The "Today I did something to my car" thread

bmstuff

conzy wrote: »

That TV install looks like serious hardship! What kind of money is the system?

It takes a bit of effort to make a clean install, antennas fully hidden, hook properly into existing radio harness etc.

I charge 190 for a supplied and fitted system in a car that has an aftermarket double din screen like on mine with the unit on the front.

For cars with OEM satnav it is more complex as often modules are in the boot and you need to have converters plugged into the OEM system to provide actual RCA input plugs. Plus the remote control sensor needs to be extended from the boot to the dash, which is quiet involved as you can imagine (trim + carpet removal).

For a BMW e39, e46, e38, e53 equipped with satnav and analog TV from factory (or retrofitted), I charge 280 supplied and fitted and TV in motion enabled, for example.

Other modern cars with MOST interface (fibre optic) it can get pricey pretty quickly, unless you hook this up directly on the back of the OEM screen, which is not always possible (or straight forward).

Redisle

dgt wrote: »

bmstuff that is fantastic stuff! That's given me an idea for the ICS in my car
...

Ha, can we assume that you are not in fact carrying around spare toner and that the box is full of random car parts!? :pac:

dgt

Redisle wrote: »

Ha, can we assume that you are not in fact carrying around spare toner and that the box is full of random car parts!? :pac:

Spare toner for extra soot FTW!!!!!

I used to use a 38a in the other car, the 42a is slightly bigger! It houses my x amount of bits tool set, meguairs brush, spare diesel filter and.... Other stuff :pac:

I'm too cheap to buy a plastic box from lidl :P

dr.fuzzenstein

dgt wrote: »

Spare toner for extra soot FTW!!!!!

I used to use a 38a in the other car, the 42a is slightly bigger! It houses my x amount of bits tool set, meguairs brush, spare diesel filter and.... Other stuff :pac:

I'm too cheap to buy a plastic box from lidl :P

And you can't go wrong with those printers! You can tell it to ignore the chip on the cartridge and it keeps printing away forever.
I used to run 2000 page print tests on 4200 and 4250's, that is per sample of toner and there where at least 5 samples per production run. There would be a production run every 2-3 weeks. That was when I was in the knock-off toner business. The bad old days.
I must have put 20k pages on one cartridge alone.
I have seen other printers, mostly Brother and Lexmark and we had a few Samsungs and whilst your page per gram (printer equivalent of mpg:D) is lousy on HP's (think of them of 1960's American V8 muscle cars compared to a modern car), they never break down, never give you hassle chipwise (as with cars, older ones will be less complicated and prone to failure) last forever and will print page volumes (like over the life of the printer) that other printers can only dream about.
Only Kyoceras come close. And I didn't like their print quality too much on some of them.
And I just realise that I'm on a car forum, but I've written it now, so there!;)

dgt

Like printer like box, pretty damn good :cool:

sebastianlieken

I took apart the whole dashboard and centre console over the weekend in an attempt to find and put an end to the weird creaking noise that's been hiding under there for the past few months.

Drove in today.... not a whisper from it. *yet*

Oh god i hope it stays away. A creak in the dashbopard is so bloody annoying!

CianRyan

Hoovered, decluttered and generally cleaned my interior and then had a look at the speakers again.
The original back speakers are now working again, that means I'm only down to one broken original speaker!

Must have a look about getting those door cards off and sorting that last one.

Neilw

Stripped it ready for paint

Voodoomelon

Finally got some OEM wiper blades, a snip at €67.

The silence is bliss though.

Nissan doctor

I picked up this over Christmas so though I'd see if its any good..



The good headlight, which is actually the vans original light.



And the dull/yellowed one(which is not original, must have been replaced with a second hand one from an older Astra) It actually doesn't look as bad in the pics.



A bit of elbo grease:



And it works well, not back to brand new but certainly a big improvement:

okane1

Taxed the car for 12 months, a mighty high €951 :eek:

Supergurrier

Nice often worndered about this stuff myself the side repeaters on the mirrors on my yoke are all gunked up after the winter

colm_mcm

Got the Bosch wipers for the civic today

€45 :eek:

CianRyan

I've been putting off getting wipers since I bought my car...
My window is full of smears.

tossy

Neilw wrote: »

Stripped it ready for paint

Good work Neil.You stopped short of the rear and side windows?

MetzgerMeister

tossy wrote: »

Good work Neil.You stopped short of the rear and side windows?

