The Car Thread

[Luke Rainbird]

Last time I had car sex was a few years back whilst training at BRNC. We weren't allowed off site, but I stuck my car in the married quarters just outside the wire and used to sneak out and drive to see the woman. One eve I didn't have time for the round trip so we met halfway. Was equal parts excellent and horrendous as usual, hence we haven't rushed to do it since 

 

Had an hour to spare while Soph was at Fire training this eve so got the car back together some more.

Gearbox tapered piece arrived. They've sent the wrong one.

Stuck in the old broken one. Lots of grease to help hold it in place whilst fitting.

Got it in the box.

Fitted a driveshaft to it. Stuck the dogbone back in shortly after. Popped in a couple of bolts underneath the car that I’d not yet done and torqued things up properly.

Bumper loosely on and back on its wheels again. Looks like a complete car again.

List currently looks something like:

• 2x nuts on bumper
• 8x screws in arch liners
• Refit TIP
• Check everything is torqued appropriately
• Refill/bleed fluids
• Fit battery
• Turn key
• Cross fingers
• Go for a drive

[Tom Booth]

1 hour ago, Luke Rainbird said:

but I stuck my car in the married quarters

Excellent euphemism.

[Greetings]

18 hours ago, SamKidney said:

Said she didnt appreicate the noise, or smell of Hammerite,

A girl who can identify Hammerite just through smell must be pretty special!  

[SamKidney]

5 hours ago, Greetings said:

A girl who can identify Hammerite just through smell must be pretty special!  

She just identified it as very "painty", I think the word was. 

In Civic news. 

Its been through 3 track days and daily duties on the same oil from around June so I figured it was due a change. New filter and some lovely fully synthetic 5w40. Id opt for 10w50 if it was solely used on track but the former gives me nice cold protection for the daily job. 

Ive also been meaning to do the valve clearances for a long time now (since I bought the engine a year ago this day..), so I got those done while the oil drained entirely. Sounds much better and feels much smoother too. 

Also noticed that using these PBS brake pads on the road is killing my brake discs to a quicker extent than the pads themselves. May pop some new ones on after Cadwell later this month. 

Need to order some fresh Torco gear oil and some friction modifier for the differential. I feel I may have to remove the diff to be serviced in the near future, a lot less clunky than it has been but I've not been loading it up at all recently. Hopefully fresh oil and less modifier sees it return to its more aggressive setting. 

 

[Luke Rainbird]

 

Got home, had a little time to spare. Figured before I bolted up the last of the bumper/arch liners I should get some fluid in the clutch and make sure it wasn’t just going to hit the floor and not return again. EZBleed time.

Didn’t seem to obviously piss out fluid, so I topped up the PAS fluid and threw the coolant back in (same stuff I dropped the other day, just until I’m happy it’s all ok at which point I’ll put fresh in and flush right through).

Content that all systems were full of appropriate fluids, I crossed fingers and turned the key. Engine sounded a touch lumpy but otherwise good. Still no major leaks, so I span the steering left and right a handful of times to bleed out the last of the air from the PAS.

Happy nothing had died just yet, tentatively pulled off the drive and down the road.

Proof it left home under its own steam once more.

Plenty of tidying up to do but hoping to do a logging run or more at the weekend. Here’s hoping!
 

[MadManMike]

I actually LOL'd at some of the content over the past two pages, bravo chaps!

[MadManMike]

On 02/10/2017 at 7:20 PM, MadManMike said:

The last MOT test was over a month ago and my car is new to them, so what do we want to bet that this garage are strict as fook and find loads wrong with it?

ZING.

Failed on:

Handbrake (I adjusted it myself, it didn't fail previously and is fine). They're suggesting it doesn't work at all.

Indicators. Again, all fine. The guy that did the welding just tested them and they're all good.

Emissions. It's being tested on normal MX-5 regs rather than pre-92, so being de-cat it will never pass. They're refusing to re-test until a cat is fitted. ALL of my previous MOT tests have been done pre-92 regs so it's always passed with flying colours.

Headlight angle. I knew this was a problem but they're saying they can't be adjusted.

 

All of this would be so much easier if I could go and talk to them, but they're a 3 hour round trip away.

F.F.S

[MadManMike]

I'm tempted to collect it and take it back to my other garage that tested it before the welding work.

But that means driving for an hour and a half with no MOT or tax.

[CurtisRider]

It's amazing how cheap it can be to get your car recovered, worth looking into

[Luke Rainbird]

Are you able to drive it there if you've pre-booked, or is that only when previous MOT has run out, rather than having been failed? Where are each of the garages, Mike?

