FatHarris - tales of a motoring moron

[twosmoke300]

1 hour ago, fatharris said:

Herman's covered in dents, scrapes and failed paint - if he's all one colour, I can live with everything else 😅

 

1 hour ago, twosmoke300 said:

Hes just a shit driver 

See ! 

[fatharris]

Whilst Herman *has* been somewhat repaired to the best of my ability, I still felt it prudent to resort to Plan B for the weekly commute to work this weekend.

Or should that be Plan B(X)?

Yep, time to get the Citroen out and earning it's keep again. It's not really turned a wheel since Rustival but it was fully working when put under a cover and I saw no reason for it to be any different when I uncovered it.

Unfortunately, the plucky Frenchie had other ideas.

With the majority of my warning lights not working, I elected to check all the fuses and engine bay connectors to check for something obvious. No luck found.

So, the instrument cluster came out.

All the connections were removed, gently sanded and cleaned, as well as the cluster side sockets.

And when that didn't work, I reseated all of the individual bulb holders.

Success!

In between stages of this task, I went for a quick check of the lights and indicators.

This also went well.

Yep, the 30 year old plastic handle came off in my hand. Thankfully, I had a spare stalk in my spares pile.

With the levels and pressures checked, we were off!

And I needn't have worried about the BX, it made the 250+ mile journey with no issues at all.

The journey wasn't quite so successful for my mate though, he left Redruth at half 3, and got a TPMS warning on his 3 series just outside Launceston, an hour away from his start point.

Two front tyres, worn to fuck all on the extremities of the inner edge.

£500 bill incoming a mobile tyre fitter and he'd still not set off six hours after he pulled in, whereas we'd set off two hours after him, stopped en route to drop him some food off, stopped for a meal ourselves later on and finished our journey in the same time.

Eeeesh.

[2flags]

That's a bummer for your friend. Shows the need to do your daily checks. Shame he didn't catch it earlier, could have got the tracking checked and saved himself a very large and inconvenient bill.

[Stinkwheel]

9 hours ago, fatharris said:

Whilst Herman *has* been somewhat repaired to the best of my ability, I still felt it prudent to resort to Plan B for the weekly commute to work this weekend.

Or should that be Plan B(X)?

Yep, time to get the Citroen out and earning it's keep again. It's not really turned a wheel since Rustival but it was fully working when put under a cover and I saw no reason for it to be any different when I uncovered it.

Unfortunately, the plucky Frenchie had other ideas.

With the majority of my warning lights not working, I elected to check all the fuses and engine bay connectors to check for something obvious. No luck found.

So, the instrument cluster came out.

All the connections were removed, gently sanded and cleaned, as well as the cluster side sockets.

And when that didn't work, I reseated all of the individual bulb holders.

Success!

In between stages of this task, I went for a quick check of the lights and indicators.

This also went well.

Yep, the 30 year old plastic handle came off in my hand. Thankfully, I had a spare stalk in my spares pile.

With the levels and pressures checked, we were off!

And I needn't have worried about the BX, it made the 250+ mile journey with no issues at all.

The journey wasn't quite so successful for my mate though, he left Redruth at half 3, and got a TPMS warning on his 3 series just outside Launceston, an hour away from his start point.

Two front tyres, worn to fuck all on the extremities of the inner edge.

£500 bill incoming a mobile tyre fitter and he'd still not set off six hours after he pulled in, whereas we'd set off two hours after him, stopped en route to drop him some food off, stopped for a meal ourselves later on and finished our journey in the same time.

Eeeesh.

BX to the rescue, I approve

[Marshall2810]

More BX action shots please 

[fatharris]

56 minutes ago, Marshall2810 said:

More BX action shots please 

Like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun and the BX rewarded me with a popped off gear linkage this evening.

Luckily, I've pushed it back on with a section of carrier bag to pad it out and that seems to have worked but it's a good lesson in not being so smug 😅

[fatharris]

This week was a bit of a stress.

First off, the gear linkage rod popped off again, not too big an issue, but it happened during rush hour in Salisbury and the exhaust was really rather hot 😅

The other issue was really rather unexpected.

When I did the work package on the BX, I elected to replace the rubber fuel lines, as most of them were the original units so it seemed sensible to change them.

This is their condition, six months later.

This has only ever had E5 fuel, so it's bloody shocking to see such degradation in such a short time frame. It was bought from a motor factors too, but it'll be getting binned and fitted with Gates hose ASAP.

