chunkybond
Part of things
http://www.maxmarcusevents.co.uk
Posts: 147
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Some amazing stories here.
Picture the scene: November 2015. I've just got my 1971 Bug bag from a body off resto.
Take the car for a spin round the block once it was delivered in excitement. Mechanic runs me through the 'things I should know' (vital to the story) and I'm like 'yeah yeah I've got my car back now thats all that matters yadda yadda.
Following morning. Mates come round to look at my magnificent baby. 4 of us bundle into the motor to take it on a cruise to christen her. Put key in the ignition, turn it over.... Nothing. No oil light, no battery light.
Check battery under rear seat (first we thought the weight of two people moved it somehow) but it was fine. Tested contacts etc, all firm. Put a meter on the battery, showed healthy Tried jumping it from my mates BMW anyway - nothing so we thought 'its only a beetle, lets jump it'
15 mins, running up and down the high street trying to jump her in 1st, 2nd, nothing.
Go back in and call the mechanic in rage. Mechanic also baffled (and busy!)
Go to sit and sulk in the bug. Then it hit me.....
I HAD A BATTERY CUTOFF FITTED.
Flick the batt switch on, fired on half a turn of the motor.
Funglebuck.
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Mar 24, 2017 10:00:48 GMT
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Whilst working in middle of nowhere in Libya I had a Landrover 90, it was horrific with no AC and none existent dust seals but it was good through the sand dunes. It needed a service and there was no pool car available that day so the project manager let me use his new Toyota Hilux, auto, leather, radio, AC, windows, posh stuff when your used to crappy Landrovers held together with tape and the hopes of hungover mechanics. So whilst out in the desert visiting one of the drill rigs I needed a curse word so stopped and hopped out leaving the engine running. When I tried to get back in the door had locked itself leaving me stuck in 50 degrees and an hours drive from our camp. After thinking abit and not wanting to get sunburnt I put a rock through the back window and had to apologize profusely when I got back. It took over 6 weeks to find a replacement window and showed why we were only allowed near death Landrovers
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fad
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,781
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Mar 24, 2017 10:17:44 GMT
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It strikes me that auto locking doors cause a LOT more problems than they solve :lol: Actually speaking of taking a dump... Grim story here. Back in my RAF days, we were on guard, night shift, guarding an air field (really?? What's the point? Can't see, it's a HUGE field, there's two of us, and I don't think that Terry the local friendly neighbourhood Terrorist is going to bomb a field). So, sat in the Land Rover, and we had our sleeping bags with us (it was winter, and we were taking it in turns to be awake). So cocooned in it, where it's warm, and they have these massive hoods so you look like the Hungry Caterpillar. He decides he needs a dump. So, wriggles his sleeping bag down, and hangs his bottom (because for some reason rse is considered a naughty word on here??) out of the door of the Land Rover. Curls one out, uses the wet wipes on the dashboard (kept there for emergency sauce spillages, cleaning the bits of the windscreen the wipers don't get and for greasy dirty fingers), complains that it was a ropey, sloppy one, wriggles back into the sleeping back and flicks his hood up... ... which was full of his ropey, sloppy turd, baby wipes and a bit of weewee too. Turns out his hood was hanging out of the Land Rover when he went potty. Didn't make me angry, but he was absolutely FURIOUS. The best bit was our relief wasn't due for another hour so he had to sit there (outside, the smelly little fother mucker) covered in his own doings.
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Last Edit: Mar 24, 2017 11:03:17 GMT by fad
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Mar 24, 2017 10:49:08 GMT
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That is both hilarious and disgusting .
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Davey
Posted a lot
Resident Tyre Nerd.
