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Lovely evening in Dromara

A couple of Oxfordshire Area members went along to the Bicester Scramblers' Ford Assembly yesterday morning. Lue Howard took his Ford Zetec and Type 9 gearbox in his Westfied SEi and Simon Marks his Ford YB turbo and T5 gearbox in it's traditional home! Both cars were admired and we had enjoyable chats with other visitors.

I started playing around with the hood I acquired to see how well it will work as a half hood. They are ‘unobtainium’ for narrow bodied cars, so this seems the only way of getting somewhere near what I want. Just you watch someone offer one for sale now 🤣 I cable tied the SoftBits roof bars to the right length to try them before cutting down. They are way too long, so quite a lot needs cutting off. I’m using clamps to create points on the roll bar to tension the hood against, I want to avoid any bodywork fittings. Thanks @Rob Waldron for the tip, they work very well. I just used some rope and plastic grippers to allow me to tension the hood as a trial, worked ok. It looks worse than it will end up doing as all the excess hood is tucked up inside. My plan is to cut along just above the window line and attach webbing straps for the tensioning. Depending on how well I get along, I may put zips in the roof to allow easier access as it requires a bit of gymnastics currently. If I add half doors it will be very tricky to get in. I ended up adding one of the original metal hoops which gave the roof a better shape and tensioned it better. I will attach this to the clamp points either side, currently it is cable tied in place. So, a bit of progress and I think I’ve proved to myself that it can work. Next steps, cut the roof bars down to length. Fit the metal hoop in place on the clamps and then cut the roof down to its basic end shape. Will see where to go after that.

Jupiter and Venus are putting on a fine show at the moment though so I’ve been consoling myself with them. Wednesday was lovely, both near the crescent Moon. On 1st they will be very close together (0.7 degrees). Last night they were three degrees apart, looked more.

Just a recommendation. (Nothing to do with me) but Martyn and Rob at R and M metal polishing in Sandwich Kent did a fantastic job at Re-Chroming Dads wishbones. I thought for a pretty good price too. (£50 a side) just incase your chrome is looking a bit tired! … https://www.metalpolishingkent.co.uk

Still ticking down at a couple of pounds a week which is a good rate I think. Now 18st 4 1/4lbs. I had gone a bit lower but that was due to illness so no issues putting a little back on. Getting impatient to see a 17 at the beginning though! I have a foam seat kit to make myself a more comfortable seat and get rid of the flowery cushions, I’ve said I will do that at 17 and a half stone so I have an incentive.

@Andy Westwood @AndrewBClarke 🤐 you know it makes sense!!! I wasn’t eating cake today , I was crawling 🤣 under the car putting the sump on , glad you had a great day , see you all soon luv A&B

8.5 mile errand took me over 90 mins this afternoon. Sorry Boss! 🤣🤣

Entries are opening at 1800hrs on Wed 1st March via their website Entry forms are HERE

Hi All, It's pub meet time again! Venue is the Clock Warehouse in Shardlow (DE72 2GL) and as always we will be upstairs at about 7pm. Food and drink is optional, a good laugh with friends is compulsory! Hope to see you there 👍

Great idea, I've been thinking of doing the same thing with my hood as it doesn't fit now since I fitted a taller roll bar. Have you stitched anything, or just cut the hood?

Keep going, mate! Great job!

Same as C350e, bought it with 3 years warranty so screen issue was covered. MB dealer found problems as most of the safety devices had turned off. Has taken since November to get one of the cameras being off the road since end of December, only just got back. Also had issues with opening all the windows on its own but garage has reset all errors and updated system so that a few extra features are now showing. From what I can understand the replacement screen was ok for basic models but did not support the extra safety features, I think this was the reason the last owner got rid. MB dealer was quoting silly money for OEM screen plus camera although health check was fair.

From what I've heard, the reprogramming after a battery change is more of a BMW thing

Recently saw the end of the 6 year warranty on the HV stuff on mine. It’s hard to be sure, but I reckon it’s lost roughly 25% of the battery capacity in that time. Not that they give any capacity warranty on hybrids anyway, just ‘failure’. Dread to think what they’d charge for a new HV battery tbh. I did see a thread some time ago for one of their first hybrids that had something like a 1kWh pack and that was apparently £15k…..although it was their first attempt and it had cooling provided by an A/C system and was horribly complicated. At least your C300e has a sensible 25kWh battery. Ours is only 6.3kWh.

I changed the battery on my S205 c220d and the dealer told me that there was no need to take it in for coding. I've now got a C300e and not looking forward to replacing the any of the batteries, although is still under warranty for a good while yet.

