Rusty Triumphs in Scotland

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Rusty Triumphs in Scotland

Post by captain_70s »

Many years ago I bought a 1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 as my second car, and it was shite.

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To say it broke down frequently would be unfair, it rarely started in the first place and spent much of it's early time in my ownership stuck in my parent's garage. The engine knocked at anything over 50mph, snapped a rocker arm through sheer wear within 300 miles of purchase, then started burning oil on the overrun and to gradually transpired the bodywork was bodged to fuck. I bought it as a 24,000 mile car and paid £1400 for it. The bloke who sold it to me had bought it from a dealer in Newcastle and claimed to be making a loss... I'd not be surprised if this was true... It's also been around the clock.

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I persevered for much time, despite getting sick of it after a year and sort of replacing it with a Dolly 1850HL, used it daily for 6 months doing 50 miles a day before it failed it's MOT and ended up stuck in a garage as I neither had the time, money or motivation to repair it.

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Then I moved house 200 miles south. Then I got sick of paying for a garage containing a shit car 200 miles from my house. So I went up north for a long weekend, got the car drivable and drove it from the Moray coast 200 miles over the Cairngorms to a pre-booked MOT in Glasgow

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It failed this MOT and the local garage had it so long to sort the rear brakes it became MOT exempt so I took it home and fixed them myself. Then I bimbled around Glasgow for a bit while the car constantly broke down due to a dodgy ignition system and fuel evaporation. More importantly I painted the wheels black so it looked hard as fuck

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Once I finally got the car properly tuned up and running well it dropped a big end bearing on the M74 at 65mph. Long story short the engine is utterly fucked.

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I then pried some bodywork and found there was some prior bodgery going on in the form of repair panels riveted on top of the originals... I fixed this appropriately with gaffer tape.

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Then my neighbour saw me putting a Herald 1200 engine (it was local and free...) in the basement and said she was going to phone the housing factor/police and get me into bother so I've currently stopped fucking about with it. Although I do have a 1300 engine lined up for arrival in Spring and I have been offered facilities to DO THE SWAP.

Once that's done I'll sort the bodywork I guess.
1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850HL - Field based greenhouse.
1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 - Lean green oil dripping machine.
1983 Triumph Acclaim L - Japanglish daily runner.
1989 Volvo 740GLE Estate - Mobile storage unit.
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Re: Rusty Triumphs in Scotland

Post by captain_70s »

car No.2

Purchased exactly one year after the purchase of the Dolly 1300. A '76 1850HL I spotted on Gumtree, a mile away from my place of work, MOT'd, £850. Bloke was selling as he'd just bought a Rover P6 3500.

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Car was viewed and seemed decent enough, most importantly it had 90bhp, Sprint alloys, shiny air filters and was YELLOW. It was mine.

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At this point I'd just replaced my '08 Yaris 1.0 with a '12 Corsa 1.4T - This owing to the fact that while I lived under their roof my parents demanded I had a safe and reliable car. I hadn't factored in quite how expensive the Corsa would be at £120 in finances payments, also the fact I hit a stone within a week of buying it and punched a hole straight through the unique-to-that-model alloy wheel. £120 for a tyre and £240 for a new wheel...

I also immediately decided I hated it and started using the 1850HL as my daily driver, and it was fucking awesome.

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Two weeks in I was supposed to be picking somebody up to give them a lift to work, they slept in and I ended up running late. A mile outside of work while in a rush I pulled away from walking pace in second gear and slipped the clutch badly, the rear end kicked out, I over-correct, fishtailed and span across the other lane, over a curb and crashed into a metal railing backwards.

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Destroyed an alloy, bent a half shaft, put a large dent in a irreparable area, cost much monies to be recovered home as my breakdown recovery didn't cover accidents. Most alarmingly the steering was now very heavy and wouldn't self centre and i'd been berated/mocked by passing motorists as my bright yellow car was embedded in a fence and blocking half the road.

I had it repaired but they couldn't work out what was wrong with the steering, it remained like that for the rest of the time I drove the car, I discovered the issue later. It was rather bad...

Anyway, once I had it back on the road I once again threw it into daily use despite it steering like shite.

