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Topics - JesterRT

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General Discussion Area / It passed!

« on: 14 August 2008, 21:04:02 »

Been sat at my desk all day after dropping the car in to the garage to get the MOT done. Dropped in at 8.30 this morning and been dreading the phonecall with the usual £££'s to sort something out.

Phonecall never came and I picked it up with a first time pass! First car I've ever owned that's done that!

Makes up for last year!!

Advisory on new discs and offside brake lines. Discs I'm comfortable changing - anyone done brake lines?

General Discussion Area / Veccy C - Waterpump

« on: 18 June 2008, 21:34:28 »

...so, how nasty a job's that then? Anyone done it? 1.8l '04 Saloon, and I've got a sneaking suspicion that it's driven by the cambelt...

VX offered to do it for 82 quid - should I take their arm off, or DIY?

General Discussion Area / Admins - How To in 'Test'

« on: 17 April 2008, 20:31:59 »

I've knocked up a How To for changing the rear shocks. Simple job (would have to be for me to tackle it

) but I like seeing lots of pictures for even the easy stuff - just inspires me with a bit more confidence to tackle jobs myself, and perhaps there's other folks out there like that too...

Feel free to correct it and move it across to the Maintenance area... just hope I got it right!

General Discussion Area / Central Heating Woes...

« on: 14 November 2007, 18:55:36 »

...SWMBO has been on for a while about getting a radiator in our bathroom, so during some other work I had a plumber doing they put the tails in the bathroom ready to take the radiator (needed to tile before it went on which is why he left it at that).

I've come to drain my heating system to fit the radiator and I'm struggling. I've got a retro fitted heating system (ie after the house was built, house is circa 1958). Heating system is about 5 year old I think, but I've only moved in a year ago. Anyway, it's a back boiler and I've got a cold water expansion tank in the loft. I've also got an immersion heater in a cupboard upstairs.

From what I've done in the past (and read on the 'net) I've stopped the header tank from refilling and I found two radiators downstairs with drain valves on, and opened both of them, and not a drop came out. :-/ Not sure what to try next. As it happens I've already taken off every other radiator upstairs, so there shouldn't be much water up there. They were pretty sludged up. I figure that the downstairs radiators are the same way, and perhaps the valves are blocked up. Not knowing what to try next I thought if I emptied enough water out the pipework upstairs then perhaps I could get away with fitting the new radiator anyway, so I started draining water from where an upstairs radiator used to be...

I've probably drained about 20-30 litres of water now, filling a bucket slowly and emptying each by hand. If the header tank isn't filling, the water to the house is now turned off, taps opened and nothing coming out, hot water tank empty, boiler switched off, water pump switched off... where the heck's the water coming from?!!

Anyone offer any words of advice (that don't involve ringing a plumber?!!!!!)

Thanks in advance!!!!!!!

General Discussion Area / Cheapo Tech 2 Codes

« on: 04 October 2007, 12:43:56 »

Hi all,

I bought a cheapo Tech 2 USB lead from fleabay for about 30 quid and finally put out that airbag light! Paid for itself on it's first outing too - VX wanted 75 quid plus vat to just 'read' the codes. It read the codes no problem (70 & 71 if I remember right) and cleared them. Didn't get too much of the dreaded hungarian language problems either...
... but, the codes weren't recognised. The software just said 'Unrecognised' on-screen.

Has anyone got a list of codes for the cheapo Tech 2? Hopefully I won't have to use it too much, but it'd be nice to know what's going on

Thanks!

General Discussion Area / Calibrated Speedo

« on: 03 May 2007, 18:04:23 »

Dunno how accurate speedo's are, but, if I reset the average speed reading on the MID then I get told I'm doing about 2mph less than the speedo reads. Eg. If I do 42, then MID reads 40. Seems to get worse as it goes up.

How do plod calibrate their speedo's? It'd be nice to know that doing 70 means 70.

Can Tech2 calibrate them?

General Discussion Area / Trade Card & VeccyB Discs/Pads

« on: 02 May 2007, 13:20:53 »

Hi all,

I'm about to send off for one of those Trade Cards - how widely are they accepted amongst the stealers? Anyone ever used them in Waltons, Stafford?

Cheers!

Just seen my brothers Vectra again last night, and found that the grating noise coming from the front wheel was due to paper thin brake pads and almost non-existant discs. Frightening. He only had an MOT about a fortnight ago as well... should almost non-existant pads/discs be pulled up in MOT's or is it sufficient for them to just stop the car (even if it does sound nasty)?

Anyone point me to a decent veccyB disc/pad changing page anywhere (all sites considered

)

General Discussion Area / Anyone recommend a marine pump?

« on: 20 April 2007, 22:03:54 »

I'm going to need to pump the oil out, rather than risk removing the sump plug again as the threads are nearly gone. Pumps I've seen are mostly the submersible type. I need one I can connect a long bit of narrow tube to.

Cheers!

General Discussion Area / Rear Brakes...

« on: 06 March 2007, 08:06:25 »

...on a Vectra B

I've been given my brothers Vectra for a week while he's throwing himself (head first no doubt) down some snowy slopes in France. He warned me the handbrake was a bit 'dodgy'. Well, it turns out that the handbrake just doesn't work, which means parking in gear all the time, or it could get quite embarrassing - running after your car on a petrol station forecourt (managed that trick once before in my Mk1 MR2 - also had a crap handbrake).

Now, I found a guide on Omega rear brakes on a certain other website (well Google's cache of it since it wouldn't load directly) and from what I read it's pretty similar to the Vectra. Can anyone confirm that? Was written by someone on here I think

It mentions adjusting the handbrake by shining a light into the drum and finding a star to turn - which hopefully will make a damn sight more sense when I have a wheel off at some point this week.

General Discussion Area / Buying a new PC

« on: 05 January 2007, 11:19:43 »

Hi all...

I'm fed up of fixing the old box of crap I call a PC so I'm looking to buy a new one. Anyone got any recommendations or places to steer clear of?

I want nothing super-quick, as the budget won't stretch and I just don't see the point. I surf the web and download my photo's onto the one I've got, but the motherboards burnt out, the disc-drive's failing, DVD Burner is tempremental and I can't bring myself to salvage it.

The wife's after going to Rip-Off World at the weekend, but I just don't beleive they offer the best value for money.

Thoughts?

Cheers!