Just wasn't meant to be, meanwhile life rolls on ----------
What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?
- Thread starter dave
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What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?
I have a fully working heating and hot water system for the first time since I moved out about 12 years ago.
Been at the wife to let me get it done for years but finally we've moved into the early 2000s.
As per for this house it seems to have fought them a fair bit. For example they got an electrician out yesterday to connect it into the board, who discovered the board was unearthed.
So instead of just chasing one wire poor bloke was back today to do that job...and earth the house/board.
Thankfully for us fixed price job so got the house earthed for free as a side bonus...so winning.
Not all wins though, fire arrived and they've opened the box to find the front glass is cracked. So although the plastering down stairs is getting done tomorrow fire will have to wait for replacement parts.
Had a cast of thousands over this week, plumbers, sparkies, gasfitters, brickies, roofers and hopefully plasterer tomorrow marks the major works being done.
Of course the unrelated leak in the roof I spotted months ago made it's presence felt yesterday (no damage just spotted a dribble while in the loft) but their roofer was only here Monday to put the Flue up. I know where it is now...just needs some flashing up and we'll be good. Next month's job I think...
Been at the wife to let me get it done for years but finally we've moved into the early 2000s.
As per for this house it seems to have fought them a fair bit. For example they got an electrician out yesterday to connect it into the board, who discovered the board was unearthed.
So instead of just chasing one wire poor bloke was back today to do that job...and earth the house/board.
Thankfully for us fixed price job so got the house earthed for free as a side bonus...so winning.
Not all wins though, fire arrived and they've opened the box to find the front glass is cracked. So although the plastering down stairs is getting done tomorrow fire will have to wait for replacement parts.
Had a cast of thousands over this week, plumbers, sparkies, gasfitters, brickies, roofers and hopefully plasterer tomorrow marks the major works being done.
Of course the unrelated leak in the roof I spotted months ago made it's presence felt yesterday (no damage just spotted a dribble while in the loft) but their roofer was only here Monday to put the Flue up. I know where it is now...just needs some flashing up and we'll be good. Next month's job I think...
@StevenRB45 sounds like an episode of DIY SOS.
Was explaining this to my wife the other day and a thought crossed my mind.
A lot of new cars such as BMW who put the battery of the car in the boot and run a cable from the boot to the engine, use a pyrotechnic charge like an air bag to cut the live connection from the battery in the event of an accident.
This cuts the power instantly and eliminates any risk of electrical sparks or heat from shorted out high current wires causing a fire or igniting fuel.
This however would mean anything with a battery in the boot with this type of safety system built in, is going to fail on this sort of test, were at is could be argued improves safety by minimizing the risk of fire and putting that heavy acid fill lump of nastiness well out of the way behind the passengers away from the most common forms of damage.
Urgh, is all I'm going to say, they've done a very nice job, which you'd expect given I've not paid them in digestive biscuits.
This house is always a bastard as it's had decades of "that'll do" so whenever you start something something else needs attended to.
Yeah, to be fair we have auto electric locking on ours and the way you unlock is to pull the interior handle, but I'd suspect that doesn't work with the battery destroyed.
But that's why there's a life hammer in the car...
I was going to say I have never had one, but then I realized in my glove box is a torch with a sort of cheap swiss army knife in the handle, and button you press and a large solid metal glass breaker springs forth from the handle like an overweight flick knife, so if needed I do actually have one.
I think it came with the DS3 along with a first aid kit and warning triangle.
Tbf it's a little light plastic thing, wouldn't hurt if you hit yourself with it, but has a ceramic tip for toughened glass.
Never used it but nice it's there...
Tbf it's a little light plastic thing, wouldn't hurt if you hit yourself with it, but has a ceramic tip for toughened glass.
Never used it but nice it's there...
Little bit grumpy but rather more smiley. Twinkle (the Ibiza) and I collaborated over some of the service tasks for this year. She was registered in the March so her service regime (yearly or 12,000 miles - I don't do extended service intervals) fell due in the poor winter weather. I don't do a large annual mileage so when I took over the servicing when her warranty expired I time shifted it to the better summer weather. Her service warning has been reminding me for the last couple of weeks so, as the oil arrived yesterday I decided to make a start on it today.
