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I rebuilt these two over the few days we stayed with my parents at Christmas time, I don't remember when the fight between the cup of tea and the pirate ship sails took place but sadly it seems the tea won fairly conclusively.

My four year old has been stuck at home recovering from surgery for the past couple of weeks so I decided that made it the ideal time to rebuild the Metroliner that I got for my 6th birthday and liberated from my parents loft last year. I've since been eBaying and Bricklinking loads of extra track (far more than shown below), along with the Club Car that I lusted after as a child and a more modern station.

It's been a big hit with my daughter who loves opening the carriages up and putting the people in and out, and frankly I'm enjoying it rather a lot in the evenings too!

Sadly with the interest rates the way they are, the dream of owning somewhere big enough to have a large permanent layout isn't happening any time soon, but I shall keep this out as long as I can until my long-suffering wife cries enough...

And in a strange link to the billionaires, one of the nukes was found by the submersible that then did the first dive to the Titanic, and according to my morning wikipediaing is still going. Clearly when these things are built properly they go on a long time…

RGS? I went to a state school 15 miles up the road. Think we might have done cricket twice the whole time I was there. I got recruited into the town rowing club for being a big bugger. We lost more than we won against the fee paying schools but bloodied a few noses on occasion.

One of our guys went on to represent GB at U23 level, but rowing’s a sport that doesn’t need the same years of technical refinement that the ball sports do so if you’ve got a big engine you can come to it late. I saw a lot of kids who’d been hot housed through school leave the sport when they got to uni and tasted freedom but most of our lot had picked up a genuine love for it and kept going through uni and beyond.

Anyway, back to topic, it was definitely my fault England lost as I tuned in when it was about 50 for 8 and turned off realising the error of my ways far too late

I got a couple of bits of preventative maintenance I wanted to do on the engine done tonight. First time I've done anything engine related and thankfully it still seems to start, so I'm taking that as a win.

I did three small jobs - replacing the Cam follower, upgrading the diverter valve to a GFB DV+, and replacing the engine cover which was only held on by one bolt...

The cam follower on these engines needs doing regularly and I didn't have any paperwork to say when it had last been done, so to avoid the risk of 2 grand's worth of cam and fuel pump replacement decided to swap a new one in. I forgot to get any 'before' pics, but stage one was disconnecting and removing the fuel pump. By far the trickiest bit of this was getting the grey wiring connector off it, I spent about 15 minutes swearing at it before working out you had to push it back in slightly then pull the clip to get it to release.

I'm glad I did this as I think the follower was right on the edge of OK, apparently you don't want silver showing on the face and that was just starting to happen.

I've replaced it with a hardened version that is supposed to last longer, it was only £10 more than the OEM one so I'll keep an eye on it periodically.

Next was a very quick job, replacing the diverter valve with a GFB DV+. I had a revision D valve in here previously which apparently is rubbish at holding boost. I haven't driven the car yet to tell if the new one has made a difference, but if I go down the remap route in future this will stand me in good stead. It was a 5 minute job to fit and uses the solenoid out of the original diverter valve.

And finally, time to pop the new engine cover on - not difficult to see the effect 135,000 miles has had on the original! Some jokers on eBay seem to be trying to sell ones in similar condition for about the same as I got the new one for.

And finally, the engine bay with everything hooked back up again, you can see the new diverter valve just below the engine cover.

Glad you're enjoying it! I've found this forum to be a treasure trove, it's really interesting following on with what people are getting up to. Looking forwards to seeing your automotive idiocy!

And yes it did hit me that this car is older than the Mk2 MR2 I bought in 2010 was, it just somehow doesn't feel that way. Probably the effect of getting old!

Sounds very like my friendship group. I'd say from about 26 to 32 we would start the night off with a bottle of Buckfast 'ironically'. I swore off it after waking up at about 4pm with heart palpitations and realising it would probably kill me.

I only experienced Dragon Soop once, and that was when a friend went back to uni at 28 to do a medicine degree and we descended on his halls and generally terrified his clean living fresher housemates with our rowdy ways. I blame coming of age at peak alcohol...

I could never taste the difference between any of them, for some reason we just took to the frosty Jack brand. I’m sure there’s a module for a marketing course in there somewhere.

Now you’ve moved the conversation onto fortified wine that opens up a whole new raft of memories. We tried mulling Buckfast one Christmas, which was surprisingly pleasant…

Now we’re on to terrible ciders, I owe a lot of my worst freshers year hangover experiences to Frosty Jack, the connoisseur’s choice of plastic bottled white ciders. We did centurions with it a few times in the corridor which went about as well as could be expected.

Yeah that’s a really good point. The bonnet irritates me because I can see it whilst driving, the bits I posted around the poor bumper joins I hadn’t even noticed until they were pointed out to me (of course, now I can’t unsee them…). I might see what the cost of just re spraying the bonnet and treating/sealing the rust around the boot would be.

Sunk cost fallacy, and that I like a project. The engine is great, the electrics are great, the interior’s not bad, the integrity of the body is excellent, there are no fault codes and it’s fun to drive. Just happens to have the crap paint and a rear end that looks like it was stored in a lake for a while. I did get it cheap knowing there was work to do and will probably end up spending a bit more than just buying one in good condition would have been but outside of the paint a lot of it has been DIY and I’ve enjoyed the learning experience.

