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[Doctor Gollum]

All's well ends well

[Webby the Bear]

So then after my frank admission of being a shite mechanic for a whole day  I was on my own today and decided I'd stop being a pussy...
And "smash" it (as the geordie shore crew love to say  )

Had a Zafira in yesterday that had a new DPF fitted..... it was that blocked it was hissing very loudly from the air Box!!!  I'd never heard this before. But after fitting there was a code that kept coming up for the temp. differential pipe. A bit of investigation found a split pipe which I could have ordered a new one from Vauxhall. But that's no fun so I repaired it with some fuel line....


After the very shite day I had yesterday it was nice to get off to a winner, albeit an easy one; it's all about confidence people!

I then had an AC regas on a Volvo. Great. Except the HP port is located under the plastic cover over the slam panel. Easy enough to remove (2x8mm) but things like this really annoy me. A half hour job turned in to a 40 minute job 

I then plugged a car in that had "lack of acceleration". It was a diesel Ford. And had a check engine light on. We do free plug ins so no dollar earned here. But the code was EGR flow. Anyone want to guess what was up  so getting him a quote for an EGR valve next week (yes, we could remove it, clean it out and send it on its way, but this one is part of the fannymould my parts bloke tells me, so we would just replace it. The fact it costs SHITE loads we wouldn't mess about with it....new one job done).

So on to an MOT failure from yesterday on a Renault Trafic of 2004 vintage. 2 x track rod ends. NSF lower control arm. And a NSR zero handbrake force issue to look in to.

So track rod ends...
Jam nut sprayed and wire brushed. Loosened very easily and surprisingly span independently of the inner track rod with no persuasion at all. The nut the decided to spin. Memories of yesterday hit me. But then I was replacing them anyway so got the angle grinder and gave them some stick 

I did try pushing it up to no avail.....

So then bust out my big arse metal cutter! Grrrr.

my parts I ordered turned up just in time...... as well as next weeks parts and a quite disturbing thing. Mercedes B class... "auxiliary belt and tensioner please"... and this turns up for it 

Well, that's next week so god knows what that's going to entail as, once again, never done one 

So back to the Trafic. I fitted the TREs and moved on to the brake issue.

The failure was no handbrake force on the near side (can't remember the exact wording) so I removed the wheel, disconnected the handbrake cable from the calliper. The handbrake cable was moving freely. The calliper handbrake lever was stuck solid. New calliper needed 


Rear calipers on these Trafic/ vivaros are easy to replace.... crimp off brake hose. 2 x 13mm securing calliper to bracket. In this case I had to smack the handbrake lever portion of the calliper to move it down enough to relieve the cable from the calliper. Then 14mm brake hose connection to calliper. And spin calliper off the hose. Refit reverse of removal. However....

.....note how the brake hose twists. It's normal on this van presumably to clear any brake hose from the spring area. It's an odd orientation during figment but I've done a few of these and I simply get the brake hose straight, twist calliper on til it's snug. Tighten line with 14mm. Then turn the calliper one rev clockwise and the line falls in to place...usually. 

Here's a couple of pics of the calliper. As said the handbrake lever was frozen. You can see the dust boot damaged through the site hole bit

And picture of the damaged dust boot....


Again I could have spent a bit of time unseizing it but with this damage to the dust boot I doubt this caliper was long for this world anyway so best to replace IMO.

Next to the control arm.

Two spanner method to relieve the 24mm nut off the bottom ball joint....
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[Webby the Bear]

Next to the control arm.

Two spanner method to relieve the 24mm nut off the bottom ball joint....


21mm nut n bolt securing the rear bush in...


21mm bolt head on the front bush...

However the nut underneath was 30mm. Spun that off and all was loose 

Only bugbear was the driveshaft was in the way of getting the bolt out all the way. So driveshaft out.....

32mm for the driveshaft nut. Bolt came straight out. And so did the control arm 

Im a bit of a messy sod  I sat down on the office chair for this job. Not cos I'm lazy. But because I HATE these big vans on our ramps. At least if I work on them at chair height if something god forbid ever did happen at least it wouldn't have that far to fall.



The old shagged WB......


I swapped the plastic clips over for the ABS wire. They just pop out. And push in to the new 'bone.

When fitting new bones I BLAST the mounting points with grease. It helps unbelievably!!!!!

 

Anyway got the new bone fitted, axle back in, all buttoned up. And I feel I redeemed myself from yesterday. I am still a master technician 

[Webby the Bear]

Sorry just to add....once the 24mm nut was off the bottom ball joint it didn't just drop out. I have purchased a very long ball joint splitter from strap-on. Only reason I got it from them is that I seem to break them a lot. And when I next do I'll get a free replacement! 

Once I hammered this in it then literally did just fall out with a bit of help from my big pry bar 

[Webby the Bear]

So then ladies. Not updated this week as I've been in charge with the boss on holiday and if this wasn't a difficult task the freaking broadband went down which meant no invoices, no card 💳 machine and no telephone.

Now I do hope TB reads this cos I just want to make it clear - BT are useless!!!! 😂

So this week I've been keeping two others in check, dealing with all customers, doing work on cars and reporting to the owners.... whilst attending to the 6 engineers that BT sent out.

Anyway no pics sadly. However. I'd like your help......

Got a Citroen c3 in tomorrow. It has the worst broken coil spring I've ever seen. It's destroyed the tyre, torn the cv boot, punctured a brake hose and destroyed a brake line!!!!

Anyway the spring is under no tension from the top mount however it has moved so far down the actual knuckle is keeping it under tension. How the opps am I going to get this off without killing myself. As the cv boot needs doing I'm considering removing the knuckle and strut together, chaining it up and then cutting it.  But even that's dangerous!!! Any suggestions?

