rabbitstew

Front end of my zed was resprayed before I got it. I was paranoid about stone chips as I kept the whole car immaculate. I used to keep a very big distance between me & cars in front and go out of my way to avoid any potential chips. But it made no difference at all. One by one stone chips still appeared on the front. Its as if the design of the front seems to attract them. As others have said, dont worry about it. Just get the bumper repainted before you sell it and it will look like new for the new buyer.

Im sure you will do your research so you know what to look out for on the roadster, but besides any obvious splits or wear in the hood (particularly where the back part of the roof frame is really tight on the roof material), the main 2 things I found was that the roof sometimes seems to "stick" at the half way point when powering it down. There are big rubber bands in the roof which can get worn out and I think these provide a bit extra ooomph to the motor. The 5th (i think it was) bow motor can also be a bit weak which doesnt help. The other thing I found was the the roof beam directly above your head in the car has a thin piece of metal wrapped around it as part of the roof. this seems to peal back with use. Nissans "fix" on my roof was to re-rivet this back down. In general the roof motors do struggle in winter. The roof material gets a lot stiffer and wont fold as easy. The manual actually recommends not to use the hood if the temperature is too low. Any roof problems in general will not be cheap. At one point Nissan "broke" my roof whilst it was in for a completely unrelated check. I was amazed when I saw what they had to do to get to the roof motors/mechanism. They basically stripped nearly all the inside of my car out, including all inside the boot. They had 3 or 4 mechanics working on it and it took them several days to fix whatever the problem was.

The Silver Pigeon is a nice gun but do your research on them, they have been out for donkeys years and so there are so many different models over the years. Try and find out what year it was made etc. Also, ideally get a multi choke gun as it means you can use it for more things - although in practise most people tend to just leave the same chokes in it all the time. I actually went out to a gun shop at one point to buy a silver pigeon. I already have a Beretta A391 Semi Auto and it was getting "frowned upon" by some of the posh types at the clay ground as most people seem to use an over/under. I walked in the shop with a grand in my pocket and after trying a few for size actually went for a lovely Lanber o/u sportster which cost about £600 if I remember rightly. It just fitted me perfect. Ive about 11 or 12 shotguns now, all sorts, ranging from a Hushpower pump action .410 through to a Churchill ribbed AYA XXV o/u but my favourite by far is a 43 year old Sabel side by side 12 bore which cost me just £60!. It has tight chokes as its more for game, no butt pad, and its only got a 26inch barrel - current "fashion" is for 30inch or longer. But,with this £60 gun i just find I can seem to hit anything. Its amazing. So I find my much much more expensive guns are left sitting there whilst this old banger gun gets all the use. Guess point im making is that you dont need to buy a beretta or browning or spend loads of cash on a gun. A lot of women do shoot with 20bores, they seem to be popular. Might be because the guns probably slighty lighter/smaller and maybe suits a female frame more, but tbh I find most people can just get on with a 12 bore fine. If the recoil is too much then firstly check that its fitting you right, and secondly you can always drop from a 28g cartridge down to 24g or even 21g without affecting much on the skeet range. One reason I went for the beretta semi originally was that semi`s have hardly any recoil, plus you get 3 shots! Cabinet wise, id expect it highly unlikely the police will refuse you a license and they do like to look at the cabinet & location before they hand over the license normally, although it does depend on the FEO in question. I never once had an FEO want to check my cabinet or guns until I moved house 4 years back, then the new guy wanted to check every single little thing. Id recommend a brattonsound cabinet like mine, has proper safe like bolts & stuff on it.