I always do new oil and oil filter every year. Also the cabin filter - I've mentioned before that I like to ensure there's no restriction in the flow of air over the heater speed resistor pack and the Ibiza's pollen filter is an easy one to do. However the official recommendation for the air filter is every 2 years so I like to check it first before just going out and buying one. This is the grumpy bit. First, here's a picture of the filter casing:
To see the filter element you've got to remove the entire casing from the engine because it's held together with a whole load of torx screws which are only accessible from underneath! You can see 3 of the lugs these screws screw into along the front of the casing - there's another 3 on each side and one waiting to catch you out which "hides" right in the middle! Can't help wondering how long little torx heads will stay usable - if the one in the middle rounds out it'll be a real nightmare to do anything with. The first time I undertook to remove it I could see that there's a larger torx just to the left of centre which I undid but it still didn't want to come off. I eventually discovered it sits on 2 rubber grommets and you have to pull up quite violently to free it. Oh, and watch out for the big "super strong" spring clamps - you can see one on the intake duct front left and another on the feed to the turbo intake:
I use a pair of water pump pliers on them but these clamps are STRONG and if the pliers slip it can draw blood! Note to self, must buy the proper tool.
So to see if I needed the filter I had to do all the above and then, having decided I would do the filter, reassemble it and drive round to the factors (SRS) then back home by the "long route" to get the oil nice and hot for draining. Then, having done the oil and filter, I had to strip out the filter again to change it's element! I really can't see why the casing could not have been made with a removable top. There's nothing else in the service which requires the filter casing to be removed so It's not as if it has to be moved to give access to some other service part. Leaving the bulk of the casing in place would also reduce the chances of something being dropped down the turbo intake!
The rest of the engine service went without a hitch. By the way, I'm in the "prefill filter" camp - if it's the sort of filter you can prefil. Experience has convinced me that it considerably reduces the time the engine runs without oil pressure as it fills the filter. Ideally it works best with "hanging" filters and you can't do anything if it's a "standing" installation as all the oil runs out! But here's the thing, what about horizontal fit? Like the Ibiza and our FIRE engines. A lot of motors have horizontal fit filters. I've found that if you fill the filter about 3/4 full and then quickly lift it into place, only turning it on it's side at the last possible moment WHILST AT THE SAME TIME ROTATING IT AS YOU DO TO SCREW IT INTO PLACE then almost no oil runs out because it's running around the inside of the filter. This works because oil is a viscous fluid so doesn't flow so easily as, say, water, which would just run out!
So, engine work done we moved on to the brakes. She's now in her 7th year since manufacture and still on her original brakes. - mind you I've only done 30,000 miles in her. However the brakes generally, when you view them through the wheels, are looking "tired" so I decide to do a complete strip down and see what we've got before firing the "parts cannon"
I've said before how I'm not particularly impressed with this vehicle's front brakes - much preferring the type with a seperate removable caliper carrier bracket. However I have, at last, found something really rather good about this design. Once you've removed the caliper, which comes away by just removing the two slider pins, the disc rotors can then be removed without any further dismantling - very unusual?
So remove the wheel and caliper slider pins:
pull the caliper off, remove one small torx disc retaining screw, pull the disc rotor off and you've got this:
I've never taken a disc rotor off so quickly!
The hub flange itself is interesting. Look closely and you can see it's not one smooth surface as most others I've worked on. There's an outer and inner machined ring which contacts the inside face of the disc mounting area but between them, where the wheel stud threaded holes are, it's relieved so it doesn't touch the disk. This shows it in more detail:
I'm wondering if it's an attempt to make it more difficult to trap "foreign bodies" which would make the disc run out of true? Anyway, whatever, it was a very easy flange to clean up, especially after the last one - the Mazda - with it's wheel studs sticking out and getting in the way.
Now, with the discs and pads on the floor, it's time to make my mind up about what needs done. Well, the outside of the discs look pretty good, with just a small wear ridge round the outside and a wee bit in close to the hub:
The backs are a bit rougher, with a rust band on the outside and around the hub:
I often find the backside of discs are worse than the front So, if you're looking through your alloys at your discs don't assume the back of the disc will always look as good.
