The new news 24 thread

[Rustybullethole]

Just cleaned the workshop and then decided to change the oil. 

Fucksake. 

[Lord Sterling]

Well, back in the UK now, apart from what was alluded to in the grumpy thread re: coming back to demanding bills, whilst in Belgium I scored some rubber mats for Jag, winter is on its way and if I need to use the Jag, I don't want wet/muddy shoes ruining the original mats so I saw these on Facebook:

And arranged to pick them up from the seller who lives in Richmond, Surrey, basically on my way home.

Then coming back, I found these had been delivered safely too:

I've already got the original rubber mats installed, so these will be underneath until next summer/dry season. I also managed to score a rear wiper nut cap as the one on my Vectra was missing. It's small finishing touches like this that make me happy.

Next on the list for the Vectra is to get an aircon condenser, fitted and gassed. Then look into the oil leak so I don't have to keep on topping up. Then some rust prevention as the Vectra is to be my winter beater.

[wuvvum]

23 hours ago, Joey spud said:

This weekend is the 200th birthday of Thomas Aveling the inventor of the Traction Engine who just happens to have lived here for most of his life and is buried in the church yard opposite my gaff.

 

Nice of Jacob Rees-Mogg to bring the family along for the occasion.

[wuvvum]

Got the replacement rear lights fitted to the Rover.

I fitted them both in the end because they're slightly different to the originals (don't know if they're off a facelift car or a ZT-T) so it looked odd with only one fitted.  It still looks a little odd to me now but it's a lot better than with one broken light held together with superglue and tape.

I had to refit the PCV valve to the Merc as when I looked at it again it wasn't quite sitting flat - turned out there was a bit of broken plastic from the old valve sat under one of the mounting points.  With that removed it now sits as it should.  Replacing the valve hasn't got rid of the occasional smell of fumes in the car with the blower on, but I think I've found the source of that - there's a very small blow from the exhaust just after the turbo, which I may or may not try and sort at some point - the smell isn't bad enough to be a major issue.

Today I wasted some more time investigating the EGR valve on the Hyundai.  I still can't get the second retaining nut that holds the pipe at the turbo end to come undone, and it's now that mangled that a normal socket won't grip it properly.  I put the car up on the ramps to see if I might be able to get at the EGR from underneath to clean it, but the answer to that question was no chance.  I can see the bolts holding the pipe to the bottom of the EGR valve but the only way I could get at them would be to put all my extensions together with a 10mm socket on the end and poke them up between various bits of driveshaft, coolant hose and exhaust pipework to try and get the socket on the bolts - which to be fair I could probably do with a bit of persistence, but getting the bolts back in again afterwards would be more or less impossible.  The two nuts holding the pipe to the engine block are visible but one of them is inaccessible without removing an exhaust mounting bracket, and said bracket bolts straight to the cat so the chances of that coming undone without something snapping are almost nil.

I did attempt to take the top off the EGR valve to see if I could get in there that way to clean it, but the four Allen bolts holding the two halves of the valve together showed no interest in coming undone.  So I gave up and put the car back together - it's not an impossible job but it's a level of hassle that far exceeds my current level of arsedness.  I did try putting the remaining half can of EGR cleaner through the engine, but that's made no difference either.  So I gave up and went to Tesco, and noticed that the car was completely gutless.  Plugged in the eBay code reader and it said no codes, but I wasn't convinced so I went and got the Delphi, and that picked up a code for EGR valve low voltage.  Yep, I hadn't plugged the connector back into the valve properly.  Whoops.  If I eventually get round to getting the car remapped I can hoik all the EGR gubbins out, and I can then be rather more brutal with the fixings as I only need to leave enough thread to clear the blanking plates, so I can dremel the nuts off if need be.  That'll have to wait a while though as the shite kitty is currently empty, and nothing much is selling.

