The new news 24 thread

[dollywobbler]

New struts fitted to the BX's tailgate. Nice. However, the caliper change is going badly as my 14mm spanner decided to explode into bits rather than undo the brake pipe connection. Bloody cheap Halfords shite. However, I am quite pleased that the broken bit hurled into the wheelarch at speed rather than my face. I wasn't putting that much pressure on it anyway as it looked quite rusted up. I was just getting a feel for how stiff it was. Very it seems. S'pose I've always got the fall-back of hoping the other end of the hose will undo and fitting a fresh one. Also, some of my axle stands are missing, which annoys me. The BX is rather wonky as I'm using a tyre and planks of wood to support one side of it. QUALITY! (however, that is the side that has wheels fitted).

[Skizzer]

some of my axle stands are missing, which annoys me

 

I have an old but very sturdy one which is surplus to requirements - you're more than welcome to have it if you're passing by Swansea at any point. Might even be two of them - I'll have to have a dig around in the back of the garage.

[Shep Shepherd]

For the first time since early December, The Volvo's transmission has functioning overdrive, thanks to the expedient of replacing the transmission-mounted overdrive solenoid. I had been putting off the job for literally months, due to the weather and my fear that the bolts holding the old solenoid on the transmission casing would be seized and would therefore shear off when I tried to remove them, rendering the car more or less scrap, as removing the transmission to drill out the remains of one or both of the bolts would be a bridge too far, even for me.

 

Happily, both bolts yielded to a normal 12mm ring spanner, but removing them fully was a total nightmare and took me an hour, due to there being hardly any space to get a spanner into position and one bolt only being able to be undone 1/4 of a turn at once, due to the transmission tunnel being in the way - I was shouting, swearing and crying in frustration so loudly that my neighbour came out to see if I was all right (bless her). Thankfully, fitting the new solenoid and replacing the bolts was a far easier task!

 

With everything back together, I turned the car's ignition on and pressed the overdrive disengage switch on the side of the shifter knob several times, which elicited some lovely, loud, healthy clicks from the new solenoid, indicating that the old solenoid was the cause of the car's problems. A road test proved that it was indeed totally foxed. This is how it came out of the car:

 

 

Gee, I wonder what the problem was?

 

As you might expect, I am a very happy Shepherd at the moment, as I can now use the car again on fast roads and motorways, something which it excels at. This means that I'll be able to use it drive it to Yorkshire in late April and possibly go further afield with it in the summer. Watch this space

 

It could do with a good valet though, which I plan to do next weekend, provided that the weather is good enough:

 

 

Looks okay in the photo, but the paint is beginning to go Pogweasel Pink again. Just as well I still have some Meguiar's three-stage stuff left from last year, then

[Cavcraft]

Ditto-ing what Skizzer said I'm bound to have spare spanner in that flavour, Ian. If you need it drop me a pm and I'll post it out to you foc.

[dollywobbler]

Thanks chaps, very kind of you. I know the stands are here somewhere, but when we cleared everything during the house floor replacement project, everything got jumbled up. See? Tidying up is always a bad idea.

[Skizzer]

No worries Ian.

 

Tidying up is always a bad idea.

 

+1. If I'd tidied up properly, I probably wouldn't have a spare axle stand. (Mind you, if I hadn't tidied up just a little bit I wouldn't knowI had a spare axle stand. If you follow.)

[Shep Shepherd]

I couldn't find my axle stands today, either. I had to use my scary drive-on ramps instead. Surprisingly, they didn't slide all over the place when I drove onto them for once.

[Cavcraft]

New shite acquired. Natch it's got a Griffin badge and has been partly Barried, though plans ahoy to change this asap. Surprising how one extra cyclinder can make a car sound quite a bit less lawnmower-ish.

[Tayne]

Surprising how one extra cyclinder can make a car sound quite a bit less lawnmower-ish.

 

 

V9 Monaro?

28 valve Vectrignia?

5-pot Ashtray?

 

Pictures are required.

