Today I did something to my car (volume 2)

I saw a foreign mk1 focus estate with the USA/Canada style set up yesterday. Looked like it had a terrible electrical fault tbh

Noccy_Mondy

GvidoR wrote:

Yup, fog lights and indicators. The bulbs must be out though because I tried turning them on they didn't work.

Not necessarily fog lights. Friend had a 97 vento, same front end as that, and all it was was a plastic cover. Could be either though.

166man

GvidoR wrote: »

What do you mean? I've never done it before. The Punto I had was already de-wipered, I replaced the wiper arm on the Colt and the rest of the cars either did or didn't have it.

The main reason I took it off the Golf was because the wiper was rusty and the rubber was falling off, much like the ones on the front. I will either get the cap and de-wiper it properly or just get a nice new wiper. Time will tell.



A few of my cars, like the Bora for example didn't have a wiper on the back and I never found that to be a problem. The Bora could have snow or something stacked up on the boot, but with a car like this, that's not possible so it seems even more pointless, imo.

Ah sorry I thought you had dewipered the Colt as well, was just wondering...

YbFocus

GvidoR wrote: »

Yup, fog lights and indicators. The bulbs must be out though because I tried turning them on they didn't work.

I've always liked the USA / Canada style light setup with the indicators constantly on. I'd like to have mine like that too.

I have to say I love that look.
My car is the same

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

cletus

How does the indicator on all the time work when you want to actually indicate

dr.fuzzenstein

cletus wrote: »

How does the indicator on all the time work when you want to actually indicate

Guess ;-)

cletus

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Guess ;-)

Are you going to tell me the flick off and on rather than on and off?

If so I'm going to feel very stupid

dr.fuzzenstein

'fraid do, but no worries, it's only easy if you know.

GvidoR

I guess you saw this coming, eh? :pac:

colm_mcm

You need to roofrack that yoke

colm_mcm

colm_mcm wrote: »

You need to roofrack that yoke

Definitely :pac:

Lidl often sell roof bars for feck all too.

Is there some sort of blank you can get for that rear wiper motor Gvidor?

GvidoR

colm_mcm wrote: »

You need to roofrack that yoke

It's on the list, sir.

Snotaul Goodman wrote: »

Definitely :pac:

Lidl often sell roof bars for feck all too.

Is there some sort of blank you can get for that rear wiper motor Gvidor?

Heh, good one. I wouldn't trust the weather though.

There are blanks that you can get but I'm starting to think I'll just get a new wiper instead.

GvidoR

GvidoR wrote: »

There are blanks that you can get but I'm starting to think I'll just get a new wiper instead.

You're probably better off

colm_mcm

It'd only look good if you filled and resprayed. New wiper arm would do wonders.

Have you seen that JDM craze of putting a hand on the rear wiper spindle?

GvidoR

colm_mcm wrote: »

It'd only look good if you filled and resprayed. New wiper arm would do wonders.

Have you seen that JDM craze of putting a hand on the rear wiper spindle?

Yeah, I've seen those. I supposed that's another option to consider. :P

I don't know. I'm following this car, looks pretty neat with the cap on.

Bpmull

Them caps are called grommets. Just so you know it should make searching for them easier but You can get them in loads of places for less than a euro I'm sure motor factors will have them.

colm_mcm

Black on navy isn't very obvious, but black on silver jumps out at you.

Maybe you could pull it off with similar wheels/suspension and mint bodywork, as it is, it'd just look like the rear wiper broke and you didn't wanna bother fixing it

dr.fuzzenstein

Pulled off grotty old seatcovers and put on nice new ones from Lidl. My Cmax now has racing seat covers, you can see that because they have the word racing on the and some flames. I'm pretty sure that gained me an extra 5 km/h top speed and a half a second off my 0-60 time.
No pics, because the second I had them on, the car hoovered and the dash wiped down, herself jumps in with the dogs and takes off. :mad::(
Nice, new, clean seatcovers I once had for 30 seconds. :mad:

MetzgerMeister

colm_mcm wrote: »

Have you seen that JDM craze of putting a hand on the rear wiper spindle?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h_bndds32A

