Lounge Talk

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So there was a royal wedding, a bad guy got killed, Swindon Town fc got relegated again and someone offered Terracan Jas ££££££ for his Terracan. (That I refused). Pritty crazy fue weeks.

Whats generaly happening were your at?

TJ

A royal wedding, a bad guy got killed, Millwall fc didn't make the play-offs (but then again they prevented the all-conquering Leeds fc from also doing so ), and yours truly has bought himself a 2-door Range Rover Classic convertible without even viewing it first!!! Believe me, for the paltry price I'm paying, I can afford to say yes!!! More to follow on this story.

Happy Days, I look forwrds to pics and specs!

Royal wedding I missed as I was in Spain and away from the TV, guy got killed and conspiracy theories abound, got a 50% deposit on my Pajero as it's up for sale. Hope to complete the process next week some time.

Also renewed my RR Classic insurance. Because I was away in France, although current when I left the old insurance lapsed by some 9 days, so phoned my broker (the one I have been with for 6+ years) to renew the policy.

"Sorry, left it too long, so will have to set up a new policy". Okay, thought I, my fault for not renewing it before I went. How much extra ... £10, 20, no ... £120!!! Said thanks but no thanks, or words to that effect.

First I looked on confused.com as according to their TYV advertisements, they can save me a fortune. Yeah, £80 more than my old policy!

So then I turned to Adrian Flux, a company I have always heard good things about as they specialise in 4x4 and off-road insurance. To quote their website:-

Our Off road policies include:

•Green laning cover included
•Off road cover included
•Protected NCB available
•Agreed value available for classics
•Cover available for
◦Grey imports
◦US & EU imports
◦Left hand drive models
◦Modified vehicles
◦Ex-military vehicles
◦Q Plated vehicles
◦Special Land Rover insurance schemes
◦Special Jeep insurance schemes

Their quote turned out to be £20 less than my original insurance - RESULT!

Just shows, it definitely pays to shop around.

Nice result!

My Insurance ends in june. Ive been shopping around as my current provider "Swift" is upping the cost by £400!!!!! Those . They want £1100 for the Year. The lowest that I can find is around £900. And Im paying £700 now!!!

Allong with the, fuel prices and Job shortage, working one place one week and somewhere else aother through a agency. This Country Has HAD IT.

On the PLus side fishing has been good.

TJ

Terracan Jas wrote:

Nice result!

My Insurance ends in june. Ive been shopping around as my current provider "Swift" is upping the cost by £400!!!!! Those . They want £1100 for the Year. The lowest that I can find is around £900. And Im paying £700 now!!!

Allong with the, fuel prices and Job shortage, working one place one week and somewhere else aother through a agency. This Country Has HAD IT.

On the PLus side fishing has been good.

TJ

Have you tried Frank Pickles, very cheap for modified 4x4 cars.
Quoted me £109 fully comp for my Frontera with a 2" lift and oversize wheels and tyres, the next best quote I got was £400 I was considering going TPFT that bought the price down to £320 which I thought was a bit steep as the cars only worth £500

Ta Ill check it out, anthing is better than £1100.

Is your Avatar pic of a Mercedes M class 4x4? What they like, Im a Huge fan of Merc cars but not had any 4x4's before.

TJ

Heard something about a royal wedding, but took no notice as was working lots, a bad guy got killed supposedly, Need to think about gettingthe discovery ready to sell as the 90 will shortly be ready to drive again, Made a start on a 700 tonne thinning and clearfell, been looking at houses, finally stopped working away for a while. Pretty crazy few weeks

I've been with adrian flux for about 3 years or so and chances are I'll not be re-newing with them as they have been getting more expensive. Swappe the policy from the 90 onto the discovery (which is valued at a third of the cost of the 90 and is a bit older) to find it was going to cost me an extra £300 odd to see me through the remaining few months of the policy. Argued like mad with them that I could get the disco insured elsewhere for a whole year for not much more than that! Not very impressed

Terracan Jas wrote:

Ta Ill check it out, anthing is better than £1100.

Is your Avatar pic of a Mercedes M class 4x4? What they like, Im a Huge fan of Merc cars but not had any 4x4's before.

TJ

Yes it's a 270 diesel, fantastic for long road trips I normally get around 34mpg round town and on a run 38 to 40 not bad for a large lumbering truck.
It's got pretty much all mod con as standard and it's not bad off road I pulled a cheverolet 4x4 out of the snow in december and a bmw x5 out of a muddy field with no trouble.

The only down side is lack of ground clearance and off road type parts, Iv'e been looking to raise the suspension 2" and fit larger wheels and tyres to help with the ground clearance but I would have to go to 18" or 19" wheels and the tyre selection is limited.
I have snow and ice tyres fitted at the moment (the most off road type tyres I could find) on 17"standard wheels great for grip on snow and mud but it does not help my ground clearance issue.

