What's made you smile today?

Currently reading:
What's made you smile today?

That's triggered another memory.

Local to us was a chicken processing factory. Live in at one end, oven ready out the other.

The owner owned a Jaguar XJ6, which he replaced with a new one every three years. When we got the old one to valet for resale, the boot stank of dead chickens. He would often load up a few, apparently unfrozen and unpackaged, to take to friends. Took a week to remove the smell.

I suggested we have the car in for a valet every three months, to make the job easier. We did this for free. We had the new car sale and all his servicing on that and other vehicles. When that one got traded in, valet was easy and no longer than normal.
Always arrived for a service with the boot full of chickens, expected empty on return. Now that's a tip.

A local farmer used to do similar. Whenever one of his Land Rovers was in for service or repair, the load bed was always full with whatever vegetable was in season. Again expected empty on return. That's a lot of carrots/swede/turnips, etc.

The owner of the local specialist chocolate factory was the best though. His car always got the very best attention.
 
Balmy eleven degrees here and blazing sunshine, now there are several things I could be doing, but I’m not in the mood. Earlier my wife and I tried to open a jammed kitchen drawer. Turns out a runner has refused to function. We were at it for an hour or so. Totally pissed off. Been on the net and looked for answers. In the end my wife stopped me attacking the drawer with a hammer. :D My son-in-law will have a look. :rolleyes: Wife has put her foot down.
 
Got my Ural metal fairing mounted to my Ural. Good color match, wouldn't you say.:D
50944121191_68f1609ca6_z.jpg


I'm smiles about it because I found the fairing used at the local-ish Ural dealer for $50US, less the handlebar mounts. I found the mounts at another dealer for $0.11 less than the fairing. So, I ended up with a Ural fairing for just under a hundred bucks. New fairings are close to five hundred, so I think I did okay.

Now, if it wasn't -2F outside, with blowing snow, I might take it for a ride. This makes me glad that I have a heated garage.
 
Got my Ural metal fairing mounted to my Ural. Good color match, wouldn't you say.:D
50944121191_68f1609ca6_z.jpg


I'm smiles about it because I found the fairing used at the local-ish Ural dealer for $50US, less the handlebar mounts. I found the mounts at another dealer for $0.11 less than the fairing. So, I ended up with a Ural fairing for just under a hundred bucks. New fairings are close to five hundred, so I think I did okay.

Now, if it wasn't -2F outside, with blowing snow, I might take it for a ride. This makes me glad that I have a heated garage.
Thanks for showing us your bike, amazing looking piece of kit. There's nothing quite so satisfying as finding something you really want at a good price! I'm fascinated by all those lights, must be like driving around in the daylight! What's it got by way of a generator? most of the old bikes I've had would barely be able to cope with one extra light.
 
Thanks for showing us your bike, amazing looking piece of kit. There's nothing quite so satisfying as finding something you really want at a good price! I'm fascinated by all those lights, must be like driving around in the daylight! What's it got by way of a generator? most of the old bikes I've had would barely be able to cope with one extra light.

You're welcome. And agree on old bike lighting.

This Russian beastie is a 2007, so not that old. Also more fun than you are legally allowed to have. To answer your question, though, the generator, or alternator in this case, is a 40A/480W Denso. Lotsa power. And all the lights, save for the spot, are LED. It also has Oxford heated grips to make winter riding tolerable.

My 79 Honda by comparison, has a 14A/170 watt alternator. It's also all LED but has an HID headlight. My two Solexes have the lights that you mention. Those are more to be seen than to see where you are going. Most of my bicycles have brighter lights.
 
Quite a nice day with us today, Not all that bright early on but the sun came out towards mid afternoon. With Twinkle - the Ibiza - due her MOT on Wednesday and not having driven her much for the last month really I took her round the seafront roads for a half hour or so to clean up the discs and just loosen things generally. returning home I decided to give her a comprehensive clean up and check over. Started by vacuuming the carpets and dusting the dash etc. Then taking the wheels off and washing them inside and out. Couple more of the black plastic wheel nut caps have absconded since the last time I had the wheels off. Can't make my mind up whether to buy another set (at a no doubt silly cost) or simply take the remaining ones off and not refit them. Ah well, no hurry with that one.

The way she's parked her driver's side is protected from the weather by Becky being parked alongside her and the discs on that side looked good but the ones on the other side still showed some surface rust on their wheel sides, so I used the same, well worn abrasive disc I used on Becky a couple of years ago to just lift the remaining surface rust from them and then remounted the wheels, swapping fronts to rears and vice versa. I'm quite pleased with the wheels, they've come up quite well but there are slight signs of bubbling just starting on all of them, although not on the visible front faces. They're now 5 years old. While I had them off I had a good look at the pads, ball joints, CV boots, etc, etc, and all looking good. With just over 20,000 miles on her the front pads are about half way through their life with the rears looking only about a quarter worn. Experience with other VAG rear disc brakes would indicate the discs will probably rust out before the pads wear down enough to need replacing. Tyres (that's the Bridgestones which I don't like) are all, gratifyingly, wearing nice and evenly with no signs of "strange wear" - like feathering etc which would point to something being worn or damaged. I'm quite puzzled to find all four tyres measuring approximately 5mm. So, if they had 8 mm on them when new and I'll be changing them at around 2 to 2.5 mm they would seem to be roughly half way through their lives. However there are signs of small surface cracks developing in the depths of the tread grooves - which I'll be keeping an eagle eye on - Not really a problem at this time but may give me cause to renew them before the tread wears to near the legal limit. I'm puzzled by all four tyres being similarly worn though because, being FWD and a turboe'd engine, I would have expected the fronts to wear considerably faster than the rears?