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It was largely reliable until the thermostat jammed and the car overheated on Aberdeen beachfront. This blew the seal between the thermostat housing (built into the inlet manifold) and the water pump, this is a nightmare to replace. It was repaired and the car entered WBoD mode as the Corsa was devaluing at a staggering rate, handled like arse in wet/frosty weather and I couldn't afford tyres for it.

I had the rubber prop mount bushing things replaced by my local garage, sold the Corsa at a massive loss, and then moved out of my parent's attic into Scotland's most picturesque cottage.

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With the 1850HL now my main form of transport and me flat broke it failed it's MOT in an expensive manner, it also crashed the garage's computer so they just gave me a hand written note of stuff it needed.

Essentially every brake pipe and hose needed replacing, the front discs were shagged, the O/S chassis leg was rotten through, all the exhaust rubbers were perished and the exhaust was leaking at various joins. With no time or money to fix the car I pressed the 1300 into daily service despite it's tired engine and the fact I'd only gotten it vaguely roadworthy a month or so prior after a long lay up in my parent's garage.

The 1850HL now had no MOT and was stranded at my house. I set about trying to sort out the brakes but the thing thought me every step of the way. Every fitting rounded, everything was seized, the underseal was about an inch thick and covered rusty fittings, the chassis leg disintegrated with a gentle screwdriver prodding.

The site of a 1850 on axle stands outside my house became a local landmark and the car deteriorated faster than I could work on it. The fuel pump sludged up, then the petrol cap stuck on, then the tank to engine pipe burst and covered the drive in petrol, I couldn't get the front calipers off, the exhaust rubbers wouldn't fit, the sea air started eating the bodywork and I desperately sanded back the surface rust and painted it in marine grand red oxide which made the thing look dire.

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I also discovered the reason for the heavy steering, one of the subframe mounts had collapsed when I hit the curb during my crash and the O/S/R bit of the subframe was now largely supported by the steering column...

Then the 1300 shat it's clutch hydraulics and starter motor three days before it's MOT, I drove it into my parent's garage and asked if I could stay at their place until I could get parts. When I woke up the following day I was informed they'd bought me a car.

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With my mental health now rapidly deteriorating I put the 1850HL up for sale at £600 complete with my stash of parts, set of alloys and a spare engine. Got a few offers of £300 and some banger racers were showing interest so I did the obvious thing and gave it to a mate...

Turns out running a '05 Civic in Aberdeenshire which is juuust starting to 'get on a bit' isn't entirely costless. The exhaust almost immediately fell off (£380), then it snapped a halfshaft (£420), then it needed tyres (£120). As a result of constant costs I shoved the 1300 in a garage I'd started renting locally for a barn find Princess 2 I failed to buy (yes really, another fucked old car) and then had a mental breakdown.

I moved to Glasgow, fixed my mental health, got the 1300 out of it's garage and back down here and replaced the now fucked Civic with another old Triumph.

The old 1850HL is still with my mate in Aberdeenshire and looks even worse. The underside has been welded up (it was also discovered the boot floor only existed as structural underseal/paint) and new brake lines fitted. The bloke is threatening to give it back as he feels guilty having it for free and is more into 1980s Renaults. I may take him up on that once I have a garage as 1850s are now pricey, MOT/tax exempt is a thing now and with my new found tinkering skills/motivation it is actually repairable if not needed urgently... Currently it is biding it's time...

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1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850HL - Field based greenhouse.
1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 - Lean green oil dripping machine.
1983 Triumph Acclaim L - Japanglish daily runner.
1989 Volvo 740GLE Estate - Mobile storage unit.
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Re: Rusty Triumphs in Scotland

Post by captain_70s »

picking up where I left off.

Moved to Glasgow, brought the Doloshite down south as well, left the 1850 up north. At this point (late 2017) the Civic was starting to have issues, the PAS was getting touchy, all the tyres were running out of life, there was a fair amount of rust on the underside and most importantly all the brakes were pretty much down to the metal and one rear caliper was binding. Clearly I needed something to replace it, preferably something old and decrepit, largely as "classic car" insurance is £200, a modern car was £600-800... 

A few years prior, back in 2013 I'd stumbled across an Acclaim for sale at a local car show. It was used by the wife of a local banger racer who has a yard full of quality decaying chod in Cornhill, but she was getting a newer car with PAS.

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It was something like £500, there was also a tidy £1800 Moggy Traveller and mint 1977 Leyland Princess for £750. Naturally I had no money at the time, given that a Moggy would now by £5k+ and the Prinny has fetched over £2k on eBay a few times since...