[Tom Booth]

Surely booked in for an MOT your golden, as you can't tax with no MOT etc. I'd book it in for an afternoon and take a steady run back in the morning mate, check your own stuff over then head for the test.

Not much to report, I have toons in the fairlane now, never really bothered me it's more for Jenny's benefit. My steering lasted over a week so here's hoping!

[MadManMike]

The unit it was welded in is in Fairford, the place MOT'ing it is literally attached to the back of the unit. Two separate people, the welded doesn't like the garage much but it was convenient.

I've sent the following to the welder to pass on to the tester:

Spark ignition cars first used on or after 1 August 1992 are subject to a Basic Emissions Test (BET) regardless of whether a catalytic converter is fitted or required. In the event that the BET is failed, it becomes necessary to reference both the MOT Inspection Manual, Section 7.3 and the In Service Exhaust Emission Standards for Road Vehicles publication (Emissions book). The MOT Inspection Manual is available on-line at http://www.motinfo.gov.uk/htdocs/ and the Emissions book at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... dition.pdf

For vehicles first used between 1 August 1992 and 31 July 1995, if there is an exact match for the vehicle in the Emissions book, then a full cat test must be carried out. Where this is the case, the vehicle must have a catalytic converter fitted or it will fail, regardless of the result of the emissions test.

I checked that link and my cars VIN starts NAC6CE, so isn't subject to a test with a cat

Sorry NA6CE

One of those links doesn't work, it should be this:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/542070/in-service-exhaust-emission-standards-for-road-vehicles-18th-edition.pdf

I don't know what to do really, my only other option if the MOT tester is being difficult is to come and get it, but I'd rather not drive it without tax and MOT.

The tester is now "looking into it" but we'll need to "book it in again". So I told the welder that whatever happens I'm collecting the car on Sunday.

The previous MOT place is in Shirehampton, next to my mates house, where it was stored for a while SORN'd.

It's just annoying that the MOT it failed on a month ago was just for wiper blades (I've replaced) and headlight angle (Easy to adjust), now they've failed it on loads of obscure shit, half of which isn't true.

[MadManMike]

The welder went to the garage and argued for me, now magically the only thing wrong with the car is a snapped handbrake cable.

Good news, but annoying that they basically tried to scam me with loads of random shit that wasn't wrong - I told them all the work I've done, so they couldn't argue.

[CurtisRider]

Name and shame Mike

[Tom Booth]

Mike said it was some kid named Sam Kidney??

[forteh]

A friend from work took his 05 ibiza to a national car fixing place forservice.

For 125 quid they changed the oil and filter and gave him an 800 quid list of things that needed doing.

He wasn't sure on the list of stuff that needed doing so dropped it on my desk to have a look over....

Other than a pair of tyres (quoted budgets with 20 quids worth of sundries per wheel) the only thing that needed doing was an arb drop link with a hole in the gaiter and some play in it.

I checked their prices against Halfords and they had a markup of a minimum 100% and charge 87 per hour labour.

I shudder to think how many thousands they've scammed from people who trust them

edit: off the top of my head the list ran something like this: -

New front tyres -  120 with sundries.

Tracking - 40 bearing in mind the car drives true and the tyres wear evenly.

New front disks & pads - 100.

Brake bleed - 40.

New arb links - 50.

Pollen filter - 35.

Spark plugs - 40.

Edited October 8, 2017 by forteh

[MadManMike]

6 hours ago, CurtisRider said:

Name and shame Mike

I'd be happy to, but I'm not sure what they're called.

Once I get the car back I will, as I'll be collecting it from the garage.

 

Yeah forteh, I'm sure the majority of garages will do what they can to bump the bill up a bit. There's no way to really regulate that kind of behaviour, other than a "mystery shopper" type approach I guess?

I can't fault the welder guy, other than being a bit slack on communication, but the whole thing has been a big pain in the Yaris.

[SamKidney]

11 hours ago, Tom Booth said:

Mike said it was some kid named Sam Kidney??

Weeeyyyyyy, Wrong end of the country I’m afraid 

Glad you got it sorted Mike, garages like that taint folks view of them and ruins it for the genuine ones out there. 

 

Edited October 8, 2017 by SamKidney

[Tom Booth]

I got spotted at matlock this morning..

Some mong came to tell me how he loves muscle cars and yank cars. There's nothing he didn't know about them. He ended with..

' So what year mustang is it then?'

Face with palm.

[RobinJI]

Haha! 'experts' like that can be hilarious sometimes. The car's looking good Tom! 

