The new news 24 thread

[lesapandre]

New Russian 4x4 imported into USA by Italian company...what could possibly go wrong?

https://www.autoblog.com/2020/12/29/bremach-taos-uaz-import/

[Jim Bell]

9 hours ago, Joey spud said:

It's been sitting since February,forty minutes later..

 

A pass with advisories that'll do.

Well played man. 

Is it definitely going up for sale now?

[Joey spud]

Well i have just ordered up new discs and pads for it (the green stuff ones are absolute Horseshit) and i have even found a good second hand exhaust for it in Tunbridge Wells.

And it needs,i hope just the wheel balancing as there is strange vibration at 70 mph.

Once that's done and i'm happy then it'll need to find a new home and i will offer it on here first.

 

[Split_Pin]

Ran an essential* errand today, took the Audi.

Took my seatbelt off.

Ah yes, that could be suboptimal in a crash. No idea how that came loose. I did notice it was loose but I thought that it was meant to be articulated and didn't realise that it was actually loose. I have a suspicion that a garage may have done this to assist the belt retraction as they're a bit slow. I will sort this properly when the weather is better.

Also, life in winter with a 20 year old convertible:

The carpets are actually bone dry, it's just to stop drips onto the seats from the door seals. The dehumidifiers haven't collected any moisture in a week either so that's good.

Still a GR9 car though, hopefully won't need much for it's upcoming MOT.

[davehedgehog31]

8 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Ran an essential* errand today, took the Audi.

Took my seatbelt off.

 

Ah yes, that could be suboptimal in a crash. No idea how that came loose. I did notice it was loose but I thought that it was meant to be articulated and didn't realise that it was actually loose. I have a suspicion that a garage may have done this to assist the belt retraction as they're a bit slow. I will sort this properly when the weather is better.

Also, life in winter with a 20 year old convertible:

The carpets are actually bone dry, it's just to stop drips onto the seats from the door seals. The dehumidifiers haven't collected any moisture in a week either so that's good.

Still a GR9 car though, hopefully won't need much for it's upcoming MOT.

A lovely car that, has done you very well so far. 

[Zelandeth]

Ah...the early days of experimenting with 3D printing.  Attempt 1 at this model failed to adhere to the print bed and was sent skittering off across the floor by the extruder at about 45%.

Cleaned the build plate and tried again.

This time it's bonded sufficiently well to the build plate that I could probably lift the printer, desk and house foundations by the print stuck to the build plate.

What fun!

 

[stuboy]

No snow as predicted in ashford kent this morning 

[wuvvum]

4 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

The dehumidifiers haven't collected any moisture in a week either so that's good.

Those dehumidifiers are shite though.  I've got two in the Felicia and neither of them has collected anything despite it being 99.9% humidity in there.

[egg]

1 hour ago, wuvvum said:

Those dehumidifiers are shite though.  I've got two in the Felicia and neither of them has collected anything despite it being 99.9% humidity in there.

I've had similar experience. 

Happy New Year folks, have we had a new year's resolution thread yet? Even though most people's will probably be 'buy cars, fix cars, sell cars at loss, move on'

[SiC]

+3 on the dehumidifier boxes. Did nothing in the Clio to reduce the humidity level. Far too slow at absorbing moisture. 

[N19]

They're ok in small spaces for taking the edge off humidity, cupboards and the like, but I think a car would be too big for them.

[Cord Fourteener]

When my 924 got rained on (combination of leaky sunroof and garage numpties having both windows open during a down pour for MOT) I found out that the only way to get it dry was to towel out the puddles then leave it running with the heater and blowers running on full for a couple of days with the windows or the roof slightly open.

This was after finding portable dehumidifiers and fan heaters to be useless.

 

[richardmorris]

[Skizzer]

1 hour ago, Tim_E said:

This was after finding portable dehumidifiers and fan heaters to be useless.

 

Conventional dehumidifiers are pretty useless but these dessicant ones are excellent: https://www.meaco.com/products/meaco-dd8l-junior-dehumidifier

As recommended by someone (me) who used to run a Discovery 1 with no less than four windows in the roof, all of which leaked.

[egg]

17 minutes ago, Skizzer said:

Conventional dehumidifiers are pretty useless but these dessicant ones are excellent: https://www.meaco.com/products/meaco-dd8l-junior-dehumidifier

Yes we run one of these in the spare room in the winter to dry laundry. Very effective.

[wuvvum]

Happy New Year peeps.  Here's hoping this year is less of a clusterfuck than the last.

[Joey spud]

[Eyersey1234]

25 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Happy New Year peeps.  Here's hoping this year is less of a clusterfuck than the last.

And to you @wuvvum.

[tooSavvy]

[@01:00] Happy New Year to the guys who cannot operate 'timeshift' +/-1hr on their Casio......

[brownnova]

12 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

The dehumidifiers haven't collected any moisture in a week either so that's good.

The Saab’s boot leaks... I ran a plug in dehumidifier in there for several hours and it did nothing... (ETA I did buy it secondhand of Facebook marketplace so there’s  chance it’s shite)

Its soaking in there! 
 

Oh and happy new year Shitesters! 

