The Car Thread

[Azarathal]

So the mr2 was f**ked. In 3years of ownership he'd never serviced it. Passenger side wheels were pissed and scrubbing, oil hadn't been changed, no filters changed, exhaust blowing, brake pads worn almost to the backing, handbrake shoes needed doing along with an adjustment. Front end was orange peeled and the paint was almost new which says front end damage.

All in all a waste of a couple of hours but at it could've been a decent bargain. Oh and the clocks were still in km/h so no idea how he's passed mot since he's had it. Only upside was rust, or rather the lack of it.

[Jolfa]

Oh and the clocks were still in km/h so no idea how he's passed mot since he's had it.

Probably because that's not an MOT fail?

[Toby]

Only reason I still come here from time to time is this thread. good stuff as usual!

Went to a meet a few weeks back and someone who can use a camera took this of mine:


I wish it was faster though, only real option is a supercharger or turbo, its already highly strung motor n/a and getting more out of it n/a is very expensive, though so is going FI, but big numbers are possible with stock internals

Got this week off work so I will be changing the engine/gbox/diff oils, spark plugs and carrying out valve adjustment.
Grease up the brake caliper sliders, paint the rocker cover in grey and some touch ups to paint in the engine bay.

Edited September 21, 2013 by Toby

[crashbanggg]

Nowhere near as stunning as the car above ^ , But I grabbed a picture of mine today after having the tires switched:

[CurtisRider]

Anybody handy with K-jet? My car is lumping at 2k and really annoying me now.

Here are some videos of the car starting, running from cold and running when warm, annoyingly the important one of the car lumping isn't working... i'll go redo that later

Engine starting from cold

Exhaust from cold

Engine running when warm

Exhaust when warm

Car pulling through the rev range (on a private road of course), note how its smooth when accelerating but slightly lumpy when going at a consistent pace

As you can see, some whiter smoke is evident when cold, but that disappears when warm. The engine is quite tappy (I need to do the tappets soon) and runs lumpy in idle regardless of cold or warm. When cold the car does not lump, this only happens when the car warms up and is more noticeable when more torque is required i.e higher gear with a low speed or going up hill

[Greetings]

'm looking for a new helmet which would be HANS compatible and also a HANS system. With regards to the latter, I'm sold on the Simpson hybrid system. However, when it comes to the helmet, I'd really like the Simpson Diamondback for obvious reasons but now I can see that it's a Snell M2010 which if I understand correctly is suited for open car racing or motorbikes? Therefore, used in a closed car it could be quite stuffy to wear? Does anyone have experience with this?

I wish it was faster though, only real option is a supercharger or turbo, its already highly strung motor n/a and getting more out of it n/a is very expensive, though so is going FI, but big numbers are possible with stock internals

f**k me that's beautiful. With regards to power, look into LS engines - it's a common swap in the US but then they put it into everything with four wheels. Perhaps some sort of BMW engine, maybe the S54 from the E46 M3? That's almost as high revving and has lots more power so shouldn't ruin the character of the car. There's bound to be bags of room for it and the weight distribution shouldn't be impaired too much.

[george_seamons]

Oh feck!

Manifold has blown a hole on the weld, and cracked around the collector below it. Stuuuuuuuuuuuuupid car!

[CurtisRider]

Bit of JB weld and you are sorted...

[CurtisRider]

Removing rear seats- has anybody incurred a charge from their insurers for doing that? I don't need mine, they only fit midgets and I want more room out back

[george_seamons]

I had no extra costs with an entirely stripped out interior.

What's to say you hadn't just carted something messy around, and had to take the seats out anyway

[CurtisRider]

I'd guess the nice fold up lid where the seat wells are and freshly carpeted boot may be a giveaway

[RobinJI]

Paul, this could be worth a watch (admittedly I've not watched it right through my self yet, so it could be crap, but it looks like it should be interesting):

George, that's gutting about the manifold, I wish manufacturers wouldn't keep making/selling turbo manifolds made from thin stainless, it's completely the wrong material for the job. I take it that ones a relentless? They seem to be a bargin for the increase in flow they give, but not exactly structurally sound.

Edited September 22, 2013 by RobinJI

[george_seamons]

Yup, its a Rentless V2. They flow far better, but are made of thinner metal. I had a V3 before this, which was more durable, but didnt flow as well. Guess poor flowing and longevity is better than good flowing and short lived.

Annoying, because it was a royal pain in the arse to fit...and that was with the engine out of the car on a stand. Not looking forward to soing it again!

[RobinJI]

I'm sure Nick said something about a special cut-down/adapted spanner making his relentless much easier to fit, might be worth quizzing him on it. Do you think you'll get it repaired or just replace it with something else?

