OV9

911 is back - after a month away almost felt like picking it up for the first time again

SL restorations did a great job as always. Whilst it was in there I got them to re-do the alloys which had picked up a few kerb marks and also spray the seat backs body coloured as the original finish had marked badly and really let down the look of the interior:

That's lovely

Love the seats.

Looks great

Nice touch

That looks great GG.

The backs of the seats in my CSL have scratches in the soft rubbery finish BMW used....a right PITA to rectify, no real easy solution for an OEM finish.

I'm half tempted to get them sprayed body colour too, and be damned with originality.

It's low on my list though, TBH!

The silver 996.2 C4S I looked at a few years back had body-coloured seat backs. I was quite surprised how fantastic they looked.

Exhaust butterly in the 330 is complete hooped - heat, penetrating fluid, love taps with a punch, no joy. It's now started bending so it's at least a bit open.

I'll have a think about the best way to remove the bastard thing entirely. Almost certainly in a non-BMW approved manner.

Bums. How far down the pipe is it?

I imagine it will breathe a bit better at the top end with it out too.

Beany wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 4:39 pm Exhaust butterly in the 330 is complete hooped - heat, penetrating fluid, love taps with a punch, no joy. It's now started bending so it's at least a bit open.

I'll have a think about the best way to remove the bastard thing entirely. Almost certainly in a non-BMW approved manner.

Isn't it right at the end of the back box? Can't you just drill it out then plug it in a similar manor to the golf tee mod.

The biggest hole saw that will fit inside the tailpipe would be my tool of choice

integrale_evo wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 9:49 pm The biggest hole saw that will fit inside the tailpipe would be my tool of choice

That's pretty much what I'm thinking, honestly.

Sawn off broom handle up there and then reverse into a wall.

unzippy wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 5:55 am Sawn off broom handle up there and then reverse into a wall.

We're still talking about the car right?

I think I'll avoid that tactic, in either respect. I'll think of something to get rid of it. It's half open now so I can live with that.

nuttinnew wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 10:43 pm

Mito Man wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 10:37 pm baffles me all the more as to how as soon as we get a rainy day I see about 1 in 5 newish cars with a fogged up windscreen.

So much


Something that's very good with heated windscreens though is that you can get them for classics, cars that wouldn't have ac, never mind a basic heater as good as we have now.

Same as for folk with AC that refuse to use it in the heat cos "it uses petrol" then drive with the windows open.

Oh, and fuel economy for my weekend of thrashing?

About 20mpg

I'd imagine that'll improve once I stop using WOT all the time - it's not like it lacks torque.

Beany wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 9:32 am It's half open now so I can live with that.

The Mini was serviced at a main delaer recently. All JCW-derived cars need spark plugs changing at every service. Around 50 miles after the service (and a bit of a hoon) the engine warning light came on. I pulled over to carry our the usual IT trick of turning it off and then on, which didn't quite work to plan It was really rough at idle and was misifiring. I limped it home and rang Mini the next day. It turns out there's a bad batch of spark plugs and the service manager was certain that it was this cauring the issue. I dropped into Mini later that day and they confirmed that 2 spark plugs had failed Apparently it's been a common issue recently, although only one normally goes, and it normally goes a lot sooner after them being fitted (within a few miles).

With new (working) plugs fitted, the car feels very fit. A recent jaunt over Hartside and towards Haltwhistle was fun. The road from Whitfield to Haltwhislte is a road pretty local to me but one which I've never driven. One to try out if you're ever in the area.

Untitled by , on Flickr

Untitled by , on Flickr

^ That looks very much like the right car for the job

I'm not that jealous of the roads. Honestly