British Leyland

**ducatilover** · 26th April 2012, 23:29

Excellent, I'm all ears for good ol' stories!

**Bender** · 27th April 2012, 06:44

**unstuck** · 27th April 2012, 06:59

Waiting for the wee story.

**avgas** · 27th April 2012, 09:23

This link should occupy your time... http://www.flickr.com/photos/7114457...n/photostream/

**unstuck** · 27th April 2012, 09:43

Some cool old wrecks in that link Avgas.

The photo of the GMC truck is brilliant, better than An army camoflage job.

**240** · 27th April 2012, 15:23

Ok heres the wee story. I hope I haven’t built it up too much ! (any way it amuses me writing remembering this event)
Years ago we did a cng install on a Sherpa.
The owner worked around town real early in the morning doing deliveries.
Every Wednesday he would come into our workshop and say his van would not start after it had been parked on a particular hill, and he allways had to have it towed away.
The van was brand new and this went on for about four weeks, the same routine. Every Wednesday in he came getting more and more pissed off (actually he was a good bastard and never really lost the plot about it !)
We went with him on his rounds in the afternoon many times stopping at all his usual places including the “mystery” hill and never had a problem. He did all the usual things while we were with him except on a Tuesday morning run it would not start.
We spent hours and hours with him and this fucken van but could never find a fault.
We started corresponding with Leyland in the U.K saying we believed that this van had some sort of mysterious wiring fault that only occurred when the cold early morning air was prevalent and could we please have a new wiring loom under warranty.Our service manager had heard about someone in Saudi Arabia or some fucken place that had a wiring fault caused by heat so…..go figure!
We had already replaced all the ignition components completely from another new van including the ignition switch and as it was a new van we replaced all the door locks as well to match the keys I think from memory the total hours on the job was running at about 120 (no exaggeration)
We got the go ahead for a new wiring loom and fitted, it now for those who are mechanically minded you know what sort of job that is and if you are not mechanically minded it is FUCKEN BIG!
Anyway we did the wiring loom and gave the guy his van back and said well here you go it’s all good now there can be absolutely no chance that it would play up again. That was on a Thursday, we did not see him for a few days and we thought thank fuck that’s over now how the hell do we bullshit this warranty claim to try and recover some money for the time spent.
Well fuck me next Wednesday he was in again with the same fault, this time though he was asking for his money back so he could buy another type of van (still kept his cool though and did not blame us .As I said he was a good bastard).
This really got the manager going and we ended up having a meeting with the managing director, branch manger, service manager ,this customer and his lawyer.
It was decided that our service manager was to accompany this customer all week at three in the morning to see what was happening (the service manager was really pissed about this but had no choice)

He went with him from Thursday morning over theweekend over the weekend until Tuesday came at 3:30am the customer pulls up outside his regular stop on Tuesdays on this hill that we had been to about 10 times and because it is dark he turns his hazard lights on.
Yup you can see what’s coming, the dumb fucker who converted it to gas wired the power circuit for the cng gas solenoid into the fucken hazard light circuit so when the hazards were turned she no power to said solenoid!
I still see that fucken van around every couple of years or so and it gives me a cold chill ( it’s like that enemy car of Mr Bean!)

So there you go good readers a classic tale of bad work on our part sometimes you overlook the obvious (I mean a new wiring loom FFS!)

**ducatilover** · 27th April 2012, 15:39

Brilliant! I'd hate to be the one finding that problem

**YellowDog** · 27th April 2012, 15:42

**avgas** · 27th April 2012, 15:47

You invented the first car kill switch lol

**dangerous** · 27th April 2012, 18:38

Originally Posted by 240

By far the worst was the 2000/2500 tcs they had constant wheel bearing problems and of course replacing universal joints every bloody half hour or so.
The independant rear axle was a good idea but in typical British fashion, unreliable.
Replacing clutches at 20,000 k was a regular occurrence,
The last of the TCs were (in my opinion)the pick of the bunch. The 's' model had power steer and had ironed out a lot of the clunks and driveline freeplay the earlier ones had.
The build quality compared to Honda was frankly ...shit
The fuel injected models were a fucken nightmare.

LOL... theres no way n ell ya can compair a jappa of any kind to a britt car.
Like I said I have had a few over the years and never done a wheel bearing or uni and never had any issues withrear axels, and ummm... dont think I ever had a manual 2-2.5... hearald boxs all ways wined a lot but never broke.
The PI was a shit system again never had one due to that of course... power stearing was about well befor the S and to be honest haha shit was I ever doing replacement racks. Love em or hate em Triumph are COOL

ohh and you guys would love this we gem http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used...-470258769.htm

in all seriousness... fuck this is cool http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used...-469939285.htm

**ducatilover** · 27th April 2012, 20:22

Originally Posted by dangerous

ohh and you guys would love this we gem http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used...-470258769.htm

I'd own it, paint it "guards red" and put some S wheels on it and rip that horrible gear lever out, then I'd be on the road to having a seriously cool car.

**scumdog** · 28th April 2012, 11:10

Originally Posted by ducatilover

I'd own it, paint it "guards red" and put some S wheels on it and rip that horrible gear lever out, then I'd be on the road to having a seriously cool car.

Except sadly rust has a death-grip on it...

**Indiana_Jones** · 28th April 2012, 17:27

I am so close to buying this:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used...-470766042.htm

Tell me why I shouldn't lol (note: I own a Wolseley 18/85)

-Indy

**ducatilover** · 28th April 2012, 21:32

Originally Posted by scumdog

Except sadly rust has a death-grip on it...

Meh, I just sold a '91 Corolla, rustiest car I've ever owned. Heap of rusting, boring, uninspiring sack of shit. Bloody hated it.

Indy you sick fuck, do it.

I would live with this very happily
http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used...-454020715.htm

Or this, you'll like it Indy
http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used...-470492448.htm