Ask a Shiter

[skattrd]

Who was it that posted the picture of their FSO towing a Jimp 'jeep' on a trailer, please?

 

That's gotta be SambaS hasn't it?

[DavidB]

I'm sure something had glass beads on the mating faces, to prevent over-tightening. You do it up until it crunches and no more. Can't remember what it what it was though. Actually it might have been glue. Or something else entirely. Definitely had glass beads in though.

 

Vauxhall sell this - it's for exhaust manifold bolts, they have metal beads in to give it some 'space' when the rest of it has rusted in the aluminium head.

[dave21478]

If you park up your car for a longer period, the battery goes flat......if you parked up a new electric car for a long time, would its main battery pack go flat too? what sort of effect would that have? ie leaving a normal car battery flat for a long time does it no good - would your Tesla suffer the same fate?

[explosive-cabbage]

Who was it that posted the picture of their FSO towing a Jimp 'jeep' on a trailer, please?

Only Edd is mad enough...

[Luckythirteen]

What is it with old people, and slipping the clutch through first gear? Like for about 30s?

There's an old guy at the other end of the street does this for at least 200m, then again when he turns out onto the main road. Once he's in second he's fine, it's only ever first!

He's not the only one. There's loads of them.

[dave21478]

I have put two clutches in three years into a '99 Escort for an old biddy who seems to think that any maneuver at under 15mph needs 3000rpm and massive clutch slip....parking....reversing....3 point turn.... I think its just an "old person thing".

[DavidB]

What use are imperial measurement tools like sockets and spanners nowadays, apart from ancient cars, and using the 1/2 size one to round off 13mm nuts?

Also 9mm and 11mm spanners, I've encountered one 11mm bolt in my entire life.

[saucedoctor]

Older Frogshite seems to feature the 11.

 

 

The 9 is for when you need to "hammer a smaller spanner" over a 10.

 

[spike60]

11mm fairly common, 9mm less so, perhaps brake pipes and nipples

[cobblers]

What use are imperial measurement tools like sockets and spanners nowadays, apart from ancient cars, and using the 1/2 size one to round off 13mm nuts?

Also 9mm and 11mm spanners, I've encountered one 11mm bolt in my entire life.

Americans are backwards and use imperial all over the place, most tools we buy are originally designed for "world" markets before being rebadged with "Halfords" or "Draper" or whatever, Hence we end up with 100 piece sets with only about 60 usable pieces. They are close enough to hold nuts on the other end of bolts (like for shocker eye ends etc) so they occasionally come in handy. Also for hammering over things.

 

11mm is common with pipe fittings, brake nipples etc.

[chaseracer]

...I've encountered one 11mm bolt in my entire life.

 

You've never owned a pre-PSA Citroen! 

[cobblers]

My modern ibiza has a 1ghz PC with LCD display instead of three knobs and a switch for heaters/AC control. It's really no better than the normal system and has zero tactile feedback so you have to take your eyes off the road to use it.

 

Anyway, when you have it in "demist" and put the car in reverse, the fan goes into MEGA OVERDRIVE speed, like even a step above the normal maximum. Why? I thought it might be to demist the rear window, but you are only in reverse for a few seconds so it's not going to make a jot of difference, you;d have to sit there in reverse with your foot on the clutch for about ten minutes before it did anything.

[Inspector Morose]

11mm? That's for when I can't find my 7/16" spanner. A lot of bus shite still is in imperial world.

 

1/2" is fractionally smaller than 13mm. Useful for fucked M8 set screws/bolts.

 

8mm? About 5/16".

 

9mm reserved for French.

[Asimo]

Americans don't use Imperial, they had a war with us to stop that imperialist nonsense! They do use inches though, but much less every year. Their inch sizes for spanners are different, ie Hex keys: odd numbers of 1/64" where Brits use 1/32". Old UK Fords are a nightmare mix of American and British inch fasteners IIRC.

 

9mm and 11mm don't fit any of the basic ISO metric thread series, M5 needs a 8mm spanner, M6 a 10mm, M8 a 13mm etc, but there are plentry of fine thread fasteners using these sizes as well as fittings and adjusters etc in some families of Euro and Japanese motors.

[panhard65]

Not to mention the Japanese and their dislike of 13mm nuts. All 12mm or 14mm. I have got a set of whitworth spanners that I got on the insurance claim when my garage was broken into. I still haven't unpacked them 19 years later which shows how useful they are.

[steve_earwig]

The Matchless came with a tool roll of Whitworths. I'm sure they're AFs with a values halved...

My modern ibiza has a 1ghz PC with LCD display instead of three knobs and a switch for heaters/AC control. It's really no better than the normal system and has zero tactile feedback so you have to take your eyes off the road to use it.

 

Anyway, when you have it in "demist" and put the car in reverse, the fan goes into MEGA OVERDRIVE speed, like even a step above the normal maximum. Why? I thought it might be to demist the rear window, but you are only in reverse for a few seconds so it's not going to make a jot of difference, you;d have to sit there in reverse with your foot on the clutch for about ten minutes before it did anything.

