Spanners put away for winter... I hope !!

[pcn1]

As a home spanner man, who daily's a 22 year old Grand Cherokee and owns a 27 year old merc for summer use plus 2 motorbikes, I do all my maintenance/repairs through the warmer months.

Then come winter, I cross my fingers nothing breaks as working out there on the driveway in the winter would suck !
I'm getting too old for that
Even my small garage is bloody freezin'

Anyone else ?

[AlexGSi2000]

Catch 22.

That used to be my logic - but then I spent the summer months tinkering / repairing and not getting out and enjoying them.

[Smint]

My plan too, get them ready for winter during the summer/autumn.

Course family Golf scuppered that, water leaked into the boot area (thanks to a poster here for pointing me to what was likely suspect, it was) so had to tinker about today in the tailgate fitting a new drain pipe and fully dry out the *boot floor matting* in front of the kicthen radiator, not a difficult job by any means but unless you run Toyotas there's always something needs fixing..;)

• Incredible how much water that thin boot matting can hold, took the best part of the day to dry out fully.

[cliffords]

I had to do rear brakes on my daughters car yesterday morning. .
Moved my car out of garage and she backed her car in. Shut door and ran my ancient gas blower . I think its 25 years old .
Took the chill off and I got it done slowly over a couple of hours with a warm up break back in the house .
Car said -3 when I moved it to let her car in .
I often plan bigger jobs for the warmer months and only really do necessary stuff now , but as you know that plan does not always work .

[donkmeister]

Even Toyotas need fixing if you look hard enough.

I had to replace the rear brakes (discs, pads and calipers) on my Lexus during November, whilst I had COVID. At one point I fell asleep lying down in the drive, that was a bit bad but I needed the car asap and no bugger would take it on.

We're planning to move in the next few years and a proper garage workshop (or room to build one) is in the list of requirements. Mrs D agrees!

[Konan]

Eventually, I want a wood burner in the garage

Until then, I pop the heater on to get it up to ten degrees and use a Milwaukee heated hoodie.

[CoolHands]

I need to swap the inaccessible and hard to remove vanos solenoid (the joys of modern engines, if you don’t know what that is).

Problem is I have to work in the road or the car park at work. So I keep putting it off, but the weather’s getting colder!

Bugger

[rambo19]

Not for me.
Load of bulkhead welding to be done on the landy.

[Dave.]

Mx5 needs a cam cover gasket, timing belt is about due too so “while I’m in there”…..

Gonna leave it til spring though I think, I’m definitely a fair weather wrencher…

[donkmeister]

Dave. said:

Mx5 needs a cam cover gasket, timing belt is about due too so while I m in there ..

Gonna leave it til spring though I think, I m definitely a fair weather wrencher

That is very sensible. The only problem is the number of "while I'm in there" jobs you'll add to your list, with plenty of time to put in parts orders. By April I usually have a large cardboard box for each car for "may as well" and "probably wise to" jobs.

If you aren't already aware of it, charm.li has very useful workshop info for any car that made it to the US market. Part of the whole right to repair movement.

[E-bmw]

donkmeister said:

If you aren't already aware of it, charm.li has very useful workshop info for any car that made it to the US market. Part of the whole right to repair movement.

Just had a quick look at that, very interesting, I didn't know that, but (I stress I didn't have a good look) is there instructions for using them, as the downloaded manual doesn't seem to work naturally?

[tux850]

Our MOTs run out 30th Nov and 31st Dec respectively and every single year I vow to get them shifted to the warmer months as something unexpected, and usually undesirable, often needs sorting.

Then the warmer months come and I can't bring myself to lose 6 months worth of MOT. The cycle then repeats.

Edited by tux850 on Tuesday 9th December 17:08

[Granadier]

You can *plan* to put your spanners away for winter, but something might happen that needs fixing in mid-winter. Somehow my car collected a broken side window while parked on the street the other week, so I spent some time weighing up the options and eventually bought a replacement window and changed it last weekend. I don't even have a garage, but fortunately the rain held off until it was pretty much finished.

[donkmeister]

E-bmw said:

donkmeister said:

If you aren't already aware of it, charm.li has very useful workshop info for any car that made it to the US market. Part of the whole right to repair movement.

Just had a quick look at that, very interesting, I didn't know that, but (I stress I didn't have a good look) is there instructions for using them, as the downloaded manual doesn't seem to work naturally?

I've found downloading is rubbish because the filenames end up too long for it to work properly.

So I just use it online.

[Stiggolas]

I've just booked mine into a garage. I would normally do brakes / oil change on the drive but it's just too wet and miserable. Local garage is getting some business...