The grumpy thread

[New POD]

Just now, wuvvum said:

Even with the millions you've been paying into your pension fund?  That's disappointing. 

Indeed, it's not millions. 

[chadders]

What about your two (?) spare houses?

Anyway Excel is your friend in these circumstances.

[omegod]

15 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

When I was working on the Volvo yesterday I released the alternator belts tension by slackening the bolts then pulling up on the belts to free the pivot on the alternator. Unfortunately in doing so I accidentally span the engine over a bit by hand, which pulled my finger partly in between the belts and water pump pulley! It’s squashed and cut my finger tip! 
My god did it hurt, but I was trapped by it and trying frantically to spin the pulley backwards with my other hand! If the thing was running or my finger went much further in I’m positive I’d have lost my finger. 
It’s very tender and bruised now. Watch what your doing out there!

Ouch, today I managed to hit my thumb with a brick I was using as a hammer, 48 yrs old and still incredibly fucking stupid 

[EyesWeldedShut]

8 minutes ago, omegod said:

Ouch, today I managed to hit my thumb with a brick I was using as a hammer, 48 yrs old and still incredibly fucking stupid 

Bad news mate - it only gets worse, not better, with age . Ask me how I know  

[Remspoor]

12 hours ago, Austat said:

Retropower is creating an automotive sin. 

They decided to cut up a well kept, original Allegro that was last on the road in 1982 and are cutting up a very clean and highly collectable Honda Intrega to put the mechanicals into it. I hate this build with a passion. Not only will they ruin an Allegro with all this modern tat that will most definitely look like wank once it's done, they are essentially scrapping a very well kept Integra in the process that could of been sold to an enthusiast who would of enjoyed it a lot as they are very popular tuner cars. Once Honda fans know about what is happening here, they will grab their pitch forks, this is such a terrible fucking idea and is one of the reasons why I have trust issues when it comes to resto mods, they ruin perfectly good cars all for a laugh.

All because we hear in the media that "the Allegro is the worst car in the world" and so forth from bored tabloid writers with no automotive knowledge, who only make these articles to get a quick pay check because they can't rely on annoying the royal family as a profession. 

This is the Allegro which will be ruined for this retro-mod-monstrosity (LLW 47P), these photos are from January 2021 when it was first taken out of its garage since 1982 (I now think it should've never left it).

Apologies for the language, but I can't keep this to myself.

I fucking hate this so much.

 

10 hours ago, cobblers said:

While I'm sort of with you on this, there's not a lot of point to what they're creating - if anyone had to do it, retropower are the people who will do it as much justice as they can and most importantly not overdo it.

Most builds like this are started by some overenthusiastic maniac who would cut the bottom out of the allegro, slide the underside of the integra underneath and just weld it together where it touched and then use some 60x60x6mm box section to "reinforce" random bits, then it would end up passing through 3 or 4 owners who all think they're the guy to finish it before finally being scrapped.

A bit like this project then?

[cobblers]

That's definitely a project that has been fairly rudderless from the beginning 

[New POD]

2 hours ago, chadders said:

What about your two (?) spare houses?

Anyway Excel is your friend in these circumstances.

One is worth £700 a month in rent. 

The other is a fucking liability but has a little equity (£60k after capital gains tax and cost of selling) 

[chadders]

You can often take your pension some years before the normal retirement age. Obviously you'll get less but with the 60k it might make the bridge to normal retirement age a lot easier.

[High Jetter]

5 hours ago, omegod said:

Ouch, today I managed to hit my thumb with a brick I was using as a hammer, 48 yrs old and still incredibly fucking stupid 

Um, necessity is the mother of invention, and all that. Was a hammer unobtainable?

[omegod]

14 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Um, necessity is the mother of invention, and all that. Was a hammer unobtainable?

I only needed 2 whacks for what I was doing so couldn't be arsed finding it, whack 2 was rather painful so lesson learned 

[High Jetter]

Ouch, tho.

