So what did you do in your garage/shed/drive today?
Discussion
Good luck!
One of my neighbours has a Mercedes SLK which he recently had serviced at a Mercedes main dealer.
They commented on the centre exhaust hangers being corroded and broken and quoted £400 to supply and fit a new rear section (it is quite large and includes the two rear silencers and tail pipes).
£13 worth of parts and I made these up for him;
Last night I changed a driveshaft and lower ball joint for a mate on his Ford Focus C-Max.
It was a horrid job drilling out the original ball joint rivets, it was dark, cold and damp so I was too fed up to take a photo!
One of my neighbours has a Mercedes SLK which he recently had serviced at a Mercedes main dealer.
They commented on the centre exhaust hangers being corroded and broken and quoted £400 to supply and fit a new rear section (it is quite large and includes the two rear silencers and tail pipes).
£13 worth of parts and I made these up for him;
Last night I changed a driveshaft and lower ball joint for a mate on his Ford Focus C-Max.
It was a horrid job drilling out the original ball joint rivets, it was dark, cold and damp so I was too fed up to take a photo!
chryslerben said:
No but I'm might have a spare knackered engine if it's a 1400 you could rob for spares
Fantastic offer!!but unfortunately, its the 2.0 X20SED daewoo motor.
But from googling its almost identical to the x20xev / x20xe / c20xe / c20let vauxhall motor
but hopefully i can rip one out of a tacuma for cheap.... if i can find one!
This weekend we addressed the multiple issues with the daughters boyfriends Honda Shadow 125.
Rear tyre bald, inner tube flat, chain out of adjustment range, rear brakes don't work, stripped rear brakes and cleaned all moving parts.
It's a miracle... now the rear brake works.
New tyre and inner tube.
New sprocket and chain set.
Advised this morning that the front wheel won't go round and makes a nasty noise.
Bearings or calliper? .... caliper, strip off caliper, clean caliper sliders and brake pad locator, clean Pistons where they are exposed, copper grease where required.
It's a miracle... now the front brake works.
Rear tyre bald, inner tube flat, chain out of adjustment range, rear brakes don't work, stripped rear brakes and cleaned all moving parts.
It's a miracle... now the rear brake works.
New tyre and inner tube.
New sprocket and chain set.
Advised this morning that the front wheel won't go round and makes a nasty noise.
Bearings or calliper? .... caliper, strip off caliper, clean caliper sliders and brake pad locator, clean Pistons where they are exposed, copper grease where required.
It's a miracle... now the front brake works.
Martin350 said:
I replaced a broken front suspension spring on a Citroen C4 Grand Picasso.
Similar here. Neighbour asked if I'd look at his Tigra as it had a rattle & he thought one of the exhaust hangers may have come off. Checked it & all fine so started working round the car. Got it in the air, rear suspension fine, onto the front & can feel a sharp end to the offside spring & advised he needed a new spring. Round to the N/S & found the rattle - that too was broken & the broken end was still sitting in the cup of the shock causing it to rattle. He goes off to get replacement parts whilst I strip it down. Both were right on the edge of becoming unseated. Its actually his wifes car but she's not using it due to being heavily pregnant & its too low for her so she's using the Zafira. He meanwhile has been doing a 60 mile round trip each day in the Tigra & had noticed the rattle since before Xmas.Yesterday I fixed a serious fuel leak in the missus Kia Sportage. It was running like a tap from the area of the fuel filter. I disconnected all the pipework, removed the filter housing and cleaned everything up. The leak was cured when I reassembled it all using a new filter. I'm happy that it's fixed, but I'm not 100% certain I know what caused it.
Today I checked the brakes and bearings on my boat trailer. Launching off the beach rather than a slipway means it gets dunked in the sea fairly regularly and so needs a lot of fettling. The outer wheel bearings and brakes were fine, but the inners had to be replaced. Good for another few months now.
Today I checked the brakes and bearings on my boat trailer. Launching off the beach rather than a slipway means it gets dunked in the sea fairly regularly and so needs a lot of fettling. The outer wheel bearings and brakes were fine, but the inners had to be replaced. Good for another few months now.
Planned to do a "quick" renewal of rear pads and disks.
Caliper mounting bracket bolt rounded off. Arse
Disk retaining screw seized and then rounded off. Double arse.
Finally drilled out said screw and fitted everything back on. Was just tightening up the caliper slide pin bolt when I felt the tension ease off as I was torqueing it off. Triple arse, broken bolt.
After a small amount of swearing I realised I had a spare front caliper in the shed. Thankfully the slider pin was a direct replacement.
Job finally finished, something like 4 hours in total.
Caliper mounting bracket bolt rounded off. Arse
Disk retaining screw seized and then rounded off. Double arse.
