The new news 24 thread

[TheOtherStu]

14 hours ago, reb said:

The ITIL training I got was a rather rubbish series of videos, it felt like someone just reading off the learning objectives. Hopefully I'll get the chance to do it properly in the future. I'm quite interested in cloud computing so will definitely seek out training/certification in it in the future. My goal is to get into a position where my interaction with end users is fairly limited, hence my interest in web development. I'll probably end up in helpdesk to begin with though, which is fine really.

I'm not sure I'd say I'm ahead of anyone, my professional experience is less than 18 months 5 years ago!

OK, let me hit you up with FREE stuff!

First one, as someone mentioned above..... Azure exams. Doesn't matter what you do, cloud is God. Developer, support tech, even service desk.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/events/training-days/

Azure Fundamentals. Not only do you get the 2 days training course, they let you sit the exam for FREE!

IT Security (SOC) - it's the big in-thing now. I joke not, we can't hold onto our SOC (security operations centre) employees. It's relatively hard to get into, although you might be able to get onto an apprenticeship (open to all btw - some of my apprentices were in their 30s when I was hiring them)

You could do a lot worse than doing this course (it's free- simply write to them, explain you're out of work and want to get in the business and they'll send you a free login - promise!)

https://www.antisyphontraining.com/pay-what-you-can/

Do all 3 of John's courses. They're all 5-9 at night or 6-10 in the summer. I did mine whilst working full-time.

Open University do free IT Courses too

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses

 

Thing with all the above is that you don't necessarily need to take exams. But they all look good on your CV. As does volunteering. If you can't get a job in IT, have a look at IT volunteering opportunities - a local charity might want help. Put an offer out on NextDoor or your local Facebook group to help Silver Surfers.

[Bear]

Had some bodywork done:

(First tattoo ever, got fed up of being delayed/fobbed off with covid and bookings and walked into a shop in Boston and made a booking - I chose well I think, it looks better than I dreamed possible from a scan of an old army insignia)

[D.E]

Thief wants to steal cat, jacks up Prius, doesn't bother to do it safely, Prius falls down. Thief dead.

https://www.rijnmond.nl/nieuws/1453122/Dode-onder-auto-in-Rotterdam-Noord-was-peperdure-katalysator-aan-het-stelen

[Spurious]

Frosty start this morning.

Minus 11, but proper powder snow so the dustpan brush was deployed and it brushed off handily enough. 

Post brushing, apparently you can be fined here for driving with snow on the car. 

Only noticed its those fake alloy hubcaps with steelies. Not that I mind. I suspect they're easier and cheaper to repair and replace if damaged. Komoroan winters, seem sure footed in this weather. Not lost traction yet. 

Ząb, the highest village in Poland, buried in the Tatras. 

 

[AnnoyingPentium]

5 hours ago, Spurious said:

Only noticed its those fake alloy hubcaps with steelies.

Our Sandero is the same, very convincingly look like alloys upon first glance too. 

[wuvvum]

8 hours ago, D.E said:

Thief wants to steal cat, jacks up Prius, doesn't bother to do it safely, Prius falls down. Thief dead.

https://www.rijnmond.nl/nieuws/1453122/Dode-onder-auto-in-Rotterdam-Noord-was-peperdure-katalysator-aan-het-stelen

[AnnoyingPentium]

17 hours ago, D.E said:

Thief wants to steal cat, jacks up Prius, doesn't bother to do it safely, Prius falls down. Thief dead.

https://www.rijnmond.nl/nieuws/1453122/Dode-onder-auto-in-Rotterdam-Noord-was-peperdure-katalysator-aan-het-stelen

On a similar theme to @wuvvum...

[grogee]

Nice visit this morning to Bicester Heritage Park. Lots of interesting petrol things going on, lots of valuable machinery to ogle at. 

Bit cold though

[SiC]

210032 and I'm out. HPFP failure that's munched a lot of the fuel system.

RemoveMyCar offered £1600 and I accept. They knocked money off because I scuffed/scratched the bumper while moving it around on the drive when it was dead and caught the garage. Really ground my gears that they knocked money off as I had the damage shown in the photos. Anyway it they offered £1517. Took it as it is a decent amount for a 11 year old fucked car with 210k on the clock. Plus no hassle.

Bye bye car 👋

[Bren]

52 minutes ago, SiC said:

210032 and I'm out. HPFP failure that's munched a lot of the fuel system.

RemoveMyCar offered £1600 and I accept. They knocked money off because I scuffed/scratched the bumper while moving it around on the drive when it was dead and caught the garage. Really ground my gears that they knocked money off as I had the damage shown in the photos. Anyway it they offered £1517. Took it as decent amount for a 11 year old fucked car with 210k on the clock. Plus no hassle.

