I say technician in the loosest possible sense
Anyway been wanting to put a diary of my jobs at work for a while and not got round to it. However today is that day
I really enjoy this job. Yes it can be really really f.....g frustrating at times. But when you get through the tough jobs you feel like a man (as opposed to my old job where I shuffled paper round a desk).
You may see a theme with this diary. We've all got to a point where we are quite competitive with labour times. I love this. It's like an unwritten target. I know there are garages out there that have systems where you clock on / clock off jobs and you're given an "efficiency". Being a small independent garage we don't have this.
So there's one job I did a while ago now but it was lovely to do and lots of labour time
and i remembered to take photos so we will kick off with this and I'll then get on to today...
13 plate Astra J. LOTS of oil in the coolant. Spoke to Vauxhall and they have a very large amount of oil coolers they sell for this reason. I'm sure lots on here will be familiar with the v6 oil cooler failing. But this was a lot easier imo.
So to the job. Exhaust manifold removed. 8 or so nuts holding it on and three nuts affixing the cat to the centre section. And of course only being 4 years old thee was no rust in sight so they came off with ease. Once removed we see the oil cooler directly behind it......
There are a few securing bolts. A pipe that runs in to the back of the water pump. And the oil filter housing is all part of this unit. The unit removed....
The oil cooler itself bolts to this whole assembly (pictured removed in bottom right corner) and this gasket sealing it was fubar'd.
New gasket. New cooler (seen in pic). And all put back together. Coolant bled up and jobs a good 'un.
This may be controversial (I don't really care, it worked!) l cleaned the header tank and got as much shit out as possible. With the new coolant I stuck in 1/4 bottle of fairy liquid. The customer came back the following week for a full flush. And he was then sent off with a clean system and no oil in the coolant. Ahhhh that was a good job.
Anyways not to rest on ones laurels that brings us to today.....
For starters. MOT repairs on this dog...
2 coil springs, exhaust (done by someone else yesterday as it was my day off) and a reg. plate bulb holder.
Springs on these motors are about as easy as springs get. 3 x securing nuts on the strut tower with excellent access. Remove clip securing brake line to strut. Remove upper drop link nut. And then remove pinch bolt securing strut to the knuckle. I'm sure when Mr Haynes removes a strut on this car he undoes the bottom ball joint and removes drive shaft from the hub and THEN taps the knuckle down to free strut from its location in the knuckle. Well f..k that
copper hammer and minding the ABS sensor force the knuckle down and out pops your strut
As you can see this spring was nackered.....
In this instance when the strut is putting zero tension on the spring I cut them. And in this particular case I was able to actually turn the spring and it moved its way down the strut and I just cut the pig tail to free it. Lovely jubbly
New spring mounted in compressor....
A lot of the times you put the nut on and gun it up but the whole thing will spin with the shaft and won't tighten. In this instance I get the nut on by hand a few threads, release most of the compression from the, err, compressor. This puts tension on the spring vision the top mount and the bottom seating bit of the strut. And 9 times out of 10 your nut will tighten.
If it doesn't I use unapproved OOF methods This is a great little tip when reassembling. Stick a fekking great chisel in the pinch part of the knuckle and make it slightly wider. Obviously don't go psycho. But the strut will slide in like butter...
and of course all of them seized in their bores after the nuts come off