The grumpy thread

[Paul-l]

What tool put the rocker cover on with normal bolts and then put the manifolds on and installed the engine?

no way can I get a socket or spanner on the bolts to get the cover off, or even drill the bolt heads off.

 

[andy18s]

5 hours ago, RoverFolkUs said:

oNLinE bANkiNg iS sO bRilLiANt 

Take a look at what's going on in China atm. 

It seems 5 of their biggest banks were "fooled" into a using a company who promised great returns on using their customers money.

Director of the company has now disappeared,along with $6 Billion.

https://youtu.be/N57doBGQTNY

[vulgalour]

Super, smashing, great.

Princess rear drum backing plates are another NLA item.  There's one second hand pair listed on eBay and I've contacted the seller to confirm they're in better shape than mine so I don't waste a 150 mile trip collecting them because there's no other option right now.

I've got feelers out for the rear axle mounting brackets I need because supply of those seems to have totally dried up too since I last look and, like the backing plates, I don't have spares in stock.  So much for a 'quick brake rebuild'.

[Timewaster]

On 22/07/2022 at 10:09, barefoot said:

I'm editing the next couple of issues of the best-selling magazine, 'VW Bus T4& 5+'

My grump? I've just had to write an article about a bus with a 'life sized' Bertie Bassett on the roof. You are aware that the chewy little fucker isn't real & therefore cannot possibly be life sized?

Isn't he made of liquorice all-sorts?

So would be about 3" tall max.

[andy18s]

Yep....

 

[High Jetter]

137 = shake it all about?

[sierraman]

Is it me or is car theft going through the roof? Constant stream on these local area Facebook sites going they’ve had their car pinched - presumably by this key relay thing. 

[mitsisigma01]

8 minutes ago, sierraman said:

presumably by this key relay thing. 

Wtf is a key relay , you can start two of mine with teaspoons.... Not the same teaspoons though !!!🤨

[TataBobu]

Yes, that one. The Wagon R which ate it's fuel pump. 20 miles after getting it out of the garage, 5 miles on my way to the bootsale, it greeted me with a battery light. Went straight back home, and the accessory belt is missing in action. The man who changed my pump told me he had to tighten the belt a bit to stop it from squealing. I bet he never checked to see if any of the bearings are perished:

[omegod]

1 hour ago, sierraman said:

Is it me or is car theft going through the roof? Constant stream on these local area Facebook sites going they’ve had their car pinched - presumably by this key relay thing. 

Let me guess, Ford Kuga/Fiesta/Focus + Range Rovers 

[sierraman]

1 minute ago, omegod said:

Let me guess, Ford Kuga/Fiesta/Focus + Range Rovers 

That’s right! Ecoboost though but same difference. 

[Yoss]

1 hour ago, mitsisigma01 said:

Wtf is a key relay , you can start two of mine with teaspoons.... Not the same teaspoons though !!!🤨

The Triumph is like that. I've surprised a few people by removing the ignition key without switching it off. You can just pull it out with it still running. Or use any other key in the ignition, even different sizes and shapes. 

The Škodas I quite regularly forget to lock but they've never been pinched yet. They are their own deterrent with people remembering the old Škoda jokes or they just don't even know what they are at all. And the CDs inside are mostly Marillion and T'pau and nobody is going to want those. Not that most people even use CDs any more.

In a nutshell just drive something really undesirable and people will leave you alone. 

[omegod]

Just now, sierraman said:

That’s right! Ecoboost though but same difference. 

I've vetoed the wife getting a newish focus for this very reason, having looked into it in some depth it's ridiculously easy to steal them in seconds with £50 of amazon gadgetry 

[loserone]

Same could be said for most cars and houses

[sierraman]

13 minutes ago, omegod said:

I've vetoed the wife getting a newish focus for this very reason, having looked into it in some depth it's ridiculously easy to steal them in seconds with £50 of amazon gadgetry 

Is it just the keyless entries? Could be worth investing in a steering lock. 

[hennabm]

18 minutes ago, Yoss said:

The Triumph is like that. I've surprised a few people by removing the ignition key without switching it off. You can just pull it out with it still running. Or use any other key in the ignition, even different sizes and shapes. 

My old 320 was the same. I could start the engine, take out the key and lock it, to allow it to defrost on a winters day. 

[Pieman]

3 hours ago, sierraman said:

Is it just the keyless entries? Could be worth investing in a large Rottweiler.

FTFY

[mitsisigma01]

4 hours ago, Yoss said:

Not that most people even use CDs any more

CDs how decadent, I'm still on cassettes.

Currently playing in the Micra a cassette I recorded via the built in microphone on a cassette recorder in '94 off a VHS video playing thru a shite CRT TV , music videos from a programme called Noisy Mother's, on a TDK cassette that I had lots of from 1987 , a shite quality home made compilation tape that I only got half way through recording the A side of a c90 cassette. What a faff😕

[vulgalour]

Dolby is going to be working damn hard on that recording!

