advertisement


Car DIY Thread.

Loads of street DIY in the 80's. Full exhaust systems, brake pads discs and drums, engine out, clutches - front and rear wheel drive, rear diff change, starter motors, alternators, head gaskets, water pumps, toughest was a water leak caused by rusted core plugs on a Saab 99. Levered out old ones and hammered in new ones in the middle of the winter, no feeling in my hands after for hours to find a number of leaks in my hands after.

No real interest doing any more tbh.
 
(cough) I actually replaced my car's radiator, street-side, Central Bath adj Assembly Rooms in late May.

But it's an e39- the last thing BMW designed for proper serviceability - so all it took was three twist-lock hoses, one Philips driver to two screws and a bit of manipulation to wriggle things in/out. 10mins to remove, 10 to replace, 15mins to refill & watch system self-bleed. Done! OEm rad, £120

No-one even noticed.

IMG_2169-800px.jpg


tl;dr:
'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a ...10mm socket, no dammit it was here just now - f-ckty, f-ckty, f-ck - anyone have a spare?


ETA: in celebration of 100k miles, got a new set of plugs to fit soon :/
 
Seeker_UK said:
Why replace what you could fix with a beer can, two jubilee clips and Gun Gum?
Click to expand...


What! I didn't see you there, were you watching?

I actually did stick coke cans in the exhausts of an RD400 as we could not afford new pipes. It failed on a trip back from Donnington and had to get relayed back home. Eventually stuck the spannies off an rd350 on it, went really well (noisy) after that.
 
JensenHealey said:
Practice. Practice and more Practice is the only way. If you were a young driver in the 1970s and 1980s it was the only way to keep going. Even did a head gasket on my Imp in the driveway, without taking the engine out as the Haynes book recommended.

Now I just take the Volvo to a dealer once a year for a quick service and MOT, all delivered with a pleasant smile. I do top up the washer fluid and take it to a car wash from time to time.
Click to expand...

Surely the whole point of Imps was that the engines could be removed and serviced in the comfort of your own front room.
 
Working on very old cars for me improved greatly with the availability heat, mainly access to oxyacetylene. Sadly I have no access to it these days but you’d be surprised the benefits a simple blow torch will give.

Ultimately all you’re looking for a heat differential between the two items, generally bolt and nut!

As a regular viewer of South Main Auto on YouTube I’m really grateful I no longer have to work on old motors although that may change as my brother has decided he fancies doing up an old Land Rover!

Here’s how a relatively simple clutch job becomes a nightmare even for a very well equipped and experienced mechanic! Well worth viewing all three episodes.


His videos on diagnostics are superb, well worth a scroll through his content.

Here’s a much shorter video on a Subaru which shows what you’re up against in New York. He’s mentioned a number of times that generally a car in his State is basically toast after 10 years!

 
Oh dear.

Once long ago In oz I correctly diagnosed why the old Holden we had hired kept stopping every 50km or so. The chap who’d hired the vehicle was a tall, muscle-bound lad and always right, so when, once the motor had cooled sufficiently, I noticed there was no water in the radiator, and the smell of burning oil was caused by oil getting so hot it was indeed close to doing just that, I suggested perhaps stopping and calling the RACV for help, he simply shook his head.

He had a better idea. Simple really. He drove on until the motor stopped again,waited until it cooled, drove off again, and repeated this simple system until we reached Yarrawonga. A 150km trip had taken nearly 4 hours. We waited until the motor was stone cold, the pubs being open all day long back then. M-b lad joined us later, having taken our bags into the place where we were staying.

We all went to the hire car place, and handed in the keys.

The receptionist asked us how the car went

"No worries. You might wanna check the water and oil,mate, she started coughing a bit outside town. Cheers."

At that point we left, and returned to the pub. I was new to Australia, and was about to say something when my mate Hoppy caught my eye and shook his head. After all, m-b lad was shouting the first round.
 
martin clark said:
Ha! that's not that hard part.

No, the hard part was that buggardly-awkward waterpump bypass hose on the original A (not A+) series - the one where the short 1/2" bore, 1-1/4" long hose had to be brutally compressed to under 3/4" long to get it in place over the two spigots it fitted-between , from a recess deep in the underside of cyl head, to the spigot atop said pump.