[Shep Shepherd]

Four-cylinder Corsa?

[Cavcraft]

Surprising how one extra cyclinder can make a car sound quite a bit less lawnmower-ish.

 

 

V9 Monaro?

28 valve Vectrignia?

5-pot Ashtray?

 

Pictures are required.

 

Are you absolutely sure you want pictures? I mean, 100% beyond all reasonable doubt? If so I'll get some tomorrow or weekend if it's not sold by then.

[Skizzer]

Surprising how one extra cyclinder can make a car sound quite a bit less lawnmower-ish.

 

 

V9 Monaro?

28 valve Vectrignia?

5-pot Ashtray?

 

 

Louise's Astra with a new ignition barrel?

 

Stop talking about it Billy and get them pictures up.

[eddyramrod]

I couldn't find my axle stands today, either. I had to use my scary drive-on ramps instead. Surprisingly, they didn't slide all over the place when I drove onto them for once.

 

My friend came up to our previous house here, up in the hills, to put his car on my ramps. He didn't have any himself and he wanted to check something out on the transmission. The car is a Porsche 944 automatic. He had to reverse up the ramps. The 944 has quite a bit of rear overhang, and tyres wider than the M62. All of a sudden one tyre grips the ramp and flings it forward. I shouted at him to stop and when he did, one ramp was firmly wedged under the sill, making a neat dent. The car is otherwise pristine...

 

"With jacks and timbers they started back down" as the song says, and we got the car back on its wheels; John did get the body damage fixed too. Could have been much worse I suppose...

[Shep Shepherd]

^

My fear of doing something like that is why I find using traditional metal car ramps to be a fraught experience. I really should get a set of the modern hard plastic ones at some point.

[Negative Creep]

Spotted some rather spiffing wheels on RR. However since they're from a rear wheel drive car I'm not sure if the offset will be correct. Therefore I could take a chance, but won't know if they'll work until they're on the car

[vulgalour]

Working on the Princess is keeping me away from my paid work. I haven't yet decided if this is a bad thing.

[cort16]

I spent ages tonight trying to put the halfshaft back into the SD1. I tried to wind it back in by tightening bolts that go through the axle tube and the end of the half shaft but after about 10 minutes I realised all i'd achieved was bending the mounting plate on the end of the half shaft. I unbolted it and took the shaft out and after 10 minutes of shouting "i'm sick of this shit", "why me?" and "whats the number for irvine car breakers?" I realised that when the half shaft came out the outer bit of the bearing hadn't been on the bearing. Sure enough the little bastard was still inside the axle tube, which I eventually got out with some grips (best tool eva?). Once that was out it went in swimmingly although it has a bit of end float. You can shoogle it in and out a bit but not up and down. The other side's the same. Is this normal?

[Pete-M]

^

My fear of doing something like that is why I find using traditional metal car ramps to be a fraught experience. I really should get a set of the modern hard plastic ones at some point.

 

 

Mate of mine used to work for Kwik-Fit, one time I was there one of the junior spanner monkeys had fitted an exhaust to a Corsa. Once he'd fitted the system he reached in with the ramp still 5ft in air and turned the key. Corsa was in gear.... this photo was in the middle of the rescue situation....

[dollywobbler]

The other favourite with garage ramps is dropping an engine or something out, then the now-tail-heavy car takes a plummet!

 

New caliper fitted to the BX this morning. Took less than an hour including bleeding - which is an unusual set-up on these. You start by undoing the pressure release valve to avoid 2000psi of fluid hurtling out, run a piece of clear pipe from nipple to reservoir and open the nipple, get your glamorous assistant to press the brake pedal, start the engine, tighten the pressure release valve and watch the green fluid and bubbles as they progress up the clear pipe. Once the bubbles stop, tighten the nipple and job's done. No pedal pumping here! Binding issue has gone, very happy.

 

Once it's cooled down from the test drive, I'm going to replace the rad fan switch as it hasn't worked since I got it (fan blows if you short the connections, but sender doesn't sent 'owt).