Next job was to jack up the Ampera and get one of the front wheels off to have a look at the state of the subframe and the CV boot (both MOT advisories).  The subframe is indeed looking rather grotty and although it's not rotten, it's really going to need rubbing down and undersealing if I'm going to use the car through the winter again.  To do that I need to figure out a way of getting the car up onto the ramps as there really aren't enough jacking points for axle stands to be workable.  I think if I drive it up onto increasingly tall blocks of wood it should then be able to get up the ramps without ripping the front bumper off.

The CV boot is fucked.  The garage did say it was on its way out and on the point of splitting, and it has in fact now split, although it's obviously only just done so as there are just a few flecks of grease on the hub rather than a full-on splattering.  I've ordered a split CV boot kit which will do for now - I'm hoping it won't be too bad of a job, access is reasonable with the wheel off and there's enough clearance round the CV joint to allow the use of Jubilee clips so I won't have to piss around with those bastard CV boot clips which is a bonus.

I had a few other jobs I was hoping to do but I ran out of time, although I did do a bit of touching up of paint on the Renault 6.  I am very much aware that this may be one of the last decent fettling weekends I'll get this year - next weekend I'll be able to get some stuff done if the weather's good, but the two weekends after that I'm on holiday, the one after that I'm busy both days and then we're in mid October and the weather will probably be turning to shite.  And once again at least half of the list of jobs I made at the beginning of the summer hasn't even been touched - that's partly due to the weather being shite for the first half of the season, but also because I've spent so much time buggering about with cars that were supposed to be reliable trouble-free moderns that I haven't had the chance to do much to the actual projects.  I'll never fucking learn.

[stuboy]

MOT all done on the mondeo, £275 later..

[mercedade]

15 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Next job was to jack up the Ampera and get one of the front wheels off to have a look at the state of the subframe and the CV boot (both MOT advisories).  The subframe is indeed looking rather grotty and although it's not rotten, it's really going to need rubbing down and undersealing if I'm going to use the car through the winter again.  To do that I need to figure out a way of getting the car up onto the ramps as there really aren't enough jacking points for axle stands to be workable.  I think if I drive it up onto increasingly tall blocks of wood it should then be able to get up the ramps without ripping the front bumper off.

Every car I've had since my 800 has had too deep a bumper/splitter to get up a pair of ramps.

These worked even on the 9-5

[beko1987]

43 minutes ago, stuboy said:

MOT all done on the mondeo, £275 later..

Only a mile since the last test too 😂 You need to drive it more, must cost a fortune per mile

[Bren]

Needed a ball joint to get an MOT certificate. I was working so garage had to do it - they put on a new arm rather than faff around removing the joint.

I suppose £180 for 12 months is not goo bad.

[andy18s]

Sills?

Where we're going,we don't need sills!!

Many,many rivets were injured in making these quality repairs. 

[HMC]

Yesterday’s rodding out of the sunroof drain (from both the cassette end and the inner arch end ) on Safrane has been a success. There used to be a little pool of water (red, circled) that formed during rain and would slosh about during cornering etc and generally be a nuisance. No more.

A water feature, earlier.

[tooSavvy]

2 hours ago, mercedade said:

Every car I've had since my 800 has had too deep a bumper/splitter to get up a pair of ramps.

These worked even on the 9-5

 

.... 10 bob option 😉

🚙💨

[dome]

3 hours ago, mercedade said:

Every car I've had since my 800 has had too deep a bumper/splitter to get up a pair of ramps.

These worked even on the 9-5

I've found these things to be worse than useless, folding under the weight of a normal car. 

@wuvvum I bought a pair of campervan levelling ramps. Rated to 3 tonnes, plastic so light and shallow enough to get most of my racey heaps up👌

Only downside is they aren't as tall as regular ramps but they're fine for oil changes etc

[SiC]

1 hour ago, dome said:

I've found these things to be worse than useless, folding under the weight of a normal car. 

@wuvvum I bought a pair of campervan levelling ramps. Rated to 3 tonnes, plastic so light and shallow enough to get most of my racey heaps up👌

Only downside is they aren't as tall as regular ramps but they're fine for oil changes etc

Ditto. My Clarke extenders turned into a banana shape the first time I drove my Saab 9-5 up it. 

Tbh nowadays I use my jack to get the vehicle in the air and then pop it down onto the wheel stands.

