The grumpy thread

[Tamworthbay]

Well, both times I've had actual food poisoning it's been from fried fish/chip shop so I'd guess (judging by my genuine 'I'm dying' for three or four days/copious sweat/puke/water masquerading as poo) quite a lot   

 

 

Seriously, wouldn't even wish it on a politician.

Probably.

I have had a few doses over the years, possibly due to my love of a wide range of cuisine and the odd dodgy chillie burger here and there. Had some SERIOUSLY ropey stuff from chippys but never had food poisoning off them. I must be lucky

[Zelandeth]

It's that time of the year...fridge and freezer are filled to bursting etc...and this evening we notice that it's running a bit warm.  Odd.

 

Closer investigation revealed that yes, it's quite warm and doesn't appear to be cooling though the internal fans are running.

 

Cue frantic redistribution of everything out the fridge into the old one which is usually the drinks fridge (the previous owner left us the huge dual door thing in the kitchen as they couldn't fit it into their new house), the chest freezer in the garage...just managed to make it fit...

 

 

...and some overflow has been thrown in the fridge in the van which is now also cooling.  Just bloody lucky we *have* more than one fridge freezer!

 

Me being me, this was 30% "Fluffing hell, it's broken" and 70% "Yay an engineering challenge!"

 

Fridge out from the wall, lower cover off (I really don't know why the hell I keep putting all eight screws back in given it comes off every month or two to hoover the dog fluff out the damn condenser), quick check revealed the condenser fan was running but the compressor wasn't and was stone cold.  Start circuitry is all built into one module in this and it only has two wires to it, power and a common ground.  Was quickly determined that there was no power getting to it...so no surprise it wasn't running.

 

Now this being a modern fridge, there's not just a thermostat but a whole bundle of bloody over complicated microprocessor controlled nonsense.  However I was pretty sure that the actual compressor motor control would be via a relay.

 

What then followed was a twenty minute fight with the cover on top of the fridge which contains the brains of the operation.  Two screws and two bloody clips which eventually succumbed to my will when I made it clear that I wasn't *asking* it whether it would open...I was *telling* it that it bloody well *would* open.

 

Immediately greeted with the unmistakable whiff of burned electronics...the magic smoke had obviously escaped from something...

 

...Oh look...a relay which appears to have died a death...

 

 

Which sure enough is clearly the one for the compressor (board is actually quite nicely labelled).  Coil is open circuit unsurprisingly.  Bridging out the contacts immediately resulted in the compressor buzzing into life and sounding quite healthy. 

 

£2.29 later we've got a new relay on the way.

 

The question of course is whether the signal to switch it will be present ..but this thing won't call for cooling until it's been running for about ten minutes and I wasn't waiting that long.  If all else fails I'll wire up a separate thermostat control for it if need be!

 

Shudder to think how many households would have just binned it for the sake of this and blown £800 on a new one (it's one of those huge American style things which are stupidly bloody expensive), given getting an engineer in to look at a ten year old fridge these days is unlikely to happen...

 

So hopefully we'll be back up and running soon and I'll have the satisfaction of fixing it...but still, FFS... couldn't it have waited a week...

 

Also...WHY THE FLUFF does a fridge need this much control circuitry?!?

 

 

At least this one uses relays.  Last one I looked at used solid state control and had suffered absolutely catastrophic meltdown of the control transistors...which had then nuked the software control side.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

....'; unpleasantly surprised at how bad Pierce Brosnan is at doing an Ulster accent.

That's 'cos yer man comes from Navan.

[MikeR]

had to take the Xmas tree down in the car ...

 

turns out that it picked up the phone struggling to find a signal in the Mersey tunnel and passed it back into the car

 

and caused the car to miss and stutter on the uphill bit .....

[Cheggers]

had to take the Xmas tree down in the car ...

 

turns out that it picked up the phone struggling to find a signal in the Mersey tunnel and passed it back into the car

 

and caused the car to miss and stutter on the uphill bit .....

Eh, sorry. That makes no sense at all.

[MikeR]

the phone would be struggling to get a signal and the non flashing lights on the tree started flickering !!

 

then the car started missing ...    

[Ghosty]

I just paid good money to take the gf to see Holmes & Watson at the local cinema.

