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Started dismantling the center console to get at a blown bulb, got stumped by a pair of stuck screws. Sprayed them with WD40 and drove to the store only to find that the bulbs I need are now made of unobtanium. Admitted defeat, popped the heater controls back together and drove home. At least I know why the PO didn't replace it.  Tomorrow or maybe the day after, replacing the rear wheel bearings in my quest to track down a horrible grinding noise coming from the back of the car. jammyozzy fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Jul 14, 2009 |
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Jul 14, 2009 19:37
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Today I replaced the rear muffler, and in doing so swore I'd never attempt it again with a mild steel pipe. I also replaced the old broken dials with some slightly less old and much less broken ones, causing my car to double in mileage instantaneously and suddenly look in very good condition. Then I topped up the oil and coolant and went on the first drive I've been on in my car without something being broken.  Until I noticed that my temperature gauge still doesn't work. I'd put it down to the old dials being knackered, so I guess I'm going to spend tomorrow playing with temperature senders. 
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Aug 2, 2009 03:58
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I changed the camshaft cover gasket after the old one decided to start pissing oil down the front of the engine and gearbox casing. Probably the easiest thing I've done to my car yet, primarily because all the bolts weren't rusted to poo poo. Took it for a long drive and there's no sign of any more oil leaking. 
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Aug 7, 2009 20:11
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After 3 failed attempts in a row I finally got somewhere with replacing my driver's side driveshaft today, except I hosed up and ran out of time and now my car has to spend the night sitting on axle stands with the new driveshaft kinda sorf-of attatched. The reason? I didn't pull the end of the shaft through the hub properly, didn't realise and now can neither attatch the inner end of the shaft to the diff or get the driveshaft nut back off. Then the sun went down and my hands started freezing.  *Edit* Also whoever designed the CV joints on the Polo to be just wide enough that you can't get a socket onto the bolts square-on is a cock. jammyozzy fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Jan 31, 2010 |
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Jan 31, 2010 21:28
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Finally loving got the driveshaft replaced after much swearing and laying in snow, then all there was to fix was the driver's side brakes binding. Apparently they took offence to being cleaned. Fortunately one 100 mile journey back to uni later and the offending piece of whatever had hosed off. Car repairs on a student budget 
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Feb 2, 2010 00:51
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Speaking of timing belts, does anybody remember the post somebody made on here a few months ago about changing a timing belt by chopping the old one in half lengthways and then slipping the new one on? My car will be due a belt change come the summer and I'm curious to see how simple it is.
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Feb 3, 2010 21:45
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I started trying to change a rear wheel bearing and was doing well until I had two rather special moments. The first was when I forgot to release the brake shoes and spend a full 20 minutes hammering and tugging on the brake drum trying to free it, and the second was just now when I neglected to think of how I was going to press the new races in until I got to that point. Now I'm sitting waiting for my neighbour to come back and hope he either has some magical race pressing tool or a couple of sockets that are a good enough fit.
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Feb 22, 2010 18:04
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Cleaned out my throttle body to try and fix a problem my car had stalling as I came to a stop. Got carb cleaner all over my hands before reading the warnings on the back of the can and then forgot to replace a seal so now air leaks in underneath the throttle body, causing the engine to idle anywhere between 1500 and 2250RPM until I get a replacement seal on Wednesday. I fixed the gently caress out of the stalling problem though, the throttle plate looked like somebody had dumped coffee dregs onto it and let it burn on for 80,000 miles.
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Mar 1, 2010 22:41
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Finally got around to changing my car's oil and rusty filter, then broke the thermostat housing trying to flush the system and spent the day fighting with it to stop it leaking. 
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Apr 11, 2010 01:47
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Topped it up with coolant again, took it for a drive and for the first time in two weeks of fighting with it got back with coolant still in the expansion tank. Clearly washing the thing has improved its mood.
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Apr 16, 2010 12:47
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I think I knackered the head gasket. It's my own fault, I tried driving around a bit with a chronic coolant leak and noticed today that my car is doing it's best kettle impression from the exhaust. When the weather dries out I'm gonna check the oil and hope for the best. 
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May 8, 2010 14:07
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Fired it up after letting it sit in the rain for a few days to find it running on about 2 1/2 cylinders. It goes in for an MOT Monday. It is Spanish though, and as long as it's dry and sunny come Monday it should be ok.
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Jun 19, 2010 23:06
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Did my first piece of vaguely preventative maintenance, sanded down some patches of surface rust in the drivers door sill and went over them with some hammerite. Looks like absolute arse right now, but I'll fix it with some touch up paint one day.
