The new news 24 thread

[Urko]

2 hours ago, yes oui si said:

Poor little sausage

I'll try and keep the nasty car away from you. 

Do you need me to put trigger warnings up? 

Well yes if you plan on posting any more photos of that or if you plan on wrecking any more and posting pictures of the results.

[yes oui si]

1 hour ago, Urko said:

Well yes if you plan on posting any more photos of that or if you plan on wrecking any more and posting pictures of the results.

Caution! A silly car, because cars are silly things and you shouldn't take them seriously:

[stuboy]

12 hours ago, yes oui si said:

Caution! A silly car, because cars are silly things and you shouldn't take them seriously:

i think it looks great.

[dave j]

30 minutes ago, yes oui si said:

Caution! A silly car, because cars are silly things and you shouldn't take them seriously:

Are they 19's? They look huge! I have that same style wheel but 18's on my Octavia

[yes oui si]

3 minutes ago, dave j said:

Are they 19's? They look huge! I have that same style wheel but 18's on my Octavia

Nope, 18s. Audi A3 S-Line. 

[dave j]

They looks great on it. They don't look as good on my Skoda but I am a fan of simple 5 spokes... They are easy to clean as well! 

[wuvvum]

12 minutes ago, yes oui si said:

Nope, 18s. Audi A3 S-Line. 

Hmm.  They do look mahoosive, but the rolling radius probably isn't that far different to the 215/60x16s on my 75.  I suppose it's just that you don't often see them with big rimz so 18s look huge on them.

[wuvvum]

Today I have managed to massively improve the heater on the Charade, by the simple expedient of topping the coolant up to the correct level.  I R twat.

It's still not the best heater in the world but it's now good enough for the car to be properly usable through the winter.

[cobblers]

20 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Today I have managed to massively improve the heater on the Charade, by the simple expedient of topping the coolant up to the correct level.  I R twat.

It's still not the best heater in the world but it's now good enough for the car to be properly usable through the winter.

I remember wondering what the "water running" noise was under the dash of my 106. Spent ages looking for leaks etc, very confused for weeks til the heater stopped working and I finally checked the coolant and found there was nothing left 

[yes oui si]

23 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Hmm.  They do look mahoosive, but the rolling radius probably isn't that far different to the 215/60x16s on my 75.  I suppose it's just that you don't often see them with big rimz so 18s look huge on them.

I think that the lack of arch gap and them being 15/20mm further out due to adapters makes them look bigger, but the current wheel and tyre size is the same as stock for a ZT. The 16" steels were running undersized tyres which was fucking the speedo 😂

You could put 20s on without issue. Might do it if I can find some I like. 

 

32 minutes ago, dave j said:

They looks great on it. They don't look as good on my Skoda but I am a fan of simple 5 spokes... They are easy to clean as well! 

That looks great, they're a good design - a rarity for Audi. 

[cobblers]

Theres a garage about 100 yards from where we live now and they have a reasonable reputation. I'm mega busy so rather than piss about taking it to my usual place miles away, I just chucked them the keys to the camper (2017 boxer) and said crack on and give it an MOT,  and a service while you're at it.

It's the first time I've used a garage to do general work for about 15 years - They picked it up off the drive this morning and dropped it off all done at 5:45PM.

It's a class 7 so they had to drive it to Sheffield for the MOT, which it passed but with shit back brakes as an advisory, Can't argue really, they really were shit.

They did all filters, oil, new rear disks and pads plus the MOT.  £520 with the VAT which seemed a bit steep on the face of it, but broken down I can't really knock em too hard. It takes a shitload of oil (7 litres) the parts for the rear brakes were £120+ vat and they had to drive it 35 miles for the test so some dude was tied up all morning.

They've set the handbrake up nice, I'll give them that.

The cost still stings a bit but that's the price I pay, I suppose. I could have got the service bits for £90, the brakes for £110, took it for the test for £55 so I suppose I've paid £250 for what would have been about a day of my time to get all the stuff done myself. I don't really have a spare day and if I did I wouldn't want to use it servicing a modern van.

