What has your "friend" been up to?
Discussion
Breadvan72 said:
My frrend thinks that comment is not in the spirit of this thread.
Doing a daft thing and then doing it again is exactly the sort of thing that people's friends are expected to do.
Exactly. My friend never learns, sadly.Doing a daft thing and then doing it again is exactly the sort of thing that people's friends are expected to do.
Edited by Breadvan72 on Friday 1st December 00:29
We are, after all, all friends here.Well, having communicated the general spirit of "friendship" engendered by the most recent posts, my friend has reconsidered and now believes an appropriate level of friend camaraderie has been restored and given permission for the following to be relayed:
Around the same period as the previous incident (which is somewhat vague, according to my friend, as he was having an excellent time on other pursuits as well as exploring car mechanics in what little spare time he had), another oil change on said vehicle resulted in a stripped thread on the internal thread of the sump.
This presented a bit of a problem as this was about 3pm on a Sunday, and he needed to be at work 240miles away the following morning.
Being young, and mechanically naive at the time, a number of options for plugging said hole were considered and dropped, before settling on a very carefully shaped piece (well....handily available, at least) of wood hammered into the sump hole as hard as possible with a vague plan of asking someone at work (engineering firm) for help the next day.
Oil was added, luggage loaded and journey home commenced.
He got a fair few miles down the M4 before the (with hindsight and age-related wisdom) obvious happened & the contents of the sump ended up in the slow lane and smoking badly off the hot exhaust.
Two things saved his bacon:
1. The miracle of Slick 50 - against all better judgement, he continued to drive for a further 2 miles to the nearest motorway services, where,
2. A helpful RAC man agreed to back date RAC membership by a few hours, advised to wait a couple of hours, then RAC called.
My friend tells me that should his current work colleagues ever find about this, he would probably have to resign due to sheer embarrassment.
Around the same period as the previous incident (which is somewhat vague, according to my friend, as he was having an excellent time on other pursuits as well as exploring car mechanics in what little spare time he had), another oil change on said vehicle resulted in a stripped thread on the internal thread of the sump.
This presented a bit of a problem as this was about 3pm on a Sunday, and he needed to be at work 240miles away the following morning.
Being young, and mechanically naive at the time, a number of options for plugging said hole were considered and dropped, before settling on a very carefully shaped piece (well....handily available, at least) of wood hammered into the sump hole as hard as possible with a vague plan of asking someone at work (engineering firm) for help the next day.
Oil was added, luggage loaded and journey home commenced.
He got a fair few miles down the M4 before the (with hindsight and age-related wisdom) obvious happened & the contents of the sump ended up in the slow lane and smoking badly off the hot exhaust.
Two things saved his bacon:
1. The miracle of Slick 50 - against all better judgement, he continued to drive for a further 2 miles to the nearest motorway services, where,
2. A helpful RAC man agreed to back date RAC membership by a few hours, advised to wait a couple of hours, then RAC called.
My friend tells me that should his current work colleagues ever find about this, he would probably have to resign due to sheer embarrassment.
My ‘friend’ in his first job had to take his bosses brand new Honda legend to the other side of town, had never driven an automatic before and didn’t realise it had a handbrake under the dash, so just assumed there wasn’t one. Arrived at security w5 minutes later for them to ask was the car on fire? Looking behind saw the clouds of smoke emitting from seriously cooked rear of the car, never did cough up to that one
Many moons ago my friend went to pick his mate up in a MB190E , his mate lived on quite a steep hill in Gateshead , when getting out of his friends car he decided to pull the handbrake up another notch.
My friend was knocking on his mates door when he heard a large crashing sound , upon turning round the MB190 E was not where his friend had parked it , it had embedded itself in a low garden wall about 30 yards down the steep hill.
His friend was very annoyed at the invoice for repairing the said car , as the part that said remove rear bumper was clearly not right as the bumper had been removed by the garden wall.
My friend is still reminded about this minor incident to this day.
My friend was knocking on his mates door when he heard a large crashing sound , upon turning round the MB190 E was not where his friend had parked it , it had embedded itself in a low garden wall about 30 yards down the steep hill.
