The new news 24 thread

[wuvvum]

It's been a weekend of fettling - would have been rude not to given the weather.

The Laguna now has its repaired boost hose fitted, the repair section having been delivered on Friday.  Initially I thought that the metal joiner they'd included in the kit was the wrong size, but it turns out it's not a joiner at all but a reinforcement - the replacement section fits over the original pipe and the metal bit goes inside the original pipe to strengthen it.  Seemed a bit overkill to me given the fact that the original pipe is fairly rigid plastic and the jubilee clip only really needs to be wound tight enough to ensure a decent seal - the two sections can't come apart because there's nowhere for them to go.  The car is definitely pulling better now, so that's good.  Will be interesting to see if the fuel economy improves too.  I also fitted a new front drop link, but annoyingly that hasn't cured the knock from the offside front over bumps, so it may need a ball joint replacing.

I've repaired* the ABS light on the Maxus.  This definitely didn't* involve taking the instrument panel apart and sticking a bit of tape over the LED.  I had been looking to see whether it would be possible to wire the ABS light up to the EBD light (which does go out) but the LEDs are soldered directly onto the PCB so that wouldn't work without the kind of electronickery that is way beyond my skill set.  I also investigated the non-functioning passenger door window - it's definitely the motor unfortunately, the multimeter confirmed that the switch is working fine.  It's not a top priority at the moment but may become so when the weather gets warmer - especially given that it transpires the aircon doesn't work, due at least in part to the fact that half the pipework and the compressor are missing.

I had to go to south Norfolk this morning and I took the Maxus - it's the first time I've taken it on the dual carriageway since the collection mission, and today I was being a bit more liberal with the accelerator (I never thrash my purchases on the way home from picking them up).  It really is quite rapid for a big old van - the 75mph limiter arrives in very short order.  If it passes the MOT I might look at getting the limiter mapped out.  I've also ordered some better speakers to replace the hopeless factory ones - it'd be nice to actually be able to hear my choonz over the growl of the VM.

The Charade went up on the ramps so that I could trowel some Gun Gum into the blowing exhaust join.  In an ideal world I would have taken the exhaust apart and resealed it properly, but the nuts were rusty enough that I wasn't convinced they'd come undone without something snapping, so I left them alone.  It's booked in for its MOT on Tuesday.  Assuming it passes without too much expenditure I'm going to treat it to an ATF change as the fluid is looking rather past its best.

I had a play with the Volvo to see if I could eliminate a fuel line blockage as the cause of its running issues.  This involved strapping a can of Tesco's finest 99 octane unleaded under the bonnet and running a hose from that directly to the fuel pump.  It made no difference to the running, so I'm going to have to look elsewhere for the fault.  (I've posted a thread on the Ask a Shiter forum if anyone has any bright ideas.)

I took the Toyota to the jet wash to wash off the bird shite.  This was something of a mission as it seems the local seagulls have been gorging themselves on superglue or similar, and it also seems that the car's battery has finally decided to call it a day.  It was pretty ancient anyway so I've ordered a new one - 063 so not too expensive.

Apart from fitting a new passenger side wiper blade to the 75, that was about it.

[Metal Guru]

On 25/02/2022 at 15:05, Bren said:

Manchester united have cancelled their sponsorship with aeroflot. Maybe united airlines would be interested?

I bet they never flew with Aeroflot.

[Vince70]

Yesterday as the weather was nice I thought it would be a good idea to actually try the roof on the £250 Golf cabriolet as I actually didn’t know if it worked.

It stinks of fags inside so it needed a good airing but the £5 repair of a replacement dizzy cap had worked a treat and no more misfire.

I bought it back in November and the ticket is out now and I have a few days off next month so I will give it a good mop and polish and throw an mot on it as in May it’s going on a road trip down to Cornwall and can’t wait as although it was cheap it’s actually a very good rust free low mileage example.

Its my 3rd Golf Cabriolet and most probably my last as after the MK3.5 the cabriolet Golf just got that bit too modern for me.

 

[Split_Pin]

I fitted a new NSF caliper on the Audi today.

Exhaust blow is just from a clamp.