80% is very good, was that skeet or sporting? Ive done clay shooting for about 20 years now. Mixed in with a bit of pest control with rabbits/pigeons etc. Its all good fun and really practise does make perfect. It is very psychological. When I do skeet, i may hit every target for the first half, then think "hang on, im going to get a 25 here" then start missing the odd one. Other times id mis a couple on the first half, then think sod it, and blast through the rest without missing a clay. What works for me is to just aim and shoot as quick as I can without thinking. If i think, i end up missing. I remember once me & my brother had done maybe 3 rounds of skeet (75 clays) and I figured, may as well get a quick one in before we leave. I noticed a few people starting to line up next, so I literally ran around the skeet positions like my trousers were on fire, bringing gun up, aim, fire. I did the whole thing in a few minutes and ended up 24/25. The guys all queuing up cheered! What I would say is when you go to get a gun, shop around. Its all about fit and what you feel comfortable with. I started off with a £100 Baikal shotgun and was shooting better than guys with £3000 guns. I would also say, get the biggest gun cabinet you can. I started off with a 3 gun cabinet, now have a 11 gun cabinet and thats full. Best to just go straight for the bigger capacity one for a start. You will find loads of people at shooting clubs will try to give you advice, just take it all with a pinch of salt. Once you learn the lead you need to give on the skeet range you will get the hang of it, then progress the sporting range which is much more challenging and fun. The CPSA might be worth joining if you start to get good, keep track of scores etc. BASC is good to join as you get legal advice and insurance etc. Theres loads of good forums out there which cover shooting, buying guns 2nd hand privately (like cars) saves you a good bit of cash. With regards to the gun license, thats pretty straight forward. Most firearms officers are sound as a pound. Buy a 2nd hand gun cabinet (again, saves you a few quid - look on ebay), get it fitted properly, then apply. They come out, do the interview and make sure your not a nutter, check references and speak to your doc etc then you get your license. Cartridges wise, I usually buy 1000 at a time as I get a better deal, but then me & my brother would get through 250 in a Sunday morning. Most clay clubs will sell them by the slab (250) or by the box (25) so depending on what they charge you can buy from them or from a local shop. Most importantly have loads of fun. Besides the gun & cartridges you`ll need decent ear plugs, eye protection and I find a skeet vest is good for the cartridges, besides that anything goes. You will though find some clubs are quite snobbish. I used to anoy the hell out of one local club when I turned up in a hoodie, ripped jeans and a £100 pump action 12 bore, then proceeded to thrash some local bloke who had a £3000 italian o/u 12 bore and was decked out in tweed.

The image conveyed in the books is that Mr Grey has ginger hair and for some reason the impression I got was that he wore it in a long floppy sort of style. The author also keeps harping on about how his jeans hang of his hips "like that". Which I took to mean the guy wore his jeans in a "gangsta" style, i.e. half way down his arse and didnt own a belt or braces. So the pictures ive seen of this actor guy seems to show a the guy always in a smart suit with short brown hair, so nothing like what the book portrays.

The 328`s are nice cars. I had a 2 door coupe one as a company car back in about 1998/1999.

This is why noone ever touches my car except me and the local MOT bloke who I know wont do this. (especially as i sit there watching him during the MOT).

^^^^ as above, thats exactly what i used on my roadster. It cleaned, then re-sealed the hood and it looked like new.

Very nice! I always wanted the ZXR750R. The nearest ive got is my ZXR750L2. It does have the alloy exhaust mounting hanger from an R on it though! Unfortunately its been off the road since about 1999 after the engine cooked itself, and so its sitting in the corner of my garage awaiting the day I find time to get her going again.. New project for you, put a zx9r B model engine in, easy swap The 750r is a mega bit of old kit, the sound from it with 39mm flatslide carbs is intoxicating Rob Yeah I did consider fitting the old zx9r engine in back "in the day". I seem to recall you had to chop a small bit out of the frame for the rocker cover to clear (or something like that). A bloke local to me fitted one to his at one point. Another local chap fitted a zx6r engine in his but that required a lot more work. They are old bikes now, but ive never had as much confidence around the bends on any of my bikes as i did on my ZXR. I remember grinding the side off the exhaust on roundabouts I could lean it over so far.

Very nice! I always wanted the ZXR750R. The nearest ive got is my ZXR750L2. It does have the alloy exhaust mounting hanger from an R on it though! Unfortunately its been off the road since about 1999 after the engine cooked itself, and so its sitting in the corner of my garage awaiting the day I find time to get her going again..

Same here. Just bought a carbon air box for the 996. To be honest id probably save more weight by having a good dump before going out on it, but hey, it looks cool!

One thing ive noticed though is that women & men seem to come to different conclusions from the books. Women seem to think its a nice happy romantic story whereas most men seem to come to the same conclusion as I did. Everyones clearly reading the same books, but its interesting how men/women get a different message/opinion from it.

One of my female friends saw the film over the weekend and said she really enjoyed it. From what she was saying its absolutely nothing like the books so anyone rushing off to the cinema in the hope of seeing a film about violent domestic abuse will be disappointed. Rather than keeping Mr Grey as a ginger psychotic serial woman abuser who grooms the young innocent virgin girl and forces her into a violent relationship, they have turned it more into a romantic love story type film in which the girl actually has the power in the relationship etc.

A test showing Poorboys lasting less than 4 weeks whilst FK1000P lasting 10 weeks... before I accidentally killed it with fallout remover. My argument here is that they say you need to use more than one coat of Poorboys for best results, but FK1000P does only need the one In reality, I may have to give this FK1000P a try Me too.. ive just ordered some. I use poor boys atm, and usually give the wheels about 2 or 3 coats (depends on how bothered i can be). My time is very precious atm, so if this fk1000 stuff can do it in one coat then awesome. Also apparently is good for bodywork so may give it a go on that too.

