Car D.I.Y.

[Deleted User]

I always sympathise with heavy plant mechanics, fork lift truck engineers etc etc who have to do their stuff through winter, often in the open.

Not plant but we were taking that mast down you can see in the background, took us a week.

 

[Drago]

Booked the XC90 in for the dealer to do the reluctor ring next week. I'm not pulling driveshafts in this weather, and it needs doing as the traction control keeps cutting in and muting the power, which is disconcerting.

DIY wise, I checked the under bonnet levels this morning and plugged it into the charger for a few hours.

 

[fossyant]

Call from local exhaust specialist, got your mid section, we think it's the wrong one though. Popped down, was the wrong one. Like Drago, not crawling under a car in this weather.

 

[DRM]

Call from local exhaust specialist, got your mid section, we think it's the wrong one though. Popped down, was the wrong one. Like Drago, not crawling under a car in this weather.

I’ve found it’s usually financially pointless diy’ing an exhaust as you don’t seem to save to much price wise, and you still have to roll round on the floor wrestling rusty pipe and fittings, then you can guarantee it knocks somewhere under the car, but won’t if you shake the thing by hand

 

[Drago]

And seeing as most exhaust places do free fitting anyway, and you get a 1 or 2 year warranty, it's not worthy fannying with them. I'll tackle most things like the thrusting go-getter that I am, but it simply makes more sense to leave exhausts to Fred in a Shed.

 

[gbb]

I’ve found it’s usually financially pointless diy’ing an exhaust as you don’t seem to save to much price wise, and you still have to roll round on the floor wrestling rusty pipe and fittings, then you can guarantee it knocks somewhere under the car, but won’t if you shake the thing by hand

Agreed, i long since stopped DIY'ing exhausts. There's not enough to save vs the work involved.
And wherever, replace all the sections at the same time (Cat excluded of course), got fed up of replacing a back box...for the mid pipe to fail weeks after.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Rav4 passed MOT 134,391 miles still no advisories

I thought we'd owned it longer but we bought it 02/02/2015 it had been going from Yorkshire to South Germany by looking at the SatNav when we bought it.

 

[Smokin Joe]

I’ve found it’s usually financially pointless diy’ing an exhaust as you don’t seem to save to much price wise, and you still have to roll round on the floor wrestling rusty pipe and fittings, then you can guarantee it knocks somewhere under the car, but won’t if you shake the thing by hand

I did it once with a complete system, a fairly simple job on a Marina made even easier because the ex FiL had a pit in his garage. The only part I've done since is the odd back box.

 

[cosmicbike]

I’ve found it’s usually financially pointless diy’ing an exhaust as you don’t seem to save to much price wise, and you still have to roll round on the floor wrestling rusty pipe and fittings, then you can guarantee it knocks somewhere under the car, but won’t if you shake the thing by hand

Did the full Cat back system on the Volvo, I expected a nightmare but old off, new on in about 2 hours on the driveway. £100 all in.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Exhaust are one of those items which have come down dramatically in price, I seem to remember having to pay over £20 in the very early 80's for just a back box on a MK3 Cortina

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Daughters b/f has changed his car again

Audi A3 (written off, not his fault) > MGB GT > VW Golf 2 > FreeLander Td4
Now he's in a Fabia vRS, one of the earlier models with the 1.9Tdi
There's a few things to do on it

 

[tyred]

I stripped and freed the callipers replaced the front pads and disks on the 205 as I will try and test it again. The sliders on the callipers had not been sliding as they should (due to lack of use and old age I assume) but normal service has now been restored. I would like to do one more road trip in it this summer (if we're allowed to go anywhere due to Covid) before taking it off the road for refurbishment next winter. The exhaust was knocking on something so investigated that too - very simple, one of the rubber mountings had broke and the others were hanging by a thread so good job I looked. I wouldn't mind but I replaced all the rubbers when I replaced the cat and the middle section of the exhaust last August. Luckily I had kept the old ones as I had to put them back on again. Cheap rubbish obviously.

Brakes seem much better now but next Saturday I might pull the back drums to see what's going on in there as although the handbrake works very well it is very long. I suspect the self-adjusters aren't self adjusting as usual.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

I suspect the self-adjusters aren't self adjusting as usual.

Do/did they ever on any car?

 

[tyred]

Do/did they ever on any car?

Not in my experience.

The wedge adjusters in the old Golfs were easily fixed though by getting someone to stand on the brake pedal and then hitting the drums with a hammer so the wedge was shocked into taking up the slack.

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

I replaced the front suspension in my Mazda 2. It was bouncing all over the place. I ordered new shocks and springs, bump stops and dust gaiters.

When doing this I found that one shock adsorber was totally knackered. The other side appeared to be fine, but I still replaced it. The springs looked fine, the same height as the replacements, but I still replaced them. The gaiters were completly knackered on both sides. When doing the job one of the strut top bearings was in a right state, but I never ordered these parts. So I've had to take one side out again and replace that. I've also just done the other side today as I'm a bit of a perfectionist.

I guess you learn from your mistakes, just replace everything and do it once. The car had done 59K. It's a much better drive now, well as good as a 1.3 Mazda 2 can be..