Posts: 2,214
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Mar 24, 2017 11:32:41 GMT
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Bottom arms on my Vectra B. This is fairly recent, you aren't allowed to laugh, I've never done them before. Cracked the 2 bolts at the back and loosened (this is key here) the balljoint pinch bolt. 4 solid hours with a fork and the ball joint was going nowhere. Bought a bigger hammer, still nothing. Now with a completely bolloxed balljoint i put it back together and walk to my mates garage to book it in before i buried a hammer in the windscreen. Told him what needed doing, first thing he said.. "you did pull the bolt all the way out didn't you, they're recessed and the balljoint won't go past the bolt".... Dashed back up to it and whipped the bolt ALL the way out, balljoint fell out of its own accord. Lesson learnt. I've only ever done ball joints that have a castle nut on the top before. Also related to Vectra B ownership, the two bolts holding the cat to the centre section. They will without fail always snap. They can be brand new bolts, that you have only just put in, and they will still snap, i don't even attempt this job any more. Now that is exceptional! What state was the bolt in?
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K11 Micra x3 - Mk3 astra - Seat Marbella - Mk6 Escort estate - B5 Passat - Alfa 156 estate - E36 compact Mk2 MR2 T-bar - E46 328i - Skoda Superb - Fiat seicento - 6n2 Polo - 6n polo 1.6 - Mk1 GS300 EU8 civic type S - MG ZT cdti - R56 MINI Cooper S - Audi A3 8p - Jaguar XF (X250) - FN2 Civic Type R - Mk2 2.0i Ford Focus
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Mar 24, 2017 11:49:59 GMT
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More a mate than me. 2 -years ago his old Octavia Is dying so he needs a cheap car quickly. Not having much money he stupidly goes and buys a modeo estate diesel for £1500 from a dealer. Shortly afterwords it starts playing up. Not running right loss if power etc.
Of course googling leads hk into a dero pit of despair . Blocked egrs, clogged injectors which are £250 a pop, all sorts of nasty costly problems are suggested. He starts buying copious amounts of expensive fuel additives and moaning constantly.
After a month of this, and messing around blanking off his egr I ask to take a look at the plate he made and fitted. He opens his bonnet and I notice a boost hose to the left of the egr , in plain view has a 6" split all the way up it.
£16 eBay hose and it's fine!
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rude
Part of things
Posts: 537
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Mar 24, 2017 11:51:20 GMT
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A few years ago over the space of about 4 months my 635 unsurprisingly developed a strange running fault (not related to the current one). This involved ghostly behaviour from the gauges at times where they would flick about but that problem seemed to vanish, but then the engine appeared to be running quite rough now and then but on the whole it was pretty good until the period of time came when riding up the M11 and the auto box decided it was undecided as to what gear to be in. Then as if by magic, there was no problems at all. UNTIL, the radio power started going on and off by itself... Quickly beginning to loose every ounce of confidence in the car I realised that I may well be the owner of my now second haunted car. A month rolled by, no issues and then the gearbox warning lights appeared and it continued with it's various gear hunting whilst I was adding up the pound notes it was going to cost me. The next day, everything was normal, no lights, weird running... anything, all was well. That continued fault free for a week until at the exact same spot on the M11, the engine spluttered and died. I rolled onto the hard shoulder, tried to start it and after a little grumble it started fine and ran fault free for several weeks. Getting a bit frustrated with lifting the bonnet and checking everything every spare minute I had, I confirmed in my mind that the car was haunted. More weeks of fine German motoring without warning the engine spluttered and died in a roadworks section of the A14 DURING MORNING RUSH HOUR! Not wanting to be 'that guy' you here of on the morning radio traffic reports I smashed through some cones and set it to rest on a verge. As usual it fired up fine and drove without fault for another few weeks. SELL IT, was all the sympathy I got from the missis as I tried to explain that in order to sell it I'd have to fix it anyway... whatever the issues were. One stormy night I was bombing down the M11 when low and behold the gear box issue raised it's ugly head and then the engine spluttered and died It wouldn't start again. Freezing