The fact its a 1970’s house with a back boiler tells you something – they last forever! Nothing much to go wrong compared with modern boilers. They are less efficient and fire fronts are pretty dated, but one back boiler will out last numerous modern boilers.
They dont meet current regs and I don’t think you can replace it with another back boiler, not sure you can even buy one.
Need to ensure room has adequate ventilation and buy a carbon monoxide detector.
I love my old baxi back boiler when I hear so many work colleagues having problems with modern systems.

Was at brands hatch a couple of weeks before you flew and was watching the spitfires coming over every hour or so and doing laps and victory roles over the circuit, must be their regular route.

Fantastic!!!!

Did the hanger tour and sit in a spit experience a couple of years ago when they were in the old pink hanger – wore a stupid grin for a fortnight being able to sit on a real air worthy spitfire. The 109 was there then having major maintenance carried out. We stood just outside the hanger and watched the two seater spit firing up and take the boss of jcb for a flight, watched it taxi back too, what a sound!!!!
Would love to be able to do the flying experience in one, very envious of you.

Just come back from nolton haven in Pembrokeshire, newgale beech just down the road is dog friendly & it has a campsite opposite thats popular with campervans and surfers, dont know what the facilities are like though. Newport beach just the other side of Fishguard can be driven onto and is dog friendly too. Beautiful area.

My briggs and stratton flymo is 14 years old, I’ve never drained or run it out of fuel before laying it up for winter. It starts 1st or 2nd pull every spring. I’ve replaced the carb gasket once, glued a broken inlet manifold back together when it started running badly and sharpened the blade a few times. It’s neverbeen cleaned or serviced either. Never drain the two stoke mix from my strimmers, hedge trimmer or chainsaw either and not had problems

Don’t know how all main dealers work but in ours service, parts and sales are financially independent of each other. Service department has to ‘buy’ it’s parts from the parts department at full retail price, if we, the service department, discounted the parts we would make a loss, as a customer you could buy your parts direct from the parts department and possibly get a discount. The service department makes no profit from parts, it’s profit comes from selling labour. Fred in the shed will buy the parts at trade price from our parts department and may not charge their customers full retail for it.

I would change it at 1 year or 10000 at the very minimum. My own cars got 1 year 9k service intervals, I change mine at 4.5k, I don’t want a dead turbo.

Stick to Japanese, I’d steer well clear of VAG, very over rated.

You could try ‘Home and workshop machinery’ in Footscray, Sidcup.
Check out their website for an idea of what they sell.
Chris and Steve are very helpful and may be able to point you in the right direction if its not the sort of machinery they buy.
I think they normally get their stock from schools, colleges, ex mod etc.

Yeah, as above, dog sorts all our food waste issues, who needs a dishwasher when there’s an ever willing tongue……

I imagine your cars got an electronic throttle body in which case it needs to relearn itself after disconnecting the battery, this is certainly the case with Suzuki. Disconnect the battery again & leave it disconnected for at least 60 seconds, then reconnect the battery and turn on the ignition – don’t start the engine at this stage, leave the ignition on for at least 60 seconds while the throttle valve goes through its calibration procedure, then start the engine.
If you still have idle issues you’ll need to clean out the throttle body with carb cleaner and an old tooth brush as carbon build up on the edges of the butterfly and in the throttle body prevent the valve relearning the idle position. You’ll need to disconnect the battery again and go through the 60 second learn process after cleaning the throttle body.

I’d have to try timing it up and fitting a new cam belt first, you might be lucky and get away with it.

Another vote for ‘sit in a spit’ at heritage hanger biggin hill. Fantastic experience.

My parents have a lwb vivaro van with standard a/c and without bulkhead, its set up for carrying 4 dogs, ac chills the rear of the van ok, wouldn’t be without it when stuck in traffic on a hot day.

Classic mini, Arden 8 port and a straight cut box, music to my ears…..

I’ve got an old spade with 56, 6 inch nails welded to it, use a similar method to petec, wait till you see the mole hill move and whack the bugger, have got a few this way but you look like a complete nutter creeping accross the garden to the moving mole hill with a spade full of 6″ nails on your shoulder!

Turner use them as seals on their bush kits, spent ages trawling the net trying to find replacments for perrished ones but never found anyone in the uk selling them. If I remember correctly some companies called them X section o-rings/seals too.

