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Today I did something to my car (volume 2)
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Not something I chose to do but had no choice, went to remove wheels on the missus car only to find the locking wheel nut key with a load of material taken off the top, wouldn't engage with the nut. Garage wanted 80 quid to remove 4 of them.
Didnt have the special tools for it so resorted to brute force and ignorance which worked quite well.
Firstly hammered off the outer "spinner" on the locking wheel nuts.
Then put the key in a vice and hammered from the opposite side, the corresponding outer part of the key is just splined in place.
Could still just about get the key to engage with a bit of horizontal force held while undoing, but they all came off happy days.
Took about 15mins all in all, now off to buy regular lug nuts..
If you didn't have the locking wheel nut key you could remove the outer spinner and get a rounded bolt socket with the teeth on the inside would work well aswell.
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Replaced front discs and pads, rear pads, and a CV boot on the missus MK3 Focus. 3 relatively simple jobs but what an absolute Ballache.
So..All 8 caliper slide pins seized in place, had to use flathead and a fair whack of a hammer to pop them out, greased up and ran a wire brush drill attachment through the holes. Both rear callipers quite tight, especially the left side, which also had a seized in retaining spring, had to leave it in and managed to change the pads with leaving it in place, spent too much time on it trying to remove.
Front brake discs were welded onto the hub, had to break out the size 4 Thor hammer.
Then the outer CV boot on drivers side looked like this.
All cleaned up
Fresh grease and the stretch boot went on pretty easy, easiest part of the job and I thought it'd be the hardest,went onto the cone no bother.
Didnt last long, the clamp supplied wouldn't close down, I have the correct tool and used multiple times, but just would not grab it, had to send the missus to woodies to buy a bag of €25 cable ties, madness.
Anyway its held in the meantime until I get a proper clamp.
If anyone can relate, it was one of those times where I was sitting on the couch after getting cleaned up, deflated, telling the missus im sick to death of cars 😅
The entire thing from setting up to having tools away and clean myself up was 5hrs. Had planned to bleed 4 corners but I just had nothing left by the end of it
Did an oil change and belt and tensioner last week which gave me awful trouble aswell
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I went at replacing the faded plastic number plates on my car lately, with some nice pressed metal ones. The front went handy enough with the plastic bumper, but the rear on the boot lid has two what look like 6mm thread nuts welded from the back, with the existing plate held on with two plastic reg plate bolts screwed into these nuts. One of the bolts came out without a problem, but the other side was so tight that I ended up snapping the tack welds off the boot lid that were holding the threaded nut. Anyway, in the end I got the while thing off but I'm left with the below to have again tacked onto the boot lid. My problem is removing the snapped plastic bolt seized solid in the nut. I have zero facilities but was thinking throwing it in a fire?
![20250906_110523[1].jpg](https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/FDUZ6RAIUJ4I/20250906-110523-5b1-5d.jpg)
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Well, not today, not yesterday, not even last week, but still, worth posting IMO.
Long story I have to warn you at the beginning.
The problem with output shaft rear bearings in Toyota's 5-speed manuals is well known and widely discussed all over the internet. It is also been mentioned that replacing them is doable by average car DIYer once they have knowledge and proper tools.
I began to think about DIY since I heard from fellow Boardsie that the whole thing is possible without removing gearbox. But firstly, asked few places if they would do it for me - most of them refused, two agreed, but they wanted to have a gearbox brought to them and quoted crazy price of approx €1000 for the job (yes, one thousand euro).
The knowledge I gained from this thread -
https://www.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/topic/188782-18-vvti-gearbox-output-shaft-bearing-replacement-experiences/ and this video -
Got some experience as I already had two broken gearboxes lying in the shed, so spent some time training on them and finding out what tools I need to do a job.
After two weeks of training and buying tools (online), came 8th of August, the time has come.
Preparations took approx. 3 hours (I wasn't in a hurry) - jacking car up, draining gearbox fluid, removing wheel, bottom engine covers and lowering the engine to gain access - front and LHS mounts have to be disconnected. Especially LHS mount is tricky as battery and its supporting bracket limits access to the mount, but managed to do the job without removing battery and its bracket.
Here's what you see once 5th gear cover is removed:
IMPORTANT NOTE: take careful measures where each element is in relation to the shaft (like tip-to-hub, tip-to-gear, tip-to-bearing etc) and take notes - to put all back in exact place where they were before.
5th gear selector removed, 5th gear hub too:
How the whole thing looks then:
Time for output shaft. Undo the nut (impact wrench highly recommended), pull 5th gear driven out:
You just made 4-speed manual gearbox. ;-)
Bearing retainer plate removed, snap rings removed, and, finally, noisy bearing too!