cold, rain, no phone credit, no coat I sat in the car wondering where to go from there. Until I realised that lorries at 60mph were effing scary so I got out and clambered up a wet embankment as it started to sleet. Trying to put credit on my phone that I couldn't hear due to the traffic noise and Siberian wind howling I realised some places in this day and age still don't have network coverage. Looking back at the BM and waiting for it to be totalled by a wandering HGV I plucked up the courage to have another attempt at starting it. I approached it shouting much abuse at it, got in and.... It started! RIGHT, OFF TO THE SERVICES AND GET THIS PROBLEM IRONED OUT! It drove fine, I got to the services, parked up and left it running. Went around to the passenger door (bet you are all thinking I'm gonna lock my keys in right? WRONG!), opened the bonnet, slammed the passenger door and the engine cut out. WTF! I started the car, got out, opened the passenger door and slammed it again... engine cut out. Hmmm. So I thought that I have to continue my journey, at least I know it goes. Sure enough a few miles down the M11 and it cut out again. Luckily by now I knew the area well and decided I'd drive the back lanes to a pub and call recovery as I don't mind necking a few pints whilst waiting for the truck, and I'm not driving home am I? An hour or so later the truck arrives, turns out I used to work with the fella so we had a catch up and he told me stories of how people get smashed down the pub and are too curse word to drive so call recovery to get them home... I got the car delivered to my unit and the missis to pick me up. The next day fully intent on discovering the evil that lurked within my vehicle I got to my snow covered car, lifted the bonnet, checked the battery and found the earth connection virtually hanging off which shamefully, I had failed to tighten up... whenever that was. Fixed that and it never played up again.
Moral of that story is: Don't be a douche.
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1986 Haunted BMW E24 635CSi 1999 Povo spec BMW E36 1.8i Touring Work Hack 2001 Petrol annihilating Discovery V8 2000 Jaguar S Type 3.0 V6 ~NEW~
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Mar 24, 2017 12:01:32 GMT
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Thats a killer. I would possibly have put my own head through the windscreen repeatedly at that.
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jonk
Part of things
Posts: 154
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Mar 24, 2017 13:00:07 GMT
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That sleeping bag story is brilliant, and brilliantly told!
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Mar 24, 2017 13:07:49 GMT
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Now you've mentioned batteries... One of my hobbies used to be buying wrecks out of old sheds, garages etc (long before the phrases "barn find" was invented) Got an old Kawasaki (bike), did all the usual recommissioning stuff - strip carbs, sort the brakes, check electrics, new petrol & battery, etc. All seems fine so I grabbed the keys and took it for a pre-mot check ride around the village, all fine until it died a few miles from home. Rang Rac/AA etc, they turned up and soon noticed the bolts clamping the cables onto the new battery were done up nice and tight, but the cables were still loose. A couple of washers under the too-long battery bolts and everything was great. Sometimes it's the simplest things!
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Last Edit: Mar 24, 2017 13:10:50 GMT by nomad
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rude
Part of things
Posts: 537
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Mar 24, 2017 13:15:54 GMT
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I lived in a remote part of the Essex countryside, off the beaten track, down a private lane on a disused farm in an old barn conversion. We had no neighbours, just about had electric and it was dark. My new missis lived in Central London and drove, sometimes, a polo 6N2 hand me down type car. One day I got a call that it wasn't 'working' anymore. So on my next regular trip to London I had a look and it was pretty obvious the clutch had left the building. Being a knight in shining armour I offered to replace the clutch at my home as all my tools were there, adequate space and the advantage of making noise at any time of the day or night. We scheduled in a date and when that time came I drove the car to my place experiencing all the drama that comes with driving a car with no clutch. Part in hand I set about removing the gearbox, a fairly easy job with ample space around the subject at hand. What made it difficult was that I was doing it outside, on the