beko1987

Further to the rust proofing mission. I bought some buzz weld chassis guard. This stuff is essentially lanolin oil, and dries tacky through "polymerisation" its one of those that needs reapplying every 6-12 months but for £12 a litre, thought I'd give it a go.
I thinned it and attempted to spray it through a "pump up" garden spray bottle, but I don't think I thinned it enough as the jet throw wasn't great, more like a water pistol than a fine spray. 
Nonetheless, the product can be applied to rubber, so no harm on that front. Equally I hit the exhaust with it inevitably  which is going to smell nice when it melts off. 
All in all time will tell, and the car is never driven in the wet, so hopefully it will last another 25 years. I'm will give it another coat when a bit drier for bits I've missed.

Mot time today.  Clean sheet, no advisories!!! Happy days. 

Probably saved a few hundred quid in labour just by investigating it! Hopefully it all goes back together happily, assume the handbrake ratchet will last for the mot? 

If you own an Audi A8, the front bumper needs to be removed every weekend.
If you own a BMW Z4, the car needs to be raised every 200 miles... ( @wuvvum probably feels this pain too 😅)

I was going to chuck this into a garage to sort the handbrake, but I thought I'd at least investigate at first.
Put the parking brake in its service position. Basically latch off the handbrake lever spring. Took quite a bit of force to do that.

Out of the many old wrecks I've bought over the years, including a lot of British Leylands finest, I have never seen a handbrake ratchet worn out. I know there are a lot of BMW lovers and VAG haters on here but my 200k Golf is holding up on the miles much better than this 177k BMW. Nowhere near the same amount of trim, interior and part wear like this car.

 
I'm getting good at pulling BMW rear brakes apart now. Pads, caliper, caliper holder and disc all removed. Pretty obvious now what the issue with the handbrake and the rubbing noise I was getting was from.


That's the drivers side. The passenger side (where I actually thought the noise was from) was how it should be.

 
So what happened? Well the shoes are held in by spring retaining (beehive?) clips. These are mounted into the back-plate.
Which was rusted out completely.

Thankfully the bolts for the shield came out without snapping.

So new backplate time. These are supposed to be mounted by removing the hub and driveshaft. However I'm not doing that just for a backplate and handbrake mechanism. Far too much risk of ruining bearings and making this a much larger job.
Instead what I'm going to do, and most other people do, is snip off the caliper side and slot it in through the hub.
Basically an extra cut in the one I put in here. Just the one slot meant the backplate was pretty bent and warped it. It needs to be fairly flat for the handbrake setup to work properly.

 
I could get new backplates off eBay for £22 delivered. But won't arrive till Thurs or Fri. 
Instead Febi on Amazon to the rescue again and should be arriving today. I'm doing both sides as the other is pretty bad too and I don't want to be doing this again.

While I had the backend up, I removed the wheel arch liner to give the drains a good probe. Thankfully mostly clean and dry.

Some on here would struggle to keep it down at the thought of a Fiat Tipo for £2500! 

Had a really good day today.  Got Universal Credit approved so that's my safety net for 12 months (bit of a surprise, since I've never claimed I get the slightly less arduous 'new business' version as a self employed person) as well as info on business and art courses that are available to me as a mature student along with grants I had no idea I could apply for to help with costs.  This was tempered somewhat by coming back to find I had a parking ticket, the job centre hasn't got a car park and I was told I'd be good for an hour on a neighbouring street that's single-yellowed.. I got ticketed at some point during the 45 minutes I was in for my appointment.  It's a reflection on my state of mind that the prospect of a surprise £35 bill didn't make me that angry, just a bit disappointed.
Then went over to the art centre and got some excellent help and advice there on artist networking opportunities, gallery opportunities and an insight into just how active the local art scene is.  Also got to see what sort of thing the art centre promotes and quickly realised it's a very broad church with their featured artist doing abstract sculptures in materials you might consider to be rubbish (I loved them, if I had space there was one I would have taken home), another artist doing miniature portraits, and a shop full of samples of local artists work from wargaming miniatures to ceramics to jewellery to glass items.  My stuff is very different to what was there but then what was there was very different to everything that was there too so that's pretty neat.  There's local studio space I can hire that's not exhorbitantly expensive, a poetry night that is apparently both good and good for networking, and generally just a shitload of stuff that's made me feel rejuvenated about my job.
Having access to an actual meatspace art community really helps and something I've not had for above a decade.  Scunthorpe continues to treat me well in ways I was never expecting and that light at the end of the tunnel is looking a bit more like the exit than an oncoming train today.