55ish onward petrol(suzuki engines) Grand Vitaras are virtually bomb proof. Proper full time 4wd with low range and diff lock. Diesel ones- renault engine, can be harsh, dpf problems,dpf pressure sensor hoses break up & inlet throttle valve failures are not uncommon

Doh! Thought this was going to be a thread about proper minis

It needs to get checked out first, it wont be a warranty issue if for example a fox has eaten a brake hose, this is a more common fault than you may think.

Always found the Rising Sun inn just outside Haverfordwest, towards Pelcomb Bridge on the A487 excellent for food

Crystal Place in may – motorsport at the palace, a sprint/hillclimb type of event on part of the old motor racing circuit, the noise and atmosphere is fantastic.

I feed mainly chicken wings straight from the freezer, if I defrost them they tend to get swallowed whole. When frozen it takes her longer to crunch them up. Throw in a raw carrot, raw cabbage stalks and broccoli. Get the advantage of hard white dog poo to clear up too.

As MTM says, raw diet keeps the dogs teeth spotless. My border collie was getting mucky teeth and breath was beginning to smell at 5 years old, changed diet to raw and within 4 weeks teeth were clean and no more dog breath. Now 7 years old and teeth still spotless.

Suzuki s-cross, suzuki vitara, vauxhall corsa d, astra j, zafira b, zafira tourer, various hyundais

Found the electronic things completely useless, conventional snappy sprung mouse trap works best for me, our mice didn’t like peanut butter though but loved a piece of mars bar. Make sure you have any stored pet food in mouse proof containers or you’ll never get rid of the buggers.

Doc marten Holkhams for me, steel toe capped oiled leather ankle height boot, like a well worn slipper from day one.

Frozen raw chicken wings – must be raw or bones will splinter if cooked, raw chicken carcass, raw turkey neck, raw duck neck, raw bones, best bit is you get old school white dog poo!

Got a Works -1 on my 1 1/8″ headtubed Turner six pack, no problems

Driveshaft / cv joint fault

Sounds like the master cylinder seals are leaking. It won’t necessarily show as an external leak at the brake lever.

I’ve struggled to find a decent one over the years. Pet shop ones are utter crap. Best ones have been bike ones but they all suffer water ingress and stop working, even wet grass makes them fail on the dog even though they don’t seem to get water in them on the bike. Battery contacts make and break when the dog shakes and the lights switch on and off. Best ones I’ve found have been usb charged electron backupz but even these need the battery packed with a piece of foam to stop battery pack movement or else the wires break when the dog shakes, they also need a piece of gaffer tape over the useless usb cover. They’ve not perfect but are the best I’ve found. Got two of them into their 3rd season now.

1.8 vectras dont have a high pressure fuel pump so it wont be that. Therevokids mates is likely to be a 2.2 direct injection where this is a common problem. I would check and clean out the throttle body 1st – can of carb cleaner and an old toothbrush and a gasket if you want to remove the throttle body and clean it properly. Push the throttle flap open with your fingers or a screw driver and clean the flap and where it contacts the housing. The flap may be sticking with contamination, its fly by wire, no cable.
Just re read post, may even be low battery voltage and the ecm relearning ldle speed, which it can struggle with if the throttle valve is contaminated.

I guess you’re talking about the flat seal under the snap ring in the big bearing in the hub shell, bromley bike should be able to sort you out although I couldn’t find them on their website. I think AVT in the states sell them in a kit.

Got a thick mate called ‘single cell’

Pre ’05ish vivaros did have dodgy boxes but I’ve never seen one loose drive completely without warning. They suffered bearing failure that would make them jump out of gear & be very noisy. I would still suspect a driveshaft fault. Problem is if that n/s inner tripod joint has broken up it will probably dumped all its needle rollers into the gearbox. Check the shafts haven’t popped out of the outer c/v joints – boots may be torn or twisted up if this has happened.

Must be an early vivaro if its got a speedo sensor in the gearbox, later ones have wheel speed sensors. Sensor is on the diff so diff must be rotating. I’d suspect driveshaft fault, check n/s inner joint 1st, have seen those break up. Need to drain the gearbox oil or at least be prepared for spillage before taking out the 3 10mm head bolts that attach the boot retaining plate to the gearbox.

http://www.shoreham-aircraft-museum.co.uk
Great little battle of britain museum with loads of bits of british and german aircraft, nice little tea room too, great on a sunday morning ride sitting in the sun amongst bombs and propellers

The axle compresses slightly as you tighten the qr. You need a tiny bit of free play in the bearings with the wheel out of the bike, this will disappear when you tighten the qr. If you’re getting drag with qr tight you’ll shag the bearings in no time.