deck on 20mm pea shingle. Any bolts and stuff that fell onto the floor virtually disappeared and resulted in a lot of wasted time searching for the unsearchable. If only I had a big sheet... that would have been a good purchase but I soldered on regardless. Box off, clutch in and even a new metal tube thingy for the starter motor to engage into I prepared for reinstallation. I was in two minds as it was getting dark and that fine rain stuff had began to appear, but we'd come this far so lets get it done. That rain turned into bigger rain, there was some thunder and I was getting soaked. Manning up I continued and with those slimy, oily hands. I lay under the car, got the gearbox on my chest ready for 'the lift'. Attempt one never works and uses approximately 50% of your strength, attempt 2 didn't either and that used a further 20%. Dropping the box back on the floor I realised that the shingle may as well be stanley blades with poison on for all the damage it was doing to my back. I checked the alignment of the clutch plates and for obstructions... of which everything was good, so on my back again, box on chest I lifted for attempt 3 and it sort of engaged! Success! Just needed to get a couple of bolts in, one there, another there... where's my ratchet? Now still holding the box with one arm and my last 10% of strength dwindling at an alarming rate, I searched with my other hand in the dark and rain hoping that my ratchet would make itself known... it did, I caught a glimpse of it just out of reach, I shifted out from under the car a bit to reach it and BANG! The box fell out onto the floor trapping my arm between it and the shingle. Now I'm stuck, panicking a bit and beginning to think I might die out there and get eaten by foxes... what a way to go. By now, my trapped arm doesn't matter anymore because I can't feel it, my shoulder feels like it's about to be penetrated by 2000 shingle stones and I can't do anything. Luckily I am not the type to totally loose it in emergency situations and thought about getting out of my predicament. No phone, I can't yell, well I can but no one will hear me except the odd rabbit in a bush, smoke signals are out, I can't yank my arm out through fear of slitting my wrist so.... Then I spotted it, my only saving grace, a tyre bar about two feet away from my own feet. Now when you think how much the human body can stretch, you can double that in an emergency situation and I managed to hook this bar and feed it up to my hand where I could begin to lever the box off of my arm, that hurt but it was successful and I was a free man! No major damage done just quite a lot of bruising. The next day I completed the clutch and returned the car. 'How did it go, was it tough?' she asked...'oh, no problem, it's an easy enough job' I replied.
Moral of that story: Don't be a douche.
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1986 Haunted BMW E24 635CSi 1999 Povo spec BMW E36 1.8i Touring Work Hack 2001 Petrol annihilating Discovery V8 2000 Jaguar S Type 3.0 V6 ~NEW~
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Davey
Posted a lot
Resident Tyre Nerd.
Posts: 2,214
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Mar 24, 2017 16:37:00 GMT
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Luckily I am not the type to totally loose it in emergency situations and thought about getting out of my predicament. No phone, I can't yell, well I can but no one will hear me except the odd rabbit in a bush, smoke signals are out, I can't yank my arm out through fear of slitting my wrist so.... Then I spotted it, my only saving grace, a tyre bar about two feet away from my own feet. Now when you think how much the human body can stretch, you can double that in an emergency situation and I managed to hook this bar and feed it up to my hand where I could begin to lever the box off of my arm, that hurt but it was successful and I was a free man! No major damage done just quite a lot of bruising. The next day I completed the clutch and returned the car. 'How did it go, was it tough?' she asked...'oh, no problem, it's an easy enough job' I replied. Moral of that story: Don't be a douche. This resonates so much! Many a time, albeit on a ramp, balancing gearboxes trying to reach spanners with feet and finger tips only to drop the box at the last second. Another of mine, this one less frustrating more eye watering. My then employer ran a fleet of vans, that i used to maintain and if need arose occasionally drive. The van involved in this episode of funglebucks was a curtain sided movano. Normally the most reliable van of the fleet 180,000 miles and counting. Long story short it started making a howling noise that sounded like a turbo, after a new turbo and all associated pipework it was still making the noise, the van worked but