big jim

Better to be safe than sorry! parked the lowered mini up next to a standard one at the station yesterday, surprising how much different it looks, new tyres on the bigger rims Tuesday and refit them

Someone could clone them, marcus37s was saying his lad had it happen, bought a mini for his first car then got a speeding ticket at the other end of the country, luckily he could prove it wasn’t him but the police told Marcus it’s fairly common especially with cars only just bought off the likes of eBay and autotrader, the ‘villans’ Look for a car similar to what they have and get plates made up to avoid ANPR flagging them up for having no insurance, being banned etc

Didn’t know whether to laugh or cry earlier, won a stainless steel backbox of the mini off eBay earlier in the week, anyway had a message from the seller saying he had trouble sending it as Royal Mail wouldn’t accept the pipe sticking out of the parcel so he had to repackage it nice stainless scorpion exhaust but how did the seller manage to get it packed, simple, chop the pipe off and put it in the box! as I say didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, I only gave £40 for it and could tell from the picture that it was cut off from a full system rather than a ‘catalog’ backbox so would need a step down adapter anyway to fit to the standard exhaust, a standard scorpion backbox is £250+ so I’m not that fussed as it’s salvageable red mini is back, running on its standard wheels for the rest of the week until I get 4 new tyres on the bigger white rims (payday tomorrow) but it has been lowered while in having the brakes and fan belt done which looks a bit odd with such small wheels, going to use that tomorrow to go to work though

The joys of a modern classic, had the aircon regassed earlier at a mini specialist in Eccleshall, after the job had been done the mechanic showed me an issue with the car i did notice last week that the suspension on the passenger side was ‘clunkier’ and less forgiving on rough roads than the drivers side, turns out the top Mount has split on that side quite badly (and just about to go on the other side too) the body should, across the top of the suspension housing be flat but if you notice the bolts are pointing outwards inside the tower itself you can see where the shocker has pushed the top Mount up and torn the metal from around it got a pair of top mounts on order which I will get fitted in a couple of weeks, ill use the red mini instead as I’m getting that back tonight

That’s why I was thinking of a church high up as that’s what market Drayton is like, very prominent as you drive into town, however I’m now thinking the edge of some castle ruins thanks to your suggestion!

Had a play about with the buildings earlier, I really want to avoid the ‘buildings behind a retaining wall’ look as that’s what the last layout had but on the same hand I couldn’t see a way of doing it. I have being trying to take inspiration from the amazing ‘worlds end’ layout with its cliff face to viaduct set up but was struggling with how to possibly achieve it without countless retaining walls between levels, having studied pictures of the layout I decided to start the town buildings at track level rather than above it and have them rise quite sharply to a high point on the back wall, bear in mind I’ve just stuck any old building on the piece of wood so it’s no where near building wise how it will look but I think it looks quite good starting from ground level There is a mill on the lowest level that the viaduct will go in front of, i also have a low relief mill that I was hoping to put on the same level so the viaduct passed between them but I don’t have the space unfortunately In front of the low relief buildings will be a road up, the station being in a cutting Again, no representation of the final set up but the bit above the tunnel mouth/cutting can have a town square as such, I may well split it again into 3 smaller risers with a church on the highest plateau A side view of the plan which I think could translate into proper boards quite easily the bit I was struggling with was having trouble with was the transition between the town and what will be countryside, however with the town being so high up in this set up I may mean that it will be on a ‘mound’ with a pretty much sheer rock face down to the countryside, that got me thinking again as to whether that is likely then suddenly a couple of towns sprang to mind that are like that, Bridgnorth and locally to me Market Drayton Drayton in particular coming in from hinstock direction on the main road involves a 90 degree bend from river level to climb into the town which is situated higher up on a hill with a rock face and retaining wall arrangement, I could model it by making the road disappear to the rear of the layout behind the mound to enter the town off scene to the left and to the right the road can run in front of the station, there could be the option of a level crossing at the end of the platform too the board with the station building on can be made wider so an access road can come from the town square, the only loss I will have is the heritage line will have to run out of sight under the town before coming out of a tunnel into the countryside many opinions and observations would be appreciated

Some from today, first up my training train in woking ince is finished Metin that it was back home, decided to go via Basingstoke and reading so got the local between those places before a cross country north And back in crewe a London overground 710 unit Also on the depot was a TPE nova unit and in the station was this Day off tomorrow and iport on Friday and Saturday

Walking back from my hotel to Woking station earlier today, first up I spotted a fiat punto convertible on a driveway, broom yellow on an S reg then 100 yards down the road was this cinquecento also in broom yellow N reg so 95-96

