Time to try to fit the first of my suspension bushes and what a disaster it was! I understood from my Haynes manual that the bushes were something of an interference fit. I therefore bunged them and the freezer several days ago and today cut some scrap pieces of oak flooring to allow me to force them in with a G clamp. It was a complete none starter. Even with heating the mounting hole with my blow lamp and applying
Category: Cars
Removing the first bush
Today I made a start on fixing the rear suspension bushes on my Fiesta. I spent a long time (and nearly all my bricks) raising the back of the car and unbolting the suspension trailing arms. The near side wasn’t too difficult, but on the offside a found that I couldn’t remove the trailing arm support bolt because the exhaust was in the way. In the end I had to unbolt the suspension support bracket from the bottom of the
Good God, its failed again!
Took the Fiesta back for another go at the MoT. I was quite confident, as I had fixed the three failures from last time (tyres, disks and number plate) and since I can’t drive it it had only done about 6 miles and spent all its time in the garage. But, of course it failed again. It appears I got a different inspector and he took a different view of the car’s shortcomings! The failings were: Rear axle bushes. OSF
I feel a fool!
Today, finally, after weeks of work trips, holidays and being ill I found the time to try and diagnose the fault with the Fiesta which – you will recall – failed to start after I replaced the number plate!! I was expecting to have a long task to locate the problem and read sections of the Haynes manual about checking such things as the coil and the fuel injectors. One key test mentioned was to check that the fuel pump
Oil Patterns
Today I finally got round to changing the oil in the Golf. The warning light had been on for quite a while and I had been hoping to get the Fiesta out of the way first. Since the last oil change my oil collection tray has been lying around outside at the back of the house and has been rained on quite a few times. For some reason that had produced a most peculiar pattern which a took a couple
Pushing for the re-test
Following the Fiesta’s MOT failure on Monday, today was the time to try and fix it so I can get a re-test before the end of the week. This morning I rushed round to get what I needed. At Tyreland I was going to get two new tyres and a slow puncture fixed on a third. But, when I got the wheel off it looked very badly worn on the inside edge. I decided that it wasn’t worth repairing so
MOT for the Fiesta
Time for the Fiesta’s MOT. I put it off a bit this year as part of my scheme to move the MOT period into the summer (working on the car in the rain and cold is getting less pleasant). Following my dissatisfaction with Graham Dimmer, I decided to try out Brunel Motors. I wasn’t particularly impressed to start with as I was left hanging around in the reception for about 10 minutes while the chap behind the desk finished a
Binding brakes on the Golf
When, a couple of weeks ago the Golf failed its MoT, there was an advisory about binding rear brakes. Well, they weren’t joking! A few days later, there was an obvious loss of power and some mightily hot brakes. I hoped, when I bunged the car up on the axle stands, that just fitting new pads and clearing out the grooves in the calipers would be enough, but sadly the caliper pistons were seized solid and couldn’t be re-wound. A
MoT at last
Following the problem with the used wing mirror I bought a new third party one. For some loony reason it didn’t come with a mirror glass, but fortunately I could use the old one. After a great deal of pain I managed to screw it on and re-fit the door panel and now I have an MoT. I mentioned the concern other places had had about the exhaust fault to the MoT people and they were most dismissive. I think
A tale of an exhaust
This morning I took my Golf round to the tyre and exhaust place I normally use on Churchfields. I showed them the MoT failure certificate and asked them to fix the problem. First they went into huddle round the certificate as if there was something they didn’t understand. Then they put my car up on the ramp and for about 15 minutes a succession of people came and stared at the certificate and then peered at the car with the