simple jobs taking all day!!
Discussion
So our friends left after an overnight stay and as part of my hangover cure I decided it was the day to do the discs and pads on the Swift Sport front. Wheels nuts loosened, car jacked up, wheel off drivers side. Caliper bolts off after some swearing, disc off pads out and all back together, greased where appropriate, cleaned and brushed too.
So to the near side. Loosened off all bolts except the locking wheel nut which is a little tight! Then the special socket decides to round out and split!! Now I have one side done and one side not. Autosupplies suggest using their special locking wheel nut remover which I purchased and return to try again only to find it won't fit between the bolt and the tight space to thee alloy.
SUZUKI service centre closed until Monday so no chance of getting the.proper tool and MOT due Monday too! So now it's a half day off I'm Monday morning to get to Chesterfield and get the proper socket then start all over and hope it passes!
Would have been simpler to take it in somewhere and now a lot cheaper too!! Why oh why!!
So to the near side. Loosened off all bolts except the locking wheel nut which is a little tight! Then the special socket decides to round out and split!! Now I have one side done and one side not. Autosupplies suggest using their special locking wheel nut remover which I purchased and return to try again only to find it won't fit between the bolt and the tight space to thee alloy.
SUZUKI service centre closed until Monday so no chance of getting the.proper tool and MOT due Monday too! So now it's a half day off I'm Monday morning to get to Chesterfield and get the proper socket then start all over and hope it passes!
Would have been simpler to take it in somewhere and now a lot cheaper too!! Why oh why!!
Doing the manifold gaskets on my car a few weeks ago. Did the off side in an hour one weekend, the near side took a week and involved me borrowing the air saw at work to cut a bolt off 
Have you tried hammering a 17/19mm socket onto the locking wheel nut, or if you've got one of the ones with a spinny outside bit chisel that off first
Have you tried hammering a 17/19mm socket onto the locking wheel nut, or if you've got one of the ones with a spinny outside bit chisel that off first
it might not have saved you as such but doing brakes and other things that involve both sides, loosen the wheels on both sides and jack up and remove both wheels then start on the actual part replacement. This can also help as you have sight of the untouched side to triple check the brake circlips or clips etc when putting it all back on the side replaced first.
locking wheel nuts fall into the same category as aftermarket alarm systems in that over their lifetime they tend to be more hassle to the owners or people tasked by the owners to work on the car than they do to those they were designed to protect against.
locking wheel nuts fall into the same category as aftermarket alarm systems in that over their lifetime they tend to be more hassle to the owners or people tasked by the owners to work on the car than they do to those they were designed to protect against.
Did some pads for the Brother in law the other week, nearside took minutes. Got to other side, so far so good, no seized bolts.
Depressing the piston nice and slowly then I heard a crack, had completely split the piston in half. Rang Vauxhall they only supply full calipers at £125, ended up getting one from a breaker for £15 and replaced the whole thing. Popped it on, come to top the fluid up and bleed the brakes only to have the NS nipple snap right off.
f
k cars.
Depressing the piston nice and slowly then I heard a crack, had completely split the piston in half. Rang Vauxhall they only supply full calipers at £125, ended up getting one from a breaker for £15 and replaced the whole thing. Popped it on, come to top the fluid up and bleed the brakes only to have the NS nipple snap right off.
f
k cars. aarondbs said:
So our friends left after an overnight stay and as part of my hangover cure I decided it was the day to do the discs and pads on the Swift Sport front. Wheels nuts loosened, car jacked up, wheel off drivers side. Caliper bolts off after some swearing, disc off pads out and all back together, greased where appropriate, cleaned and brushed too.
So to the near side. Loosened off all bolts except the locking wheel nut which is a little tight! Then the special socket decides to round out and split!! Now I have one side done and one side not. Autosupplies suggest using their special locking wheel nut remover which I purchased and return to try again only to find it won't fit between the bolt and the tight space to thee alloy.
SUZUKI service centre closed until Monday so no chance of getting the.proper tool and MOT due Monday too! So now it's a half day off I'm Monday morning to get to Chesterfield and get the proper socket then start all over and hope it passes!
Would have been simpler to take it in somewhere and now a lot cheaper too!! Why oh why!!