Next I measured the thickness and it came out half way between the new and worn out figure with loss of thickness being shared equally between the inside and outside faces.
Hmm? so, pads, what are the pads like:
Certainly not yet worn out. Probably about 75% worn, taking into account they will be changed when down to about 2mm. After cleaning it could be seen they were still mechanically sound with no cracks or separation from the backing. Let's give their faces a wee clean up then. What do you guys do about cleaning/glaze busting? Many years ago I was given a piece of thick plate glass by an "old hand" who told me it was especially good for this as it's very very flat. You put a piece of medium emery cloth on it and rub the face of the pad until it cleans up nicely:
Keeps the face of the pad nice and flat, which is what you want. I've had that piece of glass for over 40 years and it's moved house with me at least twice - how has it never got broken?
Well, so far I've not spent any money and the pads are looking good for many more miles. Hows about the discs though? They've got plenty of thickness left and the wear is even - I've had no juddering when braking. Lets clean them up and see what we've got. Fitted a medium abrasive disc to my electric drill and buffed a way the outside lips and inner rust on both sides of both discs:
Outsides came up pretty good:
Insides not quite so impressive:
Hmm? well, I've seen a lot worse. Think I'll just live with them for now. Get a bit more use out of the pads and then change the whole lot, maybe before it's MOT which is just after Christmas.
When reassembling it's worth knowing that the outer pad doesn't move in the caliper, simply sits against the fixed "fingers". But the inner pad is pushed along by the piston and must not bind in the caliper. Look at this:
The left pad simply sits there resting against the caliper casting but the right pad has to be able to slide freely on the caliper casting as the piston acts upon it. I've found that right pad (left pad if looking at the N/S) is prone to seizing in the caliper so give it a good "slaistering" of Cera tec or other brake grease when assembling. The Cera tec is the semi transparent, sort of toffee coloured grease, I've put a bit of white ceramic grease on the top slider just "boots and braces" in case.
Here's the end result on both front brakes:
That'll do me for a while anyway.
Looks much nicer through the alloys than it did a couple of hours ago:
Of course I'm in the fortunate position of being able to keep a regular informed check on this so will be able to quickly renew the discs and pads if they start to deteriorate more rapidly. In the workshop, I'd have been thinking, "Can I be sure these discs and pads will be OK for another year or so - or whatever the service regime on the car was" Extended service regimes make this very difficult. If the car was on extended I'd have recommended doing them now, at this service. If on a yearly/10.000 mile regime I'd be taking into account what I knew about the customer. An elderly driver who perhaps does a couple of thousand miles a year? I'd be happy to leave them, A "young blood", tearing round the lanes and "frightening the horses" I'd be doing now. It's all a matter of judgement and erring on the side of safety folks!
So that was it for today, except I popped the cabin filter in before I packed in for tea. Might get stuck into the rears tomorrow if the rain holds off. Not expecting the rears to be as good though, maybe going to have to spend some money on them.
I always do new oil and oil filter every year. Also the cabin filter - I've mentioned before that I like to ensure there's no restriction in the flow of air over the heater speed resistor pack and the Ibiza's pollen filter is an easy one to do. However the official recommendation for the air filter is every 2 years so I like to check it first before just going out and buying one. This is the grumpy bit. First, here's a picture of the filter casing:
To see the filter element you've got to remove the entire casing from the engine because it's held together with a whole load of torx screws which are only accessible from underneath! You can see 3 of the lugs these screws screw into along the front of the casing - there's another 3 on each side and one waiting to catch you out which "hides" right in the middle! Can't help wondering how long little torx heads will stay usable - if the one in the middle rounds out it'll be a real nightmare to do anything with. The first time I undertook to remove it I could see that there's a larger torx just to the left of centre which I undid but it still didn't want to come off. I eventually discovered it sits on 2 rubber grommets and you have to pull up quite violently to free it. Oh, and watch out for the big "super strong" spring clamps - you can see one on the intake duct front left and another on the feed to the turbo intake:
I use a pair of water pump pliers on them but these clamps are STRONG and if the pliers slip it can draw blood! Note to self, must buy the proper tool.