[danthecapriman]

8 minutes ago, omegod said:

I only needed 2 whacks for what I was doing so couldn't be arsed finding it, whack 2 was rather painful so lesson learned 

Must admit, I’m guilty as sin for doing things like that. Going and finding the right tool is too much effort or time so you use something else!

Using a ratchet as a hammer, screwdriver as chisel etc…

[Dick Cheeseburger]

14 hours ago, cobblers said:

Most builds like this are started by some overenthusiastic maniac who would cut the bottom out of the allegro, slide the underside of the integra underneath and just weld it together where it touched and then use some 60x60x6mm box section to "reinforce" random bits, then it would end up passing through 3 or 4 owners who all think they're the guy to finish it before finally being scrapped.

This one's textbook. What a gopping bag of shite. I'd have assumed that a fundamental part of car design is ensuring the dashboard doesn't block ¾ of the door opening. Unless it's some sort of selective thing to ensure those carrying chub have to lose weight before performing limbo moves in order to sample the unique driving experience...

 

[Cheggers]

You can often take your pension some years before the normal retirement age. Obviously you'll get less but with the 60k it might make the bridge to normal retirement age a lot easier.

You can usually "cash in" a pension from 55yo.

Ignoring physical wear & tear, almost everyone has some work or money related stress. It seems to be the less stressful jobs command lower salaries so you worry about money, while the higher paid ones take away the financial stress but are more pressured.

[chadders]

4 hours ago, Cheggers said:

You can usually "cash in" a pension from 55yo.

Ignoring physical wear & tear, almost everyone has some work or money related stress. It seems to be the less stressful jobs command lower salaries so you worry about money, while the higher paid ones take away the financial stress but are more pressured.

I did mine at 55, a bit over 5 years after I retired. I think that if you can prove ill health you can do it earlier.

I disagree to an extent about stress. Our eldest son is a teacher in a Special Needs School; I never had a client throw a fire extinguisher at me or try to cut me with glass shards from a broken window.

[jakebullet]

Some cunt has fucked both front doors on the c1 to steal nothing. Dozy cunts didn't even take dashcam.

Any top tips to fix?

[Rocket88]

9 minutes ago, jakebullet said:

Some cunt has fucked both front doors on the c1 to steal nothing. Dozy cunts didn't even take dashcam.

Any top tips to fix?

Fit one of these?

[jakebullet]

Have lathe will make totally invisible* repair. It was that or weld a plate on and try for invisible paint match on pearl metallic. It will keep scrotes out while I can find doors.

[iainrcz]

Factory shutdown.

Purging the machines with polystyrene.

It fucking stinks 🤮

[Low ontime]

7 hours ago, jakebullet said:

Some cunt has fucked both front doors on the c1 to steal nothing. Dozy cunts didn't even take dashcam.

Any top tips to fix?

I’d be rigging it up to mains electric…. Absolute fuckers.

[Low ontime]

1 hour ago, jakebullet said:

Have lathe will make totally invisible* repair. It was that or weld a plate on and try for invisible paint match on pearl metallic. It will keep scrotes out while I can find doors.

Better than my first idea  of penny washers to cover the hole… 

[Pieman]

Driving home today along the A5, suddenly *BANG* and I have a nice big stone chip right in the middle of my fucking windscreen.

A few weeks ago I had a quick look over a car at a dealership.  Since then my Focus has had a wing mirror smashed while parked, a puncture, a blown headlamp bulb, and now this - and I am also fairly sure I got done by a scamera van last weekend.  I've not even mentioned selling it but somehow it knows I looked at another car and is doing all this to fucking spite me.

(edit) Oh, and after work today I returned to said Focus to find bird shit all over it as well!

[artdjones]

9 hours ago, jakebullet said:

Some cunt has fucked both front doors on the c1 to steal nothing. Dozy cunts didn't even take dashcam.