Bpmull

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Pulled off grotty old seatcovers and put on nice new ones from Lidl. My Cmax now has racing seat covers, you can see that because they have the word racing on the and some flames. I'm pretty sure that gained me an extra 5 km/h top speed and a half a second off my 0-60 time.
No pics, because the second I had them on, the car hoovered and the dash wiped down, herself jumps in with the dogs and takes off. :mad::(
Nice, new, clean seatcovers I once had for 30 seconds. :mad:

Do the lidl ones have the cutouts on them for airbags in the side of the seats well I assume your cmax has side airbags in the seats. I have action sport ones myself they have the airbag cutouts I think they are about the best looking out of any of the seat covers I've seen. Although I'm not a huge fan of seat covers my light colour seats just get wrecked without them.

dr.fuzzenstein

Bpmull wrote: »

Do the lidl ones have the cutouts on them for airbags in the side of the seats well I assume your cmax has side airbags in the seats. I have action sport ones myself they have the airbag cutouts I think they are about the best looking out of any of the seat covers I've seen. Although I'm not a huge fan of seat covers my light colour seats just get wrecked without them.

It's not so much a cutout as a seam that is supposed to give when the airbag goes, so it's important to fit them the right way round. The do look nice, the word Racing notwithstanding. The real test is, will they look nice in a year's time?
Here they are in all their glory:

cletus

So, the actuator for the boot in my wife's xtrail decided to stop working. Time for "Today I did something to my (wife's) car"

Took out the actuator, and it was sealed at the factory, not a serviceable part.




However, why buy when you can bodge. Judicious use of a Stanley blade and a rubber mallet




Removed the motor, removed the casing cleaned everything down with contact cleaner



Motor reassembled and tested with a 9v battery, working fine. However with the motor reinstalled in the actuator, it didn't work with the 9v attached to the pins. Cue multimeter and bits of bridging wire to find the problem

cletus

Finally let me introduce the little bastid causing all the problems...I give you Mr. Diode

dr.fuzzenstein

Well, I've done the front, so why not do the back?
To any Cmax owners, this will be a struggle. The seat cushions (i.e. bit you sit on) have a bit of a lip at the rear and the designers designed these covers for seats that are flat and fall away at the back where they meet the upright that your body leans against.
So you will never get the seat to fit right.
Plus they have no holes to allow the seat belt locks (or whatchermacall the thingies you click the clasp into) to stick up, so had to butcher my new seat covers already.
The CMax headrests don't come out. They have a button to slide up the headrest, but then you need to undo a spring holding them in using a tiny screwdriver. Aaaargh!







No pics of the boot to see all the clasps holding the cover on, because the boot carries dogs, wood pellets, recycling and anything else and looks like 3 bags of sh*te.

cletus

To follow on from my posts above,I am a moron. I've been thinking about the set up of the actuator, and it occurred to me that the two diodes were opposing each other. Then it dawned on me. A diodes job is to allow electricity travel only one way, but the actuator must lock and unlock the door, therefore the current needs to be switched depending on which job it's doing. A quick test with the 9v battery confirms that when I switch positive and negative, the motor will run back, thus unlocking the actuator.

Like I said, moron

Hal1

I wouldn't beat myself up over it, as you've solved a problem and learn a bit about electronics in the process.

cletus

Hal1 wrote: »

I wouldn't beat myself up over it, as you've solved a problem and learn a bit about electronics in the process.

Very kind of you to say Hal, but I'll probably beat myself up just a little bit

renofan

Serviced the Wife's Focus yesterday and then started the anti-roll bar bushes. What a £cuking nightmare. I don't think I've seen them in a worse place before. Took two hours to do the passenger side.

I then got a call from my brother to say he was changing his brake pads and somehow has ended up with the piston from the caliper on the ground!

So I left the driver's side of the Wife's car until Saturday and went to help him. Not looking forward to doing the bushing!

Hal1

I had a look at my front arb's and after seeing the location of them, I left them to my mechanic which I hated having to do. Without the correct tools though it would have been a nightmare to do. The front subframe has to be lowered, some say you can loosen the bolts and get a socket on it but I didn't even try that.