In message snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk>, "Dave Plowman (News)" snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk> writes
Umm.. I have yet to put any engine oil or other fluid in our 10 year old Fiesta. (perhaps screen washer) Annual service by Ford agency. Still do occasional checks but point made:-)
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No, he does ... but he keeps it on the drivers seat. ;-)
My Mk1 Escort had a dipstick for the auto box. I can't remember about the Corsair 2000E auto, the Vauxhall Victor 1800 auto or the Bedford CF Ex Ambulance campervan (which I think also had the leany Vauxhall
1800 auto engine)?Even the EX's Honda C50LA (step-through motorbike) effectively had a dipstick for the auto box as it shared the engine oil. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
Sometimes it's quicker to repair things yourself than it is to survey the market and get a replacement with features you've come to expect.
One of the best examples was a gearstick that came off in my hand. To remove, weld up the fatigued seam and put back was 40 minutes.
Recently a circuit board on a washing machine had burnt through a dry joint. Replacing the track with wire meant I was washing clothes again the same evening.
I can go on, of course.
We had that with our old vented tumble dryer. It went wrong, we assumed that was it, couldn't find an easy replacement so looked at fixing it. We have done this several times now. ;-)
Yep. Welder, lathe, 3D printer, some glues, some stock of various material types and sizes, a range of tools and the desire to resolve the issue and many things are possible. And not only is it often quicker but also cheaper and generally more rewarding.
The plastic tension roller with a plain bearing broke up on the TD so I turned a new one out of ally and upgraded it further with some sealed bearings. A while later the motor seized up and so I stripped the machine down and took the motor to pieces and found a seized bearing. Ordered a couple on-line but still had a load of damp washing to deal with ... so washed the bearing out, re-lubricated it / them with some heavy oil and put it all back together again. The new bearings arrived a few days later but were lost by the time the bearings failed a few years after that.
Exactly. If you look upon a older / failed bit of kit as 'lost', then if you do get it going again, even if it's more by a wing and a prayer than anything more technical (you repair the damaged board / dry joint but find that's taken something else out), what have you lost, other than a bit of time.
A 'professional' could well write the whole thing off costing you loads more time at work to pay for it?
£10 saved is like £20 earned. ;-)Cheers, T i m
Back in the 1970s, then headlamp relay failed on a Saturday night. I made a "temporary" repair so I could get to work on Sunday. I bought a new relay later but 10 years on, when I sold the car, my repaired relay was till in use. But, I've never tried welding. .
I imagine that's a mis-type for "accept" and I completely agree with you. I suspect that very few commercial tradespeople will work to the sort of standard that a dedicated and skilled DIYer can achieve, and as you say, even those who will are unlikely to bring the same sense of ownership, pride and dedication to the job, for economic reasons if no other.
I recently had some extensive building work done, by a respected local firm whom I've used in the past. The basic core construction was (for the most part) perfectly well done but the finishing was most definitely not and it's going to take a lot of work on my part to make it acceptable. I should, in retrospect, have told them not to bother: it would have been easier to decorate from scratch than to rectify their work. Ah well, live and learn...
Oh, there are plenty of DIY-type tasks that I'm perfectly happy to do myself. I'm just (I hope) savvy enough to recognise my limitations.
A few days ago an idler pulley on our Stiga mower failed (it basically fell in half having split round the middle). Since we wanted to mow that day I bodged a repair by winding insulating tape around the pulley to stick the two halves together, I fully expected it only to last one mow but it's still functioning OK after quite a few hours mowing. I did order a replacement and it's ready and waiting on the shelf for when my repair falls apart.
One of the jobs I'm rather proud of was replacing the entire central locking on the old Rover, using different parts. The original seemed on the marginal side even when the car was new. A rear door sometimes wouldn't unlock. It had a longer linkage than the fronts.
BL fitted three different makes over the production run. The last make - on my car - in some ways the worst. It has the controller in the drivers door, and motors to the rest. Meaning it couldn't be operated remotely. Without bodging a motor into the driver's door. Early cars had motors in all, and could be controlled from either front door, so possible to add remote locking more easily.
