The new news 24 thread

[Eyersey1234]

On a mentoring course at work today 

[Saabnut]

Fortunately* Scotland has postponed the census to next year (Queen Krankie has to be different) so I have a year to work it out!

[clayts450]

420 prepped for tomorrow's MoT. Naturally it threw a spanner in the works by going all hinky-electricky on me. Checking the lights but as soon as I flicked the switch, engine cut out and the hazards were all over the place. Turns out my ham-fisted attempt to replace the earth cable (the one I snapped when slamming the bonnet down on it) had not gone to plan. All sorted, washed, tyres pumped up, given an illegal run around in the cul de sac to check brakes okay, fluids checked, lights checked. Good to go. Could well fail on a couple of rolling advisories, but fingers crossed as it's only done 2,600 miles since the last test....in May 2019.

I really miss driving this one.

[SiC]

🤔

 

Also for those inclined to make a protest vote...

[Leyland Worldmaster]

Another for Lightbulb Fun... 

[omegod]

Turns out you "can" tow a Mondeo estate for 3 miles with a 1.25 fiesta, I'd strongly advise you against doing it though !!! 

Just off to change my underpants !  

[LightBulbFun]

4 hours ago, Shite Ron said:

I was about to post this, when you enter the true number it turns red and says you cannot enter more than 20!
It has forced me to lie.

you should have seen if there was a support number you could have called and asked them about it LOL

id love to hear the bafflement of the IT guy who coded the limit "what do you mean someone has more than 20 cars!"

(makes me wonder what happens if you put more than 20 on the physical survey, will the clarks who enter the data into the computer run into the same problem? LOL)

[Steve79]

Just to show that using an American full-size as a daily is possible and will fit in Aldi's car park*

 

*providing you have a clear space either side 🤣

[richardmorris]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

you should have seen if there was a support number you could have called and asked them about it LOL

id love to hear the bafflement of the IT guy who coded the limit "what do you mean someone has more than 20 cars!"

(makes me wonder what happens if you put more than 20 on the physical survey, will the clarks who enter the data into the computer run into the same problem? LOL)

I’ve skewed them a little - three cars ( only!) but primary transport to work by bicycle.

[Fumbler]

NSF wheel was incredibly hot to the touch after doing a small journey. It seems to stick and then fix itself later on. I think I'll check what the price of replacement calipers are to be on the safe side. I'm sure on the journey home, everything will be Just Fine* as it's only* 184 miles.

[Lord Sterling]

7 hours ago, adw1977 said:

It's census day.

Anybody struggling with this question?

I put 1 as I only count 1 "legally on the road" as it says "available for use" some of my cars would be "available for use" after some money and time spent on it.

[High Jetter]

But you do own them though? It's owned OR available, not owned AND available. If it were the latter, very few people on here would have reached the 20 limit, I suspect! (Also note, you don't have to own that available vehicle or 3)

[ruffgeezer]

Sunday is a day of rest. 

Pah! Another umpteen trips between old house and new, a start on packing the garage up and for respite? 

The new arrival gets some attention to the back brakes. 

They were seriously lumpy when I drove it home, it'd been stood for around 18 months with the handbrake on. 

Not a lot of work to get here... 

 

That'll be what is causing the vibration under braking then! 

[N19]

Discovered when farting around tidying the garage, how useful these floor mats are - quite apart from keeping you from lying on cold concrete, fixings that drop on the floor tend to sit in the nearest hole. 

[Sunny Jim]

Carried out a thorough test to see if I'll be needing any of the LHM the garage gave me yesterday.

No green puddles were produced in the making of this gif

[Zelandeth]

All bloody day in the garden...we now have a weatherproof shed again.

Old roofing felt was utterly shot and had started peeling off last time we had strong winds.  EPDM roofing now installed, so hopefully shouldn't need to be messed with again in the life of the shed.

Did my best to get it flat but the roof isn't perfectly square so it always wants to wrinkle somewhere.  It's not going anywhere though so will do!  Glued down and fastened down be edging strips on all four sides.

Can't quite believe it's been six years since we built it now...

[Tadhg Tiogar]

9 hours ago, adw1977 said:

It's census day.

Anybody struggling with this question?

I'd like to know whether people buried under the patio count as "visitors" or "residents".....

[anonymous user]

4 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

I'd like to know whether people buried under the patio count as "visitors" or "residents".....

