What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread

[tooSavvy]

Right then, back to this aldi heater fan nonsense - a trip to the local breakers drew a blank on aldi a3s of the right age but a poke around the vag area (ooh err) proved beneficial when I found this in a polo

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the guts look to be close enough, a check with the multimeter showed the resistors to be the right range and working, only one snag, the plug is a slightly different fit.

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a quick poke around with the screwdrivers and they're in bits.

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that 5th pin was deemed unnecessary and chopped off, and here we have the finished article

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which (drum roll please) sort of works - fan speeds 2&3 are the wrong way round but I'd just fitted the guts into the plug upside down, a quick swap round and the jobs a good 'un

now let's hope it lasts longer than the five minutes the previous fix did !

cost this time £10 (which included two of these polo fan packs and a replacement glovebox for the mazda as the last on fell off its hinges half way round knockhill a couple of months back)

a good days fettling I think

I whopped a Fiat Chinkeecheeta Rpack into my 9K.

 

Advantage (scrappy plundering) is Fiat pokes straight out at you, from air duct in engine bay

 

TS

[purplebargeken]

Couple of weeks ago I got an officious email from a trainee HR twunt saying that I never provided a copy of my passport at interview (same place, just a different job). I must provide them with evidence of nationality, etc, etc.

 

I promptly ignored it.

 

Second email saying that as I had not responded I had 5 days to email a copy of my passport page, signed and dated by my manager. Failure to comply would result in this matter being 'escalated'. Oh really? FRO!

 

I sent it on day 6. So what are you gonna do, eh? Eh?

[AlabamaShrimp]

now if it was a princess or allegro then that t-shirt, apart from been unsalable to the general public, would be puuuurfect for me!"

It was more the number plate being appropriate than the car itself

[anonymous user]

I would have a job sending a copy of my passport, I don't have one, unless you count one that expired in 1983

[Parky]

The local Range has a section of colours including Modena Green, beloved of 1976 Cortinas.

 

Going to get some and respray some of my old rusty tools!

[gm]

going to a couple of gigs this weekend - tonight MacFloyd : a Scottish Pink Floyd tribute band. I've seen them a few times, they are bloody talented musicians, tonight they are performing the full Wish You Were Here album

 

tomorrow is a bit of a gamble - Metaleeka : a Metallica tribute band.

 

looking forward to a few beers and some proper music

[Pillock]

Today, I remembered I'd had an email from eBay saying that my parcel was waiting for collection. Which made me remember I'd bought a bluetooth OBD2 dongle and had it delivered to Argos. I actually overspent slightly, it was £9.99 which seems to be at least twice the price of the others, but it's the only one I found that does auto-off after 30 minutes so I can leave it plugged in.

 

So I picked it up, plugged it in to the car in the carpark, downloaded Torque and then watched all the pretty dials all the way home. Everyone knows a diesel Astra NEEDS a boost gauge, a G-Force meter and all that shiz.

Even better, I reckon it'll do the logging of where I go and what I do using apps like Dash, and if not then I can still use my existing app (Triplog) to grab my daily mileage from the dongle to keep it accurate, as it constantly rounds up so ends up 5-10 miles out after a week.

 

Basically, I put more technology in my car and it works. 

[cobblers]

I've got one of them £4 ones in my Seat Megaturbo thing and it draws fuck all power on idle anyway so it's been plugged in for the last year, no worries. It's especially handy because I can turn off my check engine light every few days when sat at traffic lights.

[Pillock]

Mine was free because I found fifteen quid in my PayPal account from selling something on eBay, completely forgotten about so I thought I'd go for one with good reviews.

I may have chosen badly though as I need to remember to press a button to wake it back up, if the cheapy ones only draw a few mA I could have used that.

[beko1987]

In gnomeotooles crv it tu4ns the power off on the obd port after 5 mins apparently, he never took it out. Bmw should have done that...

 

Ive never left it in the meriva for longer than it took to clear a code and take it out, so dont know what that does

[scaryoldcortina]

The ELM327 clone adapters can be configured for sleep time/power saving etc by talking to them with AT codes on a serial terminal. The details are in the datasheet for the chip, which can be found on google.

[Pillock]

Bugger. Should have asked here first. 

Been looking at the Drive app for my phone too, the only thing it can't query from the car is the odometer reading - which is critical to my journey logging otherwise I'm in the same boat of it drifting over time with lots of rounding errors. Otherwise it's quite good, every time I finish a journey I can use IFTTT to fire the details into a spreadsheet. But without odo, it's not great.

Double Bugger.

 

 

(Don't Google that phrase)

[scaryoldcortina]

OBD2 can't give you the odometer reading, that's probably why.

 

Edit - if you can find out the manufacturer/vehicle specific 2 byte call code for the odometer it can be called. It just isn't in the emission related "you must have these" set of freely availabe codes.

 

Also, I guess the 1337 hack here would be to copy the mileage into the spreadsheet yourself.

[Pillock]

OBD2 can't give you the odometer reading, that's probably why.

 

Edit - if you can find out the manufacturer/vehicle specific 2 byte call code for the odometer it can be called. It just isn't in the emission related "you must have these" set of freely availabe codes.

 

Also, I guess the 1337 hack here would be to copy the mileage into the spreadsheet yourself.