Would I buy another one YES no question it fit's the bill about 95% and as 4x4's go I think they are a bargain try buying a disco on a 2004 plate with 72k on the clock with full leather and all the bells and whistles for 6.5k

Sounds Nice!, way better than a disco imo. (not wanting to start a debate).

Last year on a day race at silverstone I drove a list of exotic cars around a selected section of the silverstone track and one of the vehicle was the Mercedes G Wagon, The new model. Big Shiny and despite the weight It gets a shift on. What a tool, with a 5.4 V8 supercharged unit under the hood. There were even a fue there that had been modifyed to withstand bullets and IEDs. Great stuff.
And a fue years back at the NEC areana in birmingham there was a german car show, mostly porsche, merceses and bits of bmw & audi. One of the best bits for me was the Merc Unimogs, they had civilian models, gone the tractor tyres and dull white paint, they were sporting AT tyres and black metalic paint, with a host of electric goodies and leather chairs inside. What a way to get aound your estate, epic days.

Was the G wagon the AMG ?

I stopped at a camp site in France last year and a guy was using one to tow his caravan to the south of France fantastic bit of kit and to use his words "it pull's like a demented dentist"

Lots of money though don't think I will be buying one anytime soon.

Thats the one, the AMG.

My dads company looked at importing one to the UK after the silverstone event and the cost was getting near 100k for the top spec model. If I was a millionaire that is what I would have along with the Merc S65 amg.

That NEC arena holds some good shows, prices are ok around £12-£18 for the ones Ive gone to. Last year I also went to the boat show. Another EPIC day out, everything from your little emergency ribs to the full on yehaw power boats out of Miami Vice etc. Again if I was loaded......

Oh yeah ! nearly forgot

Royal wedding, evil barsteward shot dead and the death of a realy great british sportsman and allround nice bloke RIP Henry Cooper

Agreed, RIP our 'enry.

Where to begin really: both legs now operated on from the pi$$ed foreign lorry driver who drove into the side of my company BMW and took both my legs out, so no small internal bleeds now, still limited to driving 10 miles by the doctors, so can get into the office to check my employees are doing their jobs, but no 60-80,000 miles per annum, which is normal. Only working half days, so getting everything done at home, the gardens and poly tunnel are full of crops for this season, the freezers will be full again so sod the supermarkets.

Picked up 15 tonnes of frozen salmon as part of a deal, plenty of salmon which was given away to local catering college, old peoples homes, and a quantity kept back for our village royal wedding party which lasted two days instead of one, so people sick of salmon.

Picked up a cheap BMW M635CSi for spares for mine, it arrived and the MOT failure sheet said excess corrosion and hole in the floor, it was a tiny hole and rusty as something had hit it, and the previous owner had not had it dealt with, subsequently it rusted through. Daughter saw it and claimed it as hers, TIG welded a repair patch in and its as good as new, daughter stripped it down with my limited help, and we began the full rebuild of these lovely classics.

Full body respray in the barn, its now better than new, all prone areas treated with layers of stonechip, and now fully resprayed inside and out, kept daughter busy wet flatting and repairing the tiniest flaws, engine and transmission back in, suspension back on with new springs, dampers, and bushes. Just got the considerable finishing touches to do.

Grand children loved me being at home, especially with the holidays, so been with me every afternoon and doing allsorts.

Other daughter just arrived from Canada exactly four years to the day from when she went, first time we have seen them in the flesh in four years, so happy times. They will be here for three weeks so no doubt she will spoil them rotten.

Thats pritty heavy stuff, glad your operation went well & 15 Tonnes of Salmon?!?! You pick it up in a lorry of did you rent a Sprinter Van and Load it to the MAX?

BMW then eh, you a fan of the brand or just a random car?
BMW are a good german brand, my grandad had several of them himself. My favorite one that he had was a old 1989 635i - if i remember correct. Lovely looking thing abit pointy at the front.

Anyone also hear that a golf player by the name of Seve Ballesteros passed away? I not to much of a fan of the sport myself but I do remember watching some of games. Top bloke.

Don't think many could top that Assassin, what a lot going on? Health is definitely the most precious thing. Still, as you say, your tribe have enjoyed having you at home - every cloud an' all that.

15 tonnes of salmon???!!!!

Jas:

Had BMW's as my own vehicles for 17 years, each did in excess of 300,000 miles with no breakdowns, failures, or even punctures.
The BMW is (was) my company car, 320 diesel, lovely long distance vehicle, cheap to run, and good company vehicle.

The salmon was already in a truck, it was part of a deal i did, i knew nothing of the salmon in it, the truck was for one of my companies which was what attracted me to the deal in the first place, the salmon was a bonus.