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Jun 23, 2010 17:19
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nurrwick posted:Story of woe Don't feel so bad, the last time I cleaned a throttle body out the car never idled right again and got written off 2 weeks later, right after I folded and bought a new(ly sanded down) body from eBay. *e* Content: replaced a rear wheel bearing, couldn't find my bearing packer. Packing bearings by hand on a baking hot day with building work nearby is one of the more unpleasant things I've done in my life. jammyozzy fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Jun 26, 2010 |
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Jun 26, 2010 10:43
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I know on my old car (VW Polo) the TB had a motor on the back that held the throttle plate open, that's how it adjusted the idle. If you disconnected the battery/hosed about with any wiring the next time the ignition was on the motor would waggle the plate about re-learning where 'closed' and presumably 'roughly idle' was. My one caught amnesia or something, forgot how to close all the way and spent its time making the car idle all over the place. Then the car got written off, so I gave up trying to work out what was wrong.  E: The only two modern cars I've touched are mechanically identical, this is probably how it's done on all cars and I'm preaching to the choir.
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Jun 26, 2010 22:30
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Just had my first real breakdown. Thermostat got stuck closed in busy traffic and my car did it's best kettle impression. Then when the breakdown guy arrived he pulled the thermostat cover all over the engine bay, got all the plugs wet and the car died again when I pulled back out into the traffic. Got home eventually though, gonna head out tomorrow for a new thermostat, seal and coolant. If the car's lucky I'll give it a wash.
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Aug 2, 2010 20:05
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Today was going so well, after the thermostat exploding in the middle of Reading episode yesterday I limped my car home, limped it to the parts store this morning and bought a new air filter, spark plugs, thermostat + seal and some coolant. Swapped the air filter fine (8 screws to hold in an air filter, really VW?), changed the plugs for the first time OK even with their stupid positioning. Pulled the thermostat cover off after getting almost all the coolant straight into the waiting bucket to find when the thermostat exploded yesterday, it punched a hole in the stupid bridge in the housing that normally holds it in place. I even looked at it yesterday while bodging the cooling system back together and remarked that it looked suprisingly intact. VW
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Aug 3, 2010 17:02
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Discovered that VW wire the two 12V connectors for the radio the wrong way around, then when I was poking about with my voltmeter I hit something and now I have 0V on the battery wire. Tomorrow/tonight trip to the shop to buy some wire, connectors and a crimping tool. Forgive the dumb question but I wanna make sure, am I cool to run a wire straight from the +ve terminal on the battery into the 'memory' pin connector on my radio? Radio has its own fuse. vv Nah, all the fuses are fine, I checked and checked and checked again, and swapped some fuses around. Everything else connected to that fuse works perfectly. jammyozzy fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Aug 10, 2010 |
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Aug 10, 2010 18:10
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Re-installed my radio (again), easily the biggest hack-job I've ever done to a car. I pulled out the fusebox, took one look at it and thought 'gently caress that', so I pulled the wiring plug out of my useless cigarette lighter, crimped a blade onto the radio's wire and poked it into the plug. I feel like a tool, but at least it works. *Edit* I'm sure this will make BabyHitler want to murder me in cold blood. jammyozzy fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Aug 12, 2010 |
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Aug 11, 2010 23:49
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Should point out I've left the cigarette lighter disconnected, I don't smoke and I can't plug a charger into it without punching it when going for 3rd or 5th gear. The radio is now the only thing on that circuit. It's switched power, but this isn't some crazy audio set-up it's just a crappy little head unit driving the original speakers. The only reason I'm doing this is because the car had no radio when I bought it. It probably farts out less wattage than what was there originally. The cigarette lighter was fused at 20A while the original radio circuit was fused at 15A, so I replaced the 20A for another 15A fuse and it hasn't gone pop after a day's testing.
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Aug 12, 2010 15:31
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Drove it to the garage. Embarrassing as it is having somebody else remove some stuck bolts, at least I seem to have found a good garage on my first try. The place is hilarious, it's down some tiny side street that's beginning to resemble the Somme and 'reception' is literally a shed attached to the side of the workshop. *E* Just remembered that the king lead is still held to the ignition coil with rubber bands. I wonder if anybody will notice. jammyozzy fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Sep 15, 2010 |
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Sep 15, 2010 10:22
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Changed my brakes for the first time and it only took about 5x as long as I hoped, rather than the usual 10. Three of the pads still had a few mm material left but the 4th was all the way down to the metal in one spot, I think the caliper had seized up slightly so I'm gonna keep an eye on it. In related news, I now have a 9mm socket stuck on a formerly 10mm bleed screw. 
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Sep 18, 2010 00:04
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Changed the oil so I don't have to do it in the middle of winter, and put a dollop of grease on the head of all the calliper bolts because I forgot to do it when I did the brakes weeks ago. I'm now 0 for 5 on 'removing drain plugs without spilling oil all over me.'
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Oct 10, 2010 16:15
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Filled the ignition module & king lead with WD40. Now my car starts in the wet! Tomorrow's project: replace the ignition module / attack the current one with Vaseline.