So to see if I needed the filter I had to do all the above and then, having decided I would do the filter, reassemble it and drive round to the factors (SRS) then back home by the "long route" to get the oil nice and hot for draining. Then, having done the oil and filter, I had to strip out the filter again to change it's element! I really can't see why the casing could not have been made with a removable top. There's nothing else in the service which requires the filter casing to be removed so It's not as if it has to be moved to give access to some other service part. Leaving the bulk of the casing in place would also reduce the chances of something being dropped down the turbo intake!
The rest of the engine service went without a hitch. By the way, I'm in the "prefill filter" camp - if it's the sort of filter you can prefil. Experience has convinced me that it considerably reduces the time the engine runs without oil pressure as it fills the filter. Ideally it works best with "hanging" filters and you can't do anything if it's a "standing" installation as all the oil runs out! But here's the thing, what about horizontal fit? Like the Ibiza and our FIRE engines. A lot of motors have horizontal fit filters. I've found that if you fill the filter about 3/4 full and then quickly lift it into place, only turning it on it's side at the last possible moment WHILST AT THE SAME TIME ROTATING IT AS YOU DO TO SCREW IT INTO PLACE then almost no oil runs out because it's running around the inside of the filter. This works because oil is a viscous fluid so doesn't flow so easily as, say, water, which would just run out!
So, engine work done we moved on to the brakes. She's now in her 7th year since manufacture and still on her original brakes. - mind you I've only done 30,000 miles in her. However the brakes generally, when you view them through the wheels, are looking "tired" so I decide to do a complete strip down and see what we've got before firing the "parts cannon"
I've said before how I'm not particularly impressed with this vehicle's front brakes - much preferring the type with a seperate removable caliper carrier bracket. However I have, at last, found something really rather good about this design. Once you've removed the caliper, which comes away by just removing the two slider pins, the disc rotors can then be removed without any further dismantling - very unusual?
So remove the wheel and caliper slider pins:
pull the caliper off, remove one small torx disc retaining screw, pull the disc rotor off and you've got this:
I've never taken a disc rotor off so quickly!
The hub flange itself is interesting. Look closely and you can see it's not one smooth surface as most others I've worked on. There's an outer and inner machined ring which contacts the inside face of the disc mounting area but between them, where the wheel stud threaded holes are, it's relieved so it doesn't touch the disk. This shows it in more detail:
I'm wondering if it's an attempt to make it more difficult to trap "foreign bodies" which would make the disc run out of true? Anyway, whatever, it was a very easy flange to clean up, especially after the last one - the Mazda - with it's wheel studs sticking out and getting in the way.
Now, with the discs and pads on the floor, it's time to make my mind up about what needs done. Well, the outside of the discs look pretty good, with just a small wear ridge round the outside and a wee bit in close to the hub:
The backs are a bit rougher, with a rust band on the outside and around the hub:
I often find the backside of discs are worse than the front So, if you're looking through your alloys at your discs don't assume the back of the disc will always look as good.
Next I measured the thickness and it came out half way between the new and worn out figure with loss of thickness being shared equally between the inside and outside faces.
Hmm? so, pads, what are the pads like:
Certainly not yet worn out. Probably about 75% worn, taking into account they will be changed when down to about 2mm. After cleaning it could be seen they were still mechanically sound with no cracks or separation from the backing. Let's give their faces a wee clean up then. What do you guys do about cleaning/glaze busting? Many years ago I was given a piece of thick plate glass by an "old hand" who told me it was especially good for this as it's very very flat. You put a piece of medium emery cloth on it and rub the face of the pad until it cleans up nicely:
Keeps the face of the pad nice and flat, which is what you want. I've had that piece of glass for over 40 years and it's moved house with me at least twice - how has it never got broken?
Well, so far I've not spent any money and the pads are looking good for many more miles. Hows about the discs though? They've got plenty of thickness left and the wear is even - I've had no juddering when braking. Lets clean them up and see what we've got. Fitted a medium abrasive disc to my electric drill and buffed a way the outside lips and inner rust on both sides of both discs:
Outsides came up pretty good:
Insides not quite so impressive:
Hmm? well, I've seen a lot worse. Think I'll just live with them for now. Get a bit more use out of the pads and then change the whole lot, maybe before it's MOT which is just after Christmas.