The BMW you refer to is the same shape as mine (and daughters) and is the pointy fronted shape, we now have twins when hers is finished, but to be fair she always liked mine and said she would love one when she could afford it.

Tom:

As i own several companies, i work around 16 hours per day and drive around 60-80,000 miles per annum, and during thet time i have missed out on much, so yes it certainly has a silver lining. Beloved grandson (aka pain in rectum) shares my love of anything mechanical, bought him a model steam engine which he has connected to everything he can to drive, he now thinks as mummy has a new classic car he can tap me up to buy a full size steam engine, and he can claim it.

During my time of not walking he will not leave me, he tries his best to help and has come up with several ideas, if he ties his sledge to the quad, he can sit me on the sledge and take me where i want to go, and he can lift me off the sledge in the barn with the overhead crane, child logic, but he is thinking logically.
He would not leave my side in case i needed anything, he has done all my running about, and even came to the hospital and threatened the doctors with pain and suffering if they hurt me, he even came in the pool at physio with me to look after me. Thats the beauty of children, they are honest, and think, thats whats missing today, children often do not think and are not encouraged to do so and cannot figure out problems.
He even came with the trolley one day so he could pull me down to the barn, problem is he is not strong enough.

At the moment I am trying to get a seccond car, again Im looking at the Merc stuff, because Im familiar with them. The ones Ive owned in the past have been 15-20 yrs old and under 80,000 miles. There are a fue nice examples localy but the miles are aroung the 140,000 area.
Does anyone think this would be a problem? Im just a little unsure at buying a 100,000 mile + vehicle.
The vehicle is a 2003 Mercedes E220 cdi auto estate. Mainly used to commute along the M4 corridor and to put my fishing equipment in for long distance weekend trips.

Jas

He's certainly caught the mechanical bug of you. You didn't say, how old is he?

Modern diesels are just run in at 140,000 but there are all the other components to think about. As for petrol motors, the less mileage the better I would say.

2 Things:

1: Intercooler Flush on the Terracan. - Never been done, 80,000 miles, does it need doing & best way to do it?

2: Painting alloys. - Is it best to take the tyres off or can it be done with them on? Sand the alloys down first or spray after cleaning wheels? One, two, three coats, clear coat, primer, undercoat, high gloss what do i want? (Colour Black)

Talk to me

TJ

Tom:

He is 6 going on 36, wants do do everything and learn to do everything, and is allowed to do anything within reason by me, catch em young and train em up i say, he is reasonable at MIG welding and has his own fireproof overalls and welding screen, and fair on the spanners apart from physical strength and height.

TJ:

To clean the intercooler, remove from the vehicle with its pipes, remove the pipes and wipe the insides with a rag on a stick (depending on shape) with a little petrol on the rag, for the intercooler i use degreaser swilled about inside so it gets everywhere and wash out with a hosepipe, then sit underwater in a bowl to fully neutralise the degreaser. If you have compressed air then blow them out gently to remove any water or petrol, allow the pipes and intercooler to fully dry dry, then replace.

For alloy wheels, remove the tyres and have them blasted by a shotblaster, only use a professional blaster as alloys require a different meduim to steel, and if they are put into a blaster used for steel you will get bits of steel blasted into the alloy, this will rust and you will have rust spots form in your alloys. For alloys the mediun can be either sand or glass beads.

To paint them i use 600 wet and dry to abrade the surface, then use base and clear, the basecoat is cellulose colour and gives no protection, give the entire wheel 2 or 3 coats of basecoat and leave for 1 hour in the sun, then apply 4 or 5 coats of lacquer. Basecoat and ready for use lacquer is available in many colours from paint factors, but you will need a spray gun and compressor to apply, once applied, leave for a few days then polish with Farecla G10 with machine or Farecla G3 by hand to polish the lacquer to a mirror finish. Polish with a few coats of Auto Glym super resin polish, then apply a couple of coats of AG high gloss polish and they will gleam.
You can even do them in the same colour as your vehicle if you have access to a compressor and spray gun and have some touch up left for your vehicle.

Just one more thing, once the colour is applied, DO NOT SAND the base (colour) coat as this is rough finish for a reason, it gives the lacquer something to bite to, and is a common mistake to make.

Thanks for that, Ill be giving the intercooler a go this weekend looking to do the wheels in a fue weeks.

The intercooler flush went well.

After removing the unit which was quite easy as the intercooler on the Terracan is on the top of the engine and the atatched pipes I used petrol and degreaser like recommended and the ammount of gunk that came out, it became quite messy.
I ended up replaceing 2x of the clips that attach the intercooler pipes to the engine as the clips that were quite stiff sheered off, they got replaced with SS jubilee clips so no prob there. And im happy to say that the Terracan has even more torque, if only a little, the intercooler flush made a differance.

Now just the wheels....

TJ