I use a program called Triplog that has the option to use the OBD odometer reading, but it's a fairly awful program that has loads of half baked, OK features that work 90% of the time so I was just looking for other options.

You have to calibrate it by typing in your mileage so I guess it just examines loads of different returned codes to see where it lives. I've never had to tell it what car I drive (but then again I've not been out in the car since I set it up and calibrated it so we'll see)

 

I'm also wondering if it just constantly measures speed and adds it all together, but that seems an awful way of doing it.

[cobblers]

Yesterday a pal of mine went to do a swap with his VW splitscreen camper for another one that was older and more desirable but needed a bit of work.

 

His is an Aussie import with a UK devon interior and the rear vents cut around to make it look like a UK van. Him being him, he didn't mention any of this and was quite happy to let the other bloke believe it was an original UK Devon

Anyway, he ended up with egg on his face as after taking the engine out of the van (part of the deal) and trailering 180 miles down the country to do the swap, he pulls up at the destination on his sat nav, and it turns out to be the place he bought it from 4 years ago.

The bloke obviously recognised him so he ended up dragging the bugger back home with his tail between his legs. However today he went down with 21k and bought the fucker anyway.

 

I'm definitely in the wrong bloody job.

[RobT]

I'm savvy, but I'm not too savvy.

That reminds me, I took a savvy-esque photo of this awful bloody painting the other day. It was in the grim hotel I stayed in near Coventry on Thursday. I was bored as no internet...

 

[Richard]

Upside down too.

[twosmoke300]

Put a Thomas the Tank dvd on for the little one before she went to bed . Baby all asleep in bed now and guess what ? Wife and I still watching it 3 episodes later 😄

Memory's ! It is the proper Ringo voiced ones mind .

[twosmoke300]

Oh and I've come to a conclusion that If Gordon were a car he would be an Audi

[gm]

going to a couple of gigs this weekend - tonight MacFloyd : a Scottish Pink Floyd tribute band. I've seen them a few times, they are bloody talented musicians, tonight they are performing the full Wish You Were Here album

tomorrow is a bit of a gamble - Metaleeka : a Metallica tribute band.

looking forward to a few beers and some proper music

what a great night Friday was : MacFloyd were brilliant, plenty of beers were scooped (when did beer get so expensive ? £4.45 for a pint of tuborg in a squishy plastic cup), almost missed the last train home, all in a great night out. In fact so good that I was still feeling rough on Saturday night so didn't get to find out if metalleka were any good

 

 

 

next gig is "straighten out" in a couple of weeks time - a Stranglers tribute band - the real band are still touring, I have seen them many times but the tribute guys are great, you get all of the rawness of a sweaty pub gig but with the advantage of knowing all of the songs

[dollywobbler]

I had quite a lot of fun today, as the first person to visit the new Collections Centre at what will soon be the British Motor Museum (the Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon).

http://www.classicandsportscar.com/news/general-classic-car-news/heritage-motor-centre-reveals-bold-new-future

 

 

I reckon that next year, we should definitely have a gathering of shite there.

[Richard]

What are you leaning on? It looks really modern for a 1967 car.

[hairnet]

on the a627m coming back to manc and a 64 mondeo everytime it changed down massive cloud of black smoke..... im in a 15 transit so hes going too slowly

 

i dont think it was turned up - 64 plate ffs

 

also in rochdale - as i turned right onto roch valley way he turned left - very beige 740 6 door

 

also saw xj40 limo black with white top half

[Lord Sterling]

I had quite a lot of fun today, as the first person to visit the new Collections Centre at what will soon be the British Motor Museum (the Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon).

http://www.classicandsportscar.com/news/general-classic-car-news/heritage-motor-centre-reveals-bold-new-future

 

 

I reckon that next year, we should definitely have a gathering of shite there.

Please tell me they've got that D-reg Rover 825i in there? If so, I'll be making a pilgrimage.

[dollywobbler]

What are you leaning on? It looks really modern for a 1967 car.

 

It's David Bache's proposal for an Alvis GT car, built on P6 underpinnings. I've been fascinated with this car since I first found out about it many years ago. Last time I saw it was 2007, when the poor thing had been abandoned outside (along with many others) after the army turfed the reserve fleet out of their storage at short notice. Maybe this is why I don't like the army...

 

 

Please tell me they've got that D-reg Rover 825i in there? If so, I'll be making a pilgrimage.

 

I've got good news for you sir! It is very much there. So is the last Montego and the last Metro-esque 100 - both signed by the workers.

[Inspector Morose]

Gladys was a very important car for future ideas. Not only did it have the interior and dash for the yet undesigned revised series 2 P6 but, it could be argued, it's concept of a large luxury hatchback set the train of though rolling towards the sd1.

 

It still looks far too heavy from the side though (hence the nickname of Gladys, it is said) but I do love it! Is it still on wires?

 

Edit: just thought, it's front end design was seen again in the P7, the aborted rover 3000.

[andrew e]

Any recommissioned P8 evidence?

[mercrocker]

Never been to Gaydon (don't really like museums) but that looks like its going to be well worth a visit.  

[bub2006]

ferreting through the saxo I have found a remote locking keyfob. and it works!

[beko1987]

Ffs dont find anything else that works. As chompy will confirm, fix one thing and something else will break! Quick, snap the aerial off to restore the shite karma!