Did it puke out a load of coolant to lose that much? Out with the plugs to give them a look over can't hurt as a first check.

Hard to say on the steamy exhaust - if it were doing that after a run it would make me wonder. How long was it sat at the garage before restarting? The exhaust will cool off quickly when you stop the engine at a low ambient temperature, causing a load of condensation to build up when you restart and then boil off.

Like this bit found down the back of our red P38 being used to repair the snapped fuel line..

Pissing fuel all over the back of the engine. Definitely found in time before it went up...

I doubt we'll ever know what caused the fire if it was a technical fault, it could have been any number of things not even related to fuel.

FM antennas on both sides, with one side also integrating an AM antenna. The remote fob antenna is separate and on the drivers side of a RHD vehicle.

That probably only applies to high line vehicles I imagine - our red one isn't a high line but I haven't taken much notice of the radio antenna setup to be honest.

Supposedly an L322 with LPG according to someone who was there on one of the FB groups.

So obviously, it must have been the LPG that caused the parked up car to spontaneously combust. Couldn't possibly have been an electrical fault, or coolant, brake fluid or oil dripping on a still hot exhaust....

I'm going to stick with splitting the manuals into roughly 110 A4 page sections, because otherwise I'll have loads of books to deal with. These two are the first I've done as I could only lay my hands on a pair of the bigger binding combs. I've split on a section rather than half way through a chapter etc. Conveniently the 'key information' pages are repeated throughout, so 'section 2' starts on a key info page, and I've reprinted the front cover which includes the contents page. Which is handy.

Can't really do much else until more binding combs arrive. But I'm quite happy with the outcome.

It's rather a slow day here... so I thought I'd dig out the ringbinder and have a go. Only got a couple of these larger black binding combs, so I'll order some more. This is the 1999 ETM, 611 pages. Duplexing halves that obviously, and 110 A4 sheets will go into these binding combs comfortably with room to flip pages nicely and just about fold over on itself. So three 'books' for the 1999 ETM alone.

They look nice though :) I'm not fussed about the pages getting dirty or written on etc, I'd much rather use one of these than a big file that likes to slip off surfaces and take up lots of room.

I have access to many laser printers that won't bat an eyelid at this kind of volume - they do it week in week out.

It's the binding/putting together bit that sounds like the ball ache! I wonder what our ring binder thing can do...

My OMVL vaporiser uses smaller hose than 16mm too, though 16 can be convinced to (eventually) stop leaking by clamping down on the lip of the hose barb. The ID though is much smaller, and I was considering running it in series with the heater core until we found my lack of heat at idle was a blocked thermostat moulding.

Had I actually run it in series though, I'd be concerned my vaporiser would be a big restriction on flow - the surface area of the ID was comparable to the blocked stat.

Have you checked to make sure you're getting permanent 12v and the switched 12v to the amplifiers?

If its the Clarion head unit, press the 'band' button and it may then let you enter the code. I do recall there being an hour long wait thing too where it has to be powered up but its so long since I had a Clarion one I can't remember.

If you want to go aftermarket, look into the Ray Ambler antennuator circuits. Your car will likely have separate door amplifiers that don't work well being fed a speaker level signal from an aftermarket signal, and even a line-level signal isn't great because they work on a balanced input.

Looking at this handy pic, I think the gap between the airbag and the pipe isn't so bad if you have 3" or so.

My problem was I either had the gap between the pipe and the bag OR I had a gap between the pipe and wheel well underseal. But in either position, when joined up to the centre section, the tailpipes were all over the place.

Friday afternoon? The worker that made this one must have been steaming before they even clocked out for the day!

Just got home for the day. As it stands, I currently have one back box and the other side of the T piece has a plate welded over it, as the pipe work to the drivers side box was just not acceptable.

The mid to rear flange on the mid section had to be cut off and rotated, which means it now lines up with the rear section and clears the diff and harmonic balanced thing when the suspension is down on the bump stops. Unfortunately, the T piece itself does bloody not. The diff will push it into the body somewhat, which I can see being unforgiving if the EAS decides to dump me onto the stops at speed.

So the whole rear section needs cutting up and making again, once I’ve ordered some stainless pipe and various bends.

So long story short, if you’re looking at buying one of these and don’t mind potentially cutting it all up and having the means to weld it all up, great. If not, don’t.

Consistency is apparently not something they know of when making these. This one is utter shite. I’m either going to set fire to the underseal on the spare wheel well, or blow the drivers side air bag. And that’s only if I now cut the T piece section to get it to line up with the centre section.

Honestly would not recommend one of these at all. Fettling doesn’t cover ‘cut out whole section and make it properly’. Don’t actually have any stainless pipe or the tig would be being dragged out to do so now. Instead I’m about to work out how to bodge something together to be able to drive home and dump the bastard car till next time.

Don’t suppose you have any pics of how yours sits at the rear section OB?

Excellent :)

I'm looking forward to being able to drive mine again! BMW is quicker but its quite boring really.

OB, do the rear silences on yours when fitted sort of sit a bit diagonally? Ie not parallel with the sides of the car? Just slid the box of shiny bits together on the floor and it looks a bit strange, but I presume its normal...

Bought some studs from LRDirect - hopefully they'll turn up. Might not need them anyway, but you know what happens if you don't have that part.

Yeah that's what I've got - will give it a good smear.

Need to dig out my stash of downpipe gaskets in case one of those is leaking... which brings me to the point of realising I don't think I have a set of new studs :/ arse.

Very shiny :)

Exhaust silicone - is that the orange Loctite stuff? I think I have some of that if it is. Recall using it to service a Webasto diesel heater.

Box of shiny things turned up very quickly. Hopefully it will be out of the box and somewhat more permanently attached come the weekend.

Excellent :) I need burble to cover up whatever is making the rattle in the engine!

Starting to think it might be valve gear noise, perhaps a summer time tear down is in order.