[mitsisigma01]

Oh, and it only works out of one speaker 🙄

[Dyslexic Viking]

On 21/07/2022 at 09:06, Split_Pin said:

On the subject of fucking up the environment, this photo annoyed me even more than the beach littering:

I misguidedley thought that an 'Admin' would know better than to not only damage a barley crop, but then post up a picture of how cool they think it looks.

 

On 21/07/2022 at 09:47, Back_For_More said:

TBH I'd wonder just how hot parts of the engine bay and undercarriage are - as the (insert crop here) will spring back and if dry enough it'll all go up I'd have thought..... No? 

 

On 21/07/2022 at 10:00, Dyslexic Viking said:

Fires in grain fields are quite common and he might as well have set fire to the whole field doing that.

This happened last week in the UK. And it is quite intense and a tractor was lost in the fight against the flames, but fortunately no one was injured. This is what the idiot in Saab could have started.

 

[GrumpiusMaximus]

We had a big field fire locally and another one up near Lenham down the road from where I used to live.

The farmers have been getting in their tractors and mowing a fire break in the fields ten metres from the front of the fire to slow it down enough to give the fire brigade time to get it out.

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/ashford/news/fire-crews-battle-20-acre-crop-blaze-270766/

[Spurious]

23 minutes ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

We had a big field fire locally and another one up near Lenham down the road from where I used to live.

The farmers have been getting in their tractors and mowing a fire break in the fields ten metres from the front of the fire to slow it down enough to give the fire brigade time to get it out.

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/ashford/news/fire-crews-battle-20-acre-crop-blaze-270766/

Farmers don't get about half as much praise as they deserve in this country. Watching your livelihood go up in smoke. 

Never hear anything about them on the 10pm news on BBC/ITV etc. 

[MorrisItalSLX]

This is less grumpy and more sad, I was flicking through the television and came across one of those ambulances rescue shows where they were attending a car crash. A little old lady had just stuffed her owned from new doom blue G reg Escort 1.3 Popular into a brick fence.

Little old lady was alright, the same couldn’t be said for the Escort.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

18 minutes ago, Spurious said:

Farmers don't get about half as much praise as they deserve in this country. Watching your livelihood go up in smoke. 

Never hear anything about them on the 10pm news on BBC/ITV etc. 

My aunt is a farmer.  Used to be dairy, now does beef on a much smaller scale.  Having spent a few summers as a teenager on their farm and helping out when they were short-handed, I can attest a bit to how bloody hard it is.  Getting up at 4.30AM to milk the herd of 350 for three hours, then thinking about the prospect of doing that three times every day before you even get into doing the 'other' stuff that needs doing on the farm puts it into a bit of context.  I reckon everybody should do a week of it just for the experience.

And if you take a holiday, you have to pay somebody else to cover you, assuming they know what they're doing.  And weekends don't exist.

It was great being down there as a kid as my cousins and I used to have free reign of hundreds of acres of North Devon with rivers and woodland and the like but doing the actual work?  Sod that.

[sierraman]

It’s amazing they can get anyone to become a farmer, it looks bloody hard work. Its not all leaning on gateposts and ploughman’s lunches in the local hostelry. 

[MikeR]

1 hour ago, sierraman said:

It’s amazing they can get anyone to become a farmer, it looks bloody hard work. Its not all leaning on gateposts and ploughman’s lunches in the local hostelry. 

when I was young I used to mess around with a mate whos dad had a pig farm nearby , got to know the workings of that side of farming !!

 

[AnnoyingPentium]

14 hours ago, mitsisigma01 said:

CDs how decadent, I'm still on cassettes.

Currently playing in the Micra a cassette I recorded via the built in microphone on a cassette recorder in '94 off a VHS video playing thru a shite CRT TV , music videos from a programme called Noisy Mother's, on a TDK cassette that I had lots of from 1987 , a shite quality home made compilation tape that I only got half way through recording the A side of a c90 cassette. What a faff😕

I'm a posh bastard. 10 CD changer and autoreverse cassette with track seek...

But anyway, got some cassettes that I need rid of, yours for postage depending on what ones you'd like.

[sierraman]

8 minutes ago, MikeR said:

when I was young I used to mess around with a mate whos dad had a pig farm nearby , got to know the workings of that side of farming !!

 

My great grandmother bred pigs, I think in those days to do that on the small scale they did you had to have the right attitude and be a bit unsentimental. You’d look at the pig as a cheque perhaps or enough meat to see you through the winter. You wouldn’t be giving it a name, at some point you were going to have to slot one in its head and return your investment. 

[Dyslexic Viking]

2 hours ago, Spurious said:

Farmers don't get about half as much praise as they deserve in this country.

It's probably the same everywhere. I have long wondered what it would take for farmers to get the respect they deserve. Without them we would all starve to death more people should think this.