Looking on Ebay, I found similar looking motors. Available with or without control switches. Advertised as high torque, and only about a tenner each.
Bought one and compared it to an NOS original I had - on the bench. The new produced roughly three times the pull and push of the old, checked with a crude spring balance. But at near enough the same current. Likely down to more powerful magnets.
I initially bought a ready made controller - made for a kit to fit CL to a car without. But was amazed to find the quiescent current was 15mA. And of course it is powered at all times.
So designed my own using low current 555 timers ( TS555CN) Quiescent now about 0.5 mA. Worked a treat for more than 10 years.
It was and thanks.
Exactly. Not always the case of course, when the job can be done neatly nearly as easily and it can be done shoddily and if the customer is keen for it to be, or might appreciate it being 'just right' (there are some customers who DGAF what it looks like, if it's hidden and as long as it does work). What I've seen of Adams (commercial) work here seems to be very neat for example.
Shame. Were you able to express your discontent with them?
We were there with the guy doing Mums bathroom and we had to ask him to leave. The Mrs and I finished it off and although it took us some time, it was to the sort of standard we all would have assumed to be 'right'.
I tiled our kitchen and a plasterer / tiler working on our extension, asked in passing 'who tiled this'. Thinking he was going to mention stuff that was wrong I cautiously admitted I had. 'I bet that took you some time' he said, referring I hope to the level of accuracy / attention to detail in the job?
If a tile doesn't cut / fit / look right it comes off and I adjust or do another one. I'm going to be looking at it for a good few years so why not do it right the first time? And doing stuff 'right' often means you don't need to do it again. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
I have a few of these rattling around my toolboxes and vehicles
Gives you an easy and instant check on battery voltage. The decimal place figure might not be quite accurate but it definitely gives a useful indication. Over 12, your battery is probably ok. Goes up to 13 when engine running, the alternator is working. Below 12, battery is a bit flat, or dying.
One of these just helped me diagnose an interesting problem on a diesel. The glowplug timer relay failed and I fitted a temporary bypass switch which, it turns out, is also a bit unreliable. With ignition on and engine not running, shows about 12 volts (this is with side lights and the primer pump running), this drops to 11.1 if the glow plugs are working.
In retrospect I was probably too easy on them. The contract stipulated "finish to a decent standard" or somesuch, which is completely ambiguous of course.
That's a nifty gadget; thanks for the link.
Mine read as 11.7V this afternoon.
So could do with a charge, then. Does it come up to a healthy 13.6 or so with the engine running? If not, could be an alternator fault.
That was - and is - exactly the case.
And so is that. One of the few non-cosmetic faults only came to light some time later when I had a specialist roofer in to do a job unrelated to the previous construction: he discovered a poor bit of work that could well have given rise to problems in the future, the result, clearly, of a general building firm doing something specialised. The roofer clearly wasn't simply angling for work, and since he was on the spot it seemed the sensible thing to do to have him redo the work properly.
On the subject of the finish I suppose I could have asked the original builders to correct what they did, but there was no guarantee that the result would have been an improvement. Better to accept it, be grateful for the avoidance of stress and confrontation, and move on.
I didn't start the car. I'll try it tomorrow.
One of my favourite jobs, tiling. Often draw out the wall on the computer first and try the various options for tile placement. See what looks best. Cheaper than trial and error. Pro tilers often seem to just take the easiest option. In my kitchen I altered the window reveal so it was an exact multiple of the tile width. But no one else has ever noticed this. ;-)
In many cases, yes. ;-(
Cheers, T i m
It's not mine. Ok, you can get the good bits where you can cover a large area fairly quickly but it's all the fiddly bits that take most the time.
Fancy.
True.
Yup.
Quite, except you ... and whilst that's a bit frustrating, simply goes to show that 'most people' actually don't care.
This was a consequence of teaching daughter to decorate properly. Now she 'see's' all the bad cutting-in and can't *not* see it. ;-(
Cheers, T i m
Must check mine. Can't remember if the OBD2 shows it.
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