And - at the moment of your triumph -

- when you'd slipped the damn thing in place with detergent,
- the cheapo corrugated version was actually no help at all, although marketed as such, was rejected having skittered sideways, then split: replaced by the unwavering right Unipart,
- without either skewering your fingers, nor the hose, nor long-suffering pal/sister/girlfriend via the various greased flat-blade screwdrivers employed as inclined ramps like an industrial & sharp version of reverse- Ker-plunk



.. you realise you'd forgotten you had to thread the hoseclamps on before fitting it, and the thing has to be done-over - & thus the A-Series Gods attain their required blood-sacrifice after all.


Joy, joy....
Click to expand...
I did a fair few of them in my time and struggled until someone showed me the trick of going inside the nearside wing and breaking the weld on the little radiator vent panel and levering it out of the way, then it was, if not quite a doddle, a damn sight easier and you could use a proper bit of hose. There was a way of using a loop of string to pull the hose out onto the stubs.

We used to do all sorts out in the road, including following the instructions (maybe David Vizard's?) for pulling my Mini engine out without removing the gearbox. It was a real struggle, and in the end it would have been easier to do it the proper way, as one lump. The lightened flywheel on my tuned-up Mini used to weld itself to the crank, and I ended up using a huge great scaffold bar on the puller to release it. When it eventually went, it did so with a massive bang and dented the offside inner wing right in (or out in this case).

Us DIY types, no matter how keen we were, lacked the knowledge of proper mechanics and often struggled unnecessarily as a consequence. The husband of my wife's friend was a Jaguar mechanic, and kindly offered to listen to a noise I told him was a gearbox bearing. Within a couple of minutes, he told me it was a rear-wheel bearing. He was right of course... A mate rang to tell us the clutch on his Vauxhall was knackered, so we told him to buy the bits, bring it over, & we'd replace it; a doddle! We undid everything except one bolt right at the top of the bell housing, which we just could not reach, so we had to swallow our pride, put it all back, and tell him to go to the garage. The mechanic who he went to showed him how to get at the bolt - just get a large ball-pein hammer and bash in the bulkhead. Not something we'd ever think of.
 
There was a lot of maintenance unfriendly design in the 70s. I heard a story about I think a Renault 4 with a rattling timing chain. No access, engine out. The cost was prohibitive. However the resourceful mechanics cut a hole in the bulkhead, reached through and then tacked it back in afterwards.
 
stevec67 said:
There was a lot of maintenance unfriendly design in the 70s. I heard a story about I think a Renault 4 with a rattling timing chain. No access, engine out. The cost was prohibitive. However the resourceful mechanics cut a hole in the bulkhead, reached through and then tacked it back in afterwards.
Click to expand...
BMW 2.0 diseasel, timing chain at the back, didn’t last long either.
Lots of FWD cars with headlight bulbs that couldn’t be changed in under 20 minutes.
Run flat tyres...
Unfathomable dashboards.

A mate is taking delivery of a Tesla 3 this week. I await his moans :)
 
Bart said:
Surely the whole point of Imps was that the engines could be removed and serviced in the comfort of your own front room.
Click to expand...

Given that the 'chocolate' head gasket in the Imp could be considered a service consumable, it was a good job too.
 
Although arthritis and creeping senility (WTF did I put that bolt I just took off?) precludes me from doing anything complicated on motor vehicles these days, I've nevertheless been very impressed with the way our current Porsche cars (yea, I know) are put together, and the relative ease, provided you've a set of torx bits, by which you can dismantle it. Not engine, gearbox etc.
 
martin clark said:
Ha! that's not that hard part.

No, the hard part was that buggardly-awkward waterpump bypass hose on the original A (not A+) series - the one where the short 1/2" bore, 1-1/4" long hose had to be brutally compressed to under 3/4" long to get it in place over the two spigots it fitted-between , from a recess deep in the underside of cyl head, to the spigot atop said pump.