Bye bye car 👋

I can see in my minds eye dodgy characters fitting a secondhand pump and trying to punt it on....

[Zelandeth]

Well into my usual garage for this sort of thing to see if the AC on the Caddy will take a charge.  I stuffed some nitrogen in it a few days ago and it doesn't seem to have dropped...so possibly hope for it.

[SiC]

1 hour ago, Bren said:

I can see in my minds eye dodgy characters fitting a secondhand pump and trying to punt it on....

Maybe even with new plates to hide the mileage.

[Zelandeth]

Success!

I was keeping an eye on the machine and it didn't drop at all during the vacuum decay test (30 min), so fingers crossed it is actually gas-tight.  The condenser definitely looks newer than 100K miles, so have to wonder if someone got halfway through fixing it then never followed through sometime in the past.

Hard to really tell when it's this chilly, but it's definitely running - will be a help in trying to shift the bit of moisture in the cabin.

[wuvvum]

Must be unusual for a smoll van of that vintage to have AC.

[vulgalour]

A while ago I had a puncture on the sidewall of the brand new tyres I had fitted to the Princess.  Bit annoying, especially since it can't be repaired.  Stopped by the local backstreet car-wash-and-garage place who are always friendly and they had some lightly used, if rather old, Continentals in stock that were the right size.  £50 including fitting and balancing sold me on them and when I've more cash spare I'll get another pair of Uniroyals on the back.  At least now my spare tyre is a good new Uniroyal and I'm not sporting mismatched tyres on the back axle, one of which was an old Enduro Runway.  At least now the rear end doesn't feel so  twitchy in the wet.

[Zelandeth]

38 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Must be unusual for a smoll van of that vintage to have AC.

Can't be many boxes they didn't tick.

[] AC.

[] Electric windows.

[] PAS.

[] Remote central locking.

[] Electric, heated mirrors.

[] Adjustable steering column.

[] Tinted glass all round.

[] Rear wash/wipe.

[] Rev counter (this is VW, I'm *sure* it was an option).

[] Metallic paint.

[] 4-speaker stereo (as in with separate tweeters in the dash).

[] Originally had alloys according to the build tag.

...and in the last 15 minutes discovered there's height adjustment on the driver's seat too.

Off the top of my head, front fogs and if they were even available, heated seats and cruise are about the only things they didn't specify.  I really should dig out a brochure to find out.

For a small van from 2002 it's pretty well loaded though.

[Fumbler]

I'm going to book the BX in for its MoT tomorrow for next week. I won't be able to do it but father has said he's cool with delivering it round the corner. It was also apparently admired by a Xantia driver, so there's smiles all-round. The bonus is that if it fails, I have at least a few more weekends to scrape the carnage off the ground rectify the issues. Emissions has me worried because carburettor and manifold leak, and the oil leak it has which I'm determined to fix. I am sure all will be well* come the day.

I caved and bought the correct alternator(!) because I'm feeling rich and getting tired trying to invent new ways of shimming out the pulley. This at least gives me the excuse to take the weird one apart, repack the front bearing, paint it up and properly align stuff at my lethargic pace leisure.

I also got a spare key cut for it... but apparently it only operates the doors. I asked why and father said "feck knows" so that'll be fun figuring out what's going on- I may have engaged the steering lock when I parked it. Or, more likely, my Simplex spare key is just a teeny tiny bit wrong for the super high tolerance ignition barrel which I definitely and totally cannot pull the key out of when the car is running.

 

In the meantime, the Micra is still bimbling along and I should really pull my finger out and weld the sill.

[Spurious]

On 1/12/2022 at 5:16 PM, Spurious said:

Frosty start this morning.

Minus 11, but proper powder snow so the dustpan brush was deployed and it brushed off handily enough. 

Post brushing, apparently you can be fined here for driving with snow on the car. 

 

Only noticed its those fake alloy hubcaps with steelies. Not that I mind. I suspect they're easier and cheaper to repair and replace if damaged. Komoroan winters, seem sure footed in this weather. Not lost traction yet. 

 

Ząb, the highest village in Poland, buried in the Tatras. 

 

 

 

 

 

Handed it back this evening. 46mpg, almost 400km done and only cost £20 as 95 E5 is only 99p/l here. 

Cheap motoring, not bad at all for a likkle Turbo 3 pot.  

[AnnoyingPentium]

28 minutes ago, Spurious said:

only cost £20 as 95 E5 is only 99p/l here. 

I have decided I am emigrating now.

