Thread: Some ppl...check this out

My first car nearly had the same birthday as me. Was a slide window Mini. First and reverse had no synchro `s. I as new and eager driver soon took the teeth of first. That was when the fatherly tough love kicked in. Some tools handed to me with the detailed instructions, fix it. Did help though at the time that my brother is a mechanic. So was able to give advice when needed. Soon learn`t to look after what I drove. Hmm all those years passed and I owned a land rover with slide windows.
Cheers Hall

I had one of those. The door handles would vibrate off while driving.
One weekend my father let me spend one and a half days trying to replace the radiator before he took pity and finished the job in a few minutes. I learnt a lot about my engine bay in that time though.

Originally Posted by Hall

Most modern brake pads, and those Nissan Cubes are fairly modern, have a tab incorporated in the brake pad. When the pad wears down the tab squeals. This you all know but my point is how could junior not have heard the noise? Would have been loud, suppose he just turned the music up? Should be given a old series landy as a loan car whilst his is fixed. Then he will appreciate what he was driving more.
Cheers Hall

These days car manufacturers need device for some drivers that attached to their orchestras and to squeeze them to alert the driver some thing is wrong

Did you hear about the old farmer who bought his first car. The manual said, 'Drain oil after first 500km'. So he carefully did. Left a huge oil patch beside the road. Not too far down the road his engine seized.


As a kid I remember helping my dad strip down a Series 2 engine and rebuild. Would love to do that with my boys to teach them (and to save on paying mechanics to work on my TD5) but...and this may be a reason why many 'yoof' today don't know how to do stuff, tools cost a packet, you seem to need specialised computer software for many things, and...if you live in an apartment in a block of units, repairing cars without a garage gets tricky.

I know, I know. Excuses, excuses.

Will strip and rebuild the TD5 one day. One day when I don't need to drive it the next morning, or the morning after that, or the morning after that...

Originally Posted by 67hardtop

Ok, last night a young bloke brought his car in to the servo, im looking after for a few months, said to me i think i should get a service done. My brakes have been noisy for about 3 weeks and on Monday the oil light came on. Well last night was Thursday. This morning i started doing the service and checking the brakes. The r/h/f rotor was metal to metal on the outside pad. I didnt need to measure the rotor, it was visibly 2mm below minimum thickness

Pads were stuffed of course. Funny thing is the l/h side was only 50% worn. I checked the tyres. All really good except right front. Been trying to do burnouts, with a Nissan Cube. He also said to check the transmission. Im waiting for parts as i write this, for the brakes.


Cheers Rod

I have seen worse. Many years ago I worked in a service station in the era where they all had workshops. (remember them)

We had a car come in for petrol and when he went to drive out the car would not move.

It turned out that he was driving metal to metal for so long that he had worn right through to the centre of the disc and the pad locked into the venting ribs.

He used to drive with the music loud and he never heard it.

Originally Posted by Roverlord off road spares

These days car manufacturers need device for some drivers that attached to their orchestras and to squeeze them to alert the driver some thing is wrong

Interesting terminology, that givers insight into the Italian vocal prowess.
Also interesting concept that I would like fitted to every vehicle, so that it could be operated from my vehicle.

I deal with this all the time,I had a Camry that had gone 4 years without an oil change,a Vitara that went 3 years and I have a Kia in the driveway that no one knows when the oil was changed last and it has no brakes because the owner kept driving it until the rear shoes wore enough to allow the wheel cylinder seals to pop out.It's a very common thing. Pat

Ok, here's another one.

This started on Saturday at about lunch time. Man rings up says, in broken english that his Subaru needs a new clutch. It suddenly stopped driving. I advised him he needs to get it to us on a tow truck but on Monday. Parts are not available and we cant do a proper quote till then.

So a couple hours later man appears with a female friend who speaks better english. Re iterated what was said before and they left.

This morning a tow truck arrives with Subaru Forrester onboard. Towie drops it off and i thank him and carry on finishing service i was doing. After that i wandered over to the car and popped the bonnet. Had a quick look around and decided to see if it still runs. I opened the door and turned the key on, wound the window down and checked if it was in neutral. Wow did i get a surprise. It was an automatic. Hmmm how am i gonna replace that clutch.

So i started it up....blowing clouds of blue smoke and definatly not moving. So i check the trans oil. None on dipstick. So i check which oil it needs and put 2 litres of dex3 in it. Wow it moves. Checked for oil leaking underneath...no leaks. So i put it on the hoist. Some engine oil leaking from somewhere up high. So i lower it down and looked for leak. Oil seemed to be coming from air cleaner area. Removed air element. It was soaked in oil. I checked the oil level. It was about 6 inches up the dipstick. So im thinking how did this happen?

Upon closer inspection...the transmission drain plug had been butchered by stilsons or vice grips. Ah hah. Now i know what happened. The owner, in an effort to save $$, decided to change his own oil. He accidently drained the transmission, thats why it don't move, and refilled the engine oil. So the engine had 10 litres of oil in it and the trans had none. The vacuum action of the air intake was sucking oil up through the rocker cover breathers straight into the element and into the engine. Smoke blowing cause found.

So drained the engine.
Refilled the trans, it took 4 litres all together, clean oil in engine, 4 litres, new air filter and cleaned housing, ran engine for an hour to burn oil out of exhaust.

Result?

Happy car, happy customer, happy me coz he will be getting car serviced by us from now on, and money in the till.

Some ppl...

Cheers Rod