When reassembling it's worth knowing that the outer pad doesn't move in the caliper, simply sits against the fixed "fingers". But the inner pad is pushed along by the piston and must not bind in the caliper. Look at this:
The left pad simply sits there resting against the caliper casting but the right pad has to be able to slide freely on the caliper casting as the piston acts upon it. I've found that right pad (left pad if looking at the N/S) is prone to seizing in the caliper so give it a good "slaistering" of Cera tec or other brake grease when assembling. The Cera tec is the semi transparent, sort of toffee coloured grease, I've put a bit of white ceramic grease on the top slider just "boots and braces" in case.
Here's the end result on both front brakes:
That'll do me for a while anyway.
Looks much nicer through the alloys than it did a couple of hours ago:
Of course I'm in the fortunate position of being able to keep a regular informed check on this so will be able to quickly renew the discs and pads if they start to deteriorate more rapidly. In the workshop, I'd have been thinking, "Can I be sure these discs and pads will be OK for another year or so - or whatever the service regime on the car was" Extended service regimes make this very difficult. If the car was on extended I'd have recommended doing them now, at this service. If on a yearly/10.000 mile regime I'd be taking into account what I knew about the customer. An elderly driver who perhaps does a couple of thousand miles a year? I'd be happy to leave them, A "young blood", tearing round the lanes and "frightening the horses" I'd be doing now. It's all a matter of judgement and erring on the side of safety folks!
So that was it for today, except I popped the cabin filter in before I packed in for tea. Might get stuck into the rears tomorrow if the rain holds off. Not expecting the rears to be as good though, maybe going to have to spend some money on them.
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The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
All you need now is a contract with the devil for your soul... and the souls of all your families and friends and you will be able to switch it on. "SWITCH OFF"!!!! Thats enough more souls please.!
But glad its progressing.
We were paying 400+ a month in gas at points...even if it's 200 with the new one I can get a car with the bloody difference
Although I could also have bought a car with how much it cost...and not a terrible one either.Even in summer it's gonna be less given you had to run the old system like an immersion heater and it took about an hour to get the water hot enough do anything useful.
All looks identical to the front of the Fabia, no surprise there.
Last year I had to change front and rear discs due to corrosion. Pads only half worn, at about 45k miles, but the edges of the discs, especially the rears were horrid. Being light on the brakes seems to be a contributory factor, so I'm 'exercising' them once a week, with a firm application. Hopefully will last longer.
If you've got discs on the back, you'll have trouble pushing the pistons back in. The little holes to engage the wind-back tool are quite close together, and none of the standard universal ones will fit. (I have a large selection now.)
Eventually I found this:https://www.lasertools.co.uk/Product/5751/Adjustable-Brake-Caliper-Rewind-Tool
That did it. You can find the adjustable plate separately, but be wary, a lot of the cheaper wind-back tools use a proprietary square drive, so won't fit. needs to be the same make as the adjustable plate. (As I said, I have a selection)
Sorry for the abortive attempt to reply above. Something went wrong and it wouldn't accept any entry of text - no idea why, it'll be my fault though!
Anyway PB, I was going to do the rears today but Mrs J is wanting to be run up town, she's doing one of her coffee mornings with her old work pals - I hate the traffic - but I wouldn't dare to refuse to run her! Also, I'm having to admit, I really found it quite an effort yesterday with all the up and down and crawling about which was needed to do the engine and brake work and today I'm paying for it with quite a sore back. Probably more sensible to have a rest day today.
I just popped out and took a picture of Twinkle's rear discs through the wheels, so only seeing the outside face of each, however they don't look all that bad. Of course the inside faces may be a lot worse. Here's the N/S:
and the O/S:
I'm prepared, and happy, to replace if needed. However if the inner faces are in similar condition then they'll do until I need to do the fronts. The pads are probably not even half worn, plenty of "meat" still on them.