Maybe it's all part of the plan and what's going to happen this year is the juualars are going to pay a visit and weld the entire front end of it to one of the train engines, wire* it up and have it as traction for the railway. Then the seats will become the buffet carriage? 

I'm sure she was delighted when she saw my CVH Sierra 

As long as it can be put into 1st then reverse it'd be all it needs! 
Could use the saxo for the other end and not even need a turntable

The ex had a terrible condition corsa C when I first met her. 
Should have heeded the warning signs and run away there and then... 

I can’t remember, is it an auto? My auto BX used to do this, I never cured it but I had a suspicion it was the gear selector inhibitor switch, if I jiggled the gear selector it started right up

You lot are very cruel trying to shatter my dreams of Drag Racing it!

Pfft, small details 😂

A friction-driven, narrow gauge road-railer... now there's an idea... 🙂

Maybe it's all part of the plan and what's going to happen this year is the juualars are going to pay a visit and weld the entire front end of it to one of the train engines, wire* it up and have it as traction for the railway. Then the seats will become the buffet carriage? 

Off and oan eh road, once again.

That'll do, Donkey, that'll do.
Alternator could have been farmed out, but being a tiny* bit of a masochist I thought about doing it myself...
 
And it's done.
 
Overall, could have been so much worse, but not great either. Few other wee jobs to do but nowt serious, as they say.
Ideal, considering the Fabia has spat the dummy out.

You drove my work commute! (m40 from Wycombe to j6/b4009!) 
Bar the occasional van sat at Stokenchurch on a bridge there's no cameras on that bit 👌

Pfft, small details 😂

Whatever, the cable tie that was there was working fine so I simply replaced it with a new one with just a bit less slack built into it's placement

Then a good coating of lithium spray grease on the latch 

Bonnet has never worked so well 😂 Closes with the lightest of drops with a nice quiet thunk from the latch. Pulling the lever inside the car the bonnet now pops up a tiny bit whereas before it didn't and you just got used to sliding your fingers under the gap onto the lever. 
Sprayed the same grease over all the door check straps and hinges too, although not too much so it gathers grime. 
Ill call that good enough, got one job done and I think I'll go find some hoses and at least call it preventative maintenance. Anyone know wtf their called? 2.0 hdi 110

I cleaned it off and flushed so much grit out with some small brushes I have

(and scrubbed the bit you push to open the bonnet so I don't get filthy fingers topping off screenwash 👌)
This revealed a structural cable tie

I've no idea what the end of the cable is supposed to look like but I assume part of it is snapped? 

I'd bought a tin of brake clean during the week, and went outside to have a look at some rubber pipes. It's been mostly fine but did loose the turbo twice during a 400 mile trip I did last Saturday... Again on and off the throttle (changing up a gear in reality but I think it's coming off and on the throttle that's doing it) fixes it and that's that! 
Cleaned off the weeping from the bottom intercooler hose and my eyes are sure they see a straight line running from the edge of the hose and up a bit. Not the circular line of the last layer of hose, it's not really clear on the photo. Gave it all a good squeeze and nothing was immediately apparent. 

Next was this hose coming off the back of the engine and running down the side of the block. I've read about this on a few forum threads. 

It's rock hard at the top, then goes very soft and squishy as it passes past the cambelt covers and goes to whatever metal thing I felt it clamp to. Engine was stone cold.
Didnt fancy removing pipes right now, they all feel 'old' and am sure will fuck up as I remove them and not seat properly when I refit. Going to see how much new hoses are and maybe treat it to them as a mild parts cannon guess. 
I did notice the bracket that holds all the vacuum things in place only had 1 nut... 

I'm lacking any suitable nuts to use (what size would this use? Wouldn't hurt to get an assorted sized set as I've found this alot as I work on it 😂). In leiu of anything proper some cable ties snugged it down well enough 

 

I have screenwash again! 
It died on the way to work Monday, so I ordered a new pump, which came yesterday. 
Nice and quiet at work/I've done so many hours these past couple of weeks for no extra pay I could have all next week off and still come out on top so don't feel bad. 