Anyway she's all washed, tyre pressures reset after the swap round of the wheels, hoovered out and generally spruced up ready to go down to Kenny's Garage first thing Wednesday morning. I think she's looking quite smart?

P1090600.JPG

As I had my compressor up to pressure I went round Becky's tyres too - O/S/R down by 5 psi, I'll need to keep an eye on that - and as I still had most of my second bucket of car wash unused I thought it would be mean not to give Becky a wash too. She's come up really nicely too don't you think?

P1090601.JPG

As I was putting the Ibiza's wheel locking key away in it's dedicated place in the boot and generally tidying up I remembered I'd been meaning to look for the boot light which, to my knowledge, hasn't worked ever. In fact I think I'd assumed she didn't have one. So, after crawling around for I while I found it! only taken me nearly 5 years! It wasn't working as I knew and it was an real sod to lever out of the hole it lives in because the little spring clip thingy had got it's "foot" on the wrong side of the edge of the hole. Quite surprisingly I did eventually get it out without breaking the plastic and rebent the clip - wonder if it'll come out again next time? The bulb was blown -12 volt 10 Watt festoon - and luckily I had one in my odds and sods box. Put it in and it works fine, hurrah! I'm very puzzled though by the light unit itself which, at a glance, looks like many I've seen but on closer examination it has a small resistor in series with the power supply. I've never come across this before and can't reason out why it's needed. Here's a couple of pictures.

P1090598.JPG

P1090599.JPG

The current comes in at the other end through the 2 pin plug on the bright coloured metal which also acts as a reflector, it then flows through the resistor to the coppery coloured metal bulb holder, then through the filament and out the other end to the second pin on the plug. You can see the resistor is in series with the bulb filament, but why?
 
The resistor (or perhaps even a NTC thermistor) might be there to limit the in-rush current and extend the life of the bulb. (If so, then it didn't work for your Twinkle).
It adds some resistance to the low resistance of the cold bulb, but becomes less significant as the bulb warms up and its own resistance increases. If it's an NTC thermistor, then its resistance reduces as it heats up - the opposite to the filament bulb.
The same concept used to be used occasionally on household filament bulbs.
I'm surprised, but pleased, if Seat have added a thermistor, because it adds a (small) cost and probably saves them little - I wouldn't normally expect a bulb to blow within warranty.
 
Methinks it's a diode to prevent backfeed but I couldn't say why. 1N4XXX

VAG=Volkwagen Audi Group?
Ahh. Now I wonder? This is the first car I've owned with LED rear lights. Wonder if that could be a factor? Must have a look at the brake light bulbs - she's got fancy shaped LED rear sidelights but old style 21 watt filament brake light bulbs. If they have a similar "feature" maybe that explains it?

Ps. Yes VAG = Volkswagen Audi Group, give the man a coconut!
 
Last edited:
Too true Charlie and I should remember that because when the N/S one failed it was "Dad" who had to cough up the dosh for a replacement light unit (S4p). I remember there is a circuit board of some sort inside it which we tried drying out with Mum's hair dryer first and it worked for a few days before failing again. What we didn't know then was that the later/replacement unit is modified in some way to address this - his new one is doing fine.
 
It should also protect the bulb as well, so if there is a voltage spike it reaches the breakdown voltage of the diode and then the diode will take the excess voltage away from the bulb
 
Just wanted to be sure that VAG was the same thing this side of the pond. My other half had a 2002 Audi A4 Quattro for 13 years. She had the car and I had the VAG specific OBDII reader. Pretty handy to have.
 
Methinks it's a diode to prevent backfeed but I couldn't say why. 1N4XXX

VAG=Volkwagen Audi Group?

You're right - it is a diode. I was too carried away with the idea that Seat tried to help the owner by extending bulb life, that I didn't look at the photo properly.
Also, it seems more likely that it's a rectifier diode than a Zener, since it's fitted in series with the bulb. If the bulb connects directly to the boot switch, then maybe it prevents backfeed from upsetting the security circuit, or other switches affecting this circuit.
A Zener diode in parallel with the bulb would effectively be in parallel with the battery when the switch is closed, so it would need series resistance (more than a fuse or wiring) to protect it from a battery transient voltage or load dump. A Zener diode in series with the bulb would pass the same current as the bulb but drop a voltage, according to its Zener rating, and this would just dim the bulb and dissipate power from the Zener as heat instead of light.
 
Last edited:
You're right - it is a diode. I was too carried away with the idea that Seat tried to help the owner by extending bulb life, that I didn't look at the photo properly.
Also, it seems more likely that it's a rectifier diode than a Zener, since it's fitted in series with the bulb. If the bulb connects directly to the boot switch, then maybe it prevents backfeed from upsetting the security circuit, or other switches affecting this circuit.
A Zener diode in parallel with the bulb would effectively be in parallel with the battery when the switch is closed, so it would need series resistance (more than a fuse or wiring) to protect it from a battery transient voltage or load dump. A Zener diode in series with the bulb would pass the same current as the bulb but drop a voltage, according to its Zener rating, and this would just dim the bulb and dissipate power from the Zener as heat instead of light.
of course - silly me? *?%!$???
 
Back
Top