Good Times.

[Zelandeth]

11 hours ago, catsinthewelder said:

You absolute legend, I've been trying to work out what's wrong with my 405 for about 4 years.  

Anyone got one of these for a 1905cc XUD for sale?

Glad to be of help.  It did take me a little while to figure out why it was shredding the belt.  Multigroove belts like these are stupid strong under tension but unlike old school V belts they really can't deal with any alignment problems or they just fall to bits.

[Split_Pin]

Saab, not so good. Trying to fit new rear pads but the caliper piston won't wind back in, it's just turning.

[Split_Pin]

Idiot check performed, now using the RH winder, all good.

[Split_Pin]

All done. The slider pins are very badly seized, an absolute swine of a job. I got 3 out and cleaned and greased them but 1 O just managed to slide out enough with a big g clamp to get the caliper clear. Really needs 2 new ones.

Still, it was a nice surprise to get some hot 7mm Allen key action again, I thought that was reserved only for Rovers.

[brownnova]

19 hours ago, Yoss said:

If I ever actually meet him, I'll ask. 

If only you had an excuse to knock on his door… 

 

“Sorry sir this letter was too big to fit in your letterbox” 

“But it’s only an A5 envelope”

”Soooo those Suzuki swifts…”

 

[stuboy]

Thought I'd check on the zephyr and deceased uncles place... house ok... but storms blown out window of the garage...thankfully I was in my car with absolutely no tools... savaged any old wood found 4 large nails and large screws..and tiny screwdriver..and massive hammer

[wuvvum]

The Charade failed its MOT this morning, which I wasn't surprised about - the leaking front shock and front ball joint were both advisories last year.  It also needs a bit of welding.  The only issue is that parts are bloody expensive - the cheapest I can find a front suspension arm is 80 quid, a new shock is another 50, plus whatever the welding costs and then a gearbox service and it really needs a new front tyre as well - it scraped through but in another few months it'll be illegal.

So I've got to decide whether it's worth doing or not - I do like the car and it's a fun thing to drive but it's rather battered so it's never going to be worth much, and it's also pretty shit on fuel for what it is.

[juular]

Life has been an utter, utter twat the past 10 days and I'm just about scraping through at the moment, but I tried to keep the motivation going at the weekend as every member of the fleet has thrown a strop in one form or another.

The van has been flinging an ABS fault every time I get above 60, which is nice when it's slush / ice outside.  Here's why:

 

The rear reluctor rings are part of the brake discs on these. Since those came up in an advisory I decided just to do discs and pads.

 

And THIS is why you can never trust a garage.  This is the work of my normally completely trustworthy place. They haven't seated one of the rear springs even remotely in place after changing an axle bush.

Brakes are no problem on this van, about 1.5 hours for both sides taking my time to clean and grease everything.

Adjusting the handbrake is a different story.

 

This always happens on x83 vans and I always end up having to bodge something together to replace the adjuster.

Then I found the NSR handbrake cable was seized solid inside its sheath, so that was another hour of dismantling, greasing the life out of it and moving it backwards and forwards.

Next up, the Mrs's Honda Accord 2.2 diesel needed an aux belt as the whole area sounded like a bag of rocks.

I absolutely loathe working on Jap cars now, nothing is ever simple.  The tensioner is difficult to access thanks to the daft engine mount design, the bolts are made out of cheese and torqued to 10000000Nm and even things like hose clamps are designed to get in the way of access to everything. Should be a simple job, but this took 3 hours. In. To. The. Fucking. Sea.

Had to improvise a tool to release the tensioner (which is also ridiculously overpowered).

That didn't work, the jaws of the spanner simply snapped off - I mean the tension is ridiculous.

I sacrificed a socket instead.

This worked. As you can see the belt really needed done.

Shiny.

The C70 needed an inner tie rod done. This was ridiculously easy. I actually enjoy working on Volvos because things tend to be quicker than I expect rather than being a fight.

5 minutes:

8 minutes:

10 minutes:

Total time : 20 minutes

35 minutes all in which includes getting some axle stands and fishing line and resetting the alignment on that side. 