It's probably digital because it's climate control, unlike manual air con where you set it low at the start of your journey and it imperceptibility lowers the temperature until you reach your destination, get out of the car and drop dead of heat stroke, climate has an ecu that tries to hold the interior of the car at the set temperature by varying the output and maybe even bleeding a little warm in if it gets too cold. This is not something easy to achieve with a set of knobs attached to Bowden cables.

 

I've not come across one that reacts to reverse gear, I see no point to it either - are you sure this is normal behaviour for the car, rather than a fault?

[alf892]

Not to mention the Japanese and their dislike of 13mm nuts. All 12mm or 14mm. I have got a set of whitworth spanners that I got on the insurance claim when my garage was broken into. I still haven't unpacked them 19 years later which shows how useful they are.

Well if they need rehoming just let me know..................

[dollywobbler]

Thanks! That would be about 1982-3 ish, when the 2, the square and the 4 headlighted cars were all face-lifted to have 2 square lights. Planning ahead.....

I don't think it's that simple. IIRC, I think the 105 retained swing axles and only the 135/135 models had the Rapids better set-up.

[worldofceri]

Been thinking I might have a crack at removing the b0rked engine from my Beetle in the new year...  "It's only held on with four bolts m8" as every pub expert knows and, whilst I've never attempted such a feat before, since it's already broken, wcpgw?

 

So in preparation I've been reading up on what the Haynes b.o.l. has to say about the matter.  Almost straight away I find reference to 'cheese headed screws'.

 

Cheese Headed Screws???

 

WTF?

 

Presumably I'll have to head down to Halfords for a cheese-ended screwdriver before I can crack on?

[xtriple]

Taking engines outof Beetles is... a piece of piss. Seriously, you will spend more time looking for things you may have missed than actually doing it. Aren't cheese head screws just normal screws made out of monkey metal that get chewed up just by showing them a screwdriver?

[steve_earwig]

Just find a close-fitting screwdriver, you probably already have one. No idea what a cheese head is (maybe someone who eats a lot of the stuff) but I've had engines out of Beetles without having to shop for one. It's all a very long time ago but for the life of me I can't actually remember anything other than chisel heads holding all the heat shields in.

 

 

Edit: Having had a think I'm pretty sure "cheese" headed screw actually means slotted. Furthermore, I'm sure the screwdriver I used to use was one I'd made in school out of a length of steel rod with the rod made into a loop to form the handle.

[catsinthewelder]

My handy hint for dropping aircooled VW engines is to get hold of 4 short bits of 4x4 fencepost and a trolley jack.

 

The heat exchangers are about 10" off the ground so put the fence posts underneath them in a stack of two each side.  When you are pulling the engine back off the gearbox with it balanced on the trolley jack you don't need to worry about it falling off as theres something to catch it.  Once the input shaft is clear,  drop the engine onto the fence posts then you can use the jack to lift the rest of the car clear to  get the engine out.

[red5]

Cheese head is rounded slotted head.

 

Like this

 

 

[Slappy]

Down Pompey way yesterday, a convoy of unmarked vehicles came flying past with blues and a not-quite-police type siren. It being dark and having eyes on the road obviously I think I made out the silhouette of a Hyundai i30 and a Ford S-Max out of the 4 vehicles that went past.

 

Idle curiosity really, but anyone know who that was likely to be? Royals seemed an obvious answer, but there were no Range Rovers or Audis, which are the preferred vehicular transportation devices from what I recall.

[DSdriver]

Cheese head is rounded slotted head.

 

Like this

 

Of course that might be a panhead. Cheese head has perpendicular sides (imagine a whole brie stuck on top of a thread), panheads have curved edges around the top sort of like an upside down frying pan.

[DSdriver]

Down Pompey way yesterday, a convoy of unmarked vehicles came flying past with blues and a not-quite-police type siren. It being dark and having eyes on the road obviously I think I made out the silhouette of a Hyundai i30 and a Ford S-Max out of the 4 vehicles that went past.

 

Idle curiosity really, but anyone know who that was likely to be? Royals seemed an obvious answer, but there were no Range Rovers or Audis, which are the preferred vehicular transportation devices from what I recall.

Navy top brass late for Admiral's dinner dance?

[bub2006]

Me and a mate having a discussion about large engined,auto matic cars but basic trim levels. Last car I can think of is the Volvo 940 classic with all round windy windows and I believe no ac or sunroof. Any one made any later?

[red5]

Panheads are really a sub group of cheese head. Imho.

 

Pedantic to say the least, and as for you....

 

 

[catsinthewelder]

I was driving through Worcestershire earlier behind a van that was signwritten for Red 7,  any relation to Red 5?

[DSdriver]

Panheads are really a sub group of cheese head. Imho.

 

Pedantic to say the least, and as for you....

 

 

I have to be pedantic otherwise my customers get annoyed when I send them screws that don't match what they have already got.

As a lot of people don't know the difference I thought I would explain. I am very sorry if this upsets you.