[dollywobbler]

9 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Today I have managed to massively improve the heater on the Charade, by the simple expedient of topping the coolant up to the correct level.  I R twat.

It's still not the best heater in the world but it's now good enough for the car to be properly usable through the winter.

Aye, sounds like it might be a bit clogged. On ours, you can't actually have it on full heat or it's an absolute volcano.

Speaking of which, hoping to start the engine overhaul on ours today. It's going to take some time, as tinkering is limited to a few hours here and there at the moment, but the head is coming off for valve stem seals and to allow us to replace the piston rings and relevant crank bearings. Probably. Have never done this sort of work before, so it'll be interesting. Thankfully we have a set of official workshop manuals.

[bunglebus]

Bit chilly today

 

[brownnova]

I’ve just bought the Merc, I’m happy with it, it’s a lovely lovely car.

Of course today I drove past a local garage and outside for sale is a dream car in an almost perfect spec and in my favourite colour for that model. Oh and it’s in great condition and within the budget I’d set myself.

Balls.

So do I a) ignore it and just keep faith with the Merc b) buy the other car and sell the Merc c) buy the other car and keep the Merc too… and have too many big luxury family cars? 

[loserone]

It has to be B or C..

[bobdisk]

I would go for C, then give them both a few weeks to see which I like best, then sell the other.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

How about part-exchanging the Merc for the dream car?

[brownnova]

47 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

How about part-exchanging the Merc for the dream car?

He’s Not interested in a part ex sadly…. I tried to flog him my MX5! I think b or c might have to win… I really need to sell at least one or two! 

[richardmorris]

22 minutes ago, brownnova said:

He’s Not interested in a part ex sadly…. I tried to flog him my MX5! I think b or c might have to win… I really need to sell at least one or two! 

 

[Leyland Worldmaster]

Alison back from service. All she needed was a N\S\F Control Arm Balljoint. 

No advisories, but because I'm a fussy cunt, I'll replace the Droplinks because it is easy to do. 

Alison has 254,256 miles on the odometer. 😱

Amazing little tanks, these A2s... 

[stuboy]

Collegue asked me if his headlamps was working on his bini...um no fella they not work...let's take a look... 1st one blown... 2nd one had melted the holder and all connections were crusty...

[clayts450]

Combo is a go again, although I R disappoint that I no longer leave a trail of soot behind me every time I give it large on the loud pedal - used to be great showering tailgaters with black clouds of shite.

Anyroad, £170-odd quid got me some proper old school diesel specialist knowledge, some shit hot diagnosing, and a back street garage I will happily recommend and use again (Nottingham Diesel Services, off St Ann's Well Road). The issue was the fuel pressure sensor on the common rail - a £35 part. They noticed that even with the engine off, the sensor was still giving a reading, when it should have been a big fat zero. Anyroad, they swapped the part out, kept the van overnight and checked it started first time in the cold, ensured the readings were bob on (they were) and said 'that'll do it - if the problem comes back, call us, and we'll start delving into your wallet a bit more and do thorough injector/pump tests and all that shit'. 

How refreshing - imagine if I'd taken that to a non diesel specialist : probably would have been parts darts and a hefty bill.

No cold start/warm start/hot start/P0089 issues now. And, sadly, no black smoke out the exhaust.

Still sounds like a bag of nails, mind.

[LightBulbFun]

On 21/11/2021 at 20:43, LightBulbFun said:

if all goes to plan expect in a few days pictures of a Raspberry Pi desktop on a 5 inch Black and white TV LOL 

Tada! 

totally* worth the £10.70 LOL

[Jon]

On 11/24/2021 at 7:44 PM, Angrydicky said:

The usual method of dealing with those anti-tamper circlips (bloody manufacturers) is to drill a small hole through the side of the nose of the cylinder, until you touch the side of the circlip, then use a small punch to knock it out to the point you can get a screwdriver in there to ping it out.

They are awkward bloody things and hopefully the repair kit is a) the right one and b) comes with a replacement conventional circlip.

