Your fleet running reports

[Matty]

That looks hilariously quick. I do like that.... Like most keep meaning to tick the Caterham box.

[Matty]

Correct Green

[Sundayjumper]

Whilst we're ont eh subject of BMW paint - on the paint code it says 381 Le Mans Blau/schwarz

What's the black referencing then? Is that any "unpainted" aras i.e. those not in LMB, are painted black?

I think it means the base paint is black. Different top coat colours use different base coat colours.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Whilst we're ont eh subject of BMW paint - on the paint code it says 381 Le Mans Blau/schwarz

What's the black referencing then? Is that any "unpainted" aras i.e. those not in LMB, are painted black?

I think it means the base paint is black. Different top coat colours use different base coat colours.

That would make sense. There are a few areas, like that ont he tailgate I'll be repairing, where I must admit it's hard to tell if it's unlaquered LMB or simply black - damn my knackered old eyes!

[integrale_evo]

Way back, shortly after buying the compact I didn’t take the normal easy route of putting full size e36 headlights I , I fitted some aftermarket bixenon projectors in the compact housings.

Due to their length, and not wanting to disturb their beam pattern I removed the inner glass lens. This always left them a bit unfinished.

Back then I used a diamond tipped holesaw to cut through one of the lenses and prove it could be done. Fast forward a year or so later and I finally do the other and get them fitted to the car

Before


After


It’s quite subtle unless you look for it, but I’m happy with how they’ve turned out. Much cleaner output than just a drop in retrofit hid conversion to the normal lights, and being bixenon they have a solenoid operated shutter which flips down when you hit the high beam so you get a better full beam too.

After fitting the wheels the very rusty brakes were suddenly very visible! What to do? I didn’t want black, silver would be too bright, colours are a bit chav on little sliding callipers. Went with gold, picked up some Nitromors brush on stuff from Halfords and set to work with a wire brush.


Happy with it, it’s a nice light gold, not too brash or obvious, quite similar to some oe plated finishes. Cleaned up the rusty disks and gave them a lick of high temp silver.



Went to a bmw show at Gaydon with the e36 gang and got picked to park in the middle row, a little embarrassing given how clean and pampered some of the other examples were compared to my cheap little runabout with its terrible paint

[DeskJockey]

Coolant hoses have to be ordered from Germany, so will take two weeks to arrive. Great.

[Sundayjumper]

Battery chargers ! Boring, but useful. I've just upgraded my "fleet". Is it a problem that I have enough of them that I've started calling it a fleet ??

I'm still a fan of the Aldi/Lidl jobbies, a couple of which have served me extremely well, but I recently killed one by leaving it out in the rain and the remaining two don't match... so.... I bought two of THESE and one of THESE.

Main reasons being: apparently waterproof (see above ) and the form factor; with both cables coming out the bottom they are perfect to attach to the wall in the garage. The two smaller ones inside to keep the cars constantly connected, and the larger one available to use outdoors when something needs a bigger boost.

First impressions pretty good. I'll likely never need the 6V or 24V options. The bike-car-truck options seem to correspond to the max current supplied, being 2A/4A/8A respectively.

Pics IRL:

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[Jobbo]

Do they have a battery revival function like the higher end CTEKs?

[KevH18]

Had the Kona with the dealer for a day less than 4 weeks. It had originally gone in for a battery drain but they ended up finding it was the SOS module that was drawing the voltage, then something on the rear sensors module. They had also changed the 12V battery in the first instance then realised something was actually draining the battery. Yes, I told you that before I'd dropped it off and took them two weeks just to find that!

Within 4 days of arriving back, it was showing an error of the blind spot protection on the passenger side and started adding all different errors, with 8 of them being showing last night! Added my ODB2 connector and nothing was showing as a error on there despite it all coming up on the digital dashboard.

Decided to disconnect the 12V battery for 10 minutes and after doing around 45 miles today, none of the errors are showing again and hopefully it will stay like that.

If it does have to go back to, that will be the 5th time in just under 15 months for three different problems. It's not at the worst JLR type of problems but it's starting to annoy me if anything else goes wrong!

[Sundayjumper]

Do they have a battery revival function like the higher end CTEKs?

It refers to having a "7-Stage charging process", without saying what any of those stages are. So maybe ? I don't know. My plan is to not let the batteries get into that state in the first place.

[Sundayjumper]

I bought something for the garage. From the description, can anyone guess what’s in the box ??

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[DeskJockey]

An extension?

[Rich B]

A nice rack?

[Sundayjumper]

Rich is close, but it’s not quite that funny*. Brackets for a folding shelf.

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* unless I rest my nipples on the shelf.

[Delphi]

Can't beat a bit of Chinglish!

Dropped the Boxster off at Strasse for a once over prior to next week's Germany trip. Good job I did. One leaky rad, two duff a/c condensers (pinhole leaks) and sad looking front crossover pipes. Rad and condensers will be covered by warranty but not the crossover pipes. I'm probably looking at a bill of around £700 (which is mainly for the cost of the pipes, as they'll hide the bulk of the labour in the rad and condenser replacement and let the warranty company pick up the tab). Not too impressed as I've not had the car long, but short of jacking the car up and removing the under trays when I was looking at it, there's no way I'd ever have noticed.On the plus side, it will make the car more sellable when the time comes to move it on.

[Beany]

Can't beat a bit of Chinglish!

Dropped the Boxster off at Strasse for a once over prior to next week's Germany trip. Good job I did. One leaky rad, two duff a/c condensers (pinhole leaks) and sad looking front crossover pipes. Rad and condensers will be covered by warranty but not the crossover pipes. I'm probably looking at a bill of around £700 (which is mainly for the cost of the pipes, as they'll hide the bulk of the labour in the rad and condenser replacement and let the warranty company pick up the tab). Not too impressed as I've not had the car long, but short of jacking the car up and removing the under trays when I was looking at it, there's no way I'd ever have noticed.On the plus side, it will make the car more sellable when the time comes to move it on.

This is something I was thinking about on the other thread that pivoted to Revs 911 - ultimately, older cars will always have something wrong with them, even if you're as pedantic as you can realistically be when looking.

That reminds me, my AC needs recharged (not done for three years, and now it's warming up a bit I'm noticing it's not as cold as it was) so I suppose I'd best find somewhere local to pull a vacuum on it, hopefully it's just normal leakage and not something I'm going to have to tear the engine bay apart to fix.

[V8Granite]

Rich is close, but it’s not quite that funny*. Brackets for a folding shelf.


IMG_0723.jpeg


* unless I rest my nipples on the shelf.

I have a long and short folding shelf using those brackets and love them. Sometimes it’s just really handy to have somewhere to put stuff for a few minutes.

Add a hook and you can use them in the roof space aswell for storage of things that you fold down when needed.

Dave!

[Sundayjumper]

The Facebook Bentley group has redeemed itself. Somebody has made this.

A recent project.
20mm oak slab, veneered with a walnut burl, gold resin "B" infill, then a clear coat of resin over the whole piece.
It's 800mm long.
About 12 hours in total to make, but it came out pretty well.

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[Mito Man]

Perfect for hanging above the bed

[mik]

Amazing workmanship - particularly for only 12hrs effort .

I have absolutely no idea what I would do with it though. Garage wall I guess.....