MAKE DO AND MEND

[Levanter]

Come on BEB. You must have something to tell! You are keeping very quiet.

[Don Fry]

The rose tinted glasses of youth, having to change a gearbox in a 105e Anglia, outside, in winter, by tomorrow as that heap of scrap has to get me to work, and getting the missus to help, in a hurry, so I didn't drain the box, and the contents poured over her beautiful, thick long hair. And then she found out about drain plugs. Did she, or did she not make me feel sorry for myself, and you could smell hypoid oil in her hair for a fortnight. And after it was still a heap of scrap, but it now moved, the car that is, not the missus.

[Area 51]

Donald, better than any hair conditioner that! I hope you pointed this out, from the shed, wearing a pressure cooker lid for cover!

[Plummet]

Ah, my old mini. 1975 vintage. It is still in existence - a friend now has it and is "doing it up".

Rather a lot of it has been replaced over the years. I think that the only original bits are the handbrake lever and the rear number-plate light holder.

I remember when the clutch activation lever developed a crack, so that it gradually bent until the clutch pedal had no effect. Luckily I had a powerful battery and it had enough oomph to start the car in gear, and I managed to drive it 20 miles home, at rush hour.

...and the time when one of the front suspension trumpets broke when I hit a pothole on a country lane, and I drove it home with a lump of stone jammed in against the subframe to stop the tyre rubbing against the bodywork.

The demister relied on a two lengths of 1 1/4 inch drainpipe.

Plummet

[Phil Brooks]

1960. A workmate had bought a pre war Austin 7. He had a provisional license, so asked me to ride with him on the journey to work. As we progressed so the nasty noises from the engine increased. After some five miles we had to pull off the road to investigate. On checking the oil the dip-stick came out furry! Later investigation revealed that the big end bearings had been stuffed with paper prior to the sale. This was just one of the tricks of the trade, I also remember my next door neighbour boasting to me that he'd got rid of his unwanted Morris series E by loading the differential with sawdust to reduce the noise.

[Phil Claridge]

i had an old side valve morrie minor which was the same age as me at the time (19)). the car was getting slower and slower but i did not check it out, which was silly as i was a greasemonkey at a bmc garage at the time

the morrie was a convertable, me and 3 mates one of them a qualified driver as i was still on l plates went for a drive about, i live near the south downs and we ended up trying to climb bury hill. the hill has a winding approach road so you cant get up any speed to get up it. the car was down to about three mph in first gear after a nifty ddouble declutch (remember them) my mates jumped over the boot and pushed and we made it over the hill. spurred into doing something i started to service the car. checking the points i found you could turn the rotor arm nearly 45 degrees with the slack in the distributor drive. a visit to a local scrappy to look for an exhaust (excuse) saw me walk away with a distibutor stuffed in the pocket of my duffle coat. fitted it with new points and condenser and the car was back on the road and did nearly 70 mph which it had not done for the five years my brother had the car before i got it

[bouncebounce crunch]

Trying a new motor and drum bearings in a clothes dryer. $500 aussie dollars cheaper than buying an equivalent entire unit.

[Gordon Brown]

In the mid 1970s I lived in Crystal Palace and one day drove down the hill turned right at the crossroads towards Croydon only to hear a bang as the clutch plate in my Vauxhall Viva decided to self destruct. At that time there was a car parts business on the corner and I had a full tool kit plus two axle stands in the boot. Took four hours in the rain but I got the clutch changed and off we went. I was dead chuffed but the miserable witch I was married to at the time spent the entire four hours whining about the delay in getting to her even more miserable mother.

[ron evans]

A lot of fun reading about these mishap, made me realise how lucky I've been over the years with bangers.

In '72 I bought a '57 Morris 1000, trafficators an all for £50, and apart from a bit of welding it never let me down in 4 years. One problem I had was a loud rattle from the front offside wheel when hitting a pothole. I used to wait until something broke before looking at it, but having seen a couple of Moggy 1000s turn into 3 wheelers on roundabouts I decided to investigate.

