The Doctor's travels through time. Fin.

[DoctorRetro]

On 5/3/2020 at 6:19 AM, bunglebus said:

Pic of "Barmy" in the Daft Tyre Names thread please!

No idea where I got 'Barmy' from. Not even close. 

 

[DoctorRetro]

Here's my latest ride, grabbed the last one at Halfords. It's probably crap, but it was reasonably cheap, and being as second hand bikes in Essex are commanding a premium, it seemed like the right option. 

Here's a lovely little Micra that lives near me, been meaning to snap a picture for ages. 

And, do you think my lockdown beard is getting a bit unruly? ???

[DoctorRetro]

Parked in Asda today... 

[DoctorRetro]

I don't think this earth lead looks too great....

[Mally]

Perfect earth lead that.

If the eyelet fails it will earth where the bracket has rubbed through the tape.

[Dannyk]

I saw this on eBay (whilst looking for something else) and it made me think of this car

[DoctorRetro]

Was bored and decided to 'tidy up', as if I was going to sell it, to see how it looked. Might even give it a wash later. 

[mitsisigma01]

Better without the roofrack ??

[DoctorRetro]

Dominic's BMX now matches the car. ?

To clarify, it was a shitty Smyths toys one we got second hand for twenty quid 2 years ago, this is definitely an improvement. ?

 

[Angrydicky]

Big improvement without all those stickers! Those trimz are too modern for the car though, it would look better with either the original trimz or bare steels IMO.

[DoctorRetro]

17 minutes ago, Angrydicky said:

Big improvement without all those stickers! Those trimz are too modern for the car though, it would look better with either the original trimz or bare steels IMO.

They are just the trims that came with the 15" steels, from a Corsa D.

I'll probably just chuck them at some point, I advertised them for a fiver on FB and got one messer and not much else.

I hate to say it, but it does look better without the tat. I might just try to keep it understated but still rough and ready. 

[Angrydicky]

I quite like the bare steels look on rough cars of that era anyway.

[Dan302]

Bare steels on black cars looks ace! 

[DoctorRetro]

[DoctorRetro]

Fitted the new earth cable, it's made no difference to the faults. The clock still resets randomly, seems to be no particular pattern to it. 

Also, the battery light, stays illuminated when I first start it, until I rev it, then it stays gone. 

[Tenmil Socket]

Alternator?

[bunglebus]

Sounds like it. Get a meter on it and see how many angry pixies are getting to the battery

[DoctorRetro]

Not an essential task, but I got my replacement steering wheel delivered today. Its from an MG ZR, so I was taking a risk that it would fit. There were a few snags, but I managed to bodge around them. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking. 

New wheel came with part of the airbag assembly missing, so had to remove mine to transfer over. I don't quite understand how it all works, so I just tried my best to match things up. The first issue was as below 

MG part had different fitting tabs to mine. 

Solution? Grind one of the tabs off. 

Next issue was wiring. Slightly different setup meant I had to make an assumption about which wires connected to what. 

Yes I've used a chocolate block, I don't care ?

Tested it and all works fine. Light goes on with ignition and turns off after a few seconds. 

Of course I couldn't have a completely hassle free experience. Started screwing it back together and realised I hadn't put the centre nut back on. D'oh! 

All back together and cleaned with some fancy Meguirs stuff I borrowed from a neighbour. 

[Rod/b]

At least when you shit your pants as the airbag explodes in your face because you indicated left, you won’t make the drivers seat any dirtier. 

[camryv6]

Fucking braver man than me, messing with airbags ?

[DoctorRetro]

2 hours ago, Rod/b said:

At least when you shit your pants as the airbag explodes in your face because you indicated left, you won’t make the drivers seat any dirtier. 

It's not as bad as it looks, it's that fabric that brushes a certain way and looks minging. 

38 minutes ago, camryv6 said:

Fucking braver man than me, messing with airbags ?

I made sure I wasn't right in front of it when I connected / turned ignition on - just in case. 

[camryv6]

25 minutes ago, TheDoctor said:

It's not as bad as it looks, it's that fabric that brushes a certain way and looks minging. 

I made sure I wasn't right in front of it when I connected / turned ignition on - just in case. 