Welcome! Loads of info on here and as you have a good while before you`ll be able to insure one, you have plenty of time to become an expert on them!

oo-er, looks pretty mean!

Saw an indicated 180 when i had a bike (abroad), its quite something how a corner in the distance, suddenly isnt in the distance In the late 90`s I had a modified ZXR750L2 completely flat out (on a private road) for a good number of miles an it was showing a similar speed. My mate on his Fireblade was right behind me also flat out and both bikes were dead equal. It was a really weird feeling as everything is moving so fast and yet your brain seems to be working slower. I found myself remembering how my bike tended to use nearly as much oil as petrol and that one slight twitch of the handle bars or a brick in the road would cause a bit of a mess so I slowed down to a more "sensible" speed. Ive never been as fast since and dont ever want to, even though the bikes I have now are miles more powerful & faster. I find, for example, on my 16 year old R1, it will hit 115mph in 2nd gear and will just keep pulling & pulling like a jet plane through the next 4 gears until you decide enough is enough. Simply pulling out & accelerating to overtake something and you could quite easily hit 150mph in a few seconds without even trying before you reach for the brakes and slow down to something more sensible. These days I tend to keep to the same speeds as I would driving my car and just enjoy the odd burst of acceleration. The main thing for me these days as a more "sensible biker" is to enjoy the experience and a nice bendy bit of road rather than riding flat out everywhere.

Totally agree. I think the statistics say that nearly everyone crashes during first year of driving. I know I did, twice. Once on a roundabout when I presumed that the woman driving the car in front of me who had just pulled out onto a clear roundabout wasnt going to suddenly stop mid-roundabout for no reason at all. So I pulled out, looked right to make sure it was still clear and ran into back of her. Second time was as few weeks later when I was driving along, in a queue of traffic and some woman (im sure it was just a co-incidence that both accidents involved women drivers), drove straight out of a side road, across 2 lanes of on coming traffic and down a ditch. Everyone piled on their brakes and my crappy old mini only had drum brakes all around and just didnt stop in time. After then I learnt that whilst I felt I was a really good driver, other people might not be and so you have to double & triple check every time you pull out onto a round about, and also make sure you leave miles of room between you & the car ahead as you never know what some idiot up ahead will do. Unfortunately the "limit" at the moment is purely as to whether the young driver can afford the insurance or not, and as we know the insurance premium is based purely on statistics rather than car engine size. I remember a few years back I used to see a lot of young lads driving cars like old 5 Series BMW`s or Jags, simply because whilst they had big engines and were clearly not slow, they were cheaper than trying to insure a Saxo or Corsa, as more of them had been involved in accidents.

Must be a record, spotted 2 zeds within the space of 5 mins. Spotted a nice clean Azure Coupe heading west on the A428 this morning at about 9:05am, not far CROXTON. Had what looked like a Nismo boot spoiler on it and I think the male driver was having a cigarette. Had a private plate on it, which was *** XER.

Spotted this morning (16th Feb 2015), at 9am on A428 heading west towards St Neots, Nice looking black roadster, private plate T** BOP.

Amazing. What happened to people buying a crappy old car for their first car and running that for a few years to build up some NCB? My first car was an old classic mini which was older than me and cost £20 to buy - which was the equivalent to a days work at the time. Insurance cost me £500 Third Party only which was the cheapest at the time. It wasnt until I was about 25 that I could afford the insurance on a quicker car and even then it wasnt cheap.

I have only ever ridden a trailie once and that was a Honda Africa Twin. My god, I hated it. I just couldnt get used to the riding position having only ever ridden sportsbikes all my life. Just felt really weird!

When i moved i ended up leaving about £300 worth of AV cabling in the wall from where I had my telly wall mounted and had all the cables sunk into the wall and plastered over top. Was a right pain having to do all the same at the new house. Still, gave me an excuse to get a bigger telly.

^^^^^ nice! I cant wait to get out on mine, but with the state of the roads atm around my way it will be a while yet. Back end of my car was all over the shop on the way home last night.

No, it's not the power & money......we just like the idea of having an orgasm every time Or not as the case may be as im sure there was a scene where he gets really angry and jealous that one of her male friends phones her up (or something like that) whilst they are out for a meal, so he drags her off to a boathouse, forces himself upon her and says that its all about him and he wont let her have an orgasm as punishment.