If the kit is wrong, look up the Autofren Siensa part number here and either quote it to a Siensa agent in NZ or just put the number into ebay. They have repair kits for most cars.

https://www.autofrenseinsa.com/sites/default/files/catalogos/kits-de-reparacion-por-marcas-y-modelos-autofren-seinsa-2021.pdf

Thanks Dicky, I totally forgot you worked for a company that worked on such things!

Had a stab at this this morning and success!

 

However, partial success only, as the brown/black seal is not included in the repair kit and that's where there's sign of fluid loss, between the master and servo.

Close up of seals - do they look borked?

Apologies for orange-ness, I was using my anglepoise with a tungsten bulb in to try and shed more light on the inner part.

 

Also, this looks like it's built not to come apart:

And I've not worked out how to extract the second spring set-up, either:

 

And in hindsight, a 2.5mm drill bit seemed just too big a bit to make a hole with:

I'm figuring that if fluid was pissing out already, breaching beyond the groove where the circlip sits is a likely weak spot.

Unless it wasn't the MC leaking all along and rather the servo, instead...

So, I'm not quite sure what to do next. 

Maybe work on the Cavalier's brakes instead, as they seem much easier to deal with!

[auntiemaryscanary]

1 hour ago, clayts450 said:

 

Anyroad, £170-odd quid got me some proper old school diesel specialist knowledge, some shit hot diagnosing, and a back street garage I will happily recommend and use again (Nottingham Diesel Services, off St Ann's Well Road). 

 

Agreed, I'd recommend too. I used them a good few years ago for an EGR issue on a Doblo. They were something like "it could be B or C but lets try A, the cheapest first". A worked, job done.

Edited November 25, 2021 by auntiemaryscanary
Clarity

[High Jetter]

3 hours ago, brownnova said:

I’ve just bought the Merc, I’m happy with it, it’s a lovely lovely car.

Of course today I drove past a local garage and outside for sale is a dream car in an almost perfect spec and in my favourite colour for that model. Oh and it’s in great condition and within the budget I’d set myself.

Balls.

So do I a) ignore it and just keep faith with the Merc b) buy the other car and sell the Merc c) buy the other car and keep the Merc too… and have too many big luxury family cars? 

B or C, then maybe a roffle?

[TheOtherStu]

I'm suitably impressed with @brownnova's E Class. I always loved that one with the round lights. As a few pages back, I was ever so close to buying the last of the round-lighted ones, except it had electrical gremlins and the salesman had pre-warmed the car, not to mention half the plastics under the bonnet appeared to be missing.

The S204 unfortunately is starting to annoy me with the clutch. @Talbot, you seem to know your Mercs. I have rather a rare one - a C220 with a manual box. How much of a pain in the arse is replacing the clutch? I've been quoted "a lot of money" to do it (ranging from £700 to £1200, but I think the £700 doesn't include the dual mass flywheel which will inevitably need replacing). I can rope my son in, who knows his way around a car. Whereas I can just about follow a Haynes manual. He has said he's not replacing anyone's clutch as he's sick of doing it, but, well... he's my son and I keep sorting him out with favours (such as a weekend ticket to the NEC the other week for him and his GF).

[Talbot]

29 minutes ago, TheOtherStu said:

How much of a pain in the arse is replacing the clutch?

Depends if you have a 2-post lift and a gearbox stand.  Without them, it's a bastard of a job, as you have to get the car high enough on axle stands to get the gearbox out.  You're then scrabbling around under the car to get it out.

With a 2-post and a gearbox stand, 3-4hrs work.  My local merc specialist would likely do that job for the cost of the parts plus about 3-4hrs labour, which probably works out at about £200.  Assuming the clutch isn't stupid money, you'll likely have change from £500.   But yes, it does depend on the DMF, and whether it's shagged, and how expensive it is.  I can ask for a quote if you're interested.

[Eyersey1234]

Been appointed admin on the Face ache group oh my chod. 

[High Jetter]

£50 quid ph labour? It's £65+ down here.