[mercedade]

2 hours ago, SiC said:

Ditto. My Clarke extenders turned into a banana shape the first time I drove my Saab 9-5 up it. 

Tbh nowadays I use my jack to get the vehicle in the air and then pop it down onto the wheel stands.

You definitely need to not skimp on crappy makes, I'll give you that.

My first ones went wrong under the weight of my mate's Galant, but these ones didn't have any issue with my 9-5 or the 9-3.

Probably won't subject them to the weight of the XC90 admittedly.

[DeanH]

Just use a piece of joist that fits between the slots in the ramp? Might break if it's too long for the weight you put on it, but easy to replace.

[sdkrc]

Got engaged a few weeks back. 

3rd time lucky for me, hopefully I don't fuck this one up. Proposed on our 10th anniversary.

Asked the jewellers for a non descript bag to carry it home in so I didn't get robbed

[Matty]

You've got lovely hands pal. 😄

[auntiemaryscanary]

Finally got the pallet racking set up in the garage as I want it. The hold up was 2 shelves needed some welding. 

I've never done any welding at all. I've had an arc welder (tiny thing, max 120A) for 18 months and never used it. 78yr old retired engineer neighbour came round and gave me a crash course and set the amps on the welder will I tried to burn through the rods. I enjoyed it, so did neighbour. He was taking the piss out of me like he had done with the apprentices.

There will be no close ups of the actual welds...

The angle is only to tie the arms in really. Left as beams they would lock into the other uprights but then I wouldn't have a work bench. The shelves will be boarded out another day then I can fill everything with shite.

[320touring]

Looks like the new Alternator on the Oxford has failed - a total of 7 miles travelled and all I get is 11 odd volts ..

Additionally, the bracket I pulled off the 1.8B series to allow the alternator a better mounting point won't work - the 1.5 block doesn't have holes in the correct place to allow mounting.

Looks like I can get a replacement off the interwebs though so that's no bad thing.

In more positive Oxford news, I put new 50amp fuse into the car to cope with the alternator

And I bought some loom wrap and have done a tidying of the assorted wires that float about the engine bay.

Battery cable and alternator supply 

 

Assorted wires at the fusebox

The wires that come out the steering column (horn and indicators)

Overall it looks much tidier and less jarring

I need to buy crimpers and connectors to shorten the coil and fuel pump wiring but it all looks a little tidier.

[SiC]

I only see one wire attached in this photo?

There should be two. One for power feed and one for the ignition warning bulb. The ignition warning bulb is an essential part of the circuit to excite the field windings in the alternator to start it generating.

[Asimo]

But wiring hardly matters when that pair of random bolts is what the poor alternator is hanging on.  The poor electrical machine really does need securing properly, that ain’t going to last 5 minutes. There is a lot of pull on that V-belt and the pull varies constantly: lots of vibration as well as the tension.

[Mally]

2 hours ago, auntiemaryscanary said:

Finally got the pallet racking set up in the garage as I want it. The hold up was 2 shelves needed some welding. 

I've never done any welding at all. I've had an arc welder (tiny thing, max 120A) for 18 months and never used it. 78yr old retired engineer neighbour came round and gave me a crash course and set the amps on the welder will I tried to burn through the rods. I enjoyed it, so did neighbour. He was taking the piss out of me like he had done with the apprentices.

There will be no close ups of the actual welds...

The angle is only to tie the arms in really. Left as beams they would lock into the other uprights but then I wouldn't have a work bench. The shelves will be boarded out another day then I can fill everything with shite.

Hang some rag on the ends jutting out before you find them with your head!

[Momentary Lapse Of Reason]

2 hours ago, auntiemaryscanary said:

I've never done any welding at all. I've had an arc welder (tiny thing, max 120A) for 18 months and never used it. 78yr old retired engineer neighbour came round and gave me a crash course and set the amps on the welder will I tried to burn through the rods. I enjoyed it, so did neighbour. He was taking the piss out of me like he had done with the apprentices.

There will be no close ups of the actual welds...

