A former MINI owner who was downsizing their house had a garage sale and nobody wanted them so they called me over and gave these to me.
Took the Parklane Countryman over to an all Alfa Romeo event today for some free lunch at Centerline Alfa Romeo in Lafayette, Colorado. Dealer participant for the Alfa lineup was an $81k Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quad Q4, yummy but not sure I would enjoy that much engine in a SUV. Nice line up of some really old Alfa Romeos. You can few the few pictures I took here: Centerline Open House: After viewing the pictures, can anyone guess the most expensive car on the Alfa only parking area? It is not the in the new ones.
Nice pictures. Not a fan of any of those new Alfas, but oh man those old ones sure are nice. My fave is the Giulieta Sprint. Sweet car & my guess for the priciest.
Not really, look at the red GTV with the white strip, notice the doors, then think over 100K in asis condition. It is a bit of a rat.
Nice car, but I'll take the blue one. Oh & the red Giulieta spyder to park next to it in my dream garage.
As I mentioned the GTjr is a bid of a rat, but appears to be an original GTA not all tarted up. The Sprint is probably my favorite also, the owner is a nice old guy from Longmont Colorado, we talked about his Sprint for a long, long time. It has the original Alfin drum brakes and everything is in working order, the original color was a light gray, this was a Tony Martins repaint from 10 years ago, Tony runs one of the best restoration/paint shops in the Denver area. I did like the Gray Stelvio Q4, but the Red Quad Stelvio is loved for it's power if you like the modern ones. The 60 Red Spider Giuletta is ownd by the previous owner of Centerline, he has this one and his 98 BWM M3 as his drivers. Such is life when you retire and start traveling the world.
Took my wife over to Columbus today for brunch with my family and nephew and his daughter from Colorado...great food, but even better was the chance to see everyone and the SMOOTHE ride over and back on the new tires on my S. Unfortunately, tomorrow they get taken off and the Blizzaks get installed for upcoming Winter driving...oh well, Springtime and MOTD are not too far off. Her S will get the snows later this week.
The MINI stayed home today. The past weekend when I had her up on a lift I was getting the front left brake duct and associated panels snapped back into place. It kinda pops out once a year or so since I bought her. While I had the wheel well pulled out I noticed a bunch of moisture on and around the trans area. Turns out she's got a coolant leak. It's in one of the hoses that run over the top of the gearbox but couldn't really see where it's coming from or which hose it is. It doesn't piss out when she's hot so I can't trace it that way either. Gonna take everything out tomorrow when I'm "working" from home. Is there a common R56 coolant hose failure I don't know about? One of the hoses running over the trans looks like it could rub but didn't really notice any issue where the possible rub spot may have been. All hoses are still in good shape, thermostat, coolant reservoir, and that little T splitter under the reservoir have been replaced so it's none of those. (Also ordered some new tires today. Got some Conti TrueContacts.)
Found it! It's a straight-up hole. I could stick the tip of my finger into it. It's definitely rubbing on the gearbox. How is this car not completely out of coolant and overheating?! Needless to say, she's parked until I get that hose and some coolant. F-150 life till then. Just below that dark spot on the lower hose is where the hole is.
Heading off to pick up a new battery for Skooby. The one that is in there is working fine, but at 6 years old I'm going to replace it. I don't want to get a call from Babs on a cold winter night that her car won't start.
Drove the Helmet to work. The tires are almost to the wear bars. Time to start looking for some replacements
I replaced that hose! Guess the hole wasn't as big as it felt... Still a hole though. The reason the hoses dropped is that 3 out of the 4 hose retainer things that hold the hoses in place were no longer connected to the subframe. Have some on order, and speaking of which, what's the deal with the eMINIparts.com site? It's been under construction for like a month!
First really cold mornings (20F yesterday and 25F today) and I can report that the G-LOC GS-1 street pads that I put on my R55 JCW this past summer do really well in cold temperatures and really don't need any warming up at all. Dust is also WAY down, lighter, and easier to remove compared to the original stock pads.
I’m not an mechanic nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express but your very fortunate that all you are replacing is a hose and some brackets as I’ve seen much smaller craters than that cause substantially more damage.
Put Skooby's new battery in last night. Nice easy 15 minute job. Gotta love when something is easy & goes the way it's supposed to.
I'm lucky I happened to be working on something else and noticed my wheel was soaked. Crashton was right, I dodged a serious bullet. She coulda blown up on the highway! A replacement engine woulda meant replacement car (or truck) for this cat.
I just saw that this morning when I went to look up a part for my mother-in-law's Clubman. The shop that did the carbon blasting called this morning to tell me that after putting the car back together it was running ruff. They did a smoke test and found a cracked charge pipe. She is looking up the price of the pipe and going to call me back. I am not happy at this point! I am waiting to see what they say but that pipe was fine till they pulled it off for the blasting. Up date! They said 169 for the part! I can get it for about 30 less. They said they wont use a part I but! really pisses me off!!!! I know its just $30 and I am being cheep but still. I asked if they are charging labor she said they are not inclined to.........Damn right!!! Oh also asked them to look at the sun roof. They said it may be a pressure switch but they dont want to fool with it till it spring because of the temptress. That will be too late. This is why I do my own work! Rant over!