and cracked,the first thing to do was rub them carefully with thinners to get the paint off.

The seat back was bad,cracked and creased.

I experimented on another scrap seat and found most cracks were actually in the painted surface and they could be smoothed with fine wet and dry or a wire wool pad.

The front panel of the seat was heavily painted and stiff,most of the paint was removed with thinners.

After much cleaning with an alcohol based cleaner the dye was rubbed into the cracks and then a fine coat sprayed on,the improvement to the leathers texture was most noticeable.

The seat after a thin sprayed coat of dye.I found the dye too thick to spray with an air brush and used a spray gun (gravity feed type) and set on minimum it gave a very fine spray.The seat still has to have another coat (maybe) and then has to be sealed.

Rover p5b featured on another site.

My Rover p5b is featured on this web site. The heading picture isn't very flattering but the article hopes to encourage anyone thinking of having a go at using a classic car to do so.
I hope it does.

Curing the thirst of the V8 in the Rover P5b

The tick over or idle of the Rover had been lumpy for some time and setting the carbs didn't seem to help. I went through the ignition replacing and repairing but no real difference.
The fuel consumption was pretty horrendous and the car would tick over albeit it a bit more lumpy even when cold without choke.
I pulled out the starter valves.these act as a choke on HIF6 carbs letting through a rich mixture. One was pretty worn but on one carb the O ring had broken up completely. I replaced both and although I still have to reset the carbs the V8 now idles slowly without trying to cut out or foul its plugs.

Is the doggy in the window still for sale?.

The shop is now for sale by auction but the business will carry on . Patti will soon have to find another place to sit in.

Patti also enjoys a car ride and is quite content to sit in the van and watch the world go by when we go to an auction or car boot sale .

Bye bye to Lowestoft

I'm trying to get in touch with all customers,suppliers etc to advise our new address and contact details.
They are posted now on the web site ,we are moving to Gorleston about six miles down the road from Loweestoft.

Cricket on the village green.

I'm glad to be leaving Lowestoft.it became virtually impossible to trade there due to the head in the sand attitude of the local council.

Flood damage on east coast

We took a walk along the beach from Gorleston heading south. A few months before we had climbed these steps up the cliffs to the caravan site.
Now after the flood the steps are damaged and impossible to use.

Transit what to do with it?.

I really dont know what to do with my old transit motorhome. I hardly ever use the poor old thing,it just stands outside looking forlorn. I spent a lot of time welding it and rebuilding the engine but just dont get the time to use it.

I guess if I sell it I will regret it but in the meanwhile what use is an old motorhome other than for motorhoming?.

Flooding on the east coast. Missed us this time.

We managed to escape the worst of the flooding at our shop in Lowestoft but it did knock out our phone line and we lost internet access for a couple of weeks.
A friend further down the coast had their bungalow badly damaged,

The old wooden sea defences also took a battering

The wooden breakwaters near Gorleston have been smashed and uprooted even though these are very substantial wooden beams held by huge metal bolts.

Emergency services were stretched to breaking point and routine repairs delayed for some time.We managed to carry on using another phone line and a mobile phone and didn't let any one down on deliveries of tools or orders.

Happily we wont have to worry about flooding in Lowestoft for much longer.

Welding up the wings on a fairway taxi.

The wings on my old fairway taxi bounced up and down on every bump in the road. It seems a fairly common complaint,the inner and outer wings are held together and to the rest of the bodywork with coarse threaded screws and plastic spacers. They rust badly and quickly
I welded the inner and outer wings together with a steel strip replacing the plastic.

After welding the join was ground down and covered with a skim of filler. The wings are much stronger after being welded together. Temporarily the repairs were covered with some black gloss. At a later date the taxi will be resprayed.

Two stroke oil .Is it the new snake oil?.

For a long time now I've been running an old London taxi as a runabout.

 Not long after buying it I first heard of using two stroke oil as an additive in diesels to combat the lack of lubrication in the new 'eco' diesel fuels.

I started using it a few years ago and over a time I tried different brands,mixtures and permutations to see what difference it makes if any.
There is the chance of 'placebo effect' when you convince yourself that something has to be better because you want it to be so I used different drivers and studied reports on other web sites and forums.
The engine especially cold,is quieter,the diesel 'knock' reduced (again mainly from cold). Starting is if anything better and the engine seems smoother. MPG is slightly improved but to be strict the figures are close enough before and after that the difference is not really worth much.
I found any low ash two stroke fuel works fine. I use whatever I can find cheaply (normally Wilko or Asda) and a mixture ratio of 75 to 1 or thereabouts seems to work fine.When stopping the addition of the two stroke oil it seems to take some time and a few refills of the tank for the rattle to return fully,so maybe there is a residual effect of the oil.
The life of filters is unaffected.
The cost is pretty negligible and the positive benefits are worth it. I have now used the oil for many thousands of miles and have noticed no negative results from its use in any way.
Snake oil? Others have reported similar benefits,so probably no.
You can read about the taxi etc here.

Rover P5b,Transit Mk1 and Fairway taxi spares wanted.

If anyone has any unwanted spares or parts for any of the above vehicles I'm always interested in buying,swapping etc. Even parts that are worn can be repaired or restored.

I've been carrying out a rolling restoration on my Rover P5b  for a long time and even a wing like this rotten  one can be repaired or a section cut out to rebuild another one.

My old taxi has clocked up a huge mileage but still keeps going but these days needs a fair bit of attention on a regular basis.Now obsolete so its a good time to start collecting parts for it.

BT get their act together.

Fair play to BT we had a call from them and the line has now been sorted.
One lesson I've learnt is that if you dont get anywhere the first time you try again and again if you have to.
Persistance pays off in the end.