Stuff you have fixed today

[Blue Chips]

Piece by piece, I'm gradually getting the paint sorted on my recently acquired New Holland GT18 garden tractor. Here are the steps in fixing up one of the foot rests:

A fair amount of rust had developed on this foot rest panel under the rubber mat:

I slathered on a thick coat of CitriStrip, wrapped it in a poly sheet, and let it sit for a few hours. About 98% of the paint came right off without any scrubbing or scraping:

Here's how it looked after washing off the CitriStrip and removing a few bits of remaining paint (the rust isn't quite as deep as it looks):

Next, I let it sit in a phosphoric acid bath for a while, which took care of most of the rust, and then hit any stubborn remaining pockets with my spot blaster:

(Note: I don't use an acid bath for high-strength or hardened steel, since I want to avoid hydrogen embrittlement.)

I applied the initial coat of self-etching primer, which contains zinc phosphate:

Then I filled the pits with 3M High-Bond filler and sanded it flat:

Here it is after more primer coats:

And after a few coats of paint:

I'm in the process of refinishing the other sheet metal panels. Here's the rear body panel after prep and painting (what looks like wrinkled paint is just masking tape over the data labels):

Another half dozen panels to go. So far, I've just been using factory-approved rattle can paint, but I just ordered a quart of the paint so that I can use an HVLP gun on the rest of the panels.

 

[harveyp6]

i would argue it wasn't even particularly unsafe to be driven. i still had 5 out of 6 wheels braked, and 50% of the 6th....

It's because it had the imbalance on the front wheels, they see it pulling the truck across. But as to what you say, a mate had a Mercedes 3.5 tonner, and the passenger side front disc broke away from the hub, so we broke the friction area apart to remove that, and clamped the brake hose, and drove it home like that, and it didn't pull at all. On severe braking it may have, but we didn't put that to the test.

 

[Turbo]

It's because it had the imbalance on the front wheels, they see it pulling the truck across. But as to what you say, a mate had a Mercedes 3.5 tonner, and the passenger side front disc broke away from the hub, so we broke the friction area apart to remove that, and clamped the brake hose, and drove it home like that, and it didn't pull at all. On severe braking it may have, but we didn't put that to the test.

I cracked a front disc on my Subaru Legacy Turbo and drove it for 115 miles home mostly using the handbrake.
It wasn't too bad apart from he stop start traffic in Belfast.

 

[MattF]

You have to remember that it's their neck on the line if they release it & owt goes wrong, & they have to account for the lowest denomimator. A lot of folk aren't safe with fully working brakes. Sounds like they were simply erring on the side of caution, to me.

 

[qwakers]

indeed. and dont forget hgv mots are done by the dvsa themselves, not a independant like car mots.

 

[Keithmac]

Kawasaki H2 SX (Supercharged) Indicator fault believe it or not.

Gone are they days of a £20 relay..

 

[Craig-SM]

Fitted the new starter motor to the Shogun today along with a 60amp fuse for the ABS that blew at the same time.
Usual job 90 mins to change the starter over and the same again trying to get two bolts in that holds the gearbox dipstick in place, it had to be moved to to access the top securing bolt.
Gave it a service at the same time. Great to have it back on the road, starting first turn of the key again.
Unfortunately I’d bought a new battery thinking it was that so now have a surplus

 

[Keithmac]

Ducati Panigale 899 head gasket + head stud thread failure.

What a pig of a job!.

Ended up having to drill both cylinder exhaust side stud holes and tapping for M10x1.25 Wurth Timeserts due to threads failing in the crankcases identical failure on horizontal and vertical cylinders.

The engine is the frame..

Head gaskets were £100 each and not much to look at for that money!.

 

[m_c]

i can only surmise, either im the worlds biggest moron and simply didn't adjust them anywhere near correctly, or they unadjusted themselves on the drive to the test centre.

Even if you had mis-adjusted it, unless you over-adjusted it (in which case it would likely bind), it should have adjusted itself on the drive to the test centre, so that little effort would suggest the adjuster has failed completely as it shouldn't wind itself off.


From the prohibition guide-

On a steered axle braking effort from any wheel is less than 50% of the maximum effort recorded from the other wheel on the same axle.

With it being an immediate prohibition.
Some defects might have a bit flexibility that the examiner can apply, but a brake test doesn't have much flexibility.

 

[awemawson]

Talking of brakes - I once managed to split / crack the rear brake drum on a 1954 BSA C11G. Must have applied the foot brake rather firmiy. Spoked wheel with spokes directly fitted into holes in a flange on the drum. Wheel did wobble rather a lot but I got home (Osterley to Kings Road Chelsea) Lucky 75% of braking is on the front wheel. That was arround 1969 but is still a vivid memory

 

[MattF]

Unfortunately I’d bought a new battery thinking it was that so now have a surplus

Winters coming. It may be a blessing in disguise. Sod's law your original will be borderline if you sell the new one.

 

[RichardM]

Kawasaki H2 SX (Supercharged) Indicator fault believe it or not.

Gone are they days of a £20 relay..

View attachment 514790

That looks horrendous.

 

[Keithmac]

That looks horrendous.

Yes it was not a good day in the office!. They decided best bet to power the indicators was to run them from the dashboard / Speedo assy for some unbeknownst reason.

They also omitted some relay feeds and wiring from the wiring diagram which was the icing on the cake really..

 

[charliecambs]

My maybe 30 year old dremel cheapy decided not to run. I use it with a 40mm diamond disc to touch up circular saw blades (" good enough for government work" ) as they say.
Quick check , dismantled and spotted dry joint on power transistor. Quick bit of solder and it's working.
Do hate chucking stuff away without at least a Quick look.

I help out at our village " repair cafe" some of the stuff that comes in has clearly been abused for years and beyond economical or safe repair.!
Other stuff new but " single chip" so usually scrap.

 

[voipio]

Ebac dehumidifier, that's been in use for over 20 years, recently began starting erratically, and repeatedly cutting out. I thought that the thermal cut out or starting relay might be playing up, so took the outer cover, and motor electrical cover off but the initial suspects weren't showing signs of misbehaviour. The control board was then removed and the electrolytic capacitor ESR (effective series resistance) measured with an in-circuit ESR meter. The ESR reading was off the scale (>100 Ohms, it should be ~0.2 Ohms), so found a replacement in a bag of spare caps that hadn't been opened in years, soldered it in, and now it's working fine.

 

[Gregb23]

Second hand waxed cotton coat repaired with some press studs and added some more for fixing a hood. Nice to keep old things going and fed up with modern coats losing their waterproof with no decent way to reproof. Highlight was acquiring the stud setting tools and dies for a fiver. Just need to give it a re wax and should be good for the foreseeable.

 

[Melvyn Best]

I help out at our village " repair cafe" some of the stuff that comes in has clearly been abused for years and beyond economical or safe repair.!
Other stuff new but " single chip" so usually scrap.

Where abouts is your village repair cafe? I’m in Great Shelford , not far from Cambridge