was down on power so with the mileage it had we decided to keep using it. Eventually the noise was discovered to be the result of an oilway in the head blocked with silicone preventing oil reaching the cam bearings. The cam seized. Solid. Cambelt snapped at 70 miles an hour. End of play for the engine. This may seem bad enough after many hours of investigation and pain but this is only the start. After sitting solemnly in the yard for 6 months, boss suddenly has a brainwave lets remove the engine before we have a replacement and see how that goes. So being the fool i am i get lumbered with working on this thing, outside, regardless of the weather, whenever there is a shortage of work. All started well, whole front end of the van comes of fine, gearbox comes away and the engine is hanging there on its own glaring at me, broken bruised, forlorn. Finally the day arrived that the engine needed to be out, after much searching for an engine it was discovered that they were just too expensive so the body was going to a new home on the provision that the fubbared engine was gone. I merrily trotted out to the van, relieved that fitting an engine had been avoided permanently. Engine was lifted with a jack, engine mount removed, engine is free'd from its prison. Being like a proud father after the birth of a child i step back to admire my handiwork and watch the engine merrily fall of the jack. Oh well its not like its that heavy right. Go to lift the engine..... By the flywheel end.... SPINNNN!!! My finger get wedged between the flywheel and a sharp edge of the black. I yelp, I look around.. I am alone! After concerning chewing through my finger or smashing my way through the flywheel i decide i am in fact doomed. Eventually, after the assistance of some blood loss and numbness in my hand I just pulled, hard, until my hand came free expecting missing fingers. I wasn't far wrong, cut down to the bone and broken little finger tip. So deep and jagged was the cut i still have the dirt trapped under my now healed skin... boring story end.
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K11 Micra x3 - Mk3 astra - Seat Marbella - Mk6 Escort estate - B5 Passat - Alfa 156 estate - E36 compact Mk2 MR2 T-bar - E46 328i - Skoda Superb - Fiat seicento - 6n2 Polo - 6n polo 1.6 - Mk1 GS300 EU8 civic type S - MG ZT cdti - R56 MINI Cooper S - Audi A3 8p - Jaguar XF (X250) - FN2 Civic Type R - Mk2 2.0i Ford Focus
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Mar 24, 2017 16:47:53 GMT
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Another key story... Drove my defender to the nursery to pick up my then 1 year old daughter. Open passenger door and whilst strapping in the sprog notice that I'd parked directly over a drain cover grill thing. Keys in mouth whilst doing up car seat straps and thinking to myself "god, imagine if I dropped the keys down there!" In the instant that thought crossed my mind in slow motion I see the keys fall and tinkle through the grate into the drain below. My defender is a 110 and had a fixed dog guard between the cab and the rear where my tools and stuff were. I looked down the drain grill and so so luckily it wasn't filled with water but leaves and I could just spot my keys. Getting dark now and baby getting restless. Tried to lift the cover but it was too heavy or stuck. Had a trolley jack handle behind the seat so tried to use thst to jemmy the grill up. No chance, bent handle. Grrrrr! Baby crying. Furtively looked round for a solution, getting more stressed by the minute I spy one of those bungee cords with the metal hooks on each end stuffed under the seat. Cue me lying on the pavement, baby crying in the passenger seat, passersby looking on, and fishing down a drain cover. It wasn't easy but finally got the keyring hooked and reeled in. The moral of this story is don't think about what could happen as it most likely will. I can relate to this, and to Bstardchilds dropped torx bit all in one story. Changing the head gasket on my wife's Mk 2 golf, it had those 12pointed torx bits for the head bolts. Only one I had was a loose fitting one into a 10mm socket. So as I'm tightening down the bolts I think to my self 'don't, what ever you do, drop this torx bit down the oil drain hole at the back of the head' Just finish torquing down the last bolt and relax, and what did I do? You guessed it, the torx bit dropped straight down the oil drain hole at the back of the head. Didn't even hit the edge on the way in, dropped straight in. If I had 100 attempts at throwing it in I couldn't have got it on target any better. Cue much swearing and throwing of tools. Luckily, it jot jammed on something before dropping all the way into the sump and I was able to fish it out with my little flexable grabbing tool. Boy did I feel like a tool!
