You're a better man than me!

Make your lady proud and give her the first drive.

Wind in the the hair....best aphrodisiac.

 

Ha! She doesn't come NEAR the thing! Haven't still been able to get her to sit in it, probly won't even try to get her to drive it. And even if I would she'd hate it just out of principle... Finnish women, stubborn enough to outstare a rhino... still weeping after that Citroen she wrecked... a lemon worth a few hundred bux, rotten through and deadly dangerous to drive...

And about the bushings... that price is VERY affordable compared to the alternatinve. The car has multilink suspension that has full caster adjustability, the rear suspension has four swingarms and the sway bar with linkages per side. Do the math what would it cost to swap everything. No point in swapping one bushing just to take it apart once a month for half a year every time the next old one gives up cause of the added stress of the new harder bushings elsewhere.

 

Can get separate individual bushings from here too, and shipping costs from abroad kills the difference other than if I order the full set. that particular one you linked is the lower shock mount. The faulty ones are the #3:s but as said once I rip the suspension apart might aswell swap em all at one go.

 

...And the saga continues...

I`ll tell you, I`ve had a SH*T week... well, several to be precise but this one topped it off...

As told before the Alfa is currently a b*tch to drive as it has four wheel steering of which two I have limited control of, so I`ve been waiting for the start of December and the tax refunds to come so I could take the Alfa to my moms for the winter and get a some kind of a banger to get me through the winter... On top of other stress I had a flat tire on my truck from full gallop on monday, left front just spontaniously went blammo on a motorway



had to call in the cavalry to bring me a new one on the spot, just opened the bill today 1302,70 EUR thank you. A tire no more than two months old. Had a hole the size of my pinky smack center of the tread.

Thursday morning was getting ready to head to work, jumped into the Alfa, got about two km away and turned from a crossroads when I heard a *POFFF-fffbrlbrlbrlbrlbrl* you-just-didn`t... jumped out, well whaddayaknow, another flat! And to add to the irony, left front. Was left with little choice but to limp back home destroying the tire in the process, dump the Alfa to the yard, jump into the Skoda and take off to work.

Got so totally and royally pissed off to the Alfa decided on the spot fukkit, I will fix it but not right now, made some phone calls, opened nettiauto, went to the "tonnin pommit" section (I trust everyone can interpt what that might mean), made some more phone calls and today after work went to pick this up.

































A `97 Peugeot 306 1.4i As the saying goes here "it ain`t a rose but potatos bloom too" .

Things found after twenty-some km:s towards home:

-Both lower ball joints completely gone, new ones ordered, 15 eur per side.
-Exhaust- leaking, a tear in the downpipe cause a rusted strut has broken partly off, weldable.
-one headlight working, swapped bulbs
-the only burning bulb in the dashboard is the airbag light , changed a fistful of bulbs
-fuel gauge not working, will be tackled later
-excessive movement in brake pedal and handbrake -> probably just need shoe adjustment, will be tackled later
-rear windscreen wiper went *hnnnnnnnnng* halfway across the glass and seized, got it moving again later so a proper clean&lube might bring it back to life

-no aircon, no central locking nor remote, manual windows etc...

that all being said, surprisingly good to drive! Very soft and pleasant to handle even with the shot ball joints, and I bought it from a car store. Cost me 450 eur, which is not bad at all comparing what else that money could have gotten me. Sure it is an eyesore with the damage to the right side but Icould not care much less, it is a tool to move me around for the least possible expense and nothing more. Have absolutely zero emotional bond towards it so if it explodes on me I won`t bat an eyelid dropping it off to a local breaker. So, will be scooting along with this thing for the winter, hopefully, and get the Alfa ready for the spring, if I find the motivation some day...

 

If it works and keeps you warm and dry through the winter.........you're on a winner Matti

 

Don't they sell Toyotas, Nissans or Mazdas in your country. If you stuck with one of those brands you wouldn't get half as much trouble as you are having with the bangers you have, an Alfa, really, and now a Pug....just keep your fingers crossed for good luck.

 

Yes they do but all of those in this price range are rotten through, four seasons and salt on roads in winter, japanese metal rusts really fast. And I've had a fistful of pugs in the past so the technology is more familiar to me than japs. Also have some problems with my right knee, loose ligaments so I have to have support below it or it starts aching, japanese cars have so short seat pad that this does not happen. When I turned 18 my mom had a mint condish ee90 corolla she would have sold me but I couldn't drive it so had to pass.

 

"had to call in the cavalry to bring me a new one on the spot, just opened the bill today 1302,70 EUR thank you. A tire no more than two months old. Had a hole the size of my pinky smack center of the tread"

I can see how that would mess up your day Matti; but it happens in all fields of work.

A few years ago one of our very enthusiastic young surveyors ran out off battery power on the GPS receiver. Being a wee way from the office he came up with a clever solution to use an axillary power supply to keep it running.

Unfortunately the aux. power input is exactly the same shaped port as the data I/O.

Result : $20K of fizzed GPS receiver.

Too be fair, that was really a design fault by Trimble, the two ports should have had totally different plugs. (They do now).

However; a good example of the old adage, If your day start's out bad : it is only gonna get worse. Just go home.

 

Bad design + bad luck = big bill, sure was a bit of an oopsie but there`s one little thing to this, I bet the new young surveyor didn`t have to pay for the broken equipment.
I had a few plans on that grand already. Like to eat... Lucky I realised today I have a tow insurance that also has on-the-road repair coverage up to what it would have cost to tow to a repair shop so the final loss on me is gonna be around 600eur which is the cost of the tire. Still stings though but whatcha gonna do...

 

Geez !!!!!! 600 Euros !
That's the cost of 3 sets of Bridgestone Battlax tyres for my bike.
OUCH !!!



I do remember one of our members who spliced a usb cable into his bike camera and tried to run it off the bike battery.

12Volts doesn't go into 3.7V very well............