The new news 24 thread

[stuboy]

Some hunnys caged up at the auctions

[stuboy]

 

 

thought id see if i could change the flexi .. well seems someone has cut off a flange and welded it on... so stuff it and I deal with it another year/2

 

 

[SiC]

This is my next job later today. 

Those who know, know. 

 

[Crusty Sills]

Today was spent doing  Injector seals on FiL's 1.6 D C3 picasso. 

Not a hard job as such but by fuck is it time consuming 

Looking online it appears it is cylinder 3 that is the issue and yep! But decided I would do all as I was there parts were only £10. The Best thing I bought was this. 

I was proper skeptical but it worked a treat. 

Just waiting in an oil filter and can get it finished. 

I wouldn't like to pay a garage to do but is easily diyable. Hopefully saved the turbo before it got to bad. 

[Pete-M]

Another one in the fleet. 

2.0 TDI Škoda Superb Elegance. 

Never been a taxi, very well maintained, bizarrely rusty boot lid. 

Usual Škoda mileage rules apply. 

[Ghosty]

Is anyone after a FOTU ticket?
Send me a message.

[PicantoJon]

Got the start date for my PTS training yesterday so figured it was about time to hand my notice in at my current place. 

Shame it was done electronically so I couldn't draw a cock and balls on the thing... 

[tom13]

Picked up the Dispatch that @EightMegshad in the classifieds last night. He brought it up to Gloucester for me.

Great van size wise, way bigger than I remembered from my last one. Anyway, nice lad and super appreciative of him bringing it up closer to me.

@gadgetgriceyits even closer to you now when I come to sell it eventually.

I will get pictures and post more once I have it on the road the start of next month.

I am after a roof rack for one if anyone has one they want to sell.

[High Jetter]

Just spoke with Outfox The Market as they wanted to put my monthly DD up by about 25%. Did some digging and worked out that although the daily charges have increased from 1/7 by £2.60 a month the unit rates have actually decreased by just over £20 for our usage. DD back down to below previous level, which I'm declaring to be a result. Very efficient call handler though it took 13 minutes to get through to them.

[JohnK]

Bought a new car today - it’s been a while since I’ve been ‘doing shite’ due to life, but the time seemed right.

Criteria were that it needs to be a suitable family car as well, given there’s the missus and 3 kids to consider. Typically, I failed miserably 😂

Not a bad car really, needs a bit of tidying and some plastic arch trim on NSR but it’ll do for now 🤦🏻‍♂️

[320touring]

Got a call off the burd last night.

She had alighted at the station and walked towards the Golf 

Upon approach, she spied a puddle under the rear of the car.. LP

As you can see, it looks an awwfa lot like oil, despite not being anywhere near the oily bits of this front engined, fwd car.

Careful prodding identified it as clean oil, hence further confusion.

 

Opening the boot revealed an upended oil bottle that had dribbled into the spare wheel well..

 

Relieved, we cleaned up and went home.

[Sunny Jim]

@Talbotdiscovered that my aircon did just need a re-gas m9 and kindly sorted it for me at Shitefest in between showers.

Today I treated the car to a new cabin filter - not the worst I've seen but certainly worth doing.

[Pete-M]

Day of Škoda fettling.

AC now vacuum tested,  regassed and working correctly. 

ECUs interrogated and nothing to worry about. No engine codes or anything scary. AC code for low gas, now rectified.  Faulty parking sensor identified, so I'll get one on order. 

Pollen filter on order. 

I reckon this thing would piss another 260k.

 

[stuboy]

Sister friend has an bimma X6 and handbrake won't release, stuck out in country where her horses are kept, a mechanic looked at it for 2 hours and was unable too release anything bar undo the securing collers on the actuator.. many fakebook mechanics and keyboard faires told her to cut the cables.. which is wrong.. so I offered to have a look, yup it's bolloxed so beat it too pieces ( her request ) , naff all access, but got them free, and u have to push the cable outswards to release the hand brake, so some ingenuity, a drill and some cable ties replicated the require action..

https://youtu.be/8JCAW52oUVw

[stuboy]

11 hours ago, PicantoJon said:

Got the start date for my PTS training yesterday so figured it was about time to hand my notice in at my current place. 

Shame it was done electronically so I couldn't draw a cock and balls on the thing... 

pts? who with?