 

I'm sure I must have seen a worse film at some time, but I honestly don't remember when it would have been. Utter, utter shite from start to finish.

 

 

Will Ferrell (especially alongside John C Reilly) is a cinematic red flag. 

 

 

In other news I had a friend off to the continent - wahey, nice excuse to get some Gauloises. Told them to go to a tabac of some sort.

 

Stupid fucker went to duty free, where you can't buy them.

[cort16]

I found some time today to get some MOT work done on the Z4

 

Things went in this order

 

I drove it down to my garage after jump starting at the house then once at the yard it wouldn't restart so I had to push it into the garage

Someone over keen with the impact gun has put my wheels on in the past. A few weeks ago removing the wheels to pump up the tyres broke my main A game breaker bar.

Removing the wheel nuts on another wheel today broke my B breaker bar.

 

Okay, okay I'll just do one side of the car but without a breaker bar or an impact gun I have no chance of getting the bolt on the shock absorber undone, which I need to change the spring and it also makes taking the calliper off, much much easier.

Okay so I can't get that off I'll at least change discs and pads. Nope the allan bolt on the calliper is a size I don't have even though I have a lot of different drive bits.

Wheel put back on. Pushed outside.

I'll speak to the garage down there tomorrow it's been off the road long enough.

 

 

I think this may have made a decision for me regarding working on cars as I'm not into the old stuff the way I used to be and new cars are shite to work on.

I don't want to give up on my lockup but my landlord hinted he wouldn't be against me sub letting so I may put up a wall in the middle, get rid of all the cars and build myself a little tinkering workshop man cave and rent out the otherside, which will help with the monthly rent. I also still have my council lockup, which is so cheap it'd be daft to get rid of it.

 

I think 2019 may be the year I sell everything and buy one thing really, really stupid.

[richardthestag]

Mrs Thestags i10 needed new boot struts.

 

 

bollocks

 

fkin furious

 

on closer inspection new repro struts are harder to compress that I recall a range rover shock absorber was

 

what seems to have happened is that it started to compress as I pulled down on the bootlid. the cheapo cunting construction of the farting endcaps is woefully shit and rather than continue to fight with the excessive force within the strut simply popped off the connector on the tailgate. the strut then flails sideways while the tailgate succumbs to gravity. the strut now becomes trapped between the edge of the rear screen and the rear pillar.

 

glass 0 - strut 1

 

convinced that I had fucked this up I refitted the strut and pulled the tailgate down and it closed. arse! so I opened it again and repeated. on the third attempt the strut on the other side let go of the tailgate and took a lump out of the bodywork

 

 

paintwork 0 - strut 1

 

what fucks me off more is that they are the same fucking arsehole wanking price as from my local Hyundai dealer but made from concrete and cheese

 

duck farts

 

smoll claims court claim is going to be heading to the ebay trader to recover the £90 excess for a new screen, which cannot be fitted for a week

[Fumbler]

Splitting headache, blocked sinuses, throbbing pains in my skull and diziness to top it all off. I literally cannot move without risk of falling over and being disorientated. I can number many things which I would rather be doing but cannot because I can't walk properly and/or walk downstairs and up a ladder. Hoping tomorrow will be better.

[Guest Hooli]

Mrs Thestags i10 needed new boot struts.

 

20181230_135721.jpg

 

bollocks

 

fkin furious

 

on closer inspection new repro struts are harder to compress that I recall a range rover shock absorber was

 

what seems to have happened is that it started to compress as I pulled down on the bootlid. the cheapo cunting construction of the farting endcaps is woefully shit and rather than continue to fight with the excessive force within the strut simply popped off the connector on the tailgate. the strut then flails sideways while the tailgate succumbs to gravity. the strut now becomes trapped between the edge of the rear screen and the rear pillar.

 

glass 0 - strut 1

 

convinced that I had fucked this up I refitted the strut and pulled the tailgate down and it closed. arse! so I opened it again and repeated. on the third attempt the strut on the other side let go of the tailgate and took a lump out of the bodywork

 

20181230_144618.jpg

 

paintwork 0 - strut 1

 

what fucks me off more is that they are the same fucking arsehole wanking price as from my local Hyundai dealer but made from concrete and cheese

 

duck farts

 

smoll claims court claim is going to be heading to the ebay trader to recover the £90 excess for a new screen, which cannot be fitted for a week

 

That is impressively shit quality.