I finished welding up the last of the rust in the 924 a week or 2 ago, so I finally pulled my finger out and got the tubes for the cage ordered, then got the guy in the next unit to stick some bends in them for me. 

I'm really happy with the fit so far:

I've got a couple of bits in the post to finish a tube notcher I'm making, then I can get really stuck in putting a whole lot more tube in there! 

[Tom Booth]

That's a good looking cage Robin, that's shaping up to be a cracking car!

[Luke Rainbird]

Looks fantastic Robin. Nice tight fit from the looks of things

[MadManMike]

Yeah but seriously, what year is that Mustang?

[Luke Rainbird]

Bit of a catchup of the last few days. In the end I didn’t do a huge amount this weekend as I wanted a change of scene so spent time with family instead. Here’s what did go down:

Messed about for a bit trying to get logging working properly. Starting to figure it out/work out a few kinks. Had a bit of help.

Figured out where I’m losing some coolant. Flange isn’t sealing properly. Will get another one sorted - not sure if it’s the plastic housing or the o-ring that’s giving me trouble but they’re cheap enough I can just replace the lot.

Picked up some larger spline bits - only really needed M16 for the gearbox but worked out just as cheap to buy a set, so I did. Note that for the drain/fill plugs on an 02m box you’ll typically need an M16H (hollow) rather than flat bit. Some were just a large allen head IIRC.

I’d only lost a small amount of oil when moving the box about with no drive cup, so at this stage I just wanted to top it back up. The box itself is making a bit of noise so I’ll be giving it a complete oil change at some point, but this stuff isn’t overly cheap so I’d rather not use 2.5l of it just to drop again in a couple of weeks if needs be!

Pr0tipz: A length of common or garden hose on the nozzle saves a whole world of mess - allows you to feed the new oil straight into the box without having to pull anything off the car at all (other than the fill plug, of course…)

The fill and drain plugs on the box are found on the front and bottom respectively. Black caps seen here

Fill until fluid starts to drip from the fill hole on level ground. Don’t forget there’s oil in the hose as it takes a while to flow down. I used ~300ml to top this one up, of which ~50ml or so ended up on the drive. Rookie error.

Box topped up to the right level, I took the car for a quick drive to see if it’d helped quiet things down. It hadn’t.

I’ve got a rattle which disappears as soon as you depress the clutch pedal at all, and a similar noise on overrun. As much as I don’t want to replace the CSC again, it’d be a darn sight cheaper than having to split the box and rebuild for a worn/dead input shaft bearing which symptoms point to. I’ve ordered a shim kit to see if it rectifies things from externally, but if that doesn’t help I’ll have to drop the box AGAIN and rethink. May throw stock box back in for a while, may transfer LSD across to the currently stock box instead. Car is filthy, but until it’s running right it’ll probably stay that way.

Turns out being too lazy to reconnect your arch liners doesn’t pay. Oops…

VCDS was reporting a misfire on cyl 1, so I’ve swapped coils between #1 and #2 to see if it’s just a coilpack issue. Not yet driven since to check. Have a fresh set of 4 en route but this’ll help diagnose for now. Not going to drive the car again until the box is shimmed to try and minimise any harm done. Very slight amount of oil in #1, but don’t think this is the cause. No major leak evident so likely just a touch through valve cover gasket, will keep an eye on it. Top of the plug itself is mostly clean, so may just have been a dab of oil on the coilpack when fitted that I missed.

Despite running on actuator pressure (n75 unplugged) I’m currently seeing measured boost exceeding requested considerably. Need to get to the bottom of that - could be incorrectly plumbed (don’t think so!), maybe a dead n75 hose (potentially), could be an incorrectly set actuator (not sure) so more investigation needed. I may also have pre-emptively picked up another part to fit in that area, but that’s for another day.

[george_seamons]

S3 went last weekend. Went to the first person that saw it, which I was fairly sure it would. I even ended up with more than I was expecting which was a bonus!

Replacement is a mk7 Golf GTD, which whilst it is obviously nowhere near as fast, is a whole new level of awesomeness inside. GTD's got a pretty decent spec as standard, and this one has KESSY (keyless entry and start). Everything is automatic, all touch screen, with colour screens everywhere, and more ambient lighting than I have in my house! ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control) is weird as f**k, you set the cruise control speed, and the distance at which you want to stay from the car in front, and the car maintains that gap, including braking and accelerating based on the car in front's behaviour...even down to stopping at roundabouts etc. Makes motorway driving an absolute dream, because you just put the cruise on and pretty much switch off!

Really love the look of the mk7 GTD, and getting an easy 65mpg on a run is a lot nicer than the 30 I was used to with the S3!