Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[mickthemaverick]

Good plan Gibbo, I always run the engine as hot as it will before attacking them, which also helps with oil flow!

[CitroJim]

One thing I do like about those style of filters - at least on my Picasso - is I can swap the element without spilling a drop of oil...

Good tip on making it hot Eric and Mick Generally I drain when the oil is very hot and do the filter whilst it drains so generally it is fairly toasty...

I also find a 6-sided hex socket rather than a bi-hex helps too. One thing I've never done/tried is use a rattle-gun on it... I can see that might end in tears...

My old friend was well impressed with my rattle-gun when I used it to pop off a wheel on his Hyundai i10

[Michel]

I really must get one of those vacuum oil drainers Zel. I like that one you have...

I've got the same Sealey one Jim. I've had it years and rarely use it. Needs a clean but you can have it. All pipes present and correct.

Zel - get the engine nice and hot first. That filter will come undone pretty easily (or should). I've had a few cars with this design now and I've had to do that with all of them.

[CitroJim]

I really must get one of those vacuum oil drainers Zel. I like that one you have...

I've got the same Sealey one Jim. I've had it years and rarely use it. Needs a clean but you can have it. All pipes present and correct.

Thanks Mike, that's really appreciated

[MattBLancs]

Good plan Gibbo, I always run the engine as hot as it will before attacking them, which also helps with oil flow!

Yes, me too. I feel I don't get the full oil change experience if it's not that thin it comes out at a rate very close to overwhelming the rate at which my catch can "funnel on the side" is able to drain PLUS hot enough for me to yelp and recoil in pain if caught by the ensuing disaster!

[bobins]

I have no choice but to use the vacuum drainer on Helga the Merc as no amount of hanging off of the sump plug will shift it. Either it hasn't been undone for a decade or so, or the last person to do it up was a !!&**$ >@@#~~*%"? **//@@@##. And the horse they rode in on.

[Hell Razor5543]

I have no choice but to use the vacuum drainer on Helga the Merc as no amount of hanging off of the sump plug will shift it. Either it hasn't been undone for a decade or so, or the last person to do it up was a !!&**$ >@@#~~*%"? **//@@@##. And the horse they rode in on.

I know it might be an expensive suggestion, but next time Helga is due to be serviced get Mercedes to do it. Then the sump plug will be their problem!

[mickthemaverick]

Long before suction pumps were available I had that problem with a sump plug on a Hillman Hunter. In the end I drilled a 1/2" hole through the plug to drain the oil and tapped the hole and inserted a bolt to close it. Not great but I did 4 or 5 more oil changes using that before the car met its end when crushed by an artic on the A5 near Redbourn. Not my car and the neighbour who was driving it wasn't hurt but he was very upset at the destruction of his favourite car!!

[bobins]

I know it might be an expensive suggestion, but next time Helga is due to be serviced get Mercedes to do it. Then the sump plug will be their problem!

It's been main dealer serviced for most of its life and I wouldn't be surprised if they used a suction pump for oil changes as well I'd like to remove the drain plug at least once just to check what comes out, but I'm not actually expecting any problems. It wouldn't be too difficult to remove the whole sump and I might end up doing that one day.

[Michel]

I have no choice but to use the vacuum drainer on Helga the Merc as no amount of hanging off of the sump plug will shift it. Either it hasn't been undone for a decade or so, or the last person to do it up was a !!&**$ >@@#~~*%"? **//@@@##. And the horse they rode in on.

Next time you try - use a long bar, get a decent amount of torque on it, then - and here's where you need 3 hands - smack the socket with a hammer hard (vertically down on it, as though you were trying to smack the sump plug back into the hole). The shock should free it. I learnt this trick from an old boy who used it to free the sump plug on my Mondeo 1.8 back in 2004, and I've used it a few times myself since.

You need to have plenty of torque on the bar when you smack it.

[bobins]

Next time you try - use a long bar, get a decent amount of torque on it, then - and here's where you need 3 hands - smack the socket with a hammer hard (vertically down on it, as though you were trying to smack the sump plug back into the hole). The shock should free it. I learnt this trick from an old boy who used it to free the sump plug on my Mondeo 1.8 back in 2004, and I've used it a few times myself since.

You need to have plenty of torque on the bar when you smack it.

Ta for that, Mike, I'll give it a go.The next oil change isn't due until the end of the year so that'll give me some time to grow a third hand

[mickthemaverick]

Ta for that, Mike, I'll give it a go.The next oil change isn't due until the end of the year so that'll give me some time to grow a third hand

At least that way you'll be able to keep your finger on the pulse!