Finally, I have another incoming fleet member that needs a bit of TLC. This is @Lacquer Peel's 205 that wouldn't start and has a few problems needing resolved, so I agreed to take it on and give it a chance to live. It needs some work on the brakes and a bit of welding, after which I will probably be putting it up for sale.

I swapped the fuel pump over from another XUD, timed it up and fed it from a can.  With a bit of tinkering and a lot of cranking, it finally burst into life.

Behold the glorious clatter of an XUD.

 

 

 

[stuboy]

Decided I'd make a start on digging out the looxor scooter... much stuff binned.. as im fed up with hoarding stuff I not used in years ( insert joke about my taliwackle).. just gotta put it back together and sort the permanent oil feeding through... reason why I took it apart to fix a while a go..

[grogee]

46 minutes ago, juular said:

Life has been an utter, utter twat the past 10 days and I'm just about scraping through at the moment, but I tried to keep the motivation going at the weekend as every member of the fleet has thrown a strop in one form or another.

The van has been flinging an ABS fault every time I get above 60, which is nice when it's slush / ice outside.  Here's why:

 

The rear reluctor rings are part of the brake discs on these. Since those came up in an advisory I decided just to do discs and pads.

 

And THIS is why you can never trust a garage.  This is the work of my normally completely trustworthy place. They haven't seated one of the rear springs even remotely in place after changing an axle bush.

Brakes are no problem on this van, about 1.5 hours for both sides taking my time to clean and grease everything.

Adjusting the handbrake is a different story.

 

This always happens on x83 vans and I always end up having to bodge something together to replace the adjuster.

Then I found the NSR handbrake cable was seized solid inside its sheath, so that was another hour of dismantling, greasing the life out of it and moving it backwards and forwards.

Next up, the Mrs's Honda Accord 2.2 diesel needed an aux belt as the whole area sounded like a bag of rocks.

I absolutely loathe working on Jap cars now, nothing is ever simple.  The tensioner is difficult to access thanks to the daft engine mount design, the bolts are made out of cheese and torqued to 10000000Nm and even things like hose clamps are designed to get in the way of access to everything. Should be a simple job, but this took 3 hours. In. To. The. Fucking. Sea.

Had to improvise a tool to release the tensioner (which is also ridiculously overpowered).

That didn't work, the jaws of the spanner simply snapped off - I mean the tension is ridiculous.

I sacrificed a socket instead.

This worked. As you can see the belt really needed done.

Shiny.

The C70 needed an inner tie rod done. This was ridiculously easy. I actually enjoy working on Volvos because things tend to be quicker than I expect rather than being a fight.

5 minutes:

8 minutes:

10 minutes:

Total time : 20 minutes

35 minutes all in which includes getting some axle stands and fishing line and resetting the alignment on that side. 

Finally, I have another incoming fleet member that needs a bit of TLC. This is @Lacquer Peel's 205 that wouldn't start and has a few problems needing resolved, so I agreed to take it on and give it a chance to live. It needs some work on the brakes and a bit of welding, after which I will probably be putting it up for sale.

I swapped the fuel pump over from another XUD, timed it up and fed it from a can.  With a bit of tinkering and a lot of cranking, it finally burst into life.

Behold the glorious clatter of an XUD.

 

 

 

Well done for beating Crap Life and getting out there and fixing some motors. I hope that's given you a sense of achievement and made you stronger for whatever life throws at you. 

I'm well impressed with all these fixes and you're right, when it comes to garages: trust no-one. That's a horrible sight to see on your van. Are you going to have it out with them?

More power to your spanner. 

 

[Rust Collector]

So the other day I absent mindedly clicked on the ebay tat thread to check what obscure vehicles were doing the rounds. I didn't realise I was so far behind, and inadvertently started reading a page from January thinking it was current. I saw something cool*, got massively excited and then realised the advert was at least a month old. Cue feeling a bit glum for missing out on something unusual. I still tracked down the advert on Facebook regardless, just to ask what happened to the car.

I've put a deposit down on it today 😁

If somebody could now just block me from reading the ebay tat thread and seeing more chod then that would be marvelous.