Nothing would surprise me with this one so I wouldn’t rule it out! The fuel filler is a state which I imagine was caused by a sander, that’s yet another thing on the list to look at. I have a vague idea of replacing all the silver bits (rear diffuser, fuel filler, mirrors, front grille) with carbon fibre or carbon fibre look, but that’s definitely something for down the road once I’ve sorted the big ticket items.

@Dammit yes I’ve sadly already had that experience with the rust dragon, prepping the underside for treatment with lanoguard we discovered a rather sizeable hole in the rear subframe so it’s going in for a new one of those and new spring pans, and whilst we’re at it the mag ride shocks are on the way out and the springs are corroded so we’re throwing some Bilstein B14s on it at the same time. I know the maths is going to show that once that lot’s done I could just have bought a Cayman to start with but where’s the fun in that? I’m not quite in the realms of a full engine redesign yet but give it a couple of years… ;)

I can confirm this is still the formulation for a pint of mixed in Kidderminster and surrounding areas, or at least was until a couple of years back.

Haha well, it is the King of Tough, so why not?!

My only experience with Hammerite was doing a gate with it about 20 years ago, but I can imagine it giving an interesting texture to a vehicle…

Excellent spot

All of these are quite wonderful ideas, and I particularly like the thought of Hammerite and some sponsor decals. I'm sure most of the local takeaways would be happy to put in for a sticker...

I have also been mocking up a design in the best example of the Need for Speed series, I call it 'Liquigas team car stolen by tuners'

I could always just get this massive Skull wrap on the bonnet and put up with the rest of it...

That definitely sounds a better job than whatever was done on this one! I'm going to run it into the ground so the thought of going full Need For Speed with it and sticking a carbon bonnet and some hilarious vinyls down the side has crossed my mind. I think my wife would strongly disapprove given she drives it to her school semi regularly however...

Yeah I can see why the detailer guy didn't want to take it on. It's much less noticeable when it's wet, maybe I should just drive it in winter ;)

Probably wouldn't do much worse. Think I still have half a tin of lovely baby blue knocking around from when we did my daughter's room...

I've been considering that but given the work needed to make sure the corrosion on the boot section won't spread (and possibly similar around the light) thought it might not come in much cheaper than what I've been quoted at the body shop. No harm in getting a quote though I guess!

Monster post warning, Tl:dr - the paint on my car is shit and I want to have a moan and ask for ideas...

The paint on my TTS is awful. I knew this when I bought it, and was hoping getting a detailer to machine polish it would bring it back to life, but I've had a guy with a great reputation come round to look at it and he's not comfortable taking the job on. It appears a previous owner has attempted a DIY respray (or used a complete cowboy company to do it), which has led to a lot of issues. For a starter compare how dull the finish is to the not exactly clean family Seat in front of it:

Next up we have the world's worst bonnet. The swirls that have caught the light are all over it, just not picked out by the camera. This is particularly irritating as I can see it whilst driving. I have no idea how they got it into this state and/or why they decided to leave it like that.

Lacquer flaking underneath the front light, which will become rust city if not dealt with:

Corrosion where water has sat around the base of the rear window, presumably due to the area not being properly painted and sealed:

Poor finishing around where the front bumper joins:

As these pictures show, the new paint appears to have reacted with something so it has bubbled. This is the main reason the detailer wasn't happy to take the car on, as he felt he'd cause more problems than he'd solve with a machine polish as these would all start to burst.

Now of course getting a perfect finish back would require a full respray, but that would come to more than I bought the car for. It's got 135,000 on the clock so I'm not fussed about getting a factory-new finish, but would like something a bit less awful.

I've spoken to a body shop and been quoted around £1900 to get it back to 'decent' condition. This would include removing the rear boot section and around the headlights and fully respraying, and then sanding back and doing the best job he can on the rest of it. I'm inclined to go ahead with that, but was just wondering if anyone had any other suggestions for getting it to a passable condition? I've thought about maybe trying to get hold of a boot and/or rear trunk panel from a car that's being broken, but I think there is then the question of how good the colour match to the original (Sprint Blue I believe) is given how poor the respray job was. The detailer I got out works with prestige cars and achieves a very high standard, so I also wonder whether an all over machine polish would get it 'good enough'.

I'm groping around in the dark here really as I have no expertise in paint, so any ideas I might not have thought of would be very much appreciated!

Especially when Ali G kept adding an extra Boutros

I recently moved jobs and have a beater sat at Paddington not getting any use. It a basic single speed with drop bars built on the bottom of the range XB3 frame. It’s functional, the bb and headset are a bit rough and I drilled a rear brake hole into it. It got a new chain last year and hasn’t seen much use since the Elizabeth Line opened.

I know this thread hasn’t seen any replies in a while but if anyone knows of a person or organisation who could make good use of the bike I’d be very happy to arrange to hand it over to them.

It is just still sat in the box waiting for a frame, which I’m not actively pursuing at the moment, so I wouldn’t be averse to moving it on if you can meet the asking price. Drop me a message if so and we can chat