[rusty_vw_man]

Nasty - the R6 is often sold as suitable for ethanol, but it does seem to rot pretty quick, I had some do the same. Outer seems to go before the inner layer.

Either gates or R9 rated does seem to last much better, for me at least. 

Right arse though isn’t it when you’ve gone to the effort of changing it for safety only to find it looking ropier than the old stuff you took off. 

[fatharris]

Well it's been a month, so time to catch this up.

The BX has been parked up with a dehumidifier in it until I get around to fitting the new fuel hoses, so Herman's been picking up the slack, and did so admirably, carrying four blokes and their kit around various parts of the country for a week. We then enjoyed a brief spell of rest for Xmas.

We enjoyed muddy walks:

Pottered around Mousehole where I got a lovely shot of a battered ZX:

Saw a play about the Mousehole Cat:

Took in some Banger Racing with @twosmoke300 including the E-Type which lasted minutes few.

Shout out to this LDV, it was a proper crowd pleaser and made three rounds of getting absolutely hammered!

And enjoyed a visit to the aquarium!

As for Herman, he blew a headlight bulb - the first one in 11 years, so I can't complain! Did notice the internal wiring outer sheathing was starting to crack, so I've taped it up to prevent shorting.

I then injured my back clearing out the village river storm drain, which was definitely not helpful.

On the way back up to work, the ABS light came back on, then went away the following drive so I think it just had a wobbly.

It came to the final day of my course, we loaded up my kit, and the kit of the two other guys I was bringing home.

Aaaaaand....

Battery went flat after being parked up for nearly a fortnight. Think this was my fault, but the boot had to be emptied and the battery put on charge before we could head home. Possibly linked to the central locking not working in the door lock, but it's doing okay now.

Ah well, that's the luck of the draw eh?

[fatharris]

Another update of little substance - I'm just not overflowing with spare time to tinker these days.

However, MrsH did complain that the washer jets on the Laguna were acting weird, doing half-hearted squirts on the screen which were useless.

eBay came up trumps for a replacement screen wash pump @£10 - bloody bargain!

The workshop manual for the Laguna said access to the pump would be gained by removing the undertrays. Problem with that was that the fasteners were doing fuck all in helping to get out, so I elected to take a different route.

Access to the pump through the fog light hole was tight and blind, but after a bit of nimble fingering, the pump was swapped out.

After that, I topped the tank back up and the washer jets were back to their normal selves.

That's a nice quick and easy win 😎

Cheers all

[fatharris]

Small update, but a positive one.

Finally pulled my finger and my wallet out, and purchased the parts needed to fix the BX - namely a set of gear linkage rods, a fuel filler neck gasket set with fixings, a new set of fuel hoses (this time, I went with Gates barricade, 4ft 8mm, 1ft 6mm), a brass pipe reducer/joiner and a fuel filter.

Looks a bit cluttered with so many jubilee clips, but it's leak-free and won't perish again!

The next job was the gear linkage rod - as mentioned previously, it randomly started popping off, so I kept it on by adding a couple of layers of carrier bag and slamming it back on 😅. 

Obviously the length had to match so accuracy is key!

Unfortunately, whilst the long (faulty) rod was easily replaced, the short one wouldn't reach the same length as the original and was only held on with half a thread. Thankfully there's nothing wrong with that one.

I'll work on the other bits at a later date, I'm just happy to be using it again during this lovely weather. The LHM leak at the back isn't getting any better but it's still a manageable leak rate for the moment, and the fuel filler gasket will be replaced next time the OSR wheel has to come off.

Cheers 😎

[fatharris]

BX dailying is going well. It's always got me to work no dramas, but on the way home yesterday, the power steering got heavy at times, and eventually got heavy all the time on the driveway with a squeal from the belt.

Hopped under the bonnet and attempted an adjustment of the LHM belt - no such luck, the belt pulley was at max extension.

Guess it was time to dip my hands into my pockets and shell out for some replacement parts.

Namely, £8 for an LHM pump belt. You can see how old the fitted one was based on the old school font 😅

Thankfully, it was a quick and simple change, and less than 25 minutes later, the new one was fitted (I took some time to clean out the pulley grooves).

Quick fire up confirmed everything was working!

Sadly, the LHM leak at the OSR unit appears to be getting worse,. Whilst it's just had the first LHM top up in months, it's going to need some attention pretty soon.