A couple from yesterday in humberstone road and some from today, a bit of variety at least first up is this anonymous looking wall in crewe that is about to be demolished to make way for a new shopping development so what I hear you say! Well that wall is the last remnant of the old crewe north shed, thought I’d better get a pic before it went then at the station a northern 195 unit was waiting in the centre road Then to Birmingham where I had to wait for my train to Leicester, this passed by while I was there en route to ruddington Freightliner NR MPV Then after working to Leicester I had to go to london st Pancras HST waiting to head north Never fails to impress Over to the land of the stabiliser rail And off at Woking, very nice old signal box Nice long trains down here! Never seen such a long DMU set up! and that was that, one night in Woking as Murry head never sang

Whereas if I had a 4 years old car i would call it a ‘new car’ anything past say an 10 plate is extravagant to me

But this thread is called “old cars” not “classic cars”, to my eyes the mini is “old” therefore fitted nicely in this thread, to others it wasn’t old enough hence a modern classics thread was started I’ll leave it to other to decide if your Peugeot is worthy/acceptable of being in the “old cars” thread as you recon but it’s more than welcome in the “modern classics” thread (which is where I’d say it would be at home personally!) m not complaining at all but it’s amazing what swapping a couple of pieces of filament on a car has opened for discussion with very little in the way of old cars discussed or shown in between the posts about brake lights now where are those pics of my mums 20 year old BMW Z3, those will cause a good argument, 20 years = old, Z3 = modern classic likely to rip a hole in the space time continuum that one (I am being tongue in cheek, just can’t post tongue out emojis etc!)

hobby, is that an admission that my mini is in fact an ‘old car’? After all the discussion only started after I put LED sidelights on my mini

I dunno, I get kicked off to a new thread with my ‘modern cars’ and now we have pages of discussion about new cars brake lights!

Without wanting to upset you too much, one left in ian Allan for £130 (with £5 back if you ask for a loyalty card

not so impressive if your sitting in the 2nd mans seat, a late addition bolted to the rear cab bulkhead, a long shift on one is back breaking! they drew a fair bit of attention when we took a pair to saltburn for the first time

With the loyalty card you would have got an extra £5 off your next purchase too had I seen this thread sooner I could have picked you one up and arranged to send it to you but the title was a bit vague! Ill see what stock they have in the morning and report back incase anyone else is after one

Ian Allen in Birmingham have a couple of TPE 68s in the cabinet for a ‘normal’ price if anyone is looking (and local as they don’t do mail order)

the fund has just topped £75k!

I ran 4 oscars in my mini clubman, as you say, 2 top, 2 bottom, certainly lit up the night! saying that the 4 LED ones I’ve put on the new mini are amazing

Cibie super oscar spot lights?

Had a play about with one of the corners of the layout, this is going to be the town side, nothing is secured down, the boards are just what I have laying about I’ve got to make sure the corners of the layout don’t impede on the projector screen, the rear wall will have open scenery below the bottom of the screen with as little as possible above the screen line The station could be in a cutting BUT I’m struggling with the drop from the board with the white polystyrene block on to the bottom board, it’s a long way down, the other way I was thinking of was to drop the road down from the town level and have a station building where the white block is and put the platforms either side of the tracks instead of an island platform

I’m supposed to be on the 59 tomorrow route conducting but the job has been double booked so not required now!

Yeah, noticed that, I’ll change it in a bit, thanks

3 now, the minis and another ‘modern classic’ the Nissan murano the phaetons were before the minis came along, the pic was taken the day I bought the 5L home and before the 3L was taken away by its new owner (on a truck straight to Poland!), the pheatons were lovely cars but the 3L has a dodgy box (still had it for 9 months though and sold it for what I bought it for) and the 5L was a bit of a nail, engine and box were ok but the suspension needed replacing in places and at £1100 for a single bottom arm it was time to go as it was eating tyres and without the new bits it was impossible to adjust the tracking! Only lost about £500 on that one though so no great loss, saving that in fuel by switching to the 1.6 mini

I buy a lot of cars off a bloke by me who gets them from auction, shoves a 12 month ticket on them and parks them on the roadside for a few hundred quid, I’ve had a good half dozen off him and I run them til I get bored of them had some nails off him that have lasted 6 months before I’ve got bored but I’ve always sold them for around 3/4 of what I i paid none have cost me More than £500, the best was an 05 plate diesel Laguna for £400 that lasted 2 years and only sold it as wife wanted a bigger car to get to the caravan (which i got from a garage and in turn lasted 3 months) my biggest buy with him him was the mini convertible, I gave £1000 for that as I decided I wanted something ‘as a keeper’ rather than a throwaway car, on his drive at the same time was a 2000 Rover 45 in gold, 70k on the clock, 2 owners, absolutely immaculate condition, no rust, no scratches etc, 12 months test and he wanted £400 for it, was seriously tempted but went for the mini