Any top tips to fix?

You need one of these:-

A Sykes Pickavant door lock hole reforming tool. No059600. Trouble is, they are £50 and I'm not sure they make them anymore. But something could probably be knocked up to do the job.

[EyesWeldedShut]

12 minutes ago, artdjones said:

You need one of these:-

A Sykes Pickavant door lock hole reforming tool. No059600. Trouble is, they are £50 and I'm not sure they make them anymore. But something could probably be knocked up to do the job.

"Tools you never knew existed" thread starts right here?

[artdjones]

7 hours ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

"Tools you never knew existed" thread starts right here?

There are more of these than you could ever imagine.

[Parky]

Someone did the same to an old Vauxhall of mine back in the early nineties.  I ended up removing the knackered passenger door lock and a mix of fibreglass and filler smoothed it all off so it had that smooth look

Drivers side called for a bit of hammering and a bigger, thicker  washer (vaguely recall cutting up a thick rubber floor mat to make it with a school compass) and along with a new lock it all ended up looking ok.  Meant I couldnt unlock the passenger door from the outside but that wasnt a problem ever.

Bloody annoying.  I know who did it so if you were an MOT assistant at LJK Setright BMW in Barkingside in 1992, I havent forgotten sunshine....

 

 

 

[Dyslexic Viking]

Changed from winter wheels to summer wheels on the modern today. And it's terrible what winter driving here is doing to the cars now. The chemicals and salt that are dumped on the roads now are killing cars. 

[Rust Collector]

On 4/8/2023 at 11:55 PM, omegod said:

I only needed 2 whacks for what I was doing so couldn't be arsed finding it, whack 2 was rather painful so lesson learned 

Look on the bright side though, 2 whacks and only one crushed your hand - that’s a 50% success rate!

[sierraman]

18 hours ago, artdjones said:

You need one of these:-

A Sykes Pickavant door lock hole reforming tool. No059600. Trouble is, they are £50 and I'm not sure they make them anymore. But something could probably be knocked up to do the job.

Nothing there that you couldn’t fab with some big washers and threaded bar. Might need a blob of weld at the back if it’s split. 

[Rust Collector]

On 4/8/2023 at 8:20 AM, New POD said:

Are all jobs shit? Does every manager want 2lbs of flesh? Does every person have totally impossible workloads with more than one boss dictating what's you need to do. 

Given how I feel this morning, I'm going to phone in sick all next week. Then maybe start to push back on all the conflicting shit I'm expected to do. 

I think there’s a lot less money around and so a lot of SME’s will be trying to do either pre-covid levels of work or greater with a smaller staff than before the lockdowns. It’s not exactly fair, but for a lot of businesses and their employees there probably isn’t much of an alternative.

A few weeks back I just couldn’t face the levels of stress at work and so I phoned in sick for two days - that’s the first time I can recall ever phoning in sick because I couldn’t mentally face work. Other than that I’ve only ever been off work for covid or physical injuries that meant I couldn’t work, I’m not one to call in sick on a whim. It did help to have a breather though and rally myself, so I’d recommend doing the same if work is damaging your mental health.

I’ve made things more manageable by doing a lot of overtime in the early mornings, any work or deadlines that are stressing me I’ve been working on before the office opens, that way the phones aren’t on and I can ignore my emails. The thing that was killing me was people constantly phoning and chasing when things would be completed, it was making me feel physically sick every day as I hate confrontation and my workload isn’t achievable by one person - there’s nobody to share the load though so it is what it is. Working in an empty office with the phone lines switched off let me get so much more sorted every day. Plus, doing overtime in the morning means I don’t miss out on spending the evenings with my partner and son.

I am a little worried that my employer will freak out when they see my overtime submission as it’ll be quite large, but they knew I was in so hopefully they won’t kick off too much - if they do then I’ll point out that my work has added value to the business in terms of completing projects that otherwise would have stalled.