DIY Car Maintenance with function over finesse!!

[mickthemaverick]

Just to tidy up, the insulation clips arrived today so the bonnet insulation was put back in place after I finished the boiler drain!!

[mickthemaverick]

This thread's days may be numbered!!

[ekjdm14]

Not an alloy but once I had a steel wheel well stuck and I used a big three-legged puller on it... The holes around the rim being big enough to admit the ends of the puller...

It was on a small French car but I can't recall what now...

Well late to this party, but had the same with a Sierra back in the mists of time. Front right wheel had a slow puncture & refused to part company with the hub despite going to the extreme of deliberately hammering it over speed bumps with the nuts loose.

Finally "resolved" that issue by the car being stolen (by way of carjacking, no less) so not my problem any more

[ekjdm14]

Having fitted the new battery I took the MX3 out for its weekly run on Tuesday and noticed that the heater was only mildly warm. As it was an exceedingly cold day that was not good so I made a mental note to investigate. This morning I had the time and slightly milder weather to dig into the problem. The first thing I realised was that the coolant is not a very nice colour - rusty browny yukky - but as I have no workshop I didn't fancy a drain, flush and refill at this point. Instead I topped up the radiator and bled the system with a fair amount of bubbles coming out. Once I was satisfied I capped off and started the engine to warm it through. After 20 mins the fan cut in and Having been regularly checking both top and bottom hoses I was happy that it was all up to temperature. At that point I checked the heater in and out hoses and both were comfortably hot so I tried the heater itself and it is now blowing moderately warm.

Both heater hoses felt a little too firm for my liking so they may be getting clogged and the drain flush and refill is definitely the next job, but I will live with it until I can get better conditions to do it in as it's still too cold for me to work outside!! Watch this space

Again late top the party (what's a mere couple of years between friends though?). I nearly replied at the time of your rad leak to not use K seal & get it out of the system ASAP! The stuff is horrible, great at it's intended purpose (nursing a dead Rover 200 through the remainder of it's MoT) but it coagulates over time and clogs radiator/heater passages pretty well. God knows what it's doing to the rest of the cooling system! Spent nearly half a day flushing/back flushing, to and fro, the heater core of a 306 so treated a while back and still only had marginally less freezing air afterwards.

For semi-permanent repairs I've gone back to the old black pepper trick. Works just as well and can be flushed out if/when required.

[mickthemaverick]

Just had a delivery which maps out tomorrow's work:

As it was put into the garage

I set to with the scissors and soon had produced this

A lot of tape and cardboard

As it came from the breakers yard in Hull I wasn't surprised to see the loom had been cut to remove it:

Anything to save 10 seconds!!!

But very pleased with the result, just need to install it tomorrow now!

Spoiler: show

Excellent condition and well worth the effort.

[CitroJim]

Is it my eyes Mick or is it a different colour to the seat it'll be replacing?

Or is it for the MX-3?

Or do you plan to swap the leather over?

[mickthemaverick]

I thought that might have you guessing, No, no and no!!! It is going in the infamous Lexus RX400H belonging to my mate in Spain, who is over here for medical reasons so he thought I could operate on his car at the same time!!

[CitroJim]

I thought that might have you guessing, No, no and no!!! It is going in the infamous Lexus RX400H belonging to my mate in Spain, who is over here for medical reasons so he thought I could operate on his car at the same time!!

Ahh, that's a riddle nicely solved

[MattBLancs]

As it came from the breakers yard in Hull I wasn't surprised to see the loom had been cut to remove it:

Really annoys me that! Are they at least "cut in your favour" i.e. you've got a bit of the body loom extra?

Worst I saw was cut driveshafts - can't imagine that really saved any time, that's quite a chunk of steel to buzz through!?!

[mickthemaverick]

Yes Matt cut the car loom, not the seat loom so I get extra plugs!!

[MattBLancs]

Yes Matt cut the car loom, not the seat loom so I get extra plugs!!

Ah well, suppose we can call that a bonus even it clashes with my mechanical sympathy!

[mickthemaverick]

I completed the rearrangement of the garage today having moved the bench up to the loft and installed my new tool chest. I now have all the tools easily transported out to the drive and a permanent bench for general work as well as the folding one at the front. As you can see in the bottom left of the second picture SWMBO still has her car inside!!

Click on the rather rushed pictures for a better look!

The cluttered end of the garage as it was

The new layout!

[mickthemaverick]

I forgot to post the completed seat installation in Ken's car yesterday!!

A perfect match!!

[CitroJim]

Garage now looks a lot better Mick Good work!

And on Ken's car too...

[mickthemaverick]

Jim came down to give me a hand changing the diff oil on the Subaru today, as the intention was to reverse the car onto the ramps with his guidance. Unfortunately it turned out that even with my ramp extensions, the downward slope of my drive left insufficient clearance to reverse onto them so I had to resort to jacking each side onto axle stands. However that was when the problems really began, The diff filler plug is a 13mm square drive socket which I have an adapter for. The adapter is turned by a 20mm six sided impact socket which I connected to my monster breaker bar, No joy undoing it there, so I added my 1 metre scaffold pole over the breaker bar but was still unable to shift it, I was actually befinning to lift the car off the axle stand.

At that point I decided it was not wise to go any further due to the danger of cracking the diff casing if I got too adventurous and with the car half in the garage and blocking access I simply did not want to risk it. So I made the decision for once to take it to a garage to have the fluids replaced and swallow the cost on the basis that if they damage it they will have to replace it!! So we packed up, cleaned up and went out for lunch!!