[juular]

27 minutes ago, grogee said:

Are you going to have it out with them?

I know the garage supervisor pretty well and he's done me lots of favours, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and going to speak to him nicely as a heads up, in the first instance. I don't want anything from this, just an acknowledgement that maybe someone needs their collar felt about safety and double checking their work.

[beko1987]

1 hour ago, juular said:

Life has been an utter, utter twat the past 10 days and I'm just about scraping through at the moment, but I tried to keep the motivation going at the weekend as every member of the fleet has thrown a strop in one form or another.

The van has been flinging an ABS fault every time I get above 60, which is nice when it's slush / ice outside.  Here's why:

 

The rear reluctor rings are part of the brake discs on these. Since those came up in an advisory I decided just to do discs and pads.

 

And THIS is why you can never trust a garage.  This is the work of my normally completely trustworthy place. They haven't seated one of the rear springs even remotely in place after changing an axle bush.

Brakes are no problem on this van, about 1.5 hours for both sides taking my time to clean and grease everything.

Adjusting the handbrake is a different story.

 

This always happens on x83 vans and I always end up having to bodge something together to replace the adjuster.

Then I found the NSR handbrake cable was seized solid inside its sheath, so that was another hour of dismantling, greasing the life out of it and moving it backwards and forwards.

Next up, the Mrs's Honda Accord 2.2 diesel needed an aux belt as the whole area sounded like a bag of rocks.

I absolutely loathe working on Jap cars now, nothing is ever simple.  The tensioner is difficult to access thanks to the daft engine mount design, the bolts are made out of cheese and torqued to 10000000Nm and even things like hose clamps are designed to get in the way of access to everything. Should be a simple job, but this took 3 hours. In. To. The. Fucking. Sea.

Had to improvise a tool to release the tensioner (which is also ridiculously overpowered).

That didn't work, the jaws of the spanner simply snapped off - I mean the tension is ridiculous.

I sacrificed a socket instead.

This worked. As you can see the belt really needed done.

Shiny.

The C70 needed an inner tie rod done. This was ridiculously easy. I actually enjoy working on Volvos because things tend to be quicker than I expect rather than being a fight.

5 minutes:

8 minutes:

10 minutes:

Total time : 20 minutes

35 minutes all in which includes getting some axle stands and fishing line and resetting the alignment on that side. 

Finally, I have another incoming fleet member that needs a bit of TLC. This is @Lacquer Peel's 205 that wouldn't start and has a few problems needing resolved, so I agreed to take it on and give it a chance to live. It needs some work on the brakes and a bit of welding, after which I will probably be putting it up for sale.

I swapped the fuel pump over from another XUD, timed it up and fed it from a can.  With a bit of tinkering and a lot of cranking, it finally burst into life.

Behold the glorious clatter of an XUD.

 

 

 

That's a decent bit of spannering 👍 I had some new washer jets arrive yesterday as mine stopped working right even after a rod through and new ones were a fiver and I've been putting that job off so far... Feel bad now 😂

[Dyslexic Viking]

42 minutes ago, juular said:

I know the garage supervisor pretty well and he's done me lots of favours, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and going to speak to him nicely as a heads up, in the first instance. I don't want anything from this, just an acknowledgement that maybe someone needs their collar felt about safety and double checking their work.

Unfortunately, I have learned that one can not trust anyone. So even the garage I use now that I have a good impression of, I check everything after they have worked on it.

[grogee]

1 hour ago, juular said:

I know the garage supervisor pretty well and he's done me lots of favours, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and going to speak to him nicely as a heads up, in the first instance. I don't want anything from this, just an acknowledgement that maybe someone needs their collar felt about safety and double checking their work.

I think that's the right approach. 

[beko1987]

1 hour ago, beko1987 said:

That's a decent bit of spannering 👍 I had some new washer jets arrive yesterday as mine stopped working right even after a rod through and new ones were a fiver and I've been putting that job off so far... Feel bad now 😂

Oh joy... 

I did get some motivation, so went out and swapped them round... 