I then forgot about the car until I saw it again in 2016 at another local car show.

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Seemingly it had been bought by a young lad who'd put bucket seats, big alloys and a bigger stereo on it, fitted a straight through exhaust, tinted the windows and then snapped the timing belt and sold it as a non-runner. Somebody was going to break it for spares but another fella ended up with it and put it back on the road, he was also informed that the original seats/wheels were still at the yard in Cornhill so they were re-fitted. This is fortunate as this is one of very few Acclaim Ls left, and the seats are unique for this trim.
The car was then resprayed and trailered to shows in the north east for a year.

I saw it for sale in Kirkcaldy at £1500, then £1200, then £1000, then it came up on a no reserve eBay auction. I bought it blind for £850 in March 2018 based on the fact it "looked half decent" several years previously...

I collected the car in the pissing rain and dark from an industrial unit in the shite hole which is Kirkcaldy, the wiper blades were fucked but the car seemed to drive alright. When I went to fill up with petrol I found the key for the petrol cap turns the opposite way to the Dolomite's. I discovered this by snapping my only door key in the lock. Thankfully the ignition key is separate so I could move the car out of the way of the pumps and after much prying I managed to get the petrol cap open.

Once on route again everything was going fairly well for a couple more miles until I put my foot down to overtake a lorry on the motorway, the exhaust downpipe then parted company from the manifold. The rest of the trip home was deafening and I was starting to accept I'd bought a bit of a dog... The following day I inspected my new purchase.

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So it was a bit rough and scruffy from being sat in a yard for a long while but it all mostly seemed to work, MOT history suggested it'd done 150 miles in the last year, I'd done 61 of them on the drive home.

The exhaust was shit. It'd been bodged together from random pipe in a vague facsimile of the stock system, the join twixt the manifold flange and pipe was entirely GunGum and most of the mounts were jubilee clips.

More worryingly while trying to tighten a jubilee clip my hand slipped and I speared the screwdriver straight through a chassis leg... Lovely. I did at least manage to order a set of pre-cut door keys online (I had the blank and cut codes), although they do say Honda on them!

With the MOT due in April I took the car to FOADWERX near Dunfermline to have a poke around underneath and do some welding. Everybody agreed it looked pretty good, the chassis leg was welded, the loose underseal and surface rust on the underside of the sills was wire brushed off, Vactan'd and under-sealed.

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The bumper corners were linseed oiled, the rear light clusters replaced for non-tinted examples, the decaying "chrome" trim on the rubbing strips replaced with self adhesive stuff from eBay, the whole car was polished, the filthy interior was scrubbed and the car was sent to my local garage for an MOT with the expectation it'd need a shock and some welding to one rear wheel arch. Itt failed miserably.

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The tester had dug right into every nook and cranny and found corrosion on all four corners of the car. I left it with them to replace the leaking shock and came home to contemplate my £800 estimate for the welding required, having being warned it would likely end up being a much higher bill. Essentially the car seemed like it was going to end up weighed in and I was going to be financially fucked, at the same time the Civic's rear brakes completely gave up on life, that was going to be over £500 to have fixed as well.

So I had:

Civic - Immobile. Pulled off rear calipers to investigate brakes, seized solid, pads fell to bits.
Dolly 1300 - No MOT, rear drums/shoes fucked amongst other things. Parked illegally outside my flat but very nearly MOT/tax exempt.
Acclaim - No MOT, no metal work below door bottoms. At the local garage having a shock fitted.

Once again FOAD came to the rescue by offering me a place to do the welding if I wanted to, and at least a ramp to properly look at the car. As did Nisfan by graciously lending me the AS bike Rover 220Sli to use while I had no functioning cars...

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So the car was booked in for a fake MOT near FOADWERX and driven over to the unit one weekend, once up on the ramp Scott basically said the car was as sound as any other shit 1980s car and that the MOT tester had gone hunting for rust in several places. There seemed to be enough good steel to weld to so I decided to crack on and get it done.

11 hours later in the wee hours of the morning I left the unit with a slightly more solid car. Scott said he was pretty sure if I took it to his local MOT place it'd pass as long as it was steering and stopping well.

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The result was a clean pass.

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All I've really done since is drive the car and done some service work.