[dozeydustman]

Been messaging someone on Facebook marketplace as was selling a Commodore 64 at a reasonable price locally, and had a photo of it connected to a TV working.

 

Agreed a price, got there saw it working, went to get money off mrs in car while he boxed it up, got home. C64 not working.

 

Opened it up, all the main chips are missing. I sent him a message, he appears to have blocked me as the thread has disappeared.

 

Not only that the Saab once again decides it's time to do a regen when I am running on fumes, making a diz stop necessary. Why does my car always want to regen when the tank is near enough empty?

[clayts450]

Splitting headache, blocked sinuses, throbbing pains in my skull and diziness to top it all off. I literally cannot move without risk of falling over and being disorientated. I can number many things which I would rather be doing but cannot because I can't walk properly and/or walk downstairs and up a ladder. Hoping tomorrow will be better.

 

 

Sinusitis ? I have that and it's a bugger, and no mistake.

 

Get well soon mate

[clayts450]

Been messaging someone on Facebook marketplace as was selling a Commodore 64 at a reasonable price locally, and had a photo of it connected to a TV working.

 

Agreed a price, got there saw it working, went to get money off mrs in car while he boxed it up, got home. C64 not working.

 

Opened it up, all the main chips are missing. I sent him a message, he appears to have blocked me as the thread has disappeared.

 

Not only that the Saab once again decides it's time to do a regen when I am running on fumes, making a diz stop necessary. Why does my car always want to regen when the tank is near enough empty?

 

 

FFS. Sounds like he swapped it with a fucked one - do you remember where he lives, as a personal visit may be necessary, methinks.

[dozeydustman]

Yes I do. I did tell him I would open it up to change the capacitors etc for peace of mind. First C64 I've owned. Wouldn't have bothered me if it was a handful of logic chips or a couple of RAM chips, but for the VIC II and SID to both be missing, along with the CPU and kernal, basically there's nothing left of the machine.

 

I picked it up at his house so I'm going to contact Facebook if he doesn't reinstate the message thread and see what my rights are. I thought eBay was the choice of swindlers.

[Lacquer Peel]

 

 

Will Ferrell (especially alongside John C Reilly) is a cinematic red flag.

 

I don't know, John C. Reilly gets a free pass from me for Steve Brule but he has been in some dross.

 

[scaryoldcortina]

Yes I do. I did tell him I would open it up to change the capacitors etc for peace of mind. First C64 I've owned. Wouldn't have bothered me if it was a handful of logic chips or a couple of RAM chips, but for the VIC II and SID to both be missing, along with the CPU and kernal, basically there's nothing left of the machine.

 

I picked it up at his house so I'm going to contact Facebook if he doesn't reinstate the message thread and see what my rights are. I thought eBay was the choice of swindlers.

It will end up nowhere, FB won't act to help and he's going to deny everything.

 

If it helps, I have a c64 somewhere I'm unlikely to use ever again, what would you call a fair price for tracking it down and posting?

[dozeydustman]

It will end up nowhere, FB won't act to help and he's going to deny everything.

 

If it helps, I have a c64 somewhere I'm unlikely to use ever again, what would you call a fair price for tracking it down and posting?

 

That's a kind offer, I'm not going to be able to afford anything until my January pay day though, which will be Friday 18th. Whereabouts are you as I may be able to collect if reasonable distance.

[scaryoldcortina]

Stanley in Durhamshire...

 

No hurry, I have to find it first!

[dozeydustman]

Thank you Scary, I'll do some thinks over the next few weeks and send you an offer by PM

[Tamworthbay]

It's that time of the year...fridge and freezer are filled to bursting etc...and this evening we notice that it's running a bit warm.  Odd.

 

Closer investigation revealed that yes, it's quite warm and doesn't appear to be cooling though the internal fans are running.

 

Cue frantic redistribution of everything out the fridge into the old one which is usually the drinks fridge (the previous owner left us the huge dual door thing in the kitchen as they couldn't fit it into their new house), the chest freezer in the garage...just managed to make it fit...