Thanks for the link to that Laser tool. Many years ago I bought a generic windback tool:
which can handle slotted pistons and those with holes at two centres. I've been amazed to find it's coped with every caliper I've so far come across. From what you're saying though, it may not cope with the Ibiza? One draw back it has is it won't do left hand threaded calipers, but, so far, I've not had to deal with one of those. I must say that, having access to compressed air, I'm very attracted to something like this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/23485673...24k3kU9dkx82J71WHNtM0/HPyA==|tkp:BFBM-tCZzq9i But maybe it's a bit of an overkill for the number of times I'd use it? Anyway, I want a battery condition analyser first and I'm having enough trouble getting Mrs J to release funds for that!
As I'm writing this it's just occurred to me that the images in this thread might be useful to Tipotwo @Tipotwo for comparison purposes with the image he posted of the corroded disc here: https://www.fiatforum.com/threads/brake-disc-a-ring-of-rust.498948/page-2 This is a picture of the worst face of the two discs on my Ibiza yesterday:
As can be clearly seen there's quite a bit of corrosion on the outer edge and some on the inner too (note that the rusty inside bit is stepped. The "active" face of the disc is slightly less than the width of the rusty ring - look closely and you can see it steps down. It cleaned up not too badly on the parts of the face where the pads bear:
But I did think quite seriously about just renewing it. If I get another 6 months, or maybe a year? out of it I'll be well pleased. Probably by then the pads will be due replacement anyway? Would be good if they can last 'till the good weather comes back next year, but what will be will be and I'll do them whenever it becomes necessary.
Compare these images to the one Tipotwo showed us and it can be seen that his disc and, of course, the associated pads, really does need to be renewed. Of course that means the other disc of this axle set also need to be done regardless of condition (I include that comment for the benefit of those not so knowledgeable about "all things to do with brakes)
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I seem to remember, the insides of my rear discs were far worse than the outside. The rust had reduced the thickness of the disc, so just celaning it up would not have been a proper fix.
Measure the square drive of your caliper tool. It may not be 3/8". If it is, it will take the Laser adjustable one. My cheap one was strangely slightly larger. No idea why anyone would manufacture a unique square drive.
My Laser adjustable adaptor has 4mm dia pins, and is set to 28mm centres. I'm sure a rule across your standard one will show the pins as too fat, and too far apart. I did buy one of those little cubes, with different pins on 5 of the six faces, but none of those came close.
My Laser adaptor is fitted to a Clarke (Machine Mart) tool. https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-pro328-brake-calliper-piston-rewind-too/
That will do left handed calipers too, should I ever encounter one.
The little cube is like my new one, won't fit the Fabia/Ibiza.
No idea what the one bottom left is, but I have a vague feeling I've seen one before.
Just tried a 3/8 socket on it and it fits so must be 3/8 square drive. That got me quite excited. However I've measured the pin size on the adaptor and they are just under 6mm in diameter - I assume that's not going to engage with the Ibiza caliper piston?
My friend has one of those cubes and I've tried it, once, found it quite difficult to use though.
That Clarke tool looks quite nice and very affordable too.
Do you know if you can buy just the adjustable adaptor on it's own? Oh, and are both calipers right hand thread?
Regards
Jock
What a wonderful collection of home made tools. I can well believe you could tackle almost anything with them. "Made for purpose"! I love seeing this sort of stuff.
No, haven't seen that bottom left one before.
Long time since I used it but from memory winding back the inboard rear disc caliper pistons on Rover 2000s, 2200TCs and P6 3500? I had a customer with one in Tobacco Beige (if you are allowed to say that?) previously owned by Madame Tussaud's Waxworks.
I also had a long dead accountant who frequently drove with the handbrake on, on his Jags, to adjust at the inboard rear disc involved a ramp job with hands up above the back axle working by feel to remove a split pin and use a short screwdriver to wind the handbrake pads closer to the brake disc using a 4 thou feeler gauge just nipped that gave the perfect handbrake until he did it again.
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I don't know if Fiat rear calipers are particularly basic, but when I've done them on the 500 I just use a pair of pliers and my own (not considerable) arm strength to turn it and push it back in, seems to work just fine, no fancy tools required!