His friend was very annoyed at the invoice for repairing the said car , as the part that said remove rear bumper was clearly not right as the bumper had been removed by the garden wall.
My friend is still reminded about this minor incident to this day.
Oil Trash said:
My ‘friend’ in his first job had to take his bosses brand new Honda legend to the other side of town, had never driven an automatic before and didn’t realise it had a handbrake under the dash, so just assumed there wasn’t one. Arrived at security w5 minutes later for them to ask was the car on fire? Looking behind saw the clouds of smoke emitting from seriously cooked rear of the car, never did cough up to that one
It was the boss's fault, not your friend's. It was an automatic, you don't need to use handbrake on an auto, just leave it in park.
The Mad Monk said:
It was the boss's fault, not your friend's. It was an automatic, you don't need to use handbrake on an auto, just leave it in park.
Couldn’t agree more that’s what I do with all my auto’s and of course these days most have electronic parking brakes that release when you tap the accelator Many years ago my friend had an Escort XR3i which he really liked, but the front seats were very scruffy.
He purchased two pristine Sierra LX seats from a scrapyard and spent a pleasant afternoon swapping the brackets over and fitting them.
He was very happy because they were supremely comfortable and matched the interior.
He then tried to tilt them forwards to access the rear seats…. and then realised that a Sierra LX is a 4-door car and the seats don’t work like that….
Fortunately, he didn’t have any friends who would need to get in the back.
He purchased two pristine Sierra LX seats from a scrapyard and spent a pleasant afternoon swapping the brackets over and fitting them.
He was very happy because they were supremely comfortable and matched the interior.
He then tried to tilt them forwards to access the rear seats…. and then realised that a Sierra LX is a 4-door car and the seats don’t work like that….
Fortunately, he didn’t have any friends who would need to get in the back.
My friend decided for no good reason at all to change the coolant in his Skoda Rapide Coupe. All went well until he drove it later that day when it overheated. He worked out pretty quickly that he'd left the bleed tap open and the new coolant had been bubbling out for a while. So, as he was on his way to a party, he closed the tap, refilled it and carried on.
It overheated again on the way home so he decided to investigate and found again there was no water in it. So he filled it back up again.
Being a student he didn't have a hose or watering can so had to make multiple trips with a small jug.
Many, many trips later it was finally up to the right level so he thought he'd check the oil before having another drive. It took him a moment to work out wtf had happened as water flowed out of the dipstick tube! The headgasket had comprehensively failed and he'd filled the entire block with water.
It overheated again on the way home so he decided to investigate and found again there was no water in it. So he filled it back up again.
Being a student he didn't have a hose or watering can so had to make multiple trips with a small jug.
Many, many trips later it was finally up to the right level so he thought he'd check the oil before having another drive. It took him a moment to work out wtf had happened as water flowed out of the dipstick tube! The headgasket had comprehensively failed and he'd filled the entire block with water.
Breadvan72 said:
My friend drove a Matra Murena with a broken fan belt just four miles, thinking it would be OK. The mid engined Murena has marginal cooling and you are allowed ZERO overheating episodes. He cracked the head.
I always wondered what happened to your friends french fancy?Do you think your friend would have another one? they pop up quite often on leboncoin.
Plinth said:
Many years ago my friend had an Escort XR3i which he really liked, but the front seats were very scruffy.
He purchased two pristine Sierra LX seats from a scrapyard and spent a pleasant afternoon swapping the brackets over and fitting them.
He was very happy because they were supremely comfortable and matched the interior.
He then tried to tilt them forwards to access the rear seats…. and then realised that a Sierra LX is a 4-door car and the seats don’t work like that….
Fortunately, he didn’t have any friends who would need to get in the back.
Did your friend try and return the seats to the said scrapyard ?He purchased two pristine Sierra LX seats from a scrapyard and spent a pleasant afternoon swapping the brackets over and fitting them.
He was very happy because they were supremely comfortable and matched the interior.
He then tried to tilt them forwards to access the rear seats…. and then realised that a Sierra LX is a 4-door car and the seats don’t work like that….
Fortunately, he didn’t have any friends who would need to get in the back.
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