[PicantoJon]

3 minutes ago, stuboy said:

pts? who with?

Personal track safety, though it is being combined with a few other tickets like track induction and a couple of ones to do with electrified lines. It's booked for two weeks in Warrington. Once that's done I'll be working for a Network Rail contractor. 

[dozeydustman]

Friend of my wife has asked if I can fix her daughter-in-law’s car which ‘catastrophically’ failed the MoT on an insecure seat belt mounting and corrosion, along with needing an exhaust.

All I know at the moment it’s a 60-plate Citroen of some description with about 92k. SL60HPU is the registration.

I don’t have welding gear (in any case my welding is terrible) so I can’t get it back on the road, but if someone on here wants some pictures for possible spears and reapers I can get them.

[SiC]

Replaced the Haldex fluid in the Quattro system of the TT last night. I couldn't find any history in the paperwork so presumably it's never been done in 136k miles?
It wasn't a bad job in the end. Filter is a pain to undo but not the worst job in the world. Took about an hour and half including jacking it up and repairing the undertray that the mounts snapped off.

These are the bits I bought. Cost just over £50 including the tool.


I really ought to buy a low profile jack. Mine is too high to clear the exhaust and get under the diff carrier. I tried doing one side at a time but the car is stuff enough that the whole thing lifted. Put it on ramps but it was all sketchy as fuck lowering it.


I put axle stands (£5 for the pair from Amazon at the time 🫠) underneath the suspension to give some emergency fall arrest protection.


Haldex plug is just in front of the (rusty) diff carrier.


Filter (purple arrow) is hidden but accessible with the special tool.


The old filter didn't look too bad to be honest.


Fluid itself was dirty but smelt fine (i.e. not burnt)



The new filter needed assembling. No real information online about this but after pulling apart the old one, I figured it fits like this together.


Refilling involves going through the drain hole and quickly putting the plug in after. I had the new plug all ready but when I went to pick it up, it fell off my socket. Then the tube fell out of the Haldex and started draining.
I quickly did what any man does faced with a leaking hole and plugged it with my finger.

Started it up and checked for leaks. Could hear the Haldex pump whirring away happy. Dropped it off the ramps as I realised it probably wouldn't clear then if I drove off.

Went for a drive and it all seemed happy.

The rear scraping when turning tight (e.g. out of a car park) has gone. But then it only did that when the fluid was cold anyway.

I've got another tube of oil coming (it was supposed to be here already) so I'll do another fluid change in a thousand miles or so once this lot has circulated around.

To be honest I reckon the filter is not an essential thing to change. It's a maintenance item every 40k on these earlier Haldex units (20k for the oil) but later it became a "for life" filter. If this is the original filter then it looked absolutely fine. I mean if the friction plates in the Haldex are starting to wear and clog the filter, there are bigger issues in the Haldex than the filter. As it's a sealed system, there shouldn't be contaminates getting in (unlike for example engine oil).
 

[Pete-M]

Fitted a Bluetooth gadget to the Škoda. 

It replaces the CD changer but allows streaming and handsfree calling without replacing the head unit, and it's clever enough that the steering wheel controls work for skipping tracks / answering calls etc. 

Škoda doesn't have phone buttons on the steering wheel, but if listening to BT audio and someone calls just press "fast forward / next track" and it answers, press "rewind / previous" to hang up. 

Works with some BMW / Volvo / Mini / Rover stuff as well. 

Sound quality decent and it deals with phone calls well. 

Decent buy at £65 if you have a suitable car with a stereo / Nav you don't want to change. 

Took about an hour to fit. 5 min to connect, the rest of the time routing wires and finding somewhere for the emulator box to live and running the mic wiring. 

Emulator has mini SD card / Aux / USB options, but as I never use those I just fitted the emulator behind the head unit. 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/125695721430?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=8f3JNLk1Qz2&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=TXtpwOKASy2&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

[SiC]

1 hour ago, SiC said:

I couldn't find any history in the paperwork so presumably it's never been done in 136k miles?

Someone mentioned on Facebook that the original filters are metal. As mine is plastic, it's definitely has been done at some point in its life. But I have no paperwork for when it was last done. At least the fluid was in pretty good shape.

Going through the paperwork history I found the spark plugs were definitely done at 97k. It's on 136k so should still have plenty of life left in them. Might have even been replaced sooner but no receipts after 2015.

