Car DIY Thread.

[martin clark]

& that in my second e39 BMW , for which owner-forumites forever bemoan 'the handbrake no work / failed mot/ unbalanced/ drags one side' blah blah.
Prob in the same category as their indicator stalk then ...

 

[stevec67]

A quick look on Pistonheads suggests that all new Polos under 115bhp have rear drums. Blimey.

Really efficient for the first heavy application, not so good after that, so I suppose on a weedy shopping cart they’ll be fine.

Car like that, who'd notice?

 

[MichaelC]

I did my car diy over the weekend. Replenished the windscreen washer reservoir.

Everything else is a mystery.

Having said that I did change the battery in the Jag last year.

 

[martin clark]

Car like that, who'd notice?

hands-up all those who can just-remember when 100hp+ was 'proper, 2-litre 4-dr saloon car of some status' category...

(with drums on the rear, live axle, natch...)

(My fave UK official road sign: how much has to go Rong, to leave skidmarks like *that..* ? Clearly drafted in the days of BMC...)

 

[2ManyBoxes]

The things that really finished me off were the wind always shifting to go right down the back of your boiler suit and the rain starting just when you'd got everything apart.

The idea that you saved money was bullshit too, you spent more on specialist expensive tools that were used once and never again than you saved.

I never had a proper garage and no access to another car so if I found that I needed another part it was shank's into town.

As soon as I could afford to pay someone else at an independent garage with mechanics whose balls had dropped to do it, that's what I did and I have no regrets.

 

[stevec67]

My Merc’s parking brake is a drum set up inside the hub of the rear brake discs. 140k and still fine. I make sure I drive a few feet with it on every now and then, just to satisfy a weird concept I have.

My favourite HB mech is the Cavalier/Vectra rear disc, with a half width drum the size of a CD built in. Manual adjust, twiddle a starwheel with a screwdriver through a slot. 150-200k miles, and the only attention is a clean and readjust when the discs give up around 100k miles.

 

[JensenHealey]

hands-up all those who can just-remember when 100hp+ was 'proper, 2-litre 4-dr saloon car of some status' category...

(with drums on the rear, live axle, natch...)

(My fave UK official road sign: how much has to go Rong, to leave skidmarks like *that..* ? Clearly drafted in the days of BMC...)

Yup - my dad had at one time a 2L Cortina estate of over 100Hp. The clutch was very sharp and I spent a good 10 minutes as a learner stuck at a junction trying to pull away, but stalling every time. My Dad had endless patience- just sat there until I got it. My mum in the back was going spare.....the cars stuck behind were probably shaking their fists.

A couple of years later I had a hired a Ford Escort 1.6 with a sub 10s 0-60. Gosh that seemed quick!

 

[martin clark]

The mk 4/5 2l Cortina claimed 101bhp. The equiv >'80 mk 2 Vaux Cav (brilliant/proper Opel design, wishbone front end, none of those nasty struts*) 100. A needle match, eh

I still think that series Cav was the better car (but who knows, I was 9 at the time my dad had one ...)

*erm admittedly , better-remembered in the form of hotter Opel Manta coupe; esp. Manta 400 form. Esp if Bill Blydenstein had got anywhere near it.

Sigh.

 

[James]

Economy hatches do still, if only at the back. I think it makes for a nice easy handbrake mechanism, and no maintenance for 50k miles at least.

Nothing less than ventilated discs front and back will do for me. I'm still on the original rotors and pads at 135,000km, and I think they will be good for another 50,000km at the rate they are wearing (with mostly motorway driving).

 

[James]

The things that really finished me off were the wind always shifting to go right down the back of your boiler suit and the rain starting just when you'd got everything apart.

The idea that you saved money was bullshit too, you spent more on specialist expensive tools that were used once and never again than you saved.

I never had a proper garage and no access to another car so if I found that I needed another part it was shank's into town.

As soon as I could afford to pay someone else at an independent garage with mechanics whose balls had dropped to do it, that's what I did and I have no regrets.

That is my view too, unless it is something really simple like oil and filter change.