[catsinthewelder]

1 hour ago, Fumbler said:

I'm going to book the BX in for its MoT tomorrow for next week. I won't be able to do it but father has said he's cool with delivering it round the corner. It was also apparently admired by a Xantia driver, so there's smiles all-round. The bonus is that if it fails, I have at least a few more weekends to scrape the carnage off the ground to rectify the issues. Emissions has me worried because carburettor and manifold leak, and the oil leak it has which I'm determined to fix. I am sure all will be well* come the day.

I caved and bought the correct alternator(!) because I'm feeling rich and getting tired trying to invent new ways of shimming out the pulley. This at least gives me the excuse to take the weird one apart, repack the front bearing, paint it up and properly align stuff at my lethargic pace leisure.

I also got a spare key cut for it... but apparently it only operates the doors. I asked why and father said "feck knows" so that'll be fun figuring out what's going on- I may have engaged the steering lock when I parked it. Or, more likely, my Simplex spare key is just a teeny tiny bit wrong for the super high tolerance ignition barrel which I definitely and totally cannot pull the key out of when the car is running.

 

In the meantime, the Micra is still bimbling along and I should really pull my finger out and weld the sill.

A few years back a mate was about to send his BX to a classic auction and the ignition switch failed.  I got it going by taking the switch apart and removing most of the innards before putting it back together.  That would start with any key afterwards.

[Fumbler]

Just now, catsinthewelder said:

A few years back a mate was about to send his BX to a classic auction and the ignition switch failed.  I got it going by taking the switch apart and removing most of the innards before putting it back together.  That would start with any key afterwards.

Ah yes, the "remove tumblers" method. My suspicion is that the door locks are more worn than the ignition barrel, or, at least, the driver's door is. I managed to unlock it once with just the key blank.

[Zelandeth]

3 minutes ago, Fumbler said:

Ah yes, the "remove tumblers" method. My suspicion is that the door locks are more worn than the ignition barrel, or, at least, the driver's door is. I managed to unlock it once with just the key blank.

Echoes of my first Saab.  Locks and ignition on that were so knackered that they would all work with anything even vaguely key-shaped.

I lost my keys at one point while I was commuting 75 miles a day round trip to college (literally down the back of the sofa it turned out), and ran it for the best part of a week with a large flat-head screwdriver being both the door and ignition key.  Did get me some slightly odd looks at our local filling station.

[Fumbler]

3 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Echoes of my first Saab.  Locks and ignition on that were so knackered that they would all work with anything even vaguely key-shaped.

I lost my keys at one point while I was commuting 75 miles a day round trip to college (literally down the back of the sofa it turned out), and ran it for the best part of a week with a large flat-head screwdriver being both the door and ignition key.  Did get me some slightly odd looks at our local filling station.

Sounds like a similar story here. Weirdly enough, the identical year/engine BX I found at Chevonics had a Valeo keyset and ignition barrel. Delightfully confusing.

[Broadsword]

On 1/12/2022 at 10:09 AM, paulplom said:

I had the boy at football on Sunday in the pug107. The engine's been sounding a bit coarse and tappy the last few times I've drove it so I popped the bonnet wgen I got to the carpark. 

That'll explain it. I drove the 15 miles home after the match and topped it up at home. Quiet as a mouse again. My mother had it for six months so I'm blaming her.

These really need very frequent oil level checks. The sump is tiny and they do burn through oil quite often. Too many Aygo/107/C1 engine have been ruined simply by people not checking the oil level. Last one I had, I had to top up every week when doing a regular commute.

[somewhatfoolish]

8 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Must be unusual for a smoll van of that vintage to have AC.

Important with that amount of glass; I could do with AC in my Partner Tepee, it's like driving a mobile bakery in summer.

[Ghosty]

24 minutes ago, HarmonicCheeseburger said:

Anything to note of 1.8 or 2.0 1st gen Avensis in terms of problems or expensive borkage?

Not really as they're just facelifted Carina Es. 
Much better than vomiting your life savings at a K11. 

[wuvvum]

Certain versions of the 1.8 can have a tendency to nom their oil though.

[brownnova]

Knew my Merc needed a new tyre, as one in the back is pretty badly perished. But pumping them up yesterday I noticed they’ve all got pretty deep cracks close to the join with the wheel… all at about 10 years old.  Bugger that’ll be 4 new tyres then… 🙄

[High Jetter]

Only trouble I ever had with mine was when the immobilizer would not turn off. Cost a replacement ECU. Owned it from '03 to 2014.

[wuvvum]

8 hours ago, HarmonicCheeseburger said:

Any easy to check which, and I presume once it begins it's terminal or is it manageable? 

Can't remember off the top of my head.  Borniteidentity was our resident Mk1 Avensis expert, but he don't come by this way no more.  If memory serves it's manageable as long as you don't let the oil level drop too low.