I then ran them with the pipes off to blow out any crap, but the flow was a bit lacklustre... New jets confirmed that all is still not well... They work as well as the old ones did. Filled the tank up, still the same

Old ones are soaking in de scaler atm but I've been there before, the pump is gunked up or failing, guess its time to knock new headlight bulbs, front bumper off and wing off and do the rust treatment fairly soon 😂

[Split_Pin]

I spent all afternoon getting the paint a little more presentable. 

I used this Farcela G3 scratch remover with a stiff pad on my machine polisher. It was a swine to get off but it actually worked well. I then went back over it with AG Super Resin and then some Meguairs Wax. I'm buckled now but it looks a lot better.

[dollywobbler]

8 hours ago, wuvvum said:

The Charade failed its MOT this morning, which I wasn't surprised about - the leaking front shock and front ball joint were both advisories last year.  It also needs a bit of welding.  The only issue is that parts are bloody expensive - the cheapest I can find a front suspension arm is 80 quid, a new shock is another 50, plus whatever the welding costs and then a gearbox service and it really needs a new front tyre as well - it scraped through but in another few months it'll be illegal.

So I've got to decide whether it's worth doing or not - I do like the car and it's a fun thing to drive but it's rather battered so it's never going to be worth much, and it's also pretty shit on fuel for what it is.

Aye. Parts are a bloody nightmare - seemingly in Australia too watching Mighty Car Mods. It's a great car, but rot and part prices/issues even getting parts make owning one a bit stressy. 

Speaking of which, got the engine out of ours today. 

The most ambitious thing I've done in years. That represents about twelve hours of work, which is fairly quick by my standards. Now need to clean up the engine bay and do some de-rusting, fit new belts and things to the new engine, swap the gearbox over then shove it all back in and try to remember where everything goes...

[Angrydicky]

7 hours ago, juular said:

Life has been an utter, utter twat the past 10 days and I'm just about scraping through at the moment, but I tried to keep the motivation going at the weekend as every member of the fleet has thrown a strop in one form or another.

The van has been flinging an ABS fault every time I get above 60, which is nice when it's slush / ice outside.  Here's why:

 

The rear reluctor rings are part of the brake discs on these. Since those came up in an advisory I decided just to do discs and pads.

 

And THIS is why you can never trust a garage.  This is the work of my normally completely trustworthy place. They haven't seated one of the rear springs even remotely in place after changing an axle bush.

Brakes are no problem on this van, about 1.5 hours for both sides taking my time to clean and grease everything.

Adjusting the handbrake is a different story.

 

This always happens on x83 vans and I always end up having to bodge something together to replace the adjuster.

Then I found the NSR handbrake cable was seized solid inside its sheath, so that was another hour of dismantling, greasing the life out of it and moving it backwards and forwards.

Next up, the Mrs's Honda Accord 2.2 diesel needed an aux belt as the whole area sounded like a bag of rocks.

I absolutely loathe working on Jap cars now, nothing is ever simple.  The tensioner is difficult to access thanks to the daft engine mount design, the bolts are made out of cheese and torqued to 10000000Nm and even things like hose clamps are designed to get in the way of access to everything. Should be a simple job, but this took 3 hours. In. To. The. Fucking. Sea.

Had to improvise a tool to release the tensioner (which is also ridiculously overpowered).

That didn't work, the jaws of the spanner simply snapped off - I mean the tension is ridiculous.

I sacrificed a socket instead.

This worked. As you can see the belt really needed done.

Shiny.

The C70 needed an inner tie rod done. This was ridiculously easy. I actually enjoy working on Volvos because things tend to be quicker than I expect rather than being a fight.

5 minutes:

8 minutes:

10 minutes:

Total time : 20 minutes

35 minutes all in which includes getting some axle stands and fishing line and resetting the alignment on that side. 

Finally, I have another incoming fleet member that needs a bit of TLC. This is @Lacquer Peel's 205 that wouldn't start and has a few problems needing resolved, so I agreed to take it on and give it a chance to live. It needs some work on the brakes and a bit of welding, after which I will probably be putting it up for sale.

I swapped the fuel pump over from another XUD, timed it up and fed it from a can.  With a bit of tinkering and a lot of cranking, it finally burst into life.