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Jan 7, 2011 18:41
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Discovered that VW chose to use M10 x 1.0 bolts to bolt the flex hose to one brake caliper, and M10 x 1.25 to bolt the flex hose to an otherwise identical caliper. The new, apparently correct, hose will be here Monday. The car was supposed to be back on the road yesterday. VW. 
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Mar 3, 2011 20:03
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Rplaced a hard brake line and popped a new caliper on my car. And the best part, nothing at all went wrong. I even managed to bend the hose perfectly into shape first time.  Now I just wait for the Seat parts network.
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Mar 5, 2011 16:31
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Money-shifted it trying to goose-it onto the M4. Fortunately the ratios are stacked so closely that by my estimate the engine only span up to about 8k RPM, but still. Not looking forward to the glitter I'm expecting to come out of the pan when I give it an oil change. Don't hate me car.
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Mar 14, 2011 08:16
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If I had hosed something up big-time the irony wouldn't have been lost. I just spent a week and a half getting the brake system together and bought it nice new tyres. It's also almost exactly a year to the day of my first ever car accident, a car I'd just spent weeks diagnosing bullshit problems on. loving March.
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Mar 14, 2011 22:43
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Ahaha, my clutch started slipping today. At least I didn't pop the engine, although in a FWD econobox it might be an easier swap.
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Mar 15, 2011 20:25
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Last week: Finally got the brake system all back together after almost 2 weeks of loving around, all working perfectly. Today: Found out the rattling coming from the back was the trailing arm bushings not the socket set I keep back there. Next weekend: Open the brake system back up and rip the trailing arm out to get at the bushings.
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Mar 21, 2011 00:22
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Got thiiiis close to swapping out the rear trailing arm and ended up stripping the head out of the final bolt. loving allen bolts in places they can rust.
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Apr 1, 2011 21:20
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Changed drat near all of the brake lines in about an hour. Beofre that I've never even touched a fraking tool, VW to their credit made the brake line runs massively easy for the most part. Tomorrow, finally reattach the rear suspension beam after a week and a half of my car being on axle stands.
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Apr 9, 2011 22:50
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Put new brake lines in, got the rear pressure valve in, got the rear suspension beam in by myself, put the stub axles back on, put the drums back on.....and I've lost a loving bleed screw. 1 goddamned screw, and now I'm desperately trying to find a place that will sell me one at 3.30 on a Sunday that I can get to (i.e. nowhere). Predicting the car will be on axle stands for another goddamn week because I have to be back in Coventry for tomorrow morning. 
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Apr 10, 2011 15:34
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Finally finally finally got my brakes back together with 0 leaks (so far) and promptly drove 100 miles including the M25 and M3 without a single traffic hold-up. Car feels so much better with new rear bushings and rear anti-roll bar. Haven't had much chance to play with it but instead of the front starting to slide in long turns it just bites harder and harder. When I'm happy that the brakes aren't at all leaky I'll go for a more enthusiastic drive.
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Apr 24, 2011 19:07
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Took it for its first spirited drive since fitting new rear bushes & sway bar. I can now break the rear of my lovely FWD econobox free at will.  Seriously though it's amazing, I can just wind the steering on tighter and tighter and the front just bites, then when you really start taking the piss there's this long slooooow rumbling as the rears start to break traction. Should have done this sooner.
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May 1, 2011 20:42
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Bought a pair of ramps then found my car is too low to go up them.  Changed the oil, somehow despite overheating it and the various curious rattles the engine makes, not a single sign of coolant or metal shavings in the pan. Aside from being jet black the oil looked perfect.
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May 9, 2011 22:05
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I failed to find the hole in the exhaust, so instead I checked all the lights, topped off the coolant and gave it a wash. MOT time! Tune in tomorrow when we find out if a can of Seafoam is enough to stop the people at the testing station asking if my car is a diesel! (it's not)
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Jul 18, 2011 20:38
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Took it for it's MOT and watched it fail on the steering rack, emissions + an exhaust leak, the handbrake is crap, the horn doesn't work and the one that got me the most, both headlights point too far right. £800+ repair for a car valued at ~£600. Looks like I get to go car shopping! 
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Jul 19, 2011 20:21
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I HATE CARS posted:Exhaust repair kit from Halfords, tighten up your handbrake, new horns, adjust headlights. £50 total. Nice plan, but I've already thought of that. The leak is in a poo poo place and the Halfords exhaust wraps won't do the trick. The handbrake is tightened all the way already so that's at least a disassemble the rear drums job. The steering rack is a oval office to get at and is a good chunk of the cost. I'll get some prices from a couple of other garages around tomorrow.
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Jul 19, 2011 22:37
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Went to pick up my MOT certificate, found out it failed both lambda and carbon monoxide tests, I thought it had just failed lambda. Took it for one last lap of a roundabout.
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Jul 20, 2011 17:54
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