The new news 24 thread

[Spurious]

You got lucky getting those plugs out without them rounding.  Cripes.

[beko1987]

How do spark plugs even rust like that, did she take them out and leave them in the rain for a month to troll you? 

[Cord Fourteener]

This badge was on a Ford Fiesta window.

Says it all really- Ford. Not total bollocks but also not great.

 

[Leyland Worldmaster]

Because beige, isn't it... 

https://www.motor1.com/news/508445/beige-corvette-c8-jordan-clarkson/

😁😁😁

[EightMegs]

Done some welding on Harris the Yaris, desperately needs either a touch from a grinder or an exorcism. I tried repairing the chassis leg with one patch, but I was struggling due to the shape of the cross member and the patch warping whenever I put any heat into it, so I've decided to use two patches on the advice of my neighbour.

[brandersnatch]

14 hours ago, stuboy said:

Future sister in law came over and said people keep telling her that the exhaust is falling off...well the heat shield was rotted off, so yanked that off, then noticed all hangers have rotted off , in-between rain showers I bodged with jubilee clips, then she said it was lacking power... air filter wasn't the greatest but £4.86 after promo code... it felt better, but still was lacking... autoshite stylee I had some old bosch super 4 from when I changed my old mondeo mk2.... goes better now..

Fuck me! Are you under that without stands? That’s fucking mad. 

[Jazoli]

2 minutes ago, brandersnatch said:

Fuck me! Are you under that without stands? That’s fucking mad. 

I agree rank stupidity but you can't tell some people.

[Jim Bell]

14 hours ago, stuboy said:

Future sister in law came over and said people keep telling her that the exhaust is falling off...well the heat shield was rotted off, so yanked that off, then noticed all hangers have rotted off , in-between rain showers I bodged with jubilee clips, then she said it was lacking power... air filter wasn't the greatest but £4.86 after promo code... it felt better, but still was lacking... autoshite stylee I had some old bosch super 4 from when I changed my old mondeo mk2.... goes better now..

We like you and don't want you to die. 

Put some fucking stands under it. It takes two mins. 

[Cord Fourteener]

One out of two faulty door speakers replaced. 

Involved drilling out the rivets, snapping a drill bit, making a ply wood mount and screwing the bastard all in.

Job done.

[N19]

Thoroughly frustrating day on the Capri. Got the calipers back on and everything reassembled, brakes bled despite intermittent rain, and the strange noise I thought was coming from the caliper... Is still there. Full lock left and only when brakes released. Hmm. Fiddlesticks. 

[reb]

I got a late birthday present from my Gran today, an actual genuine Henry! I got to choose which hoover I got, so I picked something I can use on the car.

It's refreshing to have one that actually picks shit up, my old one was a £30 job that was so shit I just never used it much to the annoyance of MrsReb.

Hopefully we'll get some nice weather so I can do the cars, the Volvo hasn't had a hoover for at least 2 years!

[Stanky]

There is a good reason every commercial cleaning company use numatic (Henry) vacuums. For the price they are superb and i'd not have anything else.

They also have excellent spares support should something break or go missing.

[Jim Bell]

I heard they suck. 

I had one but sold it. It was just gathering dust. 

[Low Horatio gearbox]

Went to look at an car, not an shitter according to the ad and pics. 

Reality was big sunken cracked wob and paint (x2 on both rear arches) big rusty holes in both front footwells - what I thought was undercoated but rusty floor, was krusty black rust and black carpet foam backing  ( the seller wasnt bothered  " separate frame and body so it's ok... M9") and steering a quater of a turn before something happened loosely and vaguely.  Deffo a shitter but massively overpriced.  I passed when I noted dirt, leaves and twigs in the A posts base and boot crevices.

[reb]

I hoovered the whole house, what a difference it's made! Because I'm a sad bastard I can't wait to use it again! So powerful it tries to lift my badly fitted carpets!

Edit: I've just looked in the manual and it even has a wiring schematic! I don't think I've ever bought something new that had one.

[Agila]

Plus one in the Henry. Although I'm lying as mine is a green henry-pet one.

[Spurious]

absolute shit balls. wound down the passenger window and it fell into the door. I'm 30 miles from home and it's pissing rain. 

Fuck. 

[Cord Fourteener]

58 minutes ago, reb said:

I hoovered the whole house, what a difference it's made! Because I'm a sad bastard I can't wait to use it again! So powerful it tries to lift my badly fitted carpets!

Edit: I've just looked in the manual and it even has a wiring schematic! I don't think I've ever bought something new that had one.

We swear by ours at home!