[Toby]

f**k me that's beautiful. With regards to power, look into LS engines - it's a common swap in the US but then they put it into everything with four wheels. Perhaps some sort of BMW engine, maybe the S54 from the E46 M3? That's almost as high revving and has lots more power so shouldn't ruin the character of the car. There's bound to be bags of room for it and the weight distribution shouldn't be impaired too much.

I would love to do a k20/k24 swap, me and my dad may be building an engine soon. but this being my daily I can't have it off the road too long.

[george_seamons]

I made a spanner out of some cut up and bent bits...was still a faff! Not sure its really worth repairing in all honesty...the crack looks pretty big and terminal. Think the plate joining the runners did more harm than good

[Pashley26]

Shameless plug, but I am selling our Alfa.

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewitem?sbk=1&nav=SEARCH&itemId=261292618630

I love it so much. I don't want it to go

[MadManMike]

Any Transit experts out there?

A mate has a 2001 / 2002 LWB Tranny that needs a new passenger door. Are SWB / MWB / LWB all the same in terms of doors?

Also, how much of a task is it to replace?

[manuel]

Hey - I need a bit of quick help/advice with my car. 54 fabia 1.2 (oh yes, fear the power)

Engine management light came on after stopping for petrol last night. Was fine before engine off and continued to be fine on the run back to my house (5-10 mins) no rise on temp gauge, no change in running. It has happened once before - directly before a service but the light went off after a couple of days

I need to use it on thursday to go see Martyn in Oswestry (2.5 hrs), so it needs to be ok.

Whats the best way to check out the fault code - should I just take it to the garage and pay for the code to be read or is there a better way to do it myself for cheeps, given it may happen again / come in handy in the future on a fairly old battered car ? Also can I just pull the battery to clear the code and see if it comes back on as a simple test to see if the car is good to go for a long drive ?

Any help.

RJ

[Mark W]

So, what happens when you take 6 or 7 of these...

...from a stack of these...

...and lay them on the exit of a corner on a fairly fast A-road?

Something like this:

Front right wheel and tyre are f**ked, and rear left tyre's got a flat too. Think my exhaust got battered further back along the car as well 'cos that sounds pretty fruity, and there may or may not be a leak from something on the car (when we drove back up the road later on there was a small wet patch on the floor).

To summarise:

Driving back on some sweepy twisty A-roads from Birmingham last night. There's a car about a minute up the road from me (could just see brake lights - was around 8:30pm so fully dark by that point), and another one about a minute behind (really long straight with multiple hidden dips, so I could see when they were both coming into sight/going out of sight). Go into a right hander at about 50-55mph or so. Suddenly spot a load of logs across road. Straighten up, brake, excrete, hit the first log, get launched. Batter over the other ones in the road, everything gets a bit wiggly worm, kept it on the road and stopped. Just as I'm stopping, guy behind me swings round the corner and does much the same, although I'd shunted them around a bit so he only ended up hitting one. As we're getting out, a guy coming the other way stops and runs down to help move the logs. He drives down, 3-point turns it then pulls up behind us with his lights/hazards on. We check out cars 'n' stuff. He got away with only a single flat, so the 'good samaritan' guy offered to help him change the wheel. To quote him: "People set these kinds of thing up you know. You seem like a nice guy so I'll help you. If you were a gypo I'd have just left you here." He then goes on about how he's a mechanic, then proceeds to knock the car off the jack by trying to undo the wheel nuts with wheel up in the air. He later asked me if I had 2 spare wheels or not. wut.

Phoned my breakdown company (free recovery through insurance). "That'll be around £250 because this counts as an RTA." Decide to maybe go the insurance route, so get police involved to try and get some sort of incident number. Policeman comes eventually after going to the wrong place. This is unsurprising when he starts talking.

There were bits of scooter/moped fairing on the verge from a previous accident, but he thought it might have been fresh. Instead of looking up the road - where a bike/rider would get sent into the hedge - he goes back down the road and looks in some bushes, seemingly in case the world had glitched and although it threw the bodywork up the road, the rider would have been sent an equivalent distance backwards.

His torch had almost completely run out of batteries, so he was trying to look at shit in the darkness without much success. Asked me what I was going to do with my car. I said talk to my insurance company and get them to recover it. He then offered the option of getting him to arrange recovery through the police, which would cost £150. It's either that or move it. He suggests blocking the traffic while I turn around in the road and put it in the little layby back by the corner. I agree. He then goes off and chats to other guy. Come backs, asks if I want to get him to arrange recovery. "No, I'll move it." Goes off. Comes back again and says "I need a decision from you: Do you want me to arrange recovery?" "No, I'll move it."