Jaysus nothing gets past you huh??? :pac: :P

tossy

MetzgerMeister wrote: »

Jaysus nothing gets past you huh??? :pac: :P

Only noticed because we had a long chat the other day about some of the preferred methods of removing them

eringobragh

colm_mcm wrote: »

Got the Bosch wipers for the civic today

€45 :eek:

FFS why were they so expensive?

166man

CianRyan wrote: »

I've been putting off getting wipers since I bought my car...
My window is full of smears.

Dude, order a set on Micksgarage for about €16, fit them yourself and it's job done. Seriously it rains so much here so you'll thank yourself each and everytime you use them.

dgt

CianRyan wrote: »

I've been putting off getting wipers since I bought my car...
My window is full of smears.

Change them asap and try not to further the damage to the screen!!! :eek::eek::eek:

colm_mcm

eringobragh wrote: »

FFS why were they so expensive?

Stupid model specific flat blades. I'm certain I could have got them for less from honda but it wasn't worth going out of my way to get them.

Then I find out that you can just replace the rubbers and keep the arms. Next time.

cletus

Changed the fuel filter on my car, and replaced the offside fly window.

Fuel filter was a doddle, fly window not so much

Was gonna take pictures, but it was too ****ing cold

Killinator

Went a bit mad and spent 3 days cleaning up the GTI, for no real reason other than to have her look well.
First time using clay and wax, though I need to get some tar remover!

Before on the left, after on the right. (Its worth nothing the before pics were on a sunny day, the after were on a dull overcast day)








And a couple of the sparkly interior:

Hal1

Looks well and brave man in this weather. The taught of car washing came to me after seeing a neighbour doing his, but tis too dam cold for polishing and waxing.

MetzgerMeister

I've had scratches across my windscreen since I bought the car and they've been annoying me so I went at it with the D/A today with cerium oxide and rayon pads. I've given the whole screen a once over and it has done a good job already. Still a lot of work left to do though to get rid of them completely. When that's done I'll be applying Gtechniq G1 ClearVision Smart Glass which is basically a permanent version of rain x. It bonds to the glass chemically and lasts years.

166man

MetzgerMeister wrote: »

I've had scratches across my windscreen since I bought the car and they've been annoying me so I went at it with the D/A today with cerium oxide and rayon pads. I've given the whole screen a once over and it has done a good job already. Still a lot of work left to do though to get rid of them completely. When that's done I'll be applying Gtechniq G1 ClearVision Smart Glass which is basically a permanent version of rain x. It bonds to the glass chemically and lasts years.

My own windscreen could really do with that too, glad to hear you got good results. If you ever get sick of your D/A and want to loan it out ( feck all chance of that happening ) lemme know! My 156 could do with it badly... Not sure if you saw it at the meet?

tossy

Finally got around to do doing a job that was annoying me since i got the car,and turned out to be a complete Bo$%ox to do.

Common S3 problem that the fixing the self leveling motor sits into breaks so,you get no self leveling function but this also cause the housing to move freely and "swing" inside the headlight so everytime you hit a bad bump the lights shimmy.

The little clips can't be bought new from Audi - you need to buy the whole headlight assembly,classic Audi! A member on Audi-sport machined up some and sold them to members - life saver.

First off bumper off,or half off - enough to get headlight out,disconnected and away from the car.



The old and new clips,the new ones are well made and won't be breaking anytime soon.



You remove the self leveling motor and have this little hole to get the broken clip and screw out through and the new one in.Trouble is the new fitting is bigger than the hole lol so you need to put in through the main the bulb replacement opening and line it up (a pig) and then get the crew (thank you magnetic bits) down and lined up.

Old fixing out..



Trial fitting of new one to motor,first..



and new fitting in place...



Then you have to get the motor in place,and slide it into the new fixing almost blind.It is at this point you realise that the motor needs to be extend fully to reach the damn thing,so you need to connect the headlights up again and cycle the motors via VCDS - while cursing modern things

Lights are now working perfect and go up and down with the self leveling function.Like i said small thing that was annoying me,pig to fix

Mc Love

Where can you get this?? Gtechniq G1 ClearVision Smart Glass

vectra

Mc Love wrote: »

Where can you get this?? Gtechniq G1 ClearVision Smart Glass

Right >> Here

Mc Love

vectra wrote: »

Right >> Here

Amazing - must get me some of it!

Beautiful morning out there for cleaning a car! Cleaned mine the other day as well as the OH's sisters car - twas baltic