The grumpy thread

[myglaren]

8 hours ago, RoverFolkUs said:

Less maintenance.. a lot of folk seem adverse to using lawnmowers these days as they don't seem to like real grass! So they lay down plastic turf or just tarmac it over

I agree - it looks shit 

And is to be banned, allegedly.

The runoff from so many paved/tarmacked drives is becoming a significant factor in flooding.  Where a grassed area would let rainwater filter through slowly, tarmacked surfaces just guide it straight into the drains that are overwhelmed.

[New POD]

Went to Italy for work.  Left house at 3 am on Wednesday. Got home at 7pm Friday.  There were a few high points. But mostly it was painful shit. 

Could have been home by 4:30 pm, but the MD failed to send some one to Birmingham Airport to pick up the "would you mind bringing back 100 parts in your hand luggage" which turned out to be 560 parts and weigh 24 kg.  I'm not sure we should have walked through nothing to declare, but I know the duty will get paid, as it was part of a larger batch of 12000 coming on a lorry. But by that time I wasn't thinking. 

So I had to go into Aston, to drop them off.  Rather than drive straight up the M6 Toll. 

Anyway get home. Wife hasn't been well, she's been putting on a brave face, then my sister in law phones to say she's going to see our son on Sunday.  Can we look after her dog.  This made my wife cry.  Nobody cares about her.  It's not her sister's  place to visit our son, when he's already told us he has too much work on with final exams and getting the house ready for a new baby in November.  Shes had to cancel going out with friends tonight, because she is in too much pain, and do they drop in or ask how she is...I tried to be as patient as possible, but given that on Friday I got up at 4 o'clock UK time and then took two flights, with a 1 hour stop over and then pretty much drove for 4.5 hours, but at 11pm when my head is on the pillow, if you start pouring your heart out, don't be surprised if the sound of your voice sends me to sleep. 

 

 

[RoverFolkUs]

3 hours ago, myglaren said:

I bought half a dozen from eBay. Cheap enough, around six quid apiece I think.

All OK except mine that had a defective pressure gauge that showed either zero or forty psi, they replaced it without question.  That was three years ago and all work well.

My grandson bought an 'RAC' one that is a pile of crap.

I suppose it'll do the job and will save me from pumping tyres up with a conventional pump, but it just means I'll have to wait 10 minutes between each tyre if any need a significant topup

The scale on it is ridiculous, it goes up from 0-150psi I think and there's barely any middle ground from 20-40🤦 so you have to use a separate guage. There's no way it would cope above 40 psi either

Instead of buying all the cheap ones I probably should have just bought one decent one, but there's no guarantee that one of those is going to be any good

[Zelandeth]

Oh fuck off.

Just been told that one of the neighbours we share a fence with have been round hassling us about the knackered fence again.  They're now threatening to get legal proceedings under way.

We have contracted someone to do the work, and paid a deposit to the tune of about £1600 several months ago.  There is literally nothing else we can do at this point.

I've passed the contact details of the contractor on, left a voicemail with them to contact the perturbed neighbour...not really sure what else I can do.

I am so fucking ready to have this place sold and to bugger off somewhere without any neighbours.

I'm supposed to be on holiday this weekend...so of course this comes up halfway through the Saturday.

[reb]

Ffs.

Literally 0 miles. How does that even happen?

[Tickman]

17 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Oh fuck off.

Just been told that one of the neighbours we share a fence with have been round hassling us about the knackered fence again.  They're now threatening to get legal proceedings under way.

It is partly their boundary. Tell them to crack on with the fence themselves.

[High Jetter]

27 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

We have contracted someone to do the work, and paid a deposit to the tune of about £1600 several months ago.

Wait, what? That sounds like a big deposit, and why isn't it up by now? I am presuming it is your fence and not a shared one.

[fairkens]

Unless stipulated in the deeds there's no legal obligation for you to even have a fence, so tell them to crack on if they want one

[twosmoke300]

43 minutes ago, reb said:

Ffs.

Literally 0 miles. How does that even happen?

You caught it on something ?

[chadders]

That's my understanding as well.

Although I guess that if you live in something like a conservation area there might be regulations that say that you do though.

[reb]

6 minutes ago, twosmoke300 said:

You caught it on something ?

The only thing I can think is it got sliced when we were taking the hub off again.

[twosmoke300]

Easily done 

[Zelandeth]

43 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Wait, what? That sounds like a big deposit, and why isn't it up by now? I am presuming it is your fence and not a shared one.

Half now, half on completion.

To be honest it's been such a battle getting anyone to engage with us we just wanted to get it done so we're willing to stand for it.

Their supply chain has been utterly screwed up which has put a bunch of jobs behind.  They're working literally one street over from us so I know they haven't just disappeared into the aether - though there was a while where I was wondering that!  Trying to get work done around here is hell.