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Mar 24, 2017 17:15:12 GMT
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Just thought of another one, key related this time.
Mk 2 mondeo, had an electrical fault whereby it would randomly deadlock itself whilst I was driving it.
Usually just very annoying, having to pull over, open the window (leccy), turn off the engine, lean out and unlock it from outside (the remote never worked in the 5 yrs I had the car).
Anyway, one winter morning the car needs the ice scraping off it, so I start it up, heater to full, go and scrape the ice off my wife's car, come back and scrape whats left off mine, go to get in, aaand it has gone and locked itself.
Bumhats.
I should also mention that in the 5 years of ownership I never had a spare key...Oh yeah, and my house keys were in my work bag, which was now locked in the car. Double bumhats.
Luckily my wife hadn't left for work, and also luckily I had only closed the door onto the 1st click so the interior light stays on (makes it easier to see how much ice is scraped off), so knocked on the front door until she came and opened it, used her garage key, found a long thin steel rod in the garage and was able to poke it in through the gap at the top of the door and poke one of the window buttons to open a window to get the keys out.
Felt like a right tool that time too!
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Mar 24, 2017 19:51:19 GMT
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On holiday in Turkey several years ago I decided swimming with the key fob to a weird booted Renault clio Saloon would a good idea. (obvs not on purpose).
Car parked at top of very high remote road - sort of a cliff.
Coming back I realise what's happened. Car is having fun with salty transponder. Locking and unlocking itself like it's going out of fashion. I need to get changed... Car Locks me out.
Then it's a bit of a stress-blur. Some detail- can't remember quite how - but there's a point where I'm in a t-shirt and towel, car has locked me out, handbrake is off and it's rolling a bit towards the edge. Somehow me and my SO manage to get it stopped.
It does drive but merrily locks, stops the engine several times over the next few days.
That car was bonkers. On the day I returned it I took it to fill up the tank. Hear 'mewing' from the front whilst pumping. There's a sodding cat in there somewhere! Probably went in for warmth the night before.
Drove back to hotel in super-careful mode. Don't want cat wrapped up in cambelt. Get there - little kitten just clambers down nonchalantly and off to find it's folks as if this happens every day.
Turkish cats. Strange little fellows.
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Mar 24, 2017 23:59:05 GMT
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It's occurred to me that another major lesson was learnt from my airport car parking episode, so I thought I'd share it with you. Whilst awaiting Green Flag man, the taxi with my spare keys, trying to track down what an EKA was and then failing to get the number, I saw a guy about four or five times, just wandering aimlessly around. As he walked past, again, I said, "Okay Boss?" to which he replied that he wasn't really as he couldn't find his car and wasn't even sure if he was in the right car-park. He was wandering around forlornly pressing his remote in the hope that he'd be rewarded with a little "Pip, pip" and the flashing of indicators. It hadn't worked for the last three hours, but hey... From this and the flat battery episode, I now always, always, park on the top deck of a multi-storey, that way:- 1) I have ambient light to read any little bits of paper 2) I know that once at the top, my vehicle will be there. Somewhere. I wonder if he's still there?
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Lame, but I now take pictures on my phone of deck and area numbers in big car-parks so it's easy to find on return. Would never have done that with a celluloid camera
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Many years ago a group of us lads were sitting around a table in a house when we heard a mate's HR Holden come up the driveway and stop. Heard him get out and slam the door. Some short while later it occurred to us to wonder why he hadn't come inside. Out we go to investigate and here he is with his hand stuck in a locked driver's door (cos old and worn so if the door was slammed too hard the lock button would drop by itself), keys in the ignition, and he couldn't reach the handle of the unlocked back door to open it and unlock himself.