[henryd]

So then ladies. Not updated this week as I've been in charge with the boss on holiday and if this wasn't a difficult task the freaking broadband went down which meant no invoices, no card 💳 machine and no telephone.

Now I do hope TB reads this cos I just want to make it clear - BT are useless!!!! 😂

So this week I've been keeping two others in check, dealing with all customers, doing work on cars and reporting to the owners.... whilst attending to the 6 engineers that BT sent out.

Anyway no pics sadly. However. I'd like your help......

Got a Citroen c3 in tomorrow. It has the worst broken coil spring I've ever seen. It's destroyed the tyre, torn the cv boot, punctured a brake hose and destroyed a brake line!!!!

Anyway the spring is under no tension from the top mount however it has moved so far down the actual knuckle is keeping it under tension. How the opps am I going to get this off without killing myself. As the cv boot needs doing I'm considering removing the knuckle and strut together, chaining it up and then cutting it.  But even that's dangerous!!! Any suggestions?

Cut it up in situ to take the tension off it,you'll need a top bearing too as I expect the ballbearings are scattered on a road somewhere

[TheBoy]

I suspect BT never sent any engineers. Try Openreach

[Webby the Bear]

So then ladies. Not updated this week as I've been in charge with the boss on holiday and if this wasn't a difficult task the freaking broadband went down which meant no invoices, no card 💳 machine and no telephone.

Now I do hope TB reads this cos I just want to make it clear - BT are useless!!!! 😂

So this week I've been keeping two others in check, dealing with all customers, doing work on cars and reporting to the owners.... whilst attending to the 6 engineers that BT sent out.

Anyway no pics sadly. However. I'd like your help......

Got a Citroen c3 in tomorrow. It has the worst broken coil spring I've ever seen. It's destroyed the tyre, torn the cv boot, punctured a brake hose and destroyed a brake line!!!!

Anyway the spring is under no tension from the top mount however it has moved so far down the actual knuckle is keeping it under tension. How the opps am I going to get this off without killing myself. As the cv boot needs doing I'm considering removing the knuckle and strut together, chaining it up and then cutting it.  But even that's dangerous!!! Any suggestions?

Cut it up in situ to take the tension off it,you'll need a top bearing too as I expect the ballbearings are scattered on a road somewhere

Thanks Henry. Bizarrely the top mount has come apart and it looked as though all ball bearings were there. The part where the ball bearings live is secured by the nut up top. And the rest is flopping around the strut.

[Webby the Bear]

I suspect BT never sent any engineers. Try Openreach

Yeah them as well. They're all useless 😂😂😂

[Nick W]

Burn the spring into two or three more pieces with the oxy-acetylene. Then just remove the strut as normal, and undo the top nut. Quick, easy and safe.

[Marks DTM Calib]

On the Zaf, a few things to watch for.

1) The plastic pipe failing is common and the fix you did is spot on (DTM recommended, proven and actually first off to do) however, it should be from the metal pipe to further up towards the differential pressure sensor or it will go again.

2) The split pipe will have been the cause of the DPF clogging, under such a fault condition the DPF will not re-gen, keep running and it clogs!

3) When changing a DPF you MUST use the scantool to get the ECU to re-learn the back pressure or the regens will be far from optimal.

[Webby the Bear]

Hi guys thanks for all the replies.

Mark thanks for that info. Yep, once DPF fitted we used the snapon under engine and "special functions " to tell it the DPF had been replaced 👍

So here's that spring I told you about. This is the worst one I've seen. Note the CV grease everywhere....


As mentioned before the spring was still under tension due to the way it had jammed so I carefully cut each loop til it was gone. A bit ott perhaps but sorted nevertheless 😂


On the last coil the cutter grabbed and could have been nasty. Luckily no injury. But definitely reaffirmed why I wear safety gear.


Cutting the universal boot to size after I've fitted the spring.....


And nice and tightly banded....


Not a fan of the longevity of stretchy boots. But they're easy to fit with a cone, some grease and a cup of boiling water 😂

Note the brake line is in front of the shock  had to take caliper off and swing it behind. Stupid bear   

I hate cv boots. They're messy for people with two hands and as I use my arm instead of a hand I get absolutely covered! 

[Webby the Bear]

So nothing too exciting of late.

We have this new thing where we video any service advisories and e mail / mms them to customers. Had some awesome feedback. What do you guys think?

So three services today. And customer wanted front pads doing on his 13 plate A class.....



An AC regas on a Hyundai Tragedy 😂

Then bottom ball joint on an 08 Vivaro....


This was easy except the stupid Renault folk put that stupid abs wire holder in the way. Some gentle massaging got it out the way so I could get the 18mm spanner on top of each of the bolt heads. Then 18mm nuts on bottom. 24mm nut on top of ball joint. Jacked the new one up and no spinning. Job done 👍

[BazaJT]

I know the local Ford stealers do those video "health checks"whether this gets them extra work or what kind of feedback they get from them obviously I don't know.Also when a vehicle first arrives on site the service advisor[used to be service receptionist]does a walk round video of it in the presence of the customer,which presumably is to stop customers returning later to collect their vehicle claiming that it's got a scratch/damage that it didn't have when they left it.

[Webby the Bear]

Yeah it's not really for covering our bums it's more for showing advisories so that they can actually see the problem on their car. Folk who have had the videos have loved it!

On the flip side....

The mechanics don't really want to do it cos I think they're a touch embarrassed about having to do the commentary. However for me I love it 😍 the fact people can see how bad their dogs really are then they tend to ask you to do the work befyyouve even quoted them 👍