I think they mean alive, so I didn't include the skeleton in the living room

[Yoss]

I went for my first covid jab yesterday. In the Triumph. As I approached the health centre there were three people in HVs milling about at the entrance on the pavement, i.e. the nearside. One of them flagged me down so I pulled up and he bent down to my passenger side window. I made a bit of a gesture of winding down my drivers window and made him walk round. Was I the first person to turn up without electric windows? 

Admittedly it's a small enough car to reach across to the passenger side so I was being a bit of an arse but I feel he should be addressing people on the correct side anyway. 

Anyway I feel fine. The nurse asked me if I drove and if so to wait in my car for 15 minutes in case of any adverse reaction. My friend had his earlier in the week and said he felt like he had a hangover for two days but I've had no reaction at all. So far. 

[adw1977]

2 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Admittedly it's a small enough car to reach across to the passenger side so I was being a bit of an arse but I feel he should be addressing people on the correct side anyway. 

Maybe they prefer to speak to you from the passenger side to maintain social distancing.

[Yoss]

You have a point. Though we were both wearing masks and he had to stoop very low to be able to see through my car from the passenger side which can't be healthy doing that constantly. Though that's probably not an issue with your average SUV. 

[LightBulbFun]

37 minutes ago, Yoss said:

I went for my first covid jab yesterday. In the Triumph. As I approached the health centre there were three people in HVs milling about at the entrance on the pavement, i.e. the nearside. One of them flagged me down so I pulled up and he bent down to my passenger side window. I made a bit of a gesture of winding down my drivers window and made him walk round. Was I the first person to turn up without electric windows? 

Admittedly it's a small enough car to reach across to the passenger side so I was being a bit of an arse but I feel he should be addressing people on the correct side anyway. 

Anyway I feel fine. The nurse asked me if I drove and if so to wait in my car for 15 minutes in case of any adverse reaction. My friend had his earlier in the week and said he felt like he had a hangover for two days but I've had no reaction at all. So far. 

tis a shame you dont have the Routemaster anymore, can you imagine the fun if you turned up in that

 as a side note through a chain of association, I wonder do blue badges have vehicle limits? if you have a blue badge and a bus, could you apply it to your bus, then park on double yellow lines somewhere entirely inappropriate but that your blue badge technically allows you to LOL

[R1152]

On 20/03/2021 at 19:02, eddyramrod said:

Just over an hour ago I saw MrsR off in an ambulance with chest pain.  In another hour or so I can phone the hospital and see how she's doing.

I'm bricking.

Glad to read Mrs. R. is back home. Wishing you both well, and a belated happy anniversary.

[wuvvum]

Had a crack at the accelerator cable on the Trafic this weekend.  It was actually pretty easy to unclip and unthread from the engine, and I then laid it up the A pillar and squirted a liberal dose of GT85 down between the cable and the sheath.  The result is that the throttle now snaps back closed when I come off the accelerator - so no more anticipating gear changes or holding the van back on the brakes in Tesco car park.  The pedal feels slightly "notchier" than it did before but I'm going to live with that because it's still a massive improvement overall.

I extricated the Spacy from the garage and fitted the new battery I bought for it.  It's actually slightly larger than the one that was on there before - probably a good thing as the Spacy doesn't have a kick start and being a CVT auto it can't be bump started.  It didn't want to fire up today though - the fuel tap appears to still be working fine so I'm probably going to have to whip the carb off again and give it another clean (and refit the diaphragm I forgot to put back in last time, if I can find where I put it).

I bought a vacuum brake bleeder a few weeks back and today I got it out to have a go at the rear brakes on the Volvo.  No dice, frustratingly - the offside bleed nipple is sucking a load of air through but no fluid, whereas the nearside isn't pulling through anything at all.  I assume the nearside has a blockage somewhere, but the offside has puzzled me somewhat - there's plenty of fluid in the master cylinder, so the only way it can be pulling air through is if there is a hole in the pipe somewhere between the cylinder and the caliper - but then I would expect such a hole to cause a fluid leak, and the fluid is still at the level it was when I last looked at the brakes 6 months ago, so there ain't no leak.  Anyone got any bright ideas?  I really do want to get the brakes working so I can get the old crate mobile - especially given that it fired up first turn of the key after being untouched and covered up since October.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

11 hours ago, SiC said:

🤔

 

Also for those inclined to make a protest vote...

I wish John Denver was still around to fill up my census.