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BT
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,772
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Mar 25, 2017 15:19:43 GMT
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I had a bit of money come in and told SWMBO she could have a new car, she selected a Picasso 2.0l VTR Auto. After lots of searching, found the perfect (WTF, it's a Picasso!!!!) car in Leyland Lancashire so we drive up 180 miles and it's a minter, 6 years old, 1 owner, 50k miles, FSH, all the paperwork, new battery, not a mark on it and a trade price of a mere £3k! Buy it and bring it home, lovely! Its due a service and the front pads are low, take it into the workshop, where the **** is the locking wheelnut key? Order a new key from Citroen, 5 days and £60 later it arrives. The first locking nut I try to undo rounds off and has to be drilled out, 3 hours, several drill bits and much swearing later the wheel is off. During the rest of the service, I found the ORIGINAL locking wheelnut key under the floor in the rear footwell, GRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! Steve I did exactly this with a 106 GTI many years ago. I bought it off of a chap who has bought it for his son, who promptly hit a kerb and mashed a wheel, strut, wishbone and loads of other things. Sure enough no locking wheel nut, searched everywhere, phoned Pug who pretty much said "good luck" and I ended up ordering in from the states or somewhere some fancy tool to remove them which also cost a small fortune. It worked very well and once the car was repaired (about a week after getting my hands on this expensive socket) I was cleaning the interior and found a little secret chubby hole, that wasn't really that secret, and sure enough there was the locking wheel nut key. curse word! Although not directly related to vehicles, but is in a distant way, I look back a fair few years to when I went to Nuremberg (that's a whole different story, I actually meant to go to Nurburgring and got very lost after miss spelling the town in my satnav, apparently it happens all the time but it doesn't make me feel any better). So I had booked the ferry trip, time off of work and bought a big lairy very obnoxious car to go there in. All was well until 2 days before I was due to leave, can't find my passport anywhere, sheer panic, I'm screwed, I'll have to go to the passport office and Pay for an emergency one, this is something I had to do 2 years earlier when I went to Amsterdam, then realised I didn't actually have an In date passport so had to get an emergency one issued at the London office. I looked online and the only appointments available was in Peterborough, after driving 4 hours to Peterborough from Kent and having a meeting I was told I may not get it issued to me the same day, well I was leaving the following day so it best get issued! Luckily enough I got my passport and I was on my way to Germany. So with my passport in hand I drove well out of my way to Nuremberg, realised I'd ballsed up big time, turned back, drove another day to get to Nurburing after driving past it a few days earlier and finally bought myself 4 laps. I still had all of my luggage in the car on my first lap, and after 10 minutes of screaming the nuts off of the thing all of my luggage was everywhere. I got back to the hotel and cleared all of my stuff out. I found my passport on the rear footwell, along with a lot of other things. I could have sworn it was in the glovebox, I opened it to put my passport in there and sure enough, I had put my passport in there.... Then it all came flooding back to me. When I went and bought the car for some reason I took two forms of ID and a load of paperwork, I then hid it all under the drivers seat for some reason and totally forgot about it. So I drove my passport 4 hours to get issued a new passport. Wasn't my finest journey.
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Mar 25, 2017 16:26:34 GMT
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Bottom arms on my Vectra B. This is fairly recent, you aren't allowed to laugh, I've never done them before. Cracked the 2 bolts at the back and loosened (this is key here) the balljoint pinch bolt. 4 solid hours with a fork and the ball joint was going nowhere. Bought a bigger hammer, still nothing. Now with a completely bolloxed balljoint i put it back together and walk to my mates garage to book it in before i buried a hammer in the windscreen. Told him what needed doing, first thing he said.. "you did pull the bolt all the way out didn't you, they're recessed and the balljoint won't go past the bolt".... Dashed back up to it and whipped the bolt ALL the way out, balljoint fell out of its own accord. Lesson learnt. I've only ever done ball joints that have a castle nut on the top before. Also related to Vectra B ownership, the two bolts holding the cat to the centre section. They will without fail always snap. They can be brand new bolts, that you have only just put in, and they will still snap, i don't even attempt this job any more. Now that is exceptional! What state was the bolt in? Bolt was fine, just my stupidity and pride that was hurt.
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