Get an old cheapo socket that is a bit small for the bolt. Beat the crap out of it onto the bolt - that should grip enough to undo the bolt.So to the near side. Loosened off all bolts except the locking wheel nut which is a little tight! Then the special socket decides to round out and split!! Now I have one side done and one side not. Autosupplies suggest using their special locking wheel nut remover which I purchased and return to try again only to find it won't fit between the bolt and the tight space to thee alloy.
SUZUKI service centre closed until Monday so no chance of getting the.proper tool and MOT due Monday too! So now it's a half day off I'm Monday morning to get to Chesterfield and get the proper socket then start all over and hope it passes!
Would have been simpler to take it in somewhere and now a lot cheaper too!! Why oh why!!
Yep. My brother came down today with the whole afternoon to do the rear discs/ pads on his vectra. Thinking it'd take about an hour.
3 hours later we are still wrestling with the wky bolts for the carrier. They are those stupid 'E' sockets (think female torx) and they were stuck fast. Heat, breaker bar, swearing and still nothing.
We eventually got there by hammering the smaller socket over and then replacing with some suitable hex head bolts. Discovered the old one were completely drowned in loctite. Every single thread full. Nice.
Cars are an utter pain in the arse sometimes.
3 hours later we are still wrestling with the w
ky bolts for the carrier. They are those stupid 'E' sockets (think female torx) and they were stuck fast. Heat, breaker bar, swearing and still nothing. We eventually got there by hammering the smaller socket over and then replacing with some suitable hex head bolts. Discovered the old one were completely drowned in loctite. Every single thread full. Nice.
Cars are an utter pain in the arse sometimes.
Always loosen the locking wheel nut first. It is likely to be the one that causes trouble and undoing the others first can only make it tighter to undo!
Then undo the others, bit at a time, in turn, to avoid distortion.
(This advice from a man who carefully removed every cylinder head bolt on a Fiat 124 Coupe, except for the hidden one which was still. of course, fully tightened!
Got away with that one, though)!
Then undo the others, bit at a time, in turn, to avoid distortion.
(This advice from a man who carefully removed every cylinder head bolt on a Fiat 124 Coupe, except for the hidden one which was still. of course, fully tightened!
Got away with that one, though)!
aarondbs said:
V8 FOU said:
Get an old cheapo socket that is a bit small for the bolt. Beat the crap out of it onto the bolt - that should grip enough to undo the bolt.
I'm going to wait to see if Suzuki have the bit first. Then if not I'll try the above.Out of curiosity I wonder how different it is to the previous car, also a Mazda (which we had yet to sell). It's the f**king same!
Finally get to taking the wheel off and realise the whole locking wheel nut tool fiasco was a colossal waste of time, locking wheel nuts have only been fitted to 3 out of the 4 wheels. The one without a locking wheelnut of course being the one I wanted to take off! D'Oh!
At a guess the tool broke on that wheel and so they removed the bolt somehow and replaced it with a 'normal' nut.
This was not going to be that simple a job, but should have been a half day - day at most, it turned out 10x more complicated
last friday i removed my powersteering pump on my mini
it was hoping it would have been repairable, as after looking how to do it it seemed fairly straight forward,
getting it off was a challenge, after looking a few guides online a lot of people found it impossible to get out without cutting a bolt shorter to give it room, so after about 45m of fiddling this is what i did, and with another 15m of fiddling it came out.
unfortunately when i took it apart my pump was completely ruined so need to be replaced, by then euro car parts closed so not able to get one till the next day, but had to put a fair amount back together to take the car off it's ramps and move it to close the garage door.
Picked up the power steering pump saturday, put the car back on it's ramps, installed the new one topped up with fluid. Job done all good, not a single thing missed, fired the car up, still no powersteering. So i needed to check the fuse, the 100amp power fuse for it is not a normal fuse, it's bolted to the underside of the fuse box. So another hour removing the fuse box and locating the fuse and confirmed it was indeed dead, looked up the fuse type, can only seem to get from bmw, call to bmw about 3pm on a saturday, turns out the parts department are open, they tried to put me through but they weren't answering, but since they were open i thought i'd just drive down, it's a fuse it'll be instock, turns out not, so a 30 minute round trip to order a fuse, which due to bank holiday wouldn't be ready till tuesday. needed to use the car on monday, so fusebox put back together. Tuesday went and picked up fuse, took apart fuse box again, replaced fuse, put fuse box back together. Fired it up, and all worked, Job done i thought.
