DIY Car Maintenance with function over finesse!!

[mickthemaverick]

Had a minor issue yesterday with the stong winds overnight. The cover on the MX3 was lifted off from the back and blown over and onto the road but the front clips held on and stopped me losing it altogether. On examination I found the two rear clip loops had failed by ripping out the stitching and in one case ripping the actual cover:

Failed stitching

The ripped cover

The attacments are supposed to look like this:

The undamaged front link

As you can see from that, the manufacture involved stitching the holding loop into the edge of the cover. Since that resulted in one of the loops pulling right out and another ripping the cover it seemed to me far more logical to attach those loops robustly to the draw cord which goes round the entire cover and is pulled tight holding the cover underneath both bumpers. So I came up with this method:

Split ring around cord

So these rings will then be linked to the ties which each wrap round a spoke of the wheel,

The easy fit and release links

thus holding the draw cord to the wheels without putting any stress on the stitching or even the material as it had been:

The original connection

Now the drawcord will take the strain at all four points as well as being drawn tight around the car. Hopefully that will cope with any future gales that come our way!!

[John Pankhurst]

I'm a bit of a fiddler and one of the jobs I've been puzzling about is the lack of reversing lights on Ted my Morris Minor traveller. I've done the same to both my Commer campers which was an easy job as there is a spare place on the gearbox for a switch ( same g. box used on the Rootes saloons) but no such luck on a Minor box.
So I had a thunk and didn't want to simply wire in a toggle switch on the dash so dug out my spare box to investigate. There is a detent ball and spring on the reverse gate which is easy to remove by way of an external plug, so I started searching for a suitable switch to replace the ball, spring and plug. After a few false starts (couldn't find the correct thread switch) I came across Reliant stop light one that fitted perfectly.

The first attempt worked perfectly but as I had to re-cut the thread the the result was too shallow and tightening almost stripped it completely.

The second attempt was worse and the switch snapped in half but then I found the Reliant one

I'm waiting for a couple of round white LED units to arrive and will mount them with the same surrounds as the other traveller tail lights and will put up some pictures to show the final result.

Bench test proved the concept

Thanks for reading
John

[John Pankhurst]

After a bit of a bursitis induced lay off Ted the traveller has working reversing lights

Made from a couple of screw top plastic containers painted black and LED units fitted to Morris traveller rear reflector mounts.

Nice and bright so other traffic should be able to see what I'm doing

[mickthemaverick]

Further Mazda flat battery issue today. It has been a fair while since the MX3 had a run, and on that occasion it needed a jump start to get home, so I charged the battery off the car refitted it and have left it for the last few weeks. Stupidly I forgot to check the alternator which had been OK the last time i had trouble. This time though it is not OK and hence a new one is now winging its way to Hertford. Hopefully I'll get it fitted over the next few days and all will be well!!