Jacking up the front there seemed to be no play in the suspension so I took it to a local garage ( shame ) and they confirmed it was ok. After rattling around for a while I took another look but this time jacked up under the trunnion, taking the torsion bar spring pressure off the undercarriage. Now the wheel just flopped around, I'm sure it was just the caked up grease holding it together.. Got £50 for it when I sold it.

About the same time my father-in-law had a Austin 1300, a sweet runner as I remember. One day he called in to tell me "this damn car keeps stopping when I go around a left hand bend". After a bit of a laugh we took it out for a run and sure enough on the first tight left hander the engine stopped.Taking the lid off the float chamber it looked to be full of petrol, but once emptied there was a pool of water in the bottom.The outlet from the float chamber was on the side and above the bottom of the chamber, and on a left hand bend the water spilled over into the carb. and put the fire out. He had to get his tank cleaned out, we avoided the local petrol station after that.

Happy daze.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[ken anderson.]

lesson learnt no 1000.........many years ago when not married long...3 young kids.......mrs A used to bake on a friday evening ....anyway her mixer through in the towel...i told her not to worry i would remove one of the tools-fit it to my single speed B/Decker drill and off you go--she returned a couple of min's later  and enquired where the cake mix had gone..i had to point out to the ceiling and walls...for the bowl was empty and i looked like mr Pastry....... ...

 

ken anderson...ne...1.... never beat/inovations dept.

Edited By ken anderson. on 05/01/2016 09:48:43

[Dai Fledermaus]

This is slightly off track, but what's been interesting for me with this thread is the way former bikers and I suspect most who have never ridden a motorcycle could identify a British built motorbike by name only.

For example, if you said you rode a Thunderbird, a Speed Twin or a Bonneville, everyone knew it was a Triumph. If you said you had an A7 or A10 or even a humble Bantam, you didn't need to say it was a BSA. If you rode a Red Hunter or a Square Four, it could only be an Ariel.

Venom, Viper, Commando, Dominator, Black Shadow, Gold Star, I could go on and on.

Motorcycles today it seems to me are rather anonymous. If someone told me they had an XT660Z or a CBR300R, it wouldn't mean a thing to me.

Edited By Dai Fledermaus on 05/01/2016 11:46:38

[Shaunie]

Dai, but the Bantam was a DKW really!

Shaunie.

[Dai Fledermaus]

Posted by Shaunie on 05/01/2016 11:52:25:

Dai, but the Bantam was a DKW really!

Shaunie.

Correct up to a point Shaunie. DKW sold it as the RT-125. As part of war reparations the design of the RT-125 was passed to the Allies including Harley Davidson in the US who produced the Hummer based on the RT-125 whilst BSA came up with the Bantam

[trebor]

Don't forget the Jampot !!

[Kevin Wilson]

Posted by Dai Fledermaus on 05/01/2016 11:46:20:

. If someone told me they had an XT660Z or a CBR300R, it wouldn't mean a thing to me.

I must be a little bit younger, as while I am familliar with Dommie's etc, indeed I had a 'cub myself; I would also take a good stab at the XT being a Yam, while the CBR can only be a Honda. 300? was that an import model?

{if anyone sees an RC plane over Peel during MGP come and say hello }

It is surpprising though how a lot of youngsters would be stranded on the side of the road winging on facebook via their 'smart' phone rather than rolling up their sleeves.

Starts at home I'm afraid. It seems a bike puncture needs a trip to Halfords and the 'cycle engineer' these days.

[Bob Cotsford]

Part of the problem is the H&S/compensation claim culture - have you read a vehicle Owner's Manual lately? 60% of it consists of warnings not to attempt anything as everything seems to be marked 'not user servicable'. The other part is that most faults these days are electronic or at least need an electronic reset on fixing. Diagnose a fault in and replace a mass flow sensor at the side of the road? Unlikely unless you carry a laptop loaded with the appropriate diagnostics.

Modern vehicles are essentially reliable and seldom wear out. Stricter DOT testing means the old nails that we used to be able to fix at the side of the road simply aren't allowed on that road in the first place.

It does annoy me that functional design has taken a back seat to form to such an extent - how many cars need major work just to replace a bulb? My Mondeo needs the headlamp unit to be removed in order to change a bulb. My Sprint needs to have the instrument cluster out to reach the main beam bulb. As for bleeding the brakes, you need a dealer diagnostic tool to work the ABS while you do it.