Finally drilled out said screw and fitted everything back on. Was just tightening up the caliper slide pin bolt when I felt the tension ease off as I was torqueing it off. Triple arse, broken bolt.
After a small amount of swearing I realised I had a spare front caliper in the shed. Thankfully the slider pin was a direct replacement.
Job finally finished, something like 4 hours in total.
Swapped the steel trailing arms on my facelift Cooper S to the R56S/GP alloy ones with the later hub too for stronger bolts, and the R56S JCW/GP rear brakes. Next will be the R56S front hub bearings also for the later larger bolts as I need one anyway, then BMW Performance/GP2 brakes.
SystemParanoia said:
Changed x3 CV boots...
I may never be clean again! uuugh disgusting job
Horrible stuff isn't it? I may never be clean again! uuugh disgusting job
Mates 08 Focus 1.6 failed MOT on inner cv gaitor and lower ball joint. Garage wanted £300 to sort it.
Fortunately both were on the offside so a nice combined pair of jobs.
Gaitor kit from Ford was in the order of £40 and would involve getting covered in the black stuff. Didn't fancy that so looked at other options. Ebay delivered an entire NEW driveshaft complete with both inner and outer joints, gaitors, a new support bearing, a new stretch bolt for the hub all up including next day postage for £27.99 with a 2 year guarantee. Ridiculous but it looked and felt decent and fitted nicely so happy days.
Lower ball joint ~ garage wanted to fit a complete arm as joint is not removable. Again did a bit of research, joint is riveted to the arm. Angle grinder and a drill and off it came, new joint with bolts instead of rivets £20 from local factor.
Boom ~ £250 saved. Won't be buying my own beer for a while.
Next up, another mates Golf with a list of failures. Rear brakes, exhaust, no brake lights and few others that Halfords have quoted the earth for.
Been replacing all the "mounting points" for the arch liners with rivnuts. Begone, flimsy stupid plastic non-screwing prong things. Hello proper stainless fasteners. Therapeutic out of all proportion 
...now all I need is a means of patching the damned great hole the tyre wore through the arch liner when the stupid plastic prongs worked loose. Hmmmm... could always give Mazda the £68 plus VAT they want for a new one.
....what the hell am I saying? f
k Mazda and their £80 plastic dustbins 
...now all I need is a means of patching the damned great hole the tyre wore through the arch liner when the stupid plastic prongs worked loose. Hmmmm... could always give Mazda the £68 plus VAT they want for a new one.
....what the hell am I saying? f
k Mazda and their £80 plastic dustbins Mates Mothers Mk4 Golf TDi. Space Shuttle mileage ~ Failed MOT on all sorts, exhaust blow, excess smoke, no brake lights, rear brake pads worn and low effort on handbrake, drivers seat not locking in position. Quote from Halfords to sort that lot out was eye wateringly bonkers.
Exhaust was front pipe/cat. Awful job ~ 4 horribly seized nuts on studs at the turbo. Several cycles of heat/plus gas and very careful cleaning of the threads got it off without snapping anything. Saved £175 on that job alone.
Brake lights not working interestingly was making the glow plug warning lamp flash!! New pedal switch sorted that out. Weird switch with some sort of ratchet adjusting mechanism inside it. Very odd.
Rear brakes, bit of a nightmare. Pads seized in the calipers, pistons very stiff. Managed to salvage the calipers with some careful freeing up but one of the rear hoses snapped off at the banjo. Finally got it all back together and bled out after a couple of issues with leaking banjo bolts and seized bleed nipples.
Drivers seat problem was just a sticky mechanism on the slider, excess smoke was cured by a tin of jollop in the fuel and an Italian tune up.
Passed its retest ok, although it came back with a fresh advisory on deteriorated front brake hoses. All in all saved something like £350 on the Halfords quote.
Exhaust was front pipe/cat. Awful job ~ 4 horribly seized nuts on studs at the turbo. Several cycles of heat/plus gas and very careful cleaning of the threads got it off without snapping anything. Saved £175 on that job alone.
Brake lights not working interestingly was making the glow plug warning lamp flash!! New pedal switch sorted that out. Weird switch with some sort of ratchet adjusting mechanism inside it. Very odd.
Rear brakes, bit of a nightmare. Pads seized in the calipers, pistons very stiff. Managed to salvage the calipers with some careful freeing up but one of the rear hoses snapped off at the banjo. Finally got it all back together and bled out after a couple of issues with leaking banjo bolts and seized bleed nipples.
Drivers seat problem was just a sticky mechanism on the slider, excess smoke was cured by a tin of jollop in the fuel and an Italian tune up.
Passed its retest ok, although it came back with a fresh advisory on deteriorated front brake hoses. All in all saved something like £350 on the Halfords quote.
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