Practice is the way to get good at welding!

[New POD]

On 09/09/2024 at 15:26, mercedade said:

Every car I've had since my 800 has had too deep a bumper/splitter to get up a pair of ramps.

These worked even on the 9-5

I use some lengths of decking timber.  I'll take a photo one day.  Reduces the slope and stops ramp from sliding. 

[320touring]

36 minutes ago, SiC said:

I only see one wire attached in this photo?

There should be two. One for power feed and one for the ignition warning bulb. The ignition warning bulb is an essential part of the circuit to excite the field windings in the alternator to start it generating.

I did say at the top that it self excites when you give it a rev. It did charge previously and doesn't now. I have not changed anything. I'm no spark so don't know why it worked - I think @juular has the same setup on his Amazon?

Would you be able to draw a schematic (in VERY layman's terms) theat would show how it should be routed through the ignition switch/light on the dash? That would be much appreciated so I know how it can be resolved 

It did have an ignition light when it had the dynamo on it. So there must be a wire that is in the bundle that went to the old external regulator. If I could find that, could I just extend it to the alternator?

24 minutes ago, Asimo said:

But wiring hardly matters when that pair of random bolts is what the poor alternator is hanging on.  The poor electrical machine really does need securing properly, that ain’t going to last 5 minutes. There is a lot of pull on that V-belt and the pull varies constantly: lots of vibration as well as the tension.

I am trying to get the correct bracket. As alluded to in my post. No real need for the condescension.

The alternator is secured with 3 points all tight and it doesn't move. 

[SiC]

25 minutes ago, 320touring said:

did say at the top that it self excites when you give it a rev. It did charge previously and doesn't now. I have not changed anything. I'm no spark so don't know why it worked

I imagine the electrically noisy environment of an engine bay might have helped get it going. Or just leakage internally in the regulator. However it'll need far higher revs than done properly with a bulb and won't necessarily be charging fully at the correct amps output.

25 minutes ago, 320touring said:

It did have an ignition light when it had the dynamo on it. So there must be a wire that is in the bundle that went to the old external regulator. If I could find that, could I just extend it to the alternator

Yeah that is all you need to wire into. Basically that's how the alternator conversions works. Wire feed from the alternator to battery, original ignition light to the field excitation connection. That bulb otherside is connected to ignition on. 

 

[Asimo]

Apologies, no condescension intended. The picture just gave me the engineering horrors.

 

[MJK 24]

[320touring]

2 minutes ago, SiC said:

I imagine the electrically noisy environment of an engine bay might have helped get it going. Or just leakage internally in the regulator. However it'll need far higher revs than done properly with a bulb and won't necessarily be charging fully at the correct amps output.

Yeah that is all you need to wire into. Basically that's how the alternator conversions works. Wire feed from the alternator to battery, original ignition light to the field excitation connection. That bulb otherside is connected to ignition on. 

 

Cheers - I can hunt down the wire and see if I can get it connected. Would be good to have the ignition light 

2 minutes ago, Asimo said:

Apologies, no condescension intended. The picture just gave me the engineering horrors.

 

Thanks. 

The current setup is very much a "proof of concept". I'll improve the mounting.

[Mr Pastry]

21 minutes ago, 320touring said:

Would you be able to draw a schematic (in VERY layman's terms) theat would show how it should be routed through the ignition switch/light on the dash? That would be much appreciated so I know how it can be resolved 

It did have an ignition light when it had the dynamo on it. So there must be a wire that is in the bundle that went to the old external regulator. If I could find that, could I just extend it to the alternator?

The easiest way is to use the existing regulator terminals as a junction box.  Assuming it is the type with 2 coils, the terminals will be marked A1,  A, F, D, E.

A1 and A are basically the same and are the outputs,  E is earth. 

Disconnect D and F.

Re-connect the wire from F to the small terminal on the alternator.  This is the feed from the warning light. 

Connect the large terminal on the alternator to A1 or A - use a decent sized cable. 

That's all.

+1 for using the correct bracket or at least a through bolt and spacer, there is quite a lot of load and vibration to cope with.