Angus

Trabants are quite super. (photo nicked from Page 2 of this thread. )

As any old-time CCUK member will know, these are ejector seat connectors.

Hugely impressed that misterC is still managing to meet these challenges in his garden.

I put a Falcon Predator system into my Gen 5, off eBay, with alarm and immobiliser. It worked, and it had a remote start thingy too which was fun.

Interesting that you say "around 120mph" ... either a piece of optimism on your part, or shows just how much leeway is built into the speedo reading! Anyway, delimit it and you should be good for just over 130 (probably indicate as around 140 on the speedo) on your private road.

A piece of steel pipe OD 14mm, ID 10mm which I plan to cut up to replace the too-long OEM bushing sleeves in my rear shockers to stop them knocking. Also a VTEC spool valve gasket from California, which cost a third (inc delivery) of what Mr Honda was charging here.

Is there not still one just north of the Forth Bridge, that you can see from the road on the east side as you whizz past? I got some bits off a Gen 5 there at one point. Not sure what's happening with Henry Grays and Nobles in Kirkcaldy, but they always had a pretty high throughput of ELVs from around the country.

Well done! I had real problems getting pad springs and caps when I needed them - ended up getting some off someone on here in the end (Dan_Q, I think?).

Checked yer power steering pump, fluid level and belt? I seem to remember a simlar kind of thing I had on a car once and it turned out one of my engine mounts had perished - the engine was hanging down and sitting on the driveshaft or something nice like that! Garage time, I reckon. Most likely some kind of bush or balljoint problem (track-rod end?), but could be a buggered steering rack, even.

Could be any one of your steering/suspension/driveshaft components. Or a wheel out of balance. Best get it up on a ramp for a proper check-up. Also, at this time of year, I often find a build up of snow/ice on the inside of my wheels. Feels like an out-of-balance wheel, but a lot cheaper to fix!

Aye, I put a pair of subs into the doors, and powered them with an aftermarket amp under the passenger seat. The LiveSound amp needed its own wiring loom, which was fiendishly complicated and could only really be used with a Toyota HU due to the connectors on the loom. I binned mine pretty swiftly after salvaging it from a scrap car. It's an easy job to wire up an amp under the seat into the door speaker wires in the footwell connectors. Rear tweeters are pretty horrendous, aiming high frequency hiss straight at your ears. However, the covers look pretty cool - much better than the fake louvre things. All the wiring is there in every car for all these speakers. If you do get the rear tweets, make sure you get the mounting brackets and covers. The wires are taped just inside the holes under the louvre things. Same for the door speakers - wires will be in the doors already. If you've not got the LiveSound door cards, make it your priority - they look better, and give you way more noise options. As I say, though, don't worry about rear tweeters too much.

Aye, and with winter coming up you'd also lose the ability to slide around on the snow like a daftie with thinner tyres.

If in the Outback of Scotland, try waving to red Preludes too. I might wave back at you.

blackcircles and tyretraders are the sites I generally look for tyres on, mostly because they do a "fitted" price. Pay online, then just turn up at their nearest fitter at an arranged time.

Aye, been posted before - but worth seeing again.

Dunno, but looks like he's getting rid of another this year ... http://www.gazettes.com/lifestyle/still-time-to-be-part-of-grand-prix-of-long/article_8d3c1e68-7d9a-11e1-a9b1-0019bb2963f4.html Meantime, at the LBGP (last weekend), this bloke was driving about in his Gen 8 Celica / GT86 / oh hang on, it's a Scion FR-S in America ... Separated at birth ... the Scion FR-S / Gen 8 / GT86 and the Hyundai Genesis?

Bet that's a low mileage car ... http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_20386464/grand-prix-founder-jack-queen-donates-celica-charity

Um, body filler kind of stuff IIRC. It's like semi-liquid gunge that hardens - you can use it with sheets of mesh-like material to patch up big holes in bodywork. If you can't get it in a car shop, try somewhere that deals with boats. Bear in mind that a lot of bodywork rust problems will come from inside the car rather than outside surfaces, so you want to try and stop water getting to places where it'll cause rust which you can't see till it's too late. Similarly, underneath the car you're looking for nooks and crannies where gunge can accumulate, or get inside the panels. It can be quite a revelation power-washing even in the wheel arches and finding out what it really looks like in there when all the years of caked mud are gone ...

Every year or so I get a couple of cans of spray grease and empty them into the voids inside the rear wheel arches - and also down the gaps on the underside of the bonnet that go to the leading edge. Also make sure any seams are well covered inside the wheels arches to prevent water ingress there. A thing I used to do was get some fibreglass compound and spread it along the inside lip of arches - and anywhere else there's a sill created by a fold or seam - to prevent build up of salty muck there and protect exposed metal that you don't usually see until it bubbles through on the outside. Another old trick is to use your old engine oil. Mix a bit of grease in for good measure and paint it on the underside of the car. Won't fill leaky seams, but is a good protector of exposed surfaces (witness the nice clean metal when you clean caked engine oil off bits of your engine!)

Obvious things are any sign of coolant leakage, particularly from the overflow bottle, and rear diff mount - which if it hasn't been replaced by now will almost certainly need to be. Otherwise, same stuff as for any other car really. Main advice is to look for one in the south of England rather than up here - weather conditions are generally much better and cars from down there are consequently much fresher. Which makes a difference on a 185.