What happens when you go over a bump in the road ?

[Rod/b]

1 hour ago, camryv6 said:

Fucking braver man than me, messing with airbags ?

Tell you what, i’ve seen one set off by some drunk lunatics in a Czech scrapyard and even they were careful enough to do it at the end of a 20m length of cable. They don’t half fucking go, i certainly wouldn’t want to be sat in front of that one. 

[DoctorRetro]

12 minutes ago, camryv6 said:

What happens when you go over a bump in the road ?

Huh? Same thing that happens in any car with an air bag I guess? Nothing? My only concern was that I'd perhaps connected the wrong wire. It's all secure now. 

[Cord Fourteener]

3 hours ago, TheDoctor said:

Not an essential task, but I got my replacement steering wheel delivered today. Its from an MG ZR, so I was taking a risk that it would fit. There were a few snags, but I managed to bodge around them. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking. 

New wheel came with part of the airbag assembly missing, so had to remove mine to transfer over. I don't quite understand how it all works, so I just tried my best to match things up. The first issue was as below 

MG part had different fitting tabs to mine. 

Solution? Grind one of the tabs off. 

Next issue was wiring. Slightly different setup meant I had to make an assumption about which wires connected to what. 

Yes I've used a chocolate block, I don't care ?

Tested it and all works fine. Light goes on with ignition and turns off after a few seconds. 

Of course I couldn't have a completely hassle free experience. Started screwing it back together and realised I hadn't put the centre nut back on. D'oh! 

All back together and cleaned with some fancy Meguirs stuff I borrowed from a neighbour. 

Well done sir!

[Kiltox]

Fuck me, choc blocks in the airbag circuit 

Wouldn’t be me!

Wheel looks nice though 

[DoctorRetro]

I've always wondered, why - scientifically - are chocolate blocks considered so much worse than standard connections? Surely if connected securely, it can't make that much difference? I've never had one fail in my 20+ years of driving and repairing cars. 

[DoctorRetro]

I've actually given it some further thought, and figured out that the connection I replaced was the horn circuit live, and nothing to do with the airbag whatsoever. So all those people who are panicking, can rest easy. The worst that can happen is my horn stops working ??? 

[Zelandeth]

I don't really see a huge issue.  The lines to/from the airbag don't do anything sophisticated...All that needs to happen is the airbag controller be able to send 12V to the airbag module in the event of an impact.  A low voltage, current limited supply is used by the controller to check for continuity when it's powered on.  So long as things aren't in a position where you could reasonably wind up with a short between a 12V source and the airbag firing lead you should be fine. 

I've heard a lot of horror stories of choc-blocks being used in automotive applications, but personally I've never actually had any more issues with them than any other connector.  The only times I've had the connection to them outright fail has been when the wiring has been able to wobble around and it has fatigued to the point of the conductors breaking away...but that's usually more down to poor anchoring and/or routing of the wiring rather than the connector.  Have had a couple of poor contacts in them where they're exposed to the elements...but that's nothing I can't claim of any other connector.  This has usually been on vehicles that are being awoken from decades of slumber as well so I'm willing to cut them some slack!

The connectors themselves failing has been limited to situations where someone has used a 5 or 15A version in a circuit carrying many tens of amps and melted the thing...which is far more a case of DFU error than the fault of the connector.

 

They're something I try to avoid using long term, but I don't consider them to be the work of the devil.  A selection of them *always* lives in the car somewhere as they're bloody invaluable as a get-you-home-fix.  Not just for electrical issues either, when the Lada had a habit of snapping throttle cables they got me home more than once!

The one place I do draw the line at using them if I can possibly avoid it is for stereos etc where the connections are buried and relatively inaccessible and tend to unavoidably wobble around and you can guarantee at some point that one wire will manage to escape.  I had a good JVC head unit killed by that happening and 12V ending up getting sent up one of the speaker lines back many years ago.

They're a million times better than bloody Scotchlocks.  Those bastard things are the work of the devil.

[Rod/b]

Imagine that 12v+ that came adrift didn’t get in your speaker line but the airbag actuator instead.

Solder and heatshrink ftw.