The only thing is that with lots of twisting the hose can unscrew and come off. Causes a few puzzled moments but it just screws right in again.

[red5]

On 5/22/2021 at 6:39 PM, beko1987 said:

How do spark plugs even rust like that, did she take them out and leave them in the rain for a month to troll you? 

Probably the core plugs in head leaking. You know, the ones that leak antifr...oh, yeah. ^^

 

[red5]

Ps, get some fecking stands under that and chock the wheels.  Man alive...or not....

[beko1987]

1 hour ago, Tim_E said:

We swear by ours at home!

The only thing is that with lots of twisting the hose can unscrew and come off. Causes a few puzzled moments but it just screws right in again.

The conical hoses do that, drop of superglue into the top of the threads stops it. 

Filters go through the washing machine a treat too, and use the cheap hepaflo bags. This has been a beko1987 party political broadcast... 

Oh, and if you want to pep it up for carpet vacuuming - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Red-Tool-For-A-Henry-Hetty-Numatic-Hoover-Airo-Turbine-Turbo-Floor-Carpet-Brush-/292371841632?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286

Don't get the cheaper Harry clone black turbo heads, their shit! 

[stuboy]

On 5/22/2021 at 6:36 AM, Mrcento said:

Please tell me it's a trick of the camera and you had axel stands somewhere under there whilst under the car 😳😳😳😳

i did put a stand under it

[stuboy]

On 5/22/2021 at 6:38 AM, Spurious said:

You got lucky getting those plugs out without them rounding.  Cripes.

starfish was wincing

On 5/22/2021 at 6:39 AM, beko1987 said:

How do spark plugs even rust like that, did she take them out and leave them in the rain for a month to troll you? 

she does live in dover ....

[stuboy]

13 hours ago, red5 said:

Ps, get some fecking stands under that and chock the wheels.  Man alive...or not....

i did i was having quick peek to assess to bother or not

[stuboy]

14 hours ago, Spurious said:

absolute shit balls. wound down the passenger window and it fell into the door. I'm 30 miles from home and it's pissing rain. 

Fuck. 

drive faster... dodge the rain drops

[dollywobbler]

56 minutes ago, stuboy said:

i did i was having quick peek to assess to bother or not

A quick peek under a car on a jack is best done not being under it. It takes no time at all for a car to drop if something is amiss, and gravity will not care if you're in the way. I've worked on cars supported jack-only when I'm not under any part of it, but if I'm moving any part of me underneath, a stand it has to be. We're only here once.

3 hours ago, Spurious said:

absolute shit balls. wound down the passenger window and it fell into the door. I'm 30 miles from home and it's pissing rain. 

Fuck. 

Arse! Hope you got it sorted. I didn't even know that was a thing on these.

[EightMegs]

Looking a bit shitty, but I think it should get me through the test, hopefully.

[sdkrc]

Driver's window switch in the Insight doesn't want to play ball. There are 2 possibilities, the notoriously fragile switch or the motor. 

I took apart the dash and had a gander at the switch. 

1. Drop the steering column (wow, such room)

 

2. Find the hidden screws 

 

3. Remove the fascia without breaking brittle plastic

4. Unplug the bits

5. Remove the switch assembly from the fascia

 

6. Try repair the broken plastic inside the switch with glue.

 

Putting it back together tomorrow but I think the motor has also burnt out. 

To properly repair this I need to either 3d print a piece or buy the whole switch assembly for £megabucks. It would be a shame for me to make a hacky switch using some other OEM button.

[wuvvum]

Once again I didn't get as much done this weekend as I'd been hoping due to rather changeable weather, but I did have a potter round.  I started to get the Felicia ready for its shiny new head gasket - I didn't actually attempt the job as I want to get it done in one go so I'm going to wait until I have a full day free and it doesn't constantly look like it's going to start pissing down at any moment, but I got the rocker cover and air filter off and got the nuts on the manifold-to-downpipe join undone.  I didn't take anything more off as I need it to still be able to start for long enough to get up on the ramps so I can drain the coolant and finish disconnecting the exhaust.  Most of the head bolts are Allen head - after a brief search I found my Allen bit set in the footwell of the Mondeo and there's a bit the right size in the set so that's all sorted.  I'll even get to use my shiny new torque wrench.

The Trafic now has two working speakers which means the radio is actually audible whilst driving.  I fitted some cheapo eBay special 2-way speakers which aren't brilliant but still a lot better than the tinny originals - it's pointless forking out for amazing sound quality in a vehicle as noisy as the Trafic.  The driver's door lock started to play up though (fortunately when the door was unlocked) so I've taken that out - the little plastic arm that operates the mechanism inside the door had come loose on the lock shaft, so I've Gorilla glued that back on and also reinserted the little pin which originally held it in place, which I should have done the first time around.  I'm leaving it to dry overnight and it can be refitted to the van tomorrow.