He then asks me to drive my car off and up the road to see if there's anywhere to leave it. I explain I'd rather not drive my f**ked car up a road when I've got no idea how far away a safe spot to put it would be when I know that there's a space for it I can see from where I'm standing, back down the road. He tells me to wait, guns it off up the road and comes back a minute later to tell me there's a crossroads I can park it up by. This ends up being about around 3/4 of a mile further up the road. Somehow, he f**ks up my first breathalyser test and makes me do it again. He then asks me a-f**king-gain if I want him to arrange recovery.

After I ask him for the incident number ("Oh yeah, that'll help you with your insurance." Yeah, I know...), he says that because the person who put the logs in the road didn't stop, they can't do anything so he's going.

Current status is that I'm waiting for a local recovery company to pick my car up (£100, so a bit cheaper overall), and I'm trying to track down some replacement wheels.

Sketchy shit overall though - there's no way the car in front of me wouldn't have hit them, and the guy coming the other way just happened to be there (seemingly going pretty slowly) at the right time. He kept excitedly going on about how high my car had gone and about how I'd "swerved all over the road", as well as his bit to the other guy about how people setting them up like that.

Ah well. Got to get it all sorted by Wednesday otherwise it'll be an expensive, long and logistically challenging train ride up North. We'll see what happens...

[Luke Rainbird]

Without some form of OBD2 connection (bluetooth, wifi or cable) you'll struggle to run any digital diagnostics.

The good news is for future use you can grab this sort of thing cheap, specifics depending on what you want to use to read codes (iPhone, Android unit, windows-based laptop/tablet etc), the bad news it sounds like getting one by Thursday may be a little tight. Amazon and/or eBay are your friend though, may well be the best bet as I can't really think of anywhere on the high street that might sell them so you can grab one today. Perhaps that MotorMart place in Bedminster at a push, but unlikely.

Edit: I'm being a f**king 'tard. I've got both a bluetooth and wifi connector myself which you're more than welcome to use so sling me your address. The wifi one I'll need back (as iPhone/iPad not compatible with bluetooth) but if the BT one is useful to you (ie. if you have an android device) then you can have it.

Best scenario is to grab yourself a (cracked/cheap copy of) VAGCAM/VCDS as it'll include all the manufacturer specific codes as well as the generic ones used across the board.

As I said on FB. Laaaaame

Hopefully just a case of new wheels (which should be dirt cheap, fortunately) and a look over. Hope you get it sorted quickly man.

[manuel]

Without some form of OBD2 connection (bluetooth, wifi or cable) you'll struggle to run any digital diagnostics.

The good news is for future use you can grab this sort of thing cheap, specifics depending on what you want to use to read codes (iPhone, Android unit, windows-based laptop/tablet etc), the bad news it sounds like getting one by Thursday may be a little tight. Amazon and/or eBay are your friend though, may well be the best bet as I can't really think of anywhere on the high street that might sell them so you can grab one today. Perhaps that MotorMart place in Bedminster at a push, but unlikely.

Edit: I'm being a f**king 'tard. I've got both a bluetooth and wifi connector myself which you're more than welcome to use so sling me your address. The wifi one I'll need back (as iPhone/iPad not compatible with bluetooth) but if the BT one is useful to you (ie. if you have an android device) then you can have it.

Best scenario is to grab yourself a (cracked/cheap copy of) VAGCAM/VCDS as it'll include all the manufacturer specific codes as well as the generic ones used across the board.

As I said on FB. Laaaaame

Hopefully just a case of new wheels (which should be dirt cheap, fortunately) and a look over. Hope you get it sorted quickly man.

how about something like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/DIAGNOSTIC-CABLE-409-1-OBD2-VAG-COM/dp/B005R0OQ12/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379939820&sr=8-1&keywords=vag+com

if you say already had the software as Im a primer...

Oh and just in case, will the old battery removal trick work to clear the engine management warning as a test ?

[Luke Rainbird]

From what I can recall it's worth getting a "HEX + CAN" (to USB) cable so as to ensure it's got the right interface, though I'm fairly certain that it's only the HEX bus you'll need. Let me have a quick play in a mo as I've got some random interface cables in the car too and may have one that's compatible. If so I'll get you sorted with that and a copy of the software but yeah, that'd be plenty

Not too sure about the battery trick. Worth a try if you've got your radio code/etc handy though.

[manuel]

Not too sure about the battery trick. Worth a try if you've got your radio code/etc handy though.

Good point.

[Luke Rainbird]

Had a quick look - my netbook battery is dead so haven't had a chance to check it works though it did when I last used it so no idea why it wouldn't now, but I have an interface cable labelled "VAG KKL for vagcom 409.1" you're welcome to have, along with aforementioned bluetooth dongle and/or wifi if its of use.