 

IMG_20181229_210947.jpg

 

...and some overflow has been thrown in the fridge in the van which is now also cooling.  Just bloody lucky we *have* more than one fridge freezer!

 

Me being me, this was 30% "Fluffing hell, it's broken" and 70% "Yay an engineering challenge!"

 

Fridge out from the wall, lower cover off (I really don't know why the hell I keep putting all eight screws back in given it comes off every month or two to hoover the dog fluff out the damn condenser), quick check revealed the condenser fan was running but the compressor wasn't and was stone cold.  Start circuitry is all built into one module in this and it only has two wires to it, power and a common ground.  Was quickly determined that there was no power getting to it...so no surprise it wasn't running.

 

Now this being a modern fridge, there's not just a thermostat but a whole bundle of bloody over complicated microprocessor controlled nonsense.  However I was pretty sure that the actual compressor motor control would be via a relay.

 

What then followed was a twenty minute fight with the cover on top of the fridge which contains the brains of the operation.  Two screws and two bloody clips which eventually succumbed to my will when I made it clear that I wasn't *asking* it whether it would open...I was *telling* it that it bloody well *would* open.

 

Immediately greeted with the unmistakable whiff of burned electronics...the magic smoke had obviously escaped from something...

 

...Oh look...a relay which appears to have died a death...

 

IMG_20181229_214056.jpg

 

Which sure enough is clearly the one for the compressor (board is actually quite nicely labelled).  Coil is open circuit unsurprisingly.  Bridging out the contacts immediately resulted in the compressor buzzing into life and sounding quite healthy. 

 

£2.29 later we've got a new relay on the way.

 

The question of course is whether the signal to switch it will be present ..but this thing won't call for cooling until it's been running for about ten minutes and I wasn't waiting that long.  If all else fails I'll wire up a separate thermostat control for it if need be!

 

Shudder to think how many households would have just binned it for the sake of this and blown £800 on a new one (it's one of those huge American style things which are stupidly bloody expensive), given getting an engineer in to look at a ten year old fridge these days is unlikely to happen...

 

So hopefully we'll be back up and running soon and I'll have the satisfaction of fixing it...but still, FFS... couldn't it have waited a week...

 

Also...WHY THE FLUFF does a fridge need this much control circuitry?!?

 

IMG_20181229_220836.jpg

 

At least this one uses relays.  Last one I looked at used solid state control and had suffered absolutely catastrophic meltdown of the control transistors...which had then nuked the software control side.

Fixed our washing machine yesterday after the new motor brushes arrived, total cost £7. Tried explaining this to mate and his other half. I think they would have looked less amazed if I had levitated in front of them. There must be loads of stuff sent to the tip when parts costing a few pennies would sort it.

[scaryoldcortina]

I used to make a decent wage fixing and reselling tip electrics. Sadly now everything gets recycled "properly" so the supply dried up. I still fix all my own stuff and anything I'm asked to though, I've still never bought a TV.

[dozeydustman]

I used to make a decent wage fixing and reselling tip electrics. Sadly now everything gets recycled "properly" so the supply dried up. I still fix all my own stuff and anything I'm asked to though, I've still never bought a TV.

 

I try and repair things when and where I can, given I like to tinker with electronics (I'm no Big Clive). I'm still trying to find where my rubber key spectrum has gone wrong.

 

Wish I could trace the fault with the bedroom TV which appears to have reared its ugly head again.

[beko1987]

I do the vacuums, warm a nice few hundred quid every month. Could be more but then I'd be constantly doing them and would get sick to death of it, so keep it low key and drip them in!

[Fumbler]

I do security systems on the fly. Buy and sell. Installs too. Keeps me going.

[purplebargeken]

Breadvan's meltdown where he threatened to sue the forum

 

Fuck me, I must have slipped into another BV keyboard induced coma at that point. Christ he was tedious.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

To be fair, I think he was going through a horrendous divorce. Mind you, looking at my posts again from October '16 onwards I don't think I was any more objectionable than usual. 

[purplebargeken]

TRB you are always more objectionable than usual, this is why we like you.

[Rocket88]

I was wondering where Mr B.V had got to..was there an unpleasantness?

[Cavcraft]

Yes, he and one other (a serial pest who keeps trying to come back under different aliases and guises) went under something of a cloud, I think it's fair to say.