Stuff you have fixed today

[jmp49]

I take it they tell you if a contra visit is needed? My guy said it’s all good despite three advisories - Ripage, tyre wear and play in the steering. I don’t agree with the play in steering but as he said it was nickel and it was off the ramp and outside when he told me I didn’t argue.

Yes, but normally I just ask them if its good as we do the paperwork and they tell me. plus if its not a full pass the ct (controle technique = french MOT for the others) is only valid for 2 months, so if you dont go back in that timeframe its a full test again. If you get the 2 year pass (5 if its a classic!) then its all good. Unless its classified as a commercial, in which case it has to go every year for emissions (like my defender/90, because it has no rear windows its the commercial van type category so has to pass emissions every year). If its a classic & >3.5t it doesnt even have to go for a CT.
Theres critical, major & minor. Critical is total refusal on a safety item take it straight to garage and dont drive it apart from that, major is you have 2 months to fix it and can legally drive it around like that & they just retest those items for the contra visit, and minor is just things they noticed while they were looking about that might be a issue at some point in the future that are just notes (so same as advisories in english). To sell a car(bike now too sadly) you have to have a full ct under 6 months old with only minor status faults, or if you have major issues it has to have been ct'd within 2 months. When you sell a car, you generally give the CT paperwork to the buyer so they can read about any little faults noted at CT time.
If you dont have a ct that meets these conditions, the buyer can't register the vehicle in their name on the system, and that's what happened here, due to the typo in the name while ANTS were sorting out their record, it aged over the 6 month limit and had to go for a new CT to be able to be claimed.
We went to do the paperwork finally today, and the whole of the gov ANTS system was offline to claim the cg (v5) and pay the tax on the logbook changes (which on this little car is about 200e + 30e processing fee and it goes up with more engine power...), so we have to go back on Monday anyway. If you dont have a cg in your name at sale time, it kills the value as it is difficult for any buyer to re-register it in their name unless they are a professional, in which case they are allowed to do what they want and buy and sell without a valid CT. Because you know, dodgy geezers with a satchel in a mcdonalds parking lot are so much more trustworthy than a normal citizen.
I could write a whole post about some of the downright dangerous things we saw on cars being sold by professionals with day old mot's when we were hunting a car which resulted in us buying this Astra, which was a private sale, but turned out to be yet another professional committing fraud and faking someone elses signature to hide it.

 

[qwakers]

todays job.... its only been waiting 5+ years... can't rush these things.

a bit of shuttering, a bit of concreting, and a lot of block laying....

And a bit more....



Plus a load more purchased.

 

[JOEPRO]

The shark cordless hoover. Any time I go to use it, it's blocked and she "never noticed anything". Except it's roaring it's head off and lifting nothing so how would you not notice ffs??

Stripped it apart and washed out the filthy filters etc so it should be ready for abuse again in a day or two when all dries out.

 

[jmp49]

Finally the Astra has left the chat and is parked at son's Uni 100 miles away without incident, so I can just change the oil and filters on wife's clio4 and take it easy afterwards. Of course Renault put the diesel filter behind the plastic wheelarch liner inside the front arch and inside some steel housing, because theyre Renault, grab the wheel to take it off and put my fingers in some disgusting black ooze round the back as the driveshaft boot on the year old halfshaft has failed and spread moly over everything.
Fortunately had a stretchy universal boot for emergencies anticipating needing it for one of the kids car's and so on it went. Yeah its probably not as good long term as a oem style one, but equally I dont have to spend hours fighting off the joint to fit it either.

 

[Gregb23]

Fixed the post basher, managed to break the handles around 20 posts in, one handle broke off and the other cracked round the weld.
Supplier was apologetic and sorted a refund. So welded the handles back for a free tool! Really rough welding so no photos but will hopefully do the job.

 

[Porkypine]

Fixed the post basher, managed to break the handles around 20 posts in, one handle broke off and the other cracked round the weld.
Supplier was apologetic and sorted a refund. So welded the handles back for a free tool! Really rough welding so no photos but will hopefully do the job.

The bought ones I've seen are total rubbish, I made one from 5'' pipe and handles bent from gas barrel, big lump of plate on the top, I defy anyone to break it

 

[OJCar]

Reversing light kept blowing fuses.

Poxy mice.

So I ensured the Passenger Management Control Module was activated...

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

My friends new (to him) Kia Rio.

Was making an unpleasant beeping noise when driven over 5MPH.

The Dealership couldn't fit him in until Monday, and when he spoke to Kwik-Fit and Halfords Autocenter, they both tried to diagnose it before saying it was clearly an electrical fault, and they wouldn't know where to begin.


The issue: He had accidentally pulled the bonnet release catch when opening the fuel flap at the petrol station, and the beeper was a warning that the bonnet wasn't latched.


I can forgive my mate for not realising as he would be the first to admit he's not remotely mechanically minded...

But for the service team at the dealership to not suggest checking that, and two mechanics to physically inspect the car and miss it seems pretty damn poor.

Anyway it gave his missus a good laugh when I "diagnosed" the issue and pronounced it fixed.

 

[Melvyn Best]

The Dealership couldn't fit him in until Monday, and when he spoke to Kwik-Fit and Halfords Autocenter, they both tried to diagnose it before saying it was clearly an electrical fault, and they wouldn't know where to begin.