Despite the lack of paperwork to say so, I think it's been serviced regularly. The air filter was very clean when I got the car. Clean enough to not even warrant changing it. Sump wasn't even badly sludged either. 

[Weird Car]

4 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

Friend of my wife has asked if I can fix her daughter-in-law’s car which ‘catastrophically’ failed the MoT on an insecure seat belt mounting and corrosion, along with needing an exhaust.

All I know at the moment it’s a 60-plate Citroen of some description with about 92k. SL60HPU is the registration.

I don’t have welding gear (in any case my welding is terrible) so I can’t get it back on the road, but if someone on here wants some pictures for possible spears and reapers I can get them.

If she’s after a car to replace hers  my Getz is still here and local to you

[dozeydustman]

2 hours ago, Weird Car said:

If she’s after a car to replace hers  my Getz is still here and local to you

I’ll ask her. Many thanks

[Lankytim]

A couple of charity shop books that’ll go on the book shelf and never get read👍

[artdjones]

8 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

Friend of my wife has asked if I can fix her daughter-in-law’s car which ‘catastrophically’ failed the MoT on an insecure seat belt mounting and corrosion, along with needing an exhaust.

All I know at the moment it’s a 60-plate Citroen of some description with about 92k. SL60HPU is the registration.

I don’t have welding gear (in any case my welding is terrible) so I can’t get it back on the road, but if someone on here wants some pictures for possible spears and reapers I can get them.

Sounds like 2 sill patches and a back box.

[dozeydustman]

1 minute ago, artdjones said:

Sounds like 2 sill patches and a back box.

I did say it’s probably worth getting it repaired but the friend’s DIL wants shot of it. She’s trying Philip Schofield WBAC and CTB first but I reckon they’d offer buttons.

[Pete-M]

5 hours ago, Nyphur said:

 

At £3.90 its certainly a more budget solution... I haven't thought to try the buttons on the stereo to see if they do anything actually, I doubt they do which is probably why your solution is a bit more pro.

More budget solutions are certainly available, it's just I wanted this to be invisible (other than the mic) and to work as close to factree as possible. 

Which it does. 

I've got a few of those Bluetooth radio tuner things, but this just seemed to be a nice solution. 

[beko1987]

I've had a few aux jack Bluetooth cheapo things before and they've always been shit in the end somehow. You just can't beat a nice hardwired kit! 

I've dragged the same pioneer stereo between 6 or 7 cars now! Bought the steering wheel adapters when needed a few times but haven't bothered for the Xsara as its easily reachable anyway, and I always found the steering wheel controls shit for navigating between folders on a usb... 

Has a proper nice parrot module built into it too so the calls are always spot on, I just run the mic to by the rear view mirror/got fancy with the lag2 and wired it's built in mic from it's original victoriana era hands free system to a scrap 2.5mm cable I made scrap by chopping the other end off to do it 👌

[Jazoli]

1 minute ago, Nyphur said:

Yeah agreed. The item I fitted isn't an aux jack. It connects directly into the aux input on the back of the head unit. So is a "nice hard wired kit", it just didn't cost £60+

I had to fit similar in my Volt, all singing all dancing car without BT streaming, they work really well, daughter has the same in her i20 which works equally as well.

[Pete-M]

4 minutes ago, Nyphur said:

Yeah agreed. The item I fitted isn't an aux jack. It connects directly into the aux input on the back of the head unit. So is a "nice hard wired kit", it just didn't cost £60+

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/1005004250555590.html

You didn't actually post a link initially, so we were guessing. 

 

The Škoda doesn't have an aux jack as such. This little box does add an aux, an SD, USB and Bluetooth. 

 

 

[JJ0063]

I’ve nearly finished my latest project..

 

Mrs JJ wanted something like this from Etsy but I thought it looked silly expensive for what’s in reality some old scaffold boards attached to some legs. 

So I went to our local reclaim place, got 3 scaffold boards for £16, a set of legs from Facebook for £10 and we already had some wood stain from doing the campervan.

 

Just need to let the first coat dry and give it one more for luck but for someone who is fucking useless at DIY, im pretty chuffed. 
 

It’s only going to be for the lizards vivarium to sit on with the dog crates underneath so mostly hidden, but for £26 all in its ideal!