New plugs, leads and dizzy cap, turned out the ignition timing was miles out so that was set properly with a timing light. The L spec 145/80R13 tyres were replaced with CD spec 165/75R13 Uniroyal RainExpert 3s. A stereo cassette player and new speakers were fitted for me tunes. Replaced the pin fit wiper pins for nuts/bolts. Sorted a few electrical problems.

It'll have done 10,000 miles in my ownership by the time the next MOT is due in May. We shall see how it goes! Unfortunately it is looking quite scruffy due to rust around the arches, due to the bad paint job (in Mercedes Steel Blue!) and British road salt. If it doesn't fail miserably I'll treat it to a new exhaust and some more bodywork... I can see it being a keeper purely due to how good a balance it strikes between being easy to use/reliable while old enough to be half interesting. My love is still rooted in 1960s/70s cars but it helps to have a car that isn't garbage and you can't buy decent cars that age for a grand.

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It has actually ended up cheaper to run than the Civic (which was sold for £400 with 4 days MOT left). The Acclaim cost about £1000-1200 to buy/repair, less than it'd have cost to insure/repair the Civic.
1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850HL - Field based greenhouse.
1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 - Lean green oil dripping machine.
1983 Triumph Acclaim L - Japanglish daily runner.
1989 Volvo 740GLE Estate - Mobile storage unit.
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Re: Rusty Triumphs in Scotland

Post by captain_70s »

Fleet update as 11/04/19:

Dolomite 1300 - Sitting outside my flat looking sorry for itself. Still don't have an engine to put in it, without an engine I can't move it anywhere to do the welding work. Thus the project is in limbo. Seems to have spring a random leak while sitting, which is nice...

Dolly 1850HL - Sitting at my mate's farm looking sorry for itself. He's accidentally gotten somebody pregnant (again, think he's got 5 kids to as many mothers), so wants the car roadworthy by the end of the year. Still starts on the button but is rough as fuck and everything which should move is seized.
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Acclaim - Still going fine. Scottish climate and daily use is starting to take it's toll on the bodywork, will see what it needs for it's MOT and then assess it's future. It's going to need a front wing, rear arches/valance and repairs to the rear seatbelt mounting area on the underside.
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On one hand the car is very reliable, I can't afford to insure a "modern" and nice ones are £2k. On the other, effort and money, yo...
1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850HL - Field based greenhouse.
1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 - Lean green oil dripping machine.
1983 Triumph Acclaim L - Japanglish daily runner.
1989 Volvo 740GLE Estate - Mobile storage unit.
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Re: Rusty Triumphs in Scotland

Post by fried onions »

Good to see you here Cap. Some top class choddage you do. I'm surprised you don't use the A74 more often - a lovely often deserted road.
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Re: Rusty Triumphs in Scotland

Post by Hooli »

I do like your motley collection of chod Capt, only a real winner would buy something else shonky & old to replace a modern & appear to find it cheaper to run.
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Re: Rusty Triumphs in Scotland

Post by captain_70s »

fried onions wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:42 pm Good to see you here Cap. Some top class choddage you do. I'm surprised you don't use the A74 more often - a lovely often deserted road.
If I'm leaving Glasgow I'm usually trying to arrive at the destination as quickly as possible due to tight scheduling so most of my miles is motorway work. A shame as I loath motorway driving...
I have driving the A74 a couple of times, once on my way home from a wedding and once on my way back from Moffat car show.

I very rarely do any recreational driving these days to be honest, can't afford to fuel the cars for much more than commuting. Looks like I'll have to cut down on the car shows this year for the same reason...

Having said that I'm hunting for a new job and me and Girlfriend_70s are hoping to move in together at some point this year and I've gotten myself set on having a driveway, if not a garage. She wants a garden, which ties in nicely.
Hooli wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 8:21 pm I do like your motley collection of chod Capt, only a real winner would buy something else shonky & old to replace a modern & appear to find it cheaper to run.
When a modern costs £600-800 to insure and a "classic car" is £180 it starts swaying the figures in a major way. I reckon I've spent about £1200 on the Acclaim thus far for a year's motoring inc purchase cost, even if it needs that whole cost spending on it again next year it's still less than the finance payments on a modern!