[mitsisigma01]

Tick tock 🤔😂😂

[Rustybullethole]

15 hours ago, omegod said:

Turns out you "can" tow a Mondeo estate for 3 miles with a 1.25 fiesta, I'd strongly advise you against doing it though !!! 

Just off to change my underpants !  

Having had a mondy estate kick the arse of my transit out whilst a framing I concur that they are heavy and this is a bad idea.

Reminds me of seeing some lads putting a rope from the back of a fiesta to a crewcab loaded transit tipper on the north circular!

[artdjones]

6 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Had a crack at the accelerator cable on the Trafic this weekend.  It was actually pretty easy to unclip and unthread from the engine, and I then laid it up the A pillar and squirted a liberal dose of GT85 down between the cable and the sheath.  The result is that the throttle now snaps back closed when I come off the accelerator - so no more anticipating gear changes or holding the van back on the brakes in Tesco car park.  The pedal feels slightly "notchier" than it did before but I'm going to live with that because it's still a massive improvement overall.

I extricated the Spacy from the garage and fitted the new battery I bought for it.  It's actually slightly larger than the one that was on there before - probably a good thing as the Spacy doesn't have a kick start and being a CVT auto it can't be bump started.  It didn't want to fire up today though - the fuel tap appears to still be working fine so I'm probably going to have to whip the carb off again and give it another clean (and refit the diaphragm I forgot to put back in last time, if I can find where I put it).

I bought a vacuum brake bleeder a few weeks back and today I got it out to have a go at the rear brakes on the Volvo.  No dice, frustratingly - the offside bleed nipple is sucking a load of air through but no fluid, whereas the nearside isn't pulling through anything at all.  I assume the nearside has a blockage somewhere, but the offside has puzzled me somewhat - there's plenty of fluid in the master cylinder, so the only way it can be pulling air through is if there is a hole in the pipe somewhere between the cylinder and the caliper - but then I would expect such a hole to cause a fluid leak, and the fluid is still at the level it was when I last looked at the brakes 6 months ago, so there ain't no leak.  Anyone got any bright ideas?  I really do want to get the brakes working so I can get the old crate mobile - especially given that it fired up first turn of the key after being untouched and covered up since October.

Is there a load sensing valve on it?

[artdjones]

I spent a few hours on the Berlingo yesterday. A previous idiot owner had drilled 8 holes in the roof to bolt down a roof rack that wasn't made for the van, including cutting holes in the headlining. Also the frame behind the driver's seat that protects against being crushed by the load had been replaced by a flimsy piece of ply, and someone had stolen the jack and wheelbrace. I'd noticed two Berlingos parked outside an agricultural contractor's yard that hadn't moved for ages, so I headed on over on Saturday to see if I could get some bits.

It turns out that one of the vans, which is 2006, is going back on the road, but there are two other one inside the yard as well. So I got a jack, wheelbrace a headlining and protection frame. In fact I got two of the frames, as the holes are the to fit one on the left as well. I paid only €20 for that lot. One of the donors was a 97 van with an XUD in it.

I spent yesterday afternoon fitting all that to my van. I enlarged the roof holes slightly with a step drill, put little steel circles in, welded them around and ground back with seam sealer on top. Then out with the old headliner, in with the new, and bolted the two A frames behind the seats.

[DVee8]

11 hours ago, Yoss said:

I went for my first covid jab yesterday. In the Triumph. As I approached the health centre there were three people in HVs milling about at the entrance on the pavement, i.e. the nearside. One of them flagged me down so I pulled up and he bent down to my passenger side window. I made a bit of a gesture of winding down my drivers window and made him walk round. Was I the first person to turn up without electric windows? 

Admittedly it's a small enough car to reach across to the passenger side so I was being a bit of an arse but I feel he should be addressing people on the correct side anyway. 

Anyway I feel fine. The nurse asked me if I drove and if so to wait in my car for 15 minutes in case of any adverse reaction. My friend had his earlier in the week and said he felt like he had a hangover for two days but I've had no reaction at all. So far. 

I had mine Friday afternoon,Saturday lunchtime the headache started just a dull thud. Still there all day Sunday.

Then Sunday afternoon I'm a freezing shivvering mess. 2.5 hours sleep on the couch, I just looked at my tea, watched TG, slept through line of duty. Went to bed and woke up in a pool of sweat.

But this morning I feel fine...