[wuvvum]

1 hour ago, chadders said:

a conservation area

I've heard Milton Keynes described as many things...

[Rusty_Rocket]

2 hours ago, reb said:

Ffs.

Literally 0 miles. How does that even happen?

Clean the split carefully with brake cleaner and superglue the bitch back together.  Worked for me in the past.

[chadders]

20 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

I've heard Milton Keynes described as many things...

I'd forgotten that he lived there. I had the misfortune to work there for about 5 years, it was better than Bletchley though.

[reb]

Work have been using the wrong tax code so I've been paying about twice as much tax as I should be. Apparently I need to phone HMRC to sort it, the joys.

[artdjones]

8 minutes ago, reb said:

Work have been using the wrong tax code so I've been paying about twice as much tax as I should be. Apparently I need to phone HMRC to sort it, the joys.

Look on it as a savings scheme.

[High Jetter]

Top tip for anyone ringing HMRC: try just after 8am, usually get through quite quickly.

[Stanky]

1 hour ago, reb said:

Work have been using the wrong tax code so I've been paying about twice as much tax as I should be. Apparently I need to phone HMRC to sort it, the joys.

I've had cause to speak to HMRC three times in the last 2 months, each time I've got through to a human being within 4 minutes of dialling the phone number. Each time the staff have been spot on. If you can, call mid-morning or mid-afternoon, its (predictably) busier at 8am and at lunchtime.

[High Jetter]

Interesting. Not had to call them for a while, but got answered within a few rings last time at 8:02

[warch]

My justification for grumpiness. Mrs W owns a Qashqai, a newer one than mine (which is her old one). Unlike mine it doesn’t have the good old bombproof Nissan 1.6, which is sort of 70s easy to work on, but a microscopic 1.2 turbo. Which I decided needed an oil change, because it’s a turbo and Mrs warch was adamant that the oil was changed only 2 years ago.

My annoyance began with the undertray which had been removed previously by someone who’d broken loads of the clips. Removal of the tray revealed something of a rust trap with much of the subframe looking worryingly scabby for an 8 year old car and much worse than my car which is twice as old but hasn’t got an undertray.

The engine itself resembles something like a motorbike. The teeny little sump is drained via a plug with a square key (betraying its French origins) which I didn’t have. I did have a spare 3/8” drive adapter though from which I cunningly fashioned a bit. The oil was diesel black and obviously well past it’s best.

The next issue was the filter. This is located directly underneath the engine next to the sump and features one of those plastic housings you unscrew with a big socket (27mm in this case). Could I move it? Not even a bit, not even with the correct tool, kindly lent by the lads in the yard next door. According to the manual this was tightened to 25nm of torque but that was clearly bollocks. Either this had never been removed before or had been rattled on. Eventually after subsequent phases of regret, anger, disillusionment, indecision and despondency I decided the fucking thing was coming off so I butchered it with a cold chisel which still wouldn’t start it and the then drilled a hole in the top inserted a screwdriver and tried to turn it. The thing eventually gave with the screwdriver bending like Beckham (allegedly) and the sound of tortured plastic. Happily I managed to obtain a spare housing, less happily it cost nearly 30 quid.

I much prefer spin on filters they’re much less troublesome.

 

[twosmoke300]

Man struggles with oil change because he has the wrong tools ?

😂

[myglaren]

I've seen far too many complaints about this type of filter housing and the problems removing it without carnage ensuing.

[artdjones]

I've had far more problems with over tightened can filters than with the plastic housing caps. Especially since the metal thickness in the can filters was reduced to that of tinfoil.

[warch]

2 hours ago, twosmoke300 said:

Man struggles with oil change because he has the wrong tools ?

😂

What tool should I have used? I did have the correct six sided filter removal socket and it wouldn’t even grip because the torque required was excessive 

[twosmoke300]

You can use a strap wrench at the same time . Some of those housings are actually 26mm too 

[RoverFolkUs]

Anybody who complains about this type of oil filter:

 

Has clearly never had the misfortune of undoing one of these on Toyota hybrids! 

[Pieman]

Yesterday, someone I know who races a Mk1 Escort (very successfully I might add) was competing at Oulton Park, and during the meeting caught some scumbag in the act of stealing his tow van.  He challenged them, and in response they punched him in the face and drove off, taking all his Escort spares, wallet, phone etc with them.

What has really angered me is not that some cunts would nick a bag of dog shit if it had "old" and "Ford" written on it, but this happened in the paddock at a race circuit during a busy meeting.  Where was the security control?

[warch]

17 hours ago, twosmoke300 said:

You can use a strap wrench at the same time . Some of those housings are actually 26mm too 

Unfortunately the housing looks like this;

and is also recessed quite a long way so assuming you could get the strap to grab there isn’t much room to turn it.