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Roadside repairs

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Shackeng:
I was musing on how much easier it was in my early days of motoring. A friend returning from leave in a pre-war Austin 10 or similar, threw a big end. He pulled into a lay by, drained and dropped the sump, fitted a set of big-ends, and still got back to camp without sanction. While cars are of course mechanically much more reliable these days, the sort of problems we encounter causing breakdown are exponentially more difficult to fix without suitable spares and equipment. :(

Field Marshal Dr. Opti:

--- Quote from: Shackeng on 09 December 2018, 11:24:47 ---I was musing on how much easier it was in my early days of motoring. A friend returning from leave in a pre-war Austin 10 or similar, threw a big end. He pulled into a lay by, drained and dropped the sump, fitted a set of big-ends, and still got back to camp without sanction. While cars are of course mechanically much more reliable these days, the sort of problems we encounter causing breakdown are exponentially more difficult to fix without suitable spares and equipment. :(

--- End quote ---

Open the bonnet and plugs and distributor with points were easily accessible. As was the coil and often the dynamo.

Field Marshal Dr. Opti:
I still have a small spanner on my key ring that fits the mixture adjusting nut on the bottom of SU carbs.

Last needed it on my 1976 Triumph 2500S........along with the trusty colourtune. :y

I could only get it to run smoothly when the engine was running 'rich' which gave 13 MPG. :-\

dave the builder:
Indeed,
all the sensors to reduce emissions etc and no room to get at things make repairs a pain.
it is nice to be able to read fault codes and look at live data ,which you could not fo back in the day .
no one bothers doing big ends these days,just scrap the car, I did a full rebuild on a corsa including shells ,rings,lifters etc etc early this year and parts alone was £400 ,more than the car was worth if you included labour (which was fee because i did it) but it meant the engine was sorted and the corsa was for a family member,
 I feel sorry for people who don't have a clue ,and just take their car to a main stealer for £500+ of repairs on a regular basis .
 cars seem to be built in chunks now, computer says replace this chunk , so that big expensive chunk gets replaced,rather than stripping it to replace the 10p  O ring ,that caused the issue.
 A "throw away society" that talks about recycling  :(

JasonH:
Nothing's changed.....we drove past an Austin 7 the other day, the owner had broken down just as he entered a major  motorway junction style roundabout. He had managed to pull over in a sort of chevron area in the middle of the road and appeared to be rebuilding his engine! As we went past he had a distributor in his hand.

That was August 2018!

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