[Zelandeth]

The engine was good and hot when I was trying to get the cover off first time round. I do have a proper six point socket that fits on it - but I could both see and feel the whole lid flexing with how much torque I was applying - I'm not employing any more brute force than that until I have a spare in my hands in case it does disintegrate (at which point I'm sure removing the bits still stuck in the threads will be an absolute joy of a task). I'll try the hot water trick next try.

Vacuum draining really is the only sensible solution here as the car's too low to get a decent size drain pan under, and there doesn't appear to be a hole in the under tray for the drain plug...and I do remember from when being under there that all the trays are still present as are ALL of the fasteners, so I'm not faffing about with that nonsense if I don't have to.

[Zelandeth]

I needed another computer like I needed a hole in the head, but a friend offered a BBC Micro, disk drive AND original monitor for what today is a really decent price - and it was only an hour's drive away, so I grabbed it.

My current Micro has some oddball issue with regards to addressing the ROMs that thus far has eluded my attempts to diagnose. Not helped by the behaviour being somewhat erratic. It also only has the stock OS ROM, no DFS which you need to use a disk drive. Quite unusual to have faults like that on the motherboard to be honest as they're usually pretty bulletproof machines save for the usual issues with Rifa caps. It's clear they were made up to a standard rather than down to a price like the Spectrum. Don't get me wrong, I have a huge respect for Sinclair's products - what they managed to wring out of the hardware at the prices they did was bloody amazing, but it's not hard to tell they were made on a budget when you pull the covers off.

The report was that this one while having been in storage for a while had been tested and worked, though wouldn't read a disk. The latter didn't surprise me, probably just needed cleaning.

After a quick jaunt up to Nottingham to collect it I had this wedged on the side bench (which was already a scene of utter chaos because I was clearing out one of the sets of shelves).

As reported, it did indeed have a DFS ROM installed, along with a word processor and software to go with a mouse - which sadly I don't have, rendering that ROM pretty useless.

As predicted, the disk drive just needed a very quick clean but was then happy to read/write disks just fine.

I bashed in a few BASIC programs and it was happy to both save and retrieve them without any issues.

Nice to find that it's a universal drive as well so can handle both 40 and 80 track disks, not a given at this age.

The machine as a whole though was filthy.

It also then went pop as my gamble with the pair of Rifa caps in the power supply failed and smoke started gently wafting out of it.

Better than the last one though, that was on a little portable Sharp PC and was like someone chucking a smoke grenade in through the door. I also managed to get to the smoke detector this time before the smoke did. The power supplies on the early (Issue 1 and 2 I believe) machines don't contain any Rifas. They however have their own reliability issues mainly because being rated at only 35W they were being run pretty hard. The later ones are 50W units and are far more reliable aside from having two Rifas lurking.

I do appreciate how service friendly these machines are. Less than ten minutes had the power supply out and on the bench ready for repair.

Our targets:

Another ten minutes saw those replaced. No second guessing where the smoke came from this time.

Two new X2 rated caps were soldered in and that was declared done.

One is a bit smaller than the original, but the exact capacitance isn't really critical here.

While I had the covers off I confirmed my suspicion that this was a later machine than my other one - that being an Issue 2 motherboard, this is an issue 7.

Also a look at the ROMs - I'm sure that's an *absolutely* legitimate copy of Word Wise...

The AMX one relates to mouse hardware that I don't have. So I'll likely remove that and replace it with the SD card adapter I have which will allow me to essentially have the entire software library for the machine on hand.

Equally important in my mind as fixing the power issues though was giving it a clean.

I don't like to use the "cleaned up like new" phrase too often, but on this occasion I think it is accurate.

Given the complete lack of wear on the keyboard and how well this has cleaned up I reckon that this must be a very "low mileage" machine to use an automotive term. The monitor will similarly need to come apart for a deep clean, but equally appears to still be in its prime given how bright and vibrant it is.

It's really easy to forget how good the image on a good CRT could be.

All in all very happy with this one and will enjoy getting to have a play around with it in due course. I was surprised given how long it is since I used one of these machines with any real regularity (28 years ago) how much my brain and muscle memory still remembered where some of the odder keyboard layout items were - only thing I keep doing is hitting shift lock when going for the left shift key.

Sure I'll get used to that again over time.

[CitroJim]

Absolutely awesome Zel and that all brings back a few memories

Good ol' RIFAs - they really are time-bombs... or time-smoke-bombs If ever there was a 'change on sight' capacitor, they're the ones!

That said, I still have two in service, relatively new ones, in my Kenwood Chef.

Amazingly, they're still in production despite their shortcomings...