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Sunbeam

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Posts posted by Sunbeam

    The other shitbox thread

    in General Car Chat

    Posted

    On 08/04/2025 at 20:47, kws said:

    Pretty hard to go wrong with them TBH, particularly if it's cheap. Congrats on joining the club.

    3 months and 6000km in. No problems to report, but very disappointed in the fuel economy averaging 7l/100km. We live 15km from the nearest town, so a lot of open road. No obvious reason I can see, might have to watch the oxygen sensor data, maybe a bit lazy?

    School me on Volvos

    in General Car Chat

    Posted

    Having had 6 5 cylinder turbo Volvos over the years, I can reliably say if looked after they are cockroaches. The transmissions are great if the oil has been changed regularly. They are an Aisin unit, so not unrelated to toyota. However if not cared for, everything will fall off and all the oil and coolant will escape. Bloody brilliant cars, but not average muppet proof. Also well supported by Rockauto

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    Sunbeam's 1973 Fiat 125

    in Projects and Build Ups

    Posted

    Been pulling to one side under braking and a lot of brake dust appearing on the right front wheel so I pulled the calipers to clean these wedgy things.IMG_2517.thumb.jpeg.40ef3f4ea7c956070767f97dc875c4b9.jpeg

    those are what pass for a caliper slide on these old things. I had made the mistake of lightly greasing them when fitting them up 2 years ago and thus there was all sorts of crud glued in there. The Fiat Barries assure me they should be clean and DRY. 
     

     Next, I wanted to adjust the front camber. The old factory data has the tech dial in a smidge of positive camber. That’s well and good for 175 R13s from half a century ago with bus spec ride height. Mine’s lowered to a well laden height and fully laden camber spec is a smidge negative. So I pulled some shims and my rig and trig tells me I’m now about 0.5 degrees negative camber. 
    IMG_2518.thumb.jpeg.3d6a00948eee4d40b27afbc29fa62c17.jpeg

     

    Eldest passed her full license test so I told her she was now allowed to drive the Fiat under supervision. She was fizzing hard.

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    oldschool spotted

    in General Car Chat

    Posted

    Fiat club track day. Eclectic mix of old and not so old school.

    miiiint 124 BC

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    @ThePog, these are so small!

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    This thing went hard. 1750cc and not much slower than than the big Ferraris

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    Mid engine coolness

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    5 cylinder turbo Fiat Coupe. I love these things, this one sounded amazing.

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    @kws will appreciate this one..

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    Massive pine for this:

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    and here is its cousin. R8 swapped… there was a Ferrari 458 on the track and it could not overtake this thing on the front straight! Hilarious squat under acceleration too, nose was sky high

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    Also when I’m 80 I want to be like the owner of this thing… GT3RS with a cage, the owner hopped out wearing socks and sandals, bent over with a walking stick. He drives like a demon! My hero.

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    And my car parked behind some PHEV.

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    owner of above eco car was giggling because he accidentally exceeded his insurance speed limit of 230.

     

     

     

     

     

    • Like 20
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    Bike spam thread

    in General Bike Chat

    Posted

    My buddy got 4 ubcos from landcorp in varying states of death. The oldest one has 27 hours and the newest has done 15 minutes. Observations: frame looks reasonably rugged. The hub motors have plastic planetary gears with miniscule bearings and all the other componentary  looks underdone. One of the bikes had completely stripped gears, another with a completely toasted battery. The newest one just needed a new throttle grip. Took it for a hoon, and I can see the appeal of an electric bike, but the ubco wouldn’t threaten a 50cc scoot performance wise and I was disappointed in the low quality of everything but the frame.

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    The other shitbox thread

    in General Car Chat

    Posted

    12 hours ago, kws said:

    Pretty hard to go wrong with them TBH, particularly if it's cheap. Congrats on joining the club.