Behold the glorious clatter of an XUD.

 

 

 

Top tool improvising skills there!

[Stanky]

8 hours ago, wuvvum said:

The Charade failed its MOT this morning, which I wasn't surprised about - the leaking front shock and front ball joint were both advisories last year.  It also needs a bit of welding.  The only issue is that parts are bloody expensive - the cheapest I can find a front suspension arm is 80 quid, a new shock is another 50, plus whatever the welding costs and then a gearbox service and it really needs a new front tyre as well - it scraped through but in another few months it'll be illegal.

So I've got to decide whether it's worth doing or not - I do like the car and it's a fun thing to drive but it's rather battered so it's never going to be worth much, and it's also pretty shit on fuel for what it is.

 

17 minutes ago, dollywobbler said:

Aye. Parts are a bloody nightmare - seemingly in Australia too watching Mighty Car Mods. It's a great car, but rot and part prices/issues even getting parts make owning one a bit stressy. 

Speaking of which, got the engine out of ours today. 

The most ambitious thing I've done in years. That represents about twelve hours of work, which is fairly quick by my standards. Now need to clean up the engine bay and do some de-rusting, fit new belts and things to the new engine, swap the gearbox over then shove it all back in and try to remember where everything goes...

It isn't fast, but amayama.com is an absolute goldmine for OEM daihatsu parts.

They have warehouses in Japan and UAE, so postage of parts takes between 4 days and a week and a half, but quality is top notch.

You will need to know the equivalent JDM Toyota model, but the site has superb exploded diagrams.

[richardmorris]

On 2/28/2022 at 5:37 PM, brownnova said:

If only you had an excuse to knock on his door… 

 

“Sorry sir this letter was too big to fit in your letterbox” 

“But it’s only an A5 envelope”

”Soooo those Suzuki swifts…”

 

I expect there are rules against that sort of thing. Perhaps accidentally* post the  neighbours’ post in their box and have to ring the bell to collect. Has happened to me twice recently.

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Stanky said:

 

It isn't fast, but amayama.com is an absolute goldmine for OEM daihatsu parts.

They have warehouses in Japan and UAE, so postage of parts takes between 4 days and a week and a half, but quality is top notch.

You will need to know the equivalent JDM Toyota model, but the site has superb exploded diagrams.

I'll have a look at that, thanks.

[Zelandeth]

Figure it's worth a two minute update here rather than perpetually bumping my thread for the sake of a two minute update!

Have heard back from the current owner of the Merc V123 I'm looking at and arranged to drop by again tomorrow afternoon for a second visit.  Targets will be to get the replacement rear quarter window in and to go over the sills and inner wings with a hammer to see how much of the car I make disappear.

If time permits I'll see if I can get it up and running for more than 30 seconds and see what works and what doesn't.

Then I'll make a decision on what I'm doing with it.  There will be three options.

1. I take it on as a resurrection project for me.

2. I take it on as a short term "Get it running well, fix a few things, get it cleaned and into a more attractive state to sell" basis.

3. Leave them with a documented list of what I've found and wish them all the best.

So long as we don't get totally rained out tomorrow we should have a decision on its fate (with me anyway) hopefully.

[tommotech]

Had a look at a Qashqai for a mate earlier, it’s due for MOT but won’t pass in this state. Apparently this is a regular failure point, but how can a modern car be made of such poor metal? Cost cutting from Nissan / Renault or supplier squeezed hard, so uses chinesium to compensate. Either way, I’d want to be able to trust my rear suspension arm for longer than 9 years!

[stuboy]

2 minutes ago, tommotech said:

Had a look at a Qashqai for a mate earlier, it’s due for MOT but won’t pass in this state. Apparently this is a regular failure point, but how can a modern car be made of such poor metal? Cost cutting from Nissan / Renault or supplier squeezed hard, so uses chinesium to compensate. Either way, I’d want to be able to trust my rear suspension arm for longer than 9 years!

dam what year?

[tommotech]

3 minutes ago, stuboy said:

dam what year?

It’s only 9 years old.