And - at the moment of your triumph -

- when you'd slipped the damn thing in place with detergent,
- the cheapo corrugated version was actually no help at all, although marketed as such, was rejected having skittered sideways, then split: replaced by the unwavering right Unipart,
- without either skewering your fingers, nor the hose, nor long-suffering pal/sister/girlfriend via the various greased flat-blade screwdrivers employed as inclined ramps like an industrial & sharp version of reverse- Ker-plunk



.. you realise you'd forgotten you had to thread the hoseclamps on before fitting it, and the thing has to be done-over - & thus the A-Series Gods attain their required blood-sacrifice after all.


Joy, joy....
Click to expand...

I had an Austen 1300 that lost its bypass hose on the way to Dover to catch a ferry. 4 of us travelling with 2 tents on the roof rack. Missed the ferry, slept in the car overnight and got a lift to a local Halfords that thank fully opened on Sunday morning. Fitted it and got the ferry 12 hours late. There were further adventures with the car on the rest of the holiday too - another story.
 
I have always shied away from car maintenance, preferring to change cars before warranties expire. The exception is our current Panda, which has been a joy for the last 10 years. I managed to change the battery last year. I'm not fishing for praise.

However, I remember a couple of years in, we were driving down the A12 and there was a petrolly smell coming onto the cabin, which didn't seem right. Before hitting the M25, I though it best to stop and have a look under the bonnet. Took a while to find the latch for that. There seemed to be a rubber tube hanging off the thingy at the top, and some exhaust (?) fumes coming out of an outlet thingy on the thingummyjig. Didn't seem right, so I plugged the tube back onto the whatsit, and it seemed to fit OK, and nothing else looked amiss, so we carried on.

I later decided that it might be good to put a jubilee clip on the connection to the whatsit, so that was my only expense. I probably saved thousands.
 
My first car was a Hillman Avenger. Pile of sh1t! I had to replace the alternator, fuel pump, starter motor, timing cover oil seal..even the bloody petrol tank came half off one night. I could hear a metal scraping sound and fortunately clocked my fuel gauge suddenly went to E.
I learned enough to confidently tell a colleague that I could replace his starter motor (mk4 Cortina) during a lunch break. Including a trip to Halfords for a exchange one. I haven't used my socket set for many years..wouldn't know where to start on a modern car.
 
We look back with rose tinted specs at old car maintenance done in the road, in January. But I don't miss it for a second.

Up until not too long ago (2013/14 I think) I was doing the servicing and repairs for my old man on his workhorse '96 Pajero which was still easily accessible to work on, but the oil filter could only be properly reached from the bottom and because of the vehicle height this required arm at full stretch whilst on your back, which resulted in the old oil out of the filter being all down your arm and in your armpit before you had time to even do anything about it. Great times. Not.
 
Nero said:
I have always shied away from car maintenance, preferring to change cars before warranties expire. The exception is our current Panda, which has been a joy for the last 10 years. I managed to change the battery last year. I'm not fishing for praise.

However, I remember a couple of years in, we were driving down the A12 and there was a petrolly smell coming onto the cabin, which didn't seem right. Before hitting the M25, I though it best to stop and have a look under the bonnet. Took a while to find the latch for that. There seemed to be a rubber tube hanging off the thingy at the top, and some exhaust (?) fumes coming out of an outlet thingy on the thingummyjig. Didn't seem right, so I plugged the tube back onto the whatsit, and it seemed to fit OK, and nothing else looked amiss, so we carried on.

I later decided that it might be good to put a jubilee clip on the connection to the whatsit, so that was my only expense. I probably saved thousands.
Click to expand...
You just diagnosed and fixed a detached engine breather pipe, well done. It would have got you home. Not all faults are so kind.
 
When I worked in Saudi in the 90s, the saying was “If you want something to do at the weekends, buy an American car. If you’re after something to do all week, buy British.”

I bought a new Renault Laguna in 1996, no issues!
 
stevec67 said:
You just diagnosed and fixed a detached engine breather pipe, well done. It would have got you home. Not all faults are so kind.
Click to expand...
Excellent, thanks for that. Now I can hold my head up high next time I'm in the pub.
"I remember the time when we were driving home, and the engine breather pipe became detached. Luckily I had my SnapOn tools in the back, and using a 10mil socket, I managed to find a way to fix the pipe back on so we could get home. Boy it was lucky otherwise it would have been catastrophic. I'm glad I know so much about car maintenance. Oh yes, another pint of Pride would be good, thanks"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top