    Yeah, my only concern is that it was owned by a third level rental outfit and I would be surprised if the cvt fluid has ever been changed…

    • Like 1

    The other shitbox thread

    in General Car Chat

    Posted

    9 hours ago, kws said:

    No, second gen CVTs are fine, just service them every 60,000km or so with genuine fluid. Mine has 240,000KM on it now and CVT still goes hard. The NZDM Jazz has a trad auto if that was preferred.

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    Sik rimz. What economy are you getting? Is it a 1.3?

    The EV thread

    in General Car Chat

    Posted

    On 17/03/2025 at 08:42, Ned said:

    If you often do more than the leaf range, 

    This why we’re now getting out. Insufficient recovery time before the next errand, and then we lean on our other car which wasn’t bought for cheap local running. Also, where I live electricity is getting more expensive while petrol is inching down (temporary, I know). What will I do with my excess solar output? Well, Mrs Sunbeam wants a spa pool.

    The EV thread

    in General Car Chat

    Posted

    4 hours ago, dmulally said:

    Any idea what the fag packet man maths are over 150k's for a Leaf vs a Micra? 

    I assume a Micra will be around 5-6l/100kms. 

    Depends heavily on how you get your electricity. If reliant on public chargers you may as well drive a turbo coon. I have solar, so using a mix of solar and night rate I’m at 11 ish cents per km including RUC. Daughter’s 1.3 Echo gets 6l/100 which is about 15c/km.

    A carefully driven Prius is about 11.5c/km with 800km range for comparison. After 120,000km of Leafing, I’m shopping for a prius.

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    The other shitbox thread

    in General Car Chat

    Posted

    23 hours ago, subverse said:

    They're "OK", I've got one. It's nothing special. They're rare because Toyota only brought 100 into the country (possibly they didn't sell well enough to bring in any more). They're just a euro spec Yaris with the corolla engine and six speed. No cruise control, no electric folding mirrors, no electric windows in the rear. Bloody indicator stork on the wrong side, forever turning on the wipers accidentally :grin:. Now they do share the same base engine as the Lotus Elise, so if anyone has a lightly crashed one of those and wants to donate the supercharger off it to me I'd be interested.

    This caught my eye but I don’t think any 15 year old Yaris is worth 9k

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    Sunbeam's 1973 Fiat 125

    in Projects and Build Ups

    Posted

    Change of plan. Starting work late afternoon now, so quickly went for hoon, no leaks! Reassembled interior and a quick wash. I’ll drive it to work and hopefully when I finish at 2am on Sunday there will be no drama.

    IMG_2366.jpeg.7f53b9f9c4d1de9e884a0d0dd405d7a4.jpegIMG_2365.jpeg.f50c7f654359fc4b39a2037856597af7.jpeg

     

    Boy, it looks yellow in photos. 

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    Sunbeam's 1973 Fiat 125

    in Projects and Build Ups

    Posted

    On 09/01/2025 at 21:06, Sunbeam said:

    the aftermarket strikes again! 

     

    IMG_2242.thumb.jpeg.6a1156d04835205bb36183796770a1f1.jpeg

     

    Yeah, that’s a bit short. 
     

    Remember this? Time to print a retraction. It was not the fault of the aftermarket, but a brain fart by the supplier who swiftly rectified the error. In the following picture, upper is correct, lower incorrect.

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    With some limited shed time after dinner, I risked further spinal injury to refit the heater. Firstly I wanted to remove the steel heater return pipe so that I could fit a new hose. It’s not possible for me to do this in situ. This however required removal of the alternator and extraction from underneath the car. Et voila
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    refitted in reverse, and then assembled the heater box with my flash new core.

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    What a prick to refit. It goes in ok but if it’s not lined up millimetre perfect, the fresh air flap won’t open. Now I have a new heater core and all new hoses associated with the heater. I refilled the coolant for what seems like the 50th time in the last 6 months and ran it up to temp in the workshop. Wow, what heat and fast! No leaks yet, but I need to top up the system post cooldown and then go for a hoon and get it properly hot and up to pressure. If it oasses that test I can refit the ductwork and reassemble the lower dash. I probably won’t get around to that until next week because I’m a grownup apparently, with a job.

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