[scaryoldcortina]

The other favourite with garage ramps is dropping an engine or something out, then the now-tail-heavy car takes a plummet!

 

I've only ever seen that once - most people who tip a car off a 2 post lift are doing it wrong (car wrong way round, poor lift pad placement, bad use of prybar/long breaker bar) and you can remove the whole front subframe including engine and box from most stuff without it getting unbalanced.

 

The once that something like that happened it was a reliant robin and we were removing the back axle, it took a nosedive! Luckily the ramp wasn't up high so it just kind of stopped with its bumper on the floor and its arse in the sky.

[eddyramrod]

your glamorous assistant

 

Not just me then! I've always used that term to describe my mate Dave, who's helped me with cars for 25 years. He's a retired truck driver, 75 years old. And is looking forward to me returning...

[Cavcraft]

Hmm, might have sold last nights shite purchase.

[Skizzer]

Hmm, might have sold last nights shite purchase.

 

Oi, you can't do that, you haven't posted the pictures up yet!

 

Blimey, some people .

[cort16]

Hey Skizzer did you see that Porsche you fancied is Pistonheads shed of the week? I guess that means it'll be sold by now?

http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=25441

[dollywobbler]

your glamorous assistant

 

Not just me then! I've always used that term to describe my mate Dave, who's helped me with cars for 25 years. He's a retired truck driver, 75 years old. And is looking forward to me returning...

 

To be fair, and not wishing to be rude about someone I've never met, I consider my wife much more glamorous than your mate Dave.

 

BX brakes seem to have a bit of lag about them, so another bleeding session is on the cards. Not today though as I'm feeling proper lazy ahead of moar off road action tomorrow in the Maverick.

[155V6]

Passenger window dropped out of it's channel on the MG yesterday.Luckily,I'm off work this week so spent a couple of hours sorting that out.Today investigated what I thought was going to be a blowing exhaust manifold gasket,but it turns out the (Janspeed)manifold itself has got a split in it

[Tayne]

Today investigated what I thought was going to be a blowing exhaust manifold gasket,but it turns out the (Janspeed)manifold itself has got a split in it

 

Stainless?

Does it have a guarantee? You might get a new one.

[155V6]

Today investigated what I thought was going to be a blowing exhaust manifold gasket,but it turns out the (Janspeed)manifold itself has got a split in it

 

Stainless?

Does it have a guarantee? You might get a new one.

Was already on the car when I bought it 4 years ago,so won't get my hopes up

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I have been trying my hand at panel beating and advanced filler art today, unfortunately I forgot to take a before picture so you can't all tell me how awesome* I am at it.

[cobblers]

Razzed my mums MX5 to Sheffield to pick her up last night (it had petrol in, and also does 2x the mpg of my van) and the clutch was feeling funny. Came to move it this morning and the clutch didn't work at all, the pedal just dropped to the floor.

 

No fluid in the reservoir, so I topped it up and tried to bleed it through but got nowhere. I guess it was the master cylinder cos there wasn't anything really being pumped through to bleed it, but the bloke at the MX5 specialists reckoned they almost never go, and it was 99.9% certain the slave cylinder. I bought both, and would try the £18 slave cylinder first, if that cured it I could return the £80 master cylinder!

 

Of course, the union rounded straight off on the slave cylinder, and no amount of heat or swearing would free it. Then I noticed part of the flexy pipe was leaking a bit, so I went out and got some new pipes to replace the lot.

 

What a fuppin nightmare that was! Fiddlyest shitty little job I've done for years. Took me 2 hours to get a single bolt out that wasn't even tight to start with. - Makes most other quite shit jobs seem as appealing as being noshed off by that lovely Karren Brady bird off the apprentice in comparison. It's taken me almost as long to replace an 18" long bit of pipe as it did to whip the box off and replace the whole clutch.

 

And after all that, it turned out to be the bloody master cylinder anyway which is 2 bolts and a piece of piss. At least it didn't fail when I was negotiating rush hour through sheffield though, I'd have ended up in someones boot or something.