But for the service team at the dealership to not suggest checking that, and two mechanics to physically inspect the car and miss it seems pretty damn poor.

You can’t get thicker than a kwik-fit fitter!

 

[bricol]

You can’t get thicker than a kwik-fit fitter!

Although much like anywhere, I've found good and bad - one manager ran a Sierra Cosworth - good to deal with for tyres for my Lancia integrale.

A subsequent one tried to tell me I needed new rear trailing arms for the same car as they were bent . . . yep, the locating links were bent exactly as much as Lancia intended them.

 

[DAPPH]

You can’t get thicker than a kwik-fit fitter!

Having a Motability car for me I have to get the tyres checked by Kwik-fit under the hire contract .
One day coming back from London the low pressure alarm went off whilst I was 16 miles east of Swansea , called the RAC who turned up two hours later & said I've checked the pressures , they are OK it just needed resetting ..

It came on again nine miles later , I drove to the nearest KF & asked them to check the tyres , had a two hour wait on a cold uncomfortable wooden chair . Then was told it's been sorted all tyres at 35 psi RHF was low at 30 , drove home.

The next morning the alarm came on as I was going back to Swansea to collect my daughter ,, went to the nearest KF. An hours wait , told it all OK all tyres at 34 psi .
A day later on the way to Carmarthen the alarm came on again as I was about a mile away from that KF .
Drove in " Certainly would you like a cup of tea we won't be long " .

I'd barely finished the tea when it was pronounced OK . I aske what the pressures were ,, " Well it's no wonder it was difficult to steer when braking , RHF 32 LHF 38 RHR 33 and 28 psi . Now all set to 36 psi as per the sticker on the door post

The manager said it's not the first time he's heard of such things happening in both the Swansea units ,, advising me to tell Motability and he'd back up what I said .

 

[jmp49]

Reversing light kept blowing fuses.
Poxy mice.

So I ensured the Passenger Management Control Module was activated...

Do you get martens near you? I quite like them but they have a habit of eating wiring looms like that. You can get little 12v ultrasonic boxes to deter them that wire up to the battery.
I've got a picture somewhere of a merc van chassis with a nest in the chassis rail via a missing bung, with a stash of stolen eggs and the rear lights wiring loom eaten by the entry point, now the motorhome etc has one not had any more incidents.

 

[GRW]

Last night I replaced the rear engine mount on my Fiesta Van, and then the lower steering column UJ section on my Renault Master Camper.
Both jobs pleasantly straightforward and quick to do, while the part for the Ford was £14.75 delivered, and the Renault part £17.88 delivered off Evilbay

 

[OJCar]

Do you get martens near you? I quite like them but they have a habit of eating wiring looms like that. You can get little 12v ultrasonic boxes to deter them that wire up to the battery.
I've got a picture somewhere of a merc van chassis with a nest in the chassis rail via a missing bung, with a stash of stolen eggs and the rear lights wiring loom eaten by the entry point, now the motorhome etc has one not had any more incidents.

No Martens around here that I know of, bit further north there are plenty.
We used to have lots of Stoats, but their number has crashed just recently, so this winter has been a plague of mice and voles.
Hopefully the Stoats will be back soon.

 

[indy4x]

The shark cordless hoover. Any time I go to use it, it's blocked and she "never noticed anything". Except it's roaring it's head off and lifting nothing so how would you not notice ffs??

Stripped it apart and washed out the filthy filters etc so it should be ready for abuse again in a day or two when all dries out

So it's not just my wife and daughter that do this

 

[qwakers]

spot the bone head error i made masking the driveshafts up in the previous post, that lead me to have to cut away some of the masking tape and paint more of the shaft...

im a idiot.

looks good though


part of yesterdays clean up was some soap and water and a nylon scrubbing brush to clean the cv boots up. like new

all back together finally.

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

all back together finally.

Whats that bolt on the pit rail?

 

[qwakers]

one of many spares. was using it for alignment.

 

[jmp49]

Got round to fitting new aliexpress rectifier to my generic cheapo big battery charger. I upgraded the specs a bit to a chinese 300a (so probably 150-200a) after it blew the 100a unit and was only charging for half the cycle at reduced voltage.
Its exactly the same rectifier with the same connections, it just has 8 more stud diodes for the rectification. They sell them as battery charger rectifiers, welding rectifiers etc, they're all the same two plates of ally with studs in and some flat bars to feed in the ac to the middle of the assembly.

Working again, the advantage of cheap chinese chargers is that they are built so simply and modular its just a question of buying the generic parts to fix them.
That and its so basic inside, there's hardly anything to go wrong (and when it went wrong, I was abusing its duty cycle heavily).


Chuffed with that, think Im going to order a 100a resettable fuse to replace the bit of metal between two insulated bolts that it came with originally next.

 

[sparkysy]

Today finally after 10years I fixed the electricity supply to my workshop!
No pictures as it's taken me all day until now and it's gone too dark to take them.
Killed my 9 inch grinder luckily on the last bit of cutting two 60mm deep grooves 5 meters.
Chiseled out the middle and bent some 25mm tube up to slip the Swa through, then mixed enough concrete to cover it back in.
Apart from being a good days graft it was well worth it, all these years it's been on a 'special' extension lead from a 32a socket.