Just dragged a load of gardening and DIY stuff back from bandq, keep me busy for a few days. Got him his own tarp to keep the boot carpet decent.

Maybe assembled by rote? Specialist I knew 20 years ago was getting a lot of 4 valve BMW twins in with knackered gearboxes. Rather than "shim to this tolerance" they were being bashed together by outsourced labour with a standard shim size, end loaded the bearings so much you couldn't turn them...

Took him for a nice waft to an excellent garden centre lunch, then home via a local pub petrol head show, except the showers had scared almost everyone away by then.

If we drive Otto like that we get not far short with 4.0 petrol!

Dehumidifier out, trickle off, tools and tarp in the back. 50 mile comfortable waft to the garden centre for lunch, then back via the BILs (to dig out two saplings) and the fuel station. Just under 21 mpg tankful including east London for funeral, long steady run home and yesterdays time. Speedo...

Don't fancy anything that does "emasculate" condition....

Drove him into the smoke, and paid Sadiq his 12.50 for the privilege. Funeral went well, fuelled him as down to 1/8 on the gauge and he only took 70l so that is slow at the bottom again. Means on over 325m we averaged better than 21mpg with mixed running. Got the eas issue with the pressure...

Yesterday uncovered him, took out the charger and dehumidifier, checked tyres and washer fluid. Then we drove 10 miles to the garden centre, getting an eas fault. Pressure switch not changing, always on but cleared by nanocom. Then 240 miles to and about Kent in mixed weather and traffic...

Otto runs around 2250 at 60 in 4th. In 3rd it is around 3000rpm.

My guess would be the box thinking it is commanded to 3 not D, although that should show on the dash. Otto usually gets to 4th by about 35 to 40 mph.

Uncovered him, took him off trickle and removed the dehumidifier. Apart from a sulking speedo again, 50 miles faultless wafting. Fuelled up ready for the funeral trip next weekend, last 220miles saw 19.2mpg. Pretty happy with that.

Not just pistons that need cleaning. Also need to clean all the corrosion and gunge that builds up in the seal grooves out before putting new seals in. Learned that 30 odd years ago on my first motorbike caliper rebuild. Well, second after the first left it dragging worse than before because I...

Uncovered him, lubed the bottom section of the air springs, emptied the dehumidifier, checked the fluids, tried to see if an air leak was the cause of the cruise control not working. Inconclusive, now thinking of capping off the pedal connection as have replaced the other hoses but that looks to...

They know someone who wants it, or parts from it, and are trying to source them cheap but technically legit rather than steal them. So they cause faults and say it's burgered in the hope that will work.

Mate had similar on an old Kawasaki GPz1170 with a stage 1 head. He could keep up with more modern kit, but the fuel gauge sections winked out alarmingly fast. IIRC he got around 20mpg.

I did that in the Ka. Fan heater on half temp for the wet footwell, getting the cabin warm enough and the moist air circulating for the dehumidifier to do it's thing. Very brisk process then.

Expecting to find similar on Otto when we get the lining out. Already have suitable sealant, plus a reel of sticky butyl rubber.

I am the butler for SWMBO.

No preheat on my fusion, but I learned ages ago that running it for about 5 minutes while ice scraping, then shutting it down and going inside for 5, come back out and the heat soak in that time gives cabin warmth and demisting better and quicker than trying to drive off at that point. So prep...

Mis named car. If those were skirts they'd reach past the knee. Should have resurrected the name Maxi.