Used the car all day, went for a long drive in the evening, pump was perfect, but possibly a little noisey, i should have paid attention to this more, as over night it must have been running drained my battery and burnt itself out. As in the morning it was flat, so AA out, GF off to work in a taxi to make it on time.
ran the car for about 2 miles after this with the powersteering not seeming right and then completely stopped working.
So took the fuse box apart to check if the fuse was ok, it was, fuse box back together, another trip to euro car parts to buy another powersteering pump which they would refund me for when i brought the broken one back.
Drained fluid and changed the pump over with all the fiddling to get it in and out shouting and eventually crowbar involved, is anyone going to read this far? I doubt it well done if you did, anyway then could not get the power connector on, turns out it was a slight different design of connector on this one which was far stiffer to put in, so took it out again had to pull through the power connector to give me room to squeeze it on then try and fit it back in place with the connector clipped in, which was just about possible.
Topped up with fluid fired it up and finally it was all good.
So the next day after making sure this one didn't do the same the final thing was to go back to euro car parts for the 3rd time to take back the fault unit for my refund.
Nearly 100 miles driven and a good 3 afternoons spent working on the car, and there was a garage just over 100 miles away which would have done the job parts and labour for £50 more than it cost me to buy the pump fluid and fuse
last friday i removed my powersteering pump on my mini
it was hoping it would have been repairable, as after looking how to do it it seemed fairly straight forward,
getting it off was a challenge, after looking a few guides online a lot of people found it impossible to get out without cutting a bolt shorter to give it room, so after about 45m of fiddling this is what i did, and with another 15m of fiddling it came out.
unfortunately when i took it apart my pump was completely ruined so need to be replaced, by then euro car parts closed so not able to get one till the next day, but had to put a fair amount back together to take the car off it's ramps and move it to close the garage door.
Picked up the power steering pump saturday, put the car back on it's ramps, installed the new one topped up with fluid. Job done all good, not a single thing missed, fired the car up, still no powersteering. So i needed to check the fuse, the 100amp power fuse for it is not a normal fuse, it's bolted to the underside of the fuse box. So another hour removing the fuse box and locating the fuse and confirmed it was indeed dead, looked up the fuse type, can only seem to get from bmw, call to bmw about 3pm on a saturday, turns out the parts department are open, they tried to put me through but they weren't answering, but since they were open i thought i'd just drive down, it's a fuse it'll be instock, turns out not, so a 30 minute round trip to order a fuse, which due to bank holiday wouldn't be ready till tuesday. needed to use the car on monday, so fusebox put back together. Tuesday went and picked up fuse, took apart fuse box again, replaced fuse, put fuse box back together. Fired it up, and all worked, Job done i thought.
Used the car all day, went for a long drive in the evening, pump was perfect, but possibly a little noisey, i should have paid attention to this more, as over night it must have been running drained my battery and burnt itself out. As in the morning it was flat, so AA out, GF off to work in a taxi to make it on time.
ran the car for about 2 miles after this with the powersteering not seeming right and then completely stopped working.
So took the fuse box apart to check if the fuse was ok, it was, fuse box back together, another trip to euro car parts to buy another powersteering pump which they would refund me for when i brought the broken one back.
Drained fluid and changed the pump over with all the fiddling to get it in and out shouting and eventually crowbar involved, is anyone going to read this far? I doubt it well done if you did, anyway then could not get the power connector on, turns out it was a slight different design of connector on this one which was far stiffer to put in, so took it out again had to pull through the power connector to give me room to squeeze it on then try and fit it back in place with the connector clipped in, which was just about possible.
Topped up with fluid fired it up and finally it was all good.
So the next day after making sure this one didn't do the same the final thing was to go back to euro car parts for the 3rd time to take back the fault unit for my refund.
Nearly 100 miles driven and a good 3 afternoons spent working on the car, and there was a garage just over 100 miles away which would have done the job parts and labour for £50 more than it cost me to buy the pump fluid and fuse
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