I'd actually be doing far better if I'd saved up a decent amount of money and bought one good 1970s car back when they were affordable... The 1300 was overpriced at the £1400 I paid and was the first I'd seen, it was also fucked. The 1850HL was very cheap at £850 even when I bought it, same story with the Acclaim. You don't really see roadworthy cars for less than 4 figures anymore.

Now I'm stuck at the bottom end of the market so every car is an uphill struggle.
1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850HL - Field based greenhouse.
1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 - Lean green oil dripping machine.
1983 Triumph Acclaim L - Japanglish daily runner.
1989 Volvo 740GLE Estate - Mobile storage unit.
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Re: Rusty Triumphs in Scotland

Post by captain_70s »

Nothing worthy of typing has occurred recently due to me running out of money. Have a garbage video instead:

1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850HL - Field based greenhouse.
1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 - Lean green oil dripping machine.
1983 Triumph Acclaim L - Japanglish daily runner.
1989 Volvo 740GLE Estate - Mobile storage unit.
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Re: Rusty Triumphs in Scotland

Post by captain_70s »

Did car stuff. Fucked car.

Decided to start on the pre-MOT (expires on the 24th) tinkering. Firstly to investigate squeaky front brakes.

Pulled the O/S/F wheel off to find the pads were all healthy looking, set about pulling the caliper apart. The sliding pins were in good nick and the piston was alright but the piston was not for pressing back. I figured I'd let the pressure out with the bleed screw but it was pretty mangled. I did not improve it's condition.

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I tried the following methods of removal:

Using the breaker bar for maximum leverage.
Using a variety of metric and imperial spanners.
Hammering a smaller socket over it
Cutting some new edges into it with a hacksaw.
Clamping it with mole grips.
Swearing.

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Essentially it was totally fucking fucked mate. I ended up undoing the flexi/caliper join and pushing the piston back with that to relive the pressure. I then tried to bleed it using the same tactic with very limited success. Although I was also working solo which didn't make things easy.

The other side all came apart fine with no issues although the bleed nipple did require use of the breaker bar.

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The brakes are now shit, stopping can only be done at a leisurely pace. Tomorrow I'm going to head to B&Q after work, pick up a cheap blow torch and see if copious amounts of heat will allow me to loosen the remains of the bleed nipple. I may also try and rope somebody in to stamp on the pedal while I do bleeding type shit.
The other issue is that having dismantled everything I can find nothing wrong with the calipers or pads and the discs are passable so why it's squeaky I don't know. Perhaps that side's piston was just a bit sticky.

I also finalised my rear brake line mount repair by replacing the tie wraps with a jubilee clip.

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While I was under the car I re-jigged the many jubilee clip based exhaust mounts so it now rattles a bit less and sits a bit higher, changed the wiper blades and smashed the rusty remains of the headlight splash panels out of existence with a hammer.

Given that very small amount of work ended up taking 4 hours I'm not entirely pleased with the fact that the end result is a car with about a 1/3rd of it's prior braking power... Although there was a bloke a few cars up working on an '08 Beemer so hey-ho.

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One day I'll take my own advice and stop buying fucked Scottish cars.

The bloke who is fucking about with my 1850HL phoned today to say he couldn't get any local places to make him up a brake pipe and if I reckoned he could just eliminate the rear brakes entirely due to it being MOT exempt. So that'll be another thing to source down here I suppose...
1976 Triumph Dolomite 1850HL - Field based greenhouse.
1977 Triumph Dolomite 1300 - Lean green oil dripping machine.
1983 Triumph Acclaim L - Japanglish daily runner.
1989 Volvo 740GLE Estate - Mobile storage unit.
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Re: Rusty Triumphs in Scotland

Post by Eddie Honda »

captain_70s wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 12:10 am Tomorrow I'm going to head to B&Q after work, pick up a cheap blow torch and see if copious amounts of heat will allow me to loosen the remains of the bleed nipple.
Don't bother with a cheap butane torch. It'll just be disappointing. Get a propane/map torch. You can cook the bastard cherry red then.

I've got one of these
https://www.diy.com/departments/gosyste ... 847_BQ.prd

MAP Gas at B&Q at £19 for 400g (they say 860g on website, but look at the bottle, it says 0.4kg). Toolstation £11.59 - 400g. Screwfix £15.99 - 400g.

So you might want to grab a swivel torch in B&Q and the gas from Toolstation. ;)
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