Hoping to see the Aurora Borealis in the next few days: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-64783923

Cheers all, sorry for late reply as went off-grid for chilled weekend in North Devon. …a bit of a recce for a weekend blat later in the year but don’t the wife!

In the past when changing batteries and wanting to maintain power I’ve gone for the jump battery option. Knowing the MB has an aux battery I didn’t bother this time round. I just found a video where some random bloke on the internet changed the battery on his W205 (not the hybrid) and he addressed the question of any ‘reset’ being required. He said he contacted his MB dealer and they were unambiguous - nothing needed after a battery swap. So, that’s conclusive then, ‘cos some bloke on the internet said it I’ll stick the diagnostic box on the car later just in case I come across something, but I really don’t think anything is needed - it makes no sense at all to me, unless one was calibrating the car to a set specification of battery from a list of options….but then they specify only 1 battery for it…so again, makes no sense. No denying manufacturers do make extensive use of component coding though. Some of it I accept has a clear purpose, like say injectors of differing spec, but other things one hears about like having to code headlights for example. Really? How do they justify that? Anyhoo, it hasn’t caught fire yet…..

I'd be a bit cautious about having a charger connected without the smoothing effect of the battery. Chargers can be very 'noisy' in electrical terms. My Z3 instrument cluster failed when I had a charger on a very flat battery and I unwisely switched on the ignition to check for the radio code being required. It lost all instruments bar the speedo and required a new coding plug. A second battery connected to an 'always live' cigar lighter socket or similar would be safer. Remember, though, that the leads from the battery you're changing will be live.

I'm aiming to be there in Bagpuss!

There seems to be loads of FUD on this topic. One I read was that if you don’t reset ‘something’, the car will overcharge the new battery and it can catch fire. That fails the smell test straight away for me. If the car learns battery capacity, it will have learned that the old battery has reduced capacity. Installing a new one with original increased capacity could only result in undercharging, not overcharging….and even that notion is questionable, charge state is determined by battery voltage, so why not simply measure that? I’ll keep digging, just out of interest really.

Looks like I missed out on a great day out! My day was significantly less interesting.... After the garage door jammed open at 830am (apologies to the neighbours for my frustrated banging on a sunday morning 😂) I messaged a local "garage door specialist" who quoted me 150 quid!! My outraged Scottish genes kicked in (I'm tight!) so I decided to tackle it myself, how hard can it be!? It was a bit like working on the Westfield, a journey of discovery with drilling out pop rivets to get access, needing 16 pairs of hands and a liberal sprinkling of colourful language but in the end it was a pretty easy fix once id figured it out. Amazingly its actually working better than it did before, result! 😂 While I had the car on the drive, and having a spare hour or so before the grandsprogs turned up to eat every biscuit in the house, I took the opportunity to change the plugs ahead of the full annual service I always do in March. Being obsessed with tools, I'd just purchased a shiny new thin wall 16mm UJ magnetic plug socket and another new torque wrench (1/4 drive 5-25nm perfect for low torque jobs like doing plugs) that I'd been itching to try out... how sad am I?! 😂 The NGK PFR7G-11S platinum plugs that I'd fitted last year are still in perfect condition (good colour and still gapped correctly) after the 3,900 miles they'd done (not surprising as they're supposed to be good for 50,000 miles!) so I boxed them up for spares. The platinum plugs have been brilliant, but I'd read good things about the NGK Iridium IFR7G-11KS on the S2K forums. I bagged a good deal on a set a few weeks ago so in they went. While I was in the mood, I orded a load of Mobil Super 3000X1, OEM oil filter, 2 litres of MTF and some diff oil (might as well change that as well while I'm at it). Also on the way is a new tensioner pulley as I've noticed an occasional squeak when turning the engine off so may as well swap it out.

It wasn’t me. It was him. Honest. I wouldn’t ever comment about someone looking like Nora Batty. And Mr @aegis not being quiet - just being a stealth ninja 🥷 🥷

Having sat in this car with the talented Mr Hedley driving I can confirm it's a beast of a car and looks absolutely fabulous. If I didn't have a scruffy version of a very similar westy I'd snap it up myself. Don't be scared, go for a test drive. You'll be terrified, but love it!

Ready for the 2023 sprint season

What sunny Sunday mornings are for 😎

While waiting for a diff, having a Road Westfield in garage already, decided to do something to avoid this ugly dust collecting in the rear of the car. And for more 'sporty' look

Reminds me of me, trying to light my farts Sorry

Lovely views of the crescent Moon this evening.