I got the passenger door unlocked on the C2, after nearly 6 months of ownership - this involved carrying out my original plan of stripping the insulation back on the three wires inside the door that run to the lock motor, running a thin wire direct from the battery live into the cabin and touching it to each wire in turn - third time was the charm and the door opened.  I was in equal measures pleased to have fixed it and surprised that I managed to do something to the electrics on a modern which actually worked...  I put the door card back on and gave the car a celebratory (if cursory) hoover out.

I decided to investigate the instrument panel on the Ypsilon as the mileage / trip computer display is very dim and flickers.  I prised out the bit of plastic in front of the gauge cluster as that's how you access the mounting screws on the previous model Ypsilon.  I discovered that a) on the new shape Ypsilon the instruments are in fact mounted on a big metal bracket which is held in place with two large Allen bolts, and to access those the stereo has to come out, and b ) the plastic panel in front of the clocks is an absolute twat to get back in as part of it actually sits behind the instrument panel.  It's back in now though.  I might take the stereo out and have a go at removing the clocks but before I do that I need to go through the paperwork to find out whether the stereo is coded and, if it is, whether I have the code - I can live with a flickering milometer more than I can live without my choonz.  I also gave the Ypsilon a hoover whilst I had the hoover out - it needed it badly, and hopefully it will have got rid of some of the smell of faaaags.

First job today (after mowing the lawn) was to get out the new exhaust for the Innocenti, extricate it from its bubble wrap and line it up under the car to make sure it's going to fit properly.  Except it didn't.  It's hard to tell where the front of the existing centre section ends as it's been welded together more than once, but lining it up with the rear silencer meant that the hangers were way too far back, and if I lined the hangers up I could see where it was supposed to join onto the down pipe but it was nowhere near meeting the back box and it also sloped upwards too early so it was going to foul the floorpan.  After puzzling about this for some time I realised what had happened.  I'd ordered an exhaust for a SWB car and mine's a LWB.  What an absolute gibbering cretin.  So now I have to slice through my shiny new exhaust and sleeve it somehow to gain the 6 or so extra inches it needs.  FFS.

I also failed to get the brakes on the Carina working any better.  I fitted the new bleed nipples on the back brakes and vacuum bled the sh*t out of them, but I still can't get rid of the sponginess in the pedal.  I'm rapidly running out of ideas.

The Ducato is also now really quite poorly.  I put it up on the ramps to check the gear cables, and it looks like there's plenty of grease on them, but when I took it for a quick drive the gears rapidly went to pot, with first gear going completely AWOL, and fifth being an absolute bastard to get too.  By the time I got it back to the car park I could barely get it out of gear at all, and then reversing it into its space it was shaking like a shitting dog and I had to get both hands on the gear lever to yank it out of reverse.  It did another odd thing - in neutral, with the clutch up it was free to roll down the slight slope of the car park, but press the clutch (even in neutral) and it stopped dead.  I went out to it again today and first was still MIA, reverse was still a bastard but the clutch had decided to play up in a slightly different way - lifting the clutch pedal in neutral the van started to try to drive forward, then stopped when I pressed the pedal.  I'm really not sure what's happening but I'm going to have to get the clutch changed before I do anything more with it - for now it's been relegated to shed status.

[Spurious]

4 hours ago, stuboy said:

drive faster... dodge the rain drops

This was the cast iron theory that actually worked somewhat. A "spirited" drive on the M62 resulted in not too many problems to be fair. Cold though. 

Didn't get many photos of this as it was chucking it down by the time I got home. Thankfully it's now closed. The window regulator has unfortunately had it; it's unspooled the metal cable and is effectively stuck in the down position. Hence why I thought it had come off the rails partially and, the glass just appeared to fall into the door as there's now no resistance applied by the regulator, it just slid quite quickly to the bottom of its sled and made a nasty noise. 

I thought the glass was going to be chipped or cracked. But it's fine somehow. 

It's now held up by an appropriate sized plank of wood. Not idea as it means that the car isn't properly secure given the area but it's hidden in the back of the car park right now. Should be okay for a few days until I figure out how to take the regulator out of the door which looks no fun to attempt. 

Temporarily fixed @dollywobbler. A bit annoying at the time cos I was worried I wouldn't be able to at least bodge it but that's the joys of older motors; stuff breaks at inconvenient times. Still cheaper than a months PCP on a new Golf right?