[John Mccullagh]

Gordon Brown is my hero fitting a clutch by the side of the road while the wife waits four hours ! strangely reminds me of a friend who would probably done the same thing ,but he is still married( we often wonder how.)

[Whatgoesup....]

Bleeding the brakes ... takes me back a (good) few years helping dad when I was only just tall enough to reach the brake pedal ! 'push down now .. hold it down .. up slowly .. let me know when its back up ' were the calls from under the car - great father/son bonding times

[ken anderson.]

again from the so called good days.......... try driving a column change Bedford van...with mole grips for the gear lever ...handbrakes-who needs them?

ken anderson...ne...1..... motoring dept.

[Don Fry]

Rose tints again, being lowered, by my ankles into the engine compartment of a van, Ford Thames?, with a spanner as I was small enough to get my eye and hand to the target nut. About 4 or five, might have been six. I remember my mum giving the perpetrator, dad, a very hard time. The grease she could accept, but the scrape marks were a give away. When I was sixteen or seventeen, driving home, with a bonnet in the back seat, the same dad balanced on the engine, hand pumping fuel (pump problem). I was terrified, I was totally convinced I was going to kill him. I do not miss those nails on wheels.

Edited By Donald Fry on 05/01/2016 14:42:55

[Mike Etheridge 1]

To bleed brakes when nobody is available to operate the brake peddle--just use a telescopic fishing landing net handle to push down the peddle and wedge the handle between the two front seats. Then go through the usual procedure of filling up the master cylinder and releasing the brake peddle etc.

I don't do any car maintenance now but still have all the redundant tools and all the memories associated with them. Working whilst lying in the road on a Ford 100E Anglia, a Triumph Spitfire a Ford Corsair, a Cavalier Coupe plus some others. The Cavalier clutch release failed when I had travelled to the coast with a woman friend and her two young children. There was an adjuster under the car so I just jacked the car up and rotated the adjuster. The next time I jacked the car up some days later to my horror the car just collapsed!

[Bob Cotsford]

My Cavalier snapped a rocker on the way to York. it completed the journey there AND back on three cylinders, keeping up with the motorway traffic.

[trebor]

My old mk 2 Cortina Gt, lovely car. Weber carb, manual choke none of this variable venturey rubbish or auto chokes. I'd just done a cylinder head gasket and lapped the valves when racing my mate out of the industrial estate lost power and smoked so much it would only just run. Got it home and one cylinder plug oiled up, dropped the sump pulled the con rod from underneath as I didn't want to do the head again. As the piston came out it had split into three pieces. Fitted a new piston with rings and away she went years later I had a Mondeo. There was so much plastic I couldn't be bothered with it. Which I still had the mk 2.

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

Ah, brakes and the joys of working by the roadside - that brings to mind an example from the early 70s with a friend's Rover 2000 in the middle of rush hour Zurich...which semi-ejected one of the inboard rear brake caliper pads, partially locking the drive. We managed to get it onto a wide pavement and found the pad was too damaged to re-use. Luckily, we were in convoy - with a fellow forumite as it happens - so he and I set off on a mad dash round Zurich, looking for a Ford dealer (same brakes as a Mk IV Zephyr and no Rover dealers known of) and after no luck at a main dealer (where after we encountered some confusion until discovering that Swiss German for Zephyr is "Zofeer" ) finally found a motor factor in the city centre which had a set (the automatic doors shut firmly behind us as we entered at the stroke of closing time). When we got back to the Rover the owner was looking rather depressed - the caliper swung on a large headed and very tight bolt which needed a fairly large (imperial) socket to shift and he'd searched his car without success for his, which was back in England. "Wait a minute", said the forumite, "I think I've got an odd socket somewhere in my boot". Sure enough, the one and only socket in his car was the exact size needed! Lucky or what...?

And on working under cars on your back - why is the available height always such that if you knock your head on the car, the resulting reflex reaction cracks it on the ground, which sends it back to hit the car, which results in another jerk back to the ground...

Edited By Martin Harris on 05/01/2016 16:24:02