Today I mostly .....

[Zelandeth]

Yep, budget 20 mins for it on the Skoda. Most of that being waiting for the oil to drain. Nice big chunky drain plug that's easy to get to, and the filter is similarly easy to access - you can easily get not just one, but both hands on it...never see that on a modern car!

Really is easy to forget how smooth these engines are, never encountered a pushrod engine before that will rev as smoothly as the one in the Estelles. Gets rough around 3K, so that's where most will change but if you push a bit more then smooths out totally at 4K right up to the red line. Lovely noise for a little four pot unit too, raspy exhaust of course helping the soundtrack.

Should really grab some video sometime.

[GvidoR]

Painted the wheel caps white.



...oh, and the Simon's cat sticker is also new.

[Neil Chowney]

I love the Simons cat thing, seen them all on his website.

At the risk of following the herd, I want one of those for the wifes MINI.

[Zelandeth]

Spent nearly the entire day fighting with our local network.

...For some unknown reason I could *not* get X11 forwarding from our server to work. SSH itself is working fine, and I can get it to do X11 forwarding for individual applications - just that it won't forward the whole X session itself. No error - it just fails to launch.

...Then discovered that our router appears to by dying, randomly dropping both wifi and wired network connections completely at random, and even when running seems to be dropping packets left right and centre. Something suggests to me that this may have had something to do with the problem...

Now on the phone to Sky to see if we can actually get them to send us a new router, as this one is less than six months old, and clearly has issues given the amount of resets, tests and factory restores we've done today...

Been on hold now for 45 minutes and counting and still waiting for a human being...

[Zelandeth]

Fitted two new lights to my workbench, two more to go up tomorrow. 50W of LED lighting in there when done, all 6400K artificial daylight stuff - Essential in a room with no windows I reckon. Would prefer to stick with HID or fluorescent, but I just can't do what I want for this price down that route!

[Zelandeth]

After over five years running 24/7 as my server, my first generation EeePC 704 (the one with the under clocked 900MHz Celeron and 4 gig ssd) has finally been retired. The wired networking port packed in last week, and wireless coverage in this corner of the house is patchy at best.

Housemate's redundant EeePC 1005HA has taken over duty.

Really can't fault the old one, it had a hard life when I was using it as my portable machine before being used as the server!

[Hannesb]

Wrestled a front and rear sprocket and an X-ring chain onto the Husqvarna Supermoto. What fun.

[excossack]

Started repairing the trailer board frame on the Harvey frost after it got rolled on the last event(not by me)

Did some shopping and got supplies for the WRC rally next week

Started cooking Pigs cheeks in white wine

[Zelandeth]

Spent most of the day alternating between keeping an eye on the dog who has been having a fussy day so been keeping us busy, and watching the final of the snooker. Pain being on ITV with an ad break between each frame!

[GvidoR]

If only there was one less zero...
http://cars.donedeal.ie/vintagecars-for ... 01/8057106

[Neil Chowney]

Ack!

[excossack]

Got recovered after the gearbox on the Landy went with a clang. No forward drive except about 2ft then it would lock up.

While waiting for recovery, I broke out the bacon and eggs and did butties for us all (on way to a WRC recce stage)

[Zelandeth]

Realised that I really need a winter hack. Any ideas for something with a ticket for the 300-400 quid mark, probably just sell it on again come the spring onces around and I can feel less guilty using the Skoda and hopefully will get the Saab back on the road.

[Zelandeth]

Would prefer something a little larger to be honest! I have driven one of the older Altos (we had one as a hire car at work when the C1s were in for servicing at one point), and while it drove not bad, I found it to be catastrophically uncomfortable!

Think I'll spend an hour or two poking around on Autotrader and see what's out there sometime in the next couple of days. A quick glance has made me realise that a lot of models which my brain still files as "new" are now ancient and well within the <£500 budget segment!

...Makes you feel old doesn't it!

[Zelandeth]

S plate Xantia 1.9TD Sensation with 12 months ticket for 295 quid. 66 miles away...got to be worth a look!