I recently needed some gasket replacements on my BMW - notably valve-cover, oil filter housing, and sump - which all started to weep at the same time. At a push, I might have been able to tackle the OFH, since it is quite accessible. But the valve cover looked like a proper faff, and the last thing I wanted to do was break it (made of plastic). The sump, being under the car, was never going to be a job I'd do without a proper hoist. So I handed a bunch of cash to the service centre. They took three days to get the jobs done. I had the use of a loan vehicle the whole time, so I was not without transport. I might have taken twice as long and gone without a car altogether.

A couple of months later, the OFH started to weep oil again. But because the repair was carried out by the service centre, it was warrantied for two years. So that was fixed at their cost. I don't know if the gaskets were not installed correctly in the first place, but I figured I had just as much, if not more, chance of botching the job myself, and then pay for it with my time and money, twice - had I DIYed the repair.

 

[Suffolk Tony]

The idea that you saved money was bullshit too, you spent more on specialist expensive tools that were used once and never again than you saved.

You ended up buying umpteen special tools, but when you were stuck, and really needed one, you couldn't find it in the many places you dumped them, or the chaotic oily heap that passed for a toolbox. I've still kept most of my old car-fettling tools, pullers and whatnot, and still think, when I win the Lottery (no luck so far - maybe I'm hampering my chances by not buying tickets?) that I'll get a house with a huge garage and pillar lifts so I can dismantle old Land Rovers in comfort. Our Macan will need new front discs and pads soon, and I keep looking at the uTube videos on how to change them. But I know in my heart it ain't going to happen.

 

[James]

... I'll get a house with a huge garage and pillar lifts ...

That's my plan too, or at least one with a dug-out pit that I can drive the car over and work on underneath standing up.

 

[stevec67]

You ended up buying umpteen special tools, but when you were stuck, and really needed one, you couldn't find it in the many places you dumped them, or the chaotic oily heap that passed for a toolbox. I've still kept most of my old car-fettling tools, pullers and whatnot, and still think, when I win the Lottery (no luck so far - maybe I'm hampering my chances by not buying tickets?) that I'll get a house with a huge garage and pillar lifts so I can dismantle old Land Rovers in comfort. Our Macan will need new front discs and pads soon, and I keep looking at the uTube videos on how to change them. But I know in my heart it ain't going to happen.

All these blokey dreams are normal but in the real world of you wanted to do this you'd already be doing this, lift or no. In the real world pulling LRs to bits is dirty and unpleasant however you cut it. These days I pick and choose. If it's easy enough, like James 's rocker gasket, great. If it's a solid mass of corrosion, someone else can have it.

If I needed to look at You Tube to work out how to slap discs and pads on a car then I'd leave it alone. Especially a Porsche.

 

[gintonic]

dug-out pit

we have one, and it is now a storage location

 

[cctaylor]

Google and You Tube were my friends when my wife's Fiesta started to fill it's boot with rain water. The problem being the failure of the duct tape Ford decided would be adequate to block off holes in bodywork. This tape was on the route taken by the water draining from the roof!!!! Hidden by the bumper!

You Tube helped me take the bumper off to replace the tape with something better.

 

[James]

we have one, and it is now a storage location

Nowt wrong with that, unless you drive a Fix Or Repair Daily branded vehicle.

 

[cctaylor]

I wouldn't bother with a pit my dream garage. I would have some kind of lift allowing wheel free access. I've used both no contest!

 

[PaulMB]

My solution these days, after decades of crushing fingers, breaking finger nails, inhaling solvents, ruining clothing on a succession of vehicles (AJS 500 twin, Norton Commando, Innocenti Mini, 2xLancia Fulvia Zagatos, AR 2000 Spyder, BMW 320i, 911, BMW 528i) is to have a good independent mechanic and then hanging about and discussing what they are doing. I think they love-hate me.

 

[gintonic]

Nowt wrong with that, unless you drive a Fix Or Repair Daily branded vehicle.

Pork seems pretty reliable

 

[Tony Lockhart]

I like driving. Simple as that. Cars are what’s necessary to drive. I think in the last ten years I’ve done plugs once, brakes twice, thermostat (Mk4 GTi 1.8T) once. Thermostat was a horrible job, almost completely out of view, near the bottom of the front of the engine. Why?????