Only the finest quality parts here! 
Peeling back the arch liner and cutting 1 cable tie gave me the access I needed, so I pulled the old pump and saved the fresh screenwash I'd filled it with the prior Saturday... 

Fitted the new pump, sloshed a bit back in filtering it through a microfiber cloth as I went as there was some dirt that came out and... It leaked! 
Out it all came again, I tried again and it still dripped. Ffs never mind does it work? No. 
Got the multimeter out and there was no juice at the wires

Turns out it was the fuses, I was just looking at the wrong one (because the diagram in the manual bears zero relation to the fuse box I have.) Borrowed a 10a from somewhere else and 12v was restored.
Back out with the new pump, and I fitted it back in with the old rubber seal and it's not leaking anymore, and the washer jets are a shit load more powerful now! The old pump was knackered, between leak 1 and after the multimeter shot above I refitted the OG one assuming the new pump was just shite quality, changed the fuse from something else and it fired it once and blew the fuse again. Old seal and new pump sorted it
Also noticed the last proper fixing for the undertray had gone awol and it was flapping in the breeze like so many golf's and insignias I see on the m40, so I deployed more cable ties. There are now zero proper fixings holding it on, and it's probably stronger for it! 
Need to go into town at lunchtime and get more fuses (no idea what I robbed a fuse from and I don't care for now) and it should be good to go again! I'm also dripping wet after laying in mud and screenwash to fit the pump and sort the undertray. 
Almost 174k on the original pump, and I've had it empty and frozen many times so I'll forgive it. Hopefully this new one lasts at least a year

I had a really annoying issue with the 110HDi in my 307, I initially thought it was the remap that was causing it. Basically it would drive like an old school turbo, you'd put your foot down and nothing would happen, the revs would slowly rise, then all of a sudden you'd get a big shove and off it would go. I had a chat with the guy who provided me with the remap file and he thought it could be a problem with the vacuum system not having enough vacuum to operate the variable vanes of the turbo until higher revs as the vacuum pump is driven off the engine (maybe a leak or a blockage). The 110 HDi has four vaccum solenoids on it, I ended up removing two of them (EGR and anti bulldozing valve which I also gutted) and I cleaned and simplified the vacuum pipework. Annoyingly this made no difference. The actual fault was the MAF sensor, as soon as I changed this everything was fine. During this issue there were no lights on the dash or fault codes in the ECU.

I have screenwash again! 
It died on the way to work Monday, so I ordered a new pump, which came yesterday. 
Nice and quiet at work/I've done so many hours these past couple of weeks for no extra pay I could have all next week off and still come out on top so don't feel bad. 

Only the finest quality parts here! 
Peeling back the arch liner and cutting 1 cable tie gave me the access I needed, so I pulled the old pump and saved the fresh screenwash I'd filled it with the prior Saturday... 

Fitted the new pump, sloshed a bit back in filtering it through a microfiber cloth as I went as there was some dirt that came out and... It leaked! 
Out it all came again, I tried again and it still dripped. Ffs never mind does it work? No. 
Got the multimeter out and there was no juice at the wires

Turns out it was the fuses, I was just looking at the wrong one (because the diagram in the manual bears zero relation to the fuse box I have.) Borrowed a 10a from somewhere else and 12v was restored.
Back out with the new pump, and I fitted it back in with the old rubber seal and it's not leaking anymore, and the washer jets are a shit load more powerful now! The old pump was knackered, between leak 1 and after the multimeter shot above I refitted the OG one assuming the new pump was just shite quality, changed the fuse from something else and it fired it once and blew the fuse again. Old seal and new pump sorted it
Also noticed the last proper fixing for the undertray had gone awol and it was flapping in the breeze like so many golf's and insignias I see on the m40, so I deployed more cable ties. There are now zero proper fixings holding it on, and it's probably stronger for it! 
Need to go into town at lunchtime and get more fuses (no idea what I robbed a fuse from and I don't care for now) and it should be good to go again! I'm also dripping wet after laying in mud and screenwash to fit the pump and sort the undertray. 
Almost 174k on the original pump, and I've had it empty and frozen many times so I'll forgive it. Hopefully this new one lasts at least a year