[somewhatfoolish]

Domestic heatpump dehumidifiers need the temp to be well over zero to work effectively; meet that requirement and they suck water out of the air with gay abandon.

[N19]

Got pulled over by a copper earlier - a careless overtake. Fair cop, it wasn't the best piece of driving, I was impatient at someone in front. Fortunately for me they checked out my license/insurance etc, gave me a verbal rollocking and said "Don't do it again", and said if I was seen doing it again today I'd get a ticket. I presume they record the details of the rollocking and if I was pulled over later today the coppers would be able to access that? Certainly put the fear of Darwin into me so I will be driving like a granny for the next few weeks methinks...

[Eyersey1234]

49 minutes ago, N19 said:

Got pulled over by a copper earlier - a careless overtake. Fair cop, it wasn't the best piece of driving, I was impatient at someone in front. Fortunately for me they checked out my license/insurance etc, gave me a verbal rollocking and said "Don't do it again", and said if I was seen doing it again today I'd get a ticket. I presume they record the details of the rollocking and if I was pulled over later today the coppers would be able to access that? Certainly put the fear of Darwin into me so I will be driving like a granny for the next few weeks methinks...

If this was Pistonheads someone would say hammer frozen sausages into the coppers lawn 😂

[Zelandeth]

14 hours ago, brownnova said:

The Saab’s boot leaks... I ran a plug in dehumidifier in there for several hours and it did nothing... (ETA I did buy it secondhand of Facebook marketplace so there’s  chance it’s shite)

Its soaking in there! 
 

Oh and happy new year Shitesters! 

If it's a heatpump based one (does it make a noise like a fridge?) then it'll do little to nothing if the temperature is anywhere below about 10-15C.

These are the conditions where a dessicant based mains dehumidifier is your friend, the colder it is the more efficiently they work, and as a bonus they chuck out 500-700W of heat too so that in turn helps to warm up and dry out a car.

The amount of water and the rate they can pull it out at is mind blowing to be honest.  Really need to get a new blower motor for mine so I can dry both the Xantia and the Jag out as they both have water ingress issues just now.

[holbeck]

Just browsing for some tyres for the van .

[PhilA]

Just added up the odometer.

I drove the Chieftain 807.3 miles last year, which isn't bad considering I put it on the road in late September.

Phil

[Mike D]

Bit more mini fettling today, the brake pipe kit i bought is shite, theyre all about 2" too long... 🙃 so I thought id tackle the heater. I wasn't going to bother with it, but back when I first bought it in 2006 it had a slight leak on the matrix. Radweld fixed it back then, but with all this effort on it I thought i'd pull it out and change the matrix.

 

Mouse fresh 🤢🐁

ps, dont tell the mrs....

[wuvvum]

It was a little on the chilly side to do much in the way of fettling (not hugely surprising for 1st Jan to be fair) but I did do some preliminary investigations into changing the alternator on the diesel C2, now that my HBOL has arrived.  The tensioner moved easily enough, but Mr Haynes says to then use a 3mm drill bit in the hole provided in the tensioner assembly to hold the tensioner in position so the belt can easily be removed.  Except that there isn't room to get a drill bit in between the tensioner assembly and the engine mount.  I'm going to have to see if I can find a suitable alternative, although whatever I find it's going to be a fiddly bastard to get in - I might just end up holding the tensioner off with a spanner and whipping the belt off with the other hand. 

I've taken the battery off and put it on charge - the battery removal process is fairly simple on the C2, unlike some Citroëns where before disconnecting the battery you have to wind the driver's window down, switch the sidelights on, set the stereo to Radio 4 and then dance three times round the car anticlockwise whilst singing La Marseillaise or the ECU will shit itself.  There are other issues to sort with the car - the central locking is playing up so the passenger door won't currently open, the HRW doesn't appear to work and the rear wiper switches itself on every time you open the tailgate - but those are minor and can be dealt with at a later date.

I also did some investigation into the reversing light situation on the Iveco.  It doesn't currently have a reversing light - I'm assuming that at some point the nearside rear light lens must have got damaged and someone has replaced it with an offside lens turned upside down, so there's no provision for a white light at the rear.  Fortunately it seems that the reversing light wiring is intact and comes live when reverse is selected, so it should be a simple task to wire up a separate light (cheaper and potentially more effective than buying a replacement correct lens).  I'm actually surprised at the almost complete lack of electrical maladies in the van, considering the reputation of the things - although admittedly there's not much in the way of electrics to actually go wrong.

I then took the petrol C2 for a quick blat up to the coast, given that today is the last day it will be road legal until I can get the welding done.  It was as amusing to drive as ever, although I didn't push it too hard as the road was rather greasy.  It's a shame that only the backrest bit of the driver's seat heater works though - leather is rather cold on the arse when the ambient temperature is around zero.

[SRi05]

12 hours ago, holbeck said:

Just browsing for some tyres for the van .

Yes, but we've TAKEN BACK CONTROL 

 

[taxi paul]

Watching vintage electrics on quest. Has it says vintage cars converted to electric cars by a company in wales. Haven't seen anything on prices but I imagine its eye watering. They do make a nice car at the end though. Just started another and a bloke wants an Enfield motorbike converted to electric. Budget of £20,000 inc sourcing motorbike.