As you can see, there's not really much to catch, so thin clawed puller is necessary.
At this stage, tried to remove the other one, input shaft rear bearing:
Failed miserably, the bearing was like welded to the shaft. Destroyed two thin-clawed made of Chinesium pullers (both went to the skip straight away). However, this very bearing rarely wears off, so left it. Had access, had new one, tried, failed, so be it.
All the parts I was able to pull out carefully put aside to make sure no mistakes during re-assembly:
New bearing on its place. Old vs. new:
Flawlessly re-assembled all the rest of elements, cover sealed with new silicone. 3 hours total - as with preparation mentioned above, took my time.
Silicone needs to dry a bit, so I gave it one day and filled the gearbox with new oil:
As a result - no more noise! Happy days!
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Bonus - word of warning. What will happen if you ignore the symptoms and drive with noisy bearing until it disintegrate. I mentioned I have already dead gearbox due to the same reason? Here's what fell out when I stripped it:
And now - destroyed final drive:
In brief - disintegrated bearing fell down the gearbox assembly and done what you see.
That's all folks! Thanks for reading! :-D
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Well, my wee 2015 Nissan Leaf I bought last month failed the NCT due to leaking rear shock and a chipped w/screen. The screen will be replaced next week, so I can't take credit there, but I did managed to replace the rear shocks myself.
There was much swearing, straining and my back was screaming, but with a bit of help from my son, I replaced the leaky shocks with 2 shiny new ones and she's driving…exactly as before 🤣.
Got it finished despite the darkness settling in when I started. The boots were still perfect, so I kept them.
Shiny!!
I also replaced 3D printed front strut covers which are prone to holding water and rusting out. This is a common Leaf issue effecting mainly the right side. I spent less than a tenner online and got 2 proper strut covers which are in place now, keeping the red lady on the road for another 10 years+
Stay Free
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9 years to the day tomorrow I flew to UK and bought this off Lexus Ipswich.
Exactly 40k miles done in that time.
Also just two issues in that time ( 1 expensive, 1 cheap but a bit of ripping to sort) but i'd say these cars are all prone to these issues.
Planning on keeping it as long as possible.
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No problem.
Car had 32700miles when I bought it and was 3 years old.
Car now has 72700 miles.
The cheap to fix issue was last January the motor for the auto leveling headlight on the passenger side went and it failed the NCT because the light was too low.
Only €68 for a new motor but the whole bumper has to come off and the headlight out.
The expensive issue was the amp for the head unit went also around a year ago.
Its located in the booth behind the rear driver side wheel so I think dampness is it's biggest enemy.
I rang every breaker with an Is300h and everyone one had the amp removed.
So that would suggest it's not a case of will the amp go but when will it go.
A few used one on eBay for around €750 which would be a huge gamble.
Repairing it would cost similar so decided to bite the bullet and buy a new one off Lexus.
They said they could do an offer on one at €820 I think it was.
Dont want the new one to go down the line so I hopefully futureproofed by taking the circuit boards out and covered them with stuff called conformal coating.
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The dreaded waterpump/thermostat debacle in my VRs Octavia went from intermittent wobbles to full on yeah-nah while the parents were over visiting from Ireland. Not ideal. Lucky enough no tow truck needed as the limped it home.
Ripped it out and changed it with OE unit. Managed to do it without removing inlet manifold and moderate swear-box fines.6 -
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Today I got some work done in two of my cars.
The touch screen in my 2015 Nissan Leaf Tekna wasn't working. Common issue. I removed the face of the head unit, disassembled the screen and replaced the digitiser. The longest part…waiting 2 months for delivery from China! 😂
Now we can actually change radio stations, set the clock and charge timers and all that good stuff.
Next, I swapped out the "vegan leather" (known to bubble and peel after a few years) steering wheel on my 2025 Tesla Model Y for a real nappa leather Yoke steering wheel. All the functionality is kept, because the airbag and steering wheel controls are transferred to the frame of the new wheel. It's really nice to use and takes very little getting used to. Next year, i'll be installing a screen behind the wheel for other functions, so now there is nothing to block the view.
Stay Free
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Replaced the bonnet latch on the Mondeo this afternoon, nice quick easy job and a small win in recent times.
I have the car almost 5 years now, and wondered why I wasn't getting a message on the dash to say bonnet was opened when the old latch seized.
The connector block had a jumper wire on it. Always something when working on an older car.
Went to start it up after to move it, battery was dead, so off to replace that now too. Just bad timing as the battery wasn't new when I bought the car in 2021 so it's done well.
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