Stuff you have fixed today

[cheb]

My oven. A 25 year old Neff double oven. It went pop and blew a fuse yesterday night. Two of the tracks on the pcb had evaporated. A bit a very thin wire and some ugly soldering later and it works. Which is good as we have visitors arriving in a few days.

 

[bourbon]

My oven. A 25 year old Neff double oven. It went pop and blew a fuse yesterday night. Two of the tracks on the pcb had evaporated. A bit a very thin wire and some ugly soldering later and it works. Which is good as we have visitors arriving in a few days.

do you know why the tracks blew?

 

[cheb]

No but I suspect old age. When I cleaned it with ipa there was no copper left.

 

[DennisCA]

Fixed the seat in my Saab 900, it was sagging in the rear.

I installed it from below, which was difficult and required me to make a tool to get some leverage, but once I had that it was easy. Fitting the new springs into the seat frame was the most time consuming part in the end.

Shoutout to my old pal Archimedes.

And seat reinstalled, feels like a new seat!

 

[badabec]

Which is good as we have visitors arriving in a few days.

You missed perfect excuse to get rid of them.

 

[GraemeVW]

Does calibrated count as fixed?
This level is daft!
Got it pretty much on, but would need better set up than I can manage.
Used my lathe bed, made sure it was clean, made sure it was in the same place each time but it's picking up on some inaccuracy somewhere.
If I'm honest, it probably swings by half a division, but as each division is 0.05mm per meter, I think I can cope with that.
I have no great use for this level anyway, it's just a toy.

So the bed is 0.125mm high at the headstock end.

Going down the level grades, the old rabone also, of you squint, also shows it a little high at that end, but you'd never adjust it out with this level.

Even more interesting, even this rubbish cheapo plastic boat level shows it's high at the same end!

Just messing about, no serious attempt to get the lathe any better than level enough to not fall over.

Bed shows it may have a tiny bit of twist though, but not sure I can do anything about it


Edit, I was wrong, no twist

 

[MattF]

Level isn't necessity. You want rid of any twist though.

 

[GraemeVW]

Level isn't necessity. You want rid of any twist though.

Yeah, I know. This was just the first opportunity I had to play with this level. It was more about seeing if I can get the level right than the lathe.

I was wrong anyway, no twist in it!

 

[GraemeVW]

Oh, is there a way to 're black the lines on that little rabone level? They are etched, I assume they then just blacked them with ink or something? Something that only sticks to the etched glass?

 

[Brad93]

You're doing it the easy way with a straight edge and a flat surface right? Doesn't have to be a level surface

 

[GraemeVW]

You're doing it the easy way with a straight edge and a flat surface right? Doesn't have to be a level surface

The calibration?
I used the lathe bed. It's flat, I butted it up against the saddle and set it flush with the edge of the bed. That way I could make sure it was in the same place each time I rotated it.

 

[Arc Tourist]

I helped my neighbour sort out his (wood) chop saw from Lidl today. It wasn't cutting perfectly square or plumb, so with a precision square and a little trial and error adjusting the fence & the vertical stop bolt, it took all of ten minutes to get it cutting correctly.

 

[Nomad]

I've been using a cheap Lidl/Aldi strimmer - it was new 3 years ago and does the job apart from once I replaced the self-destruct recoil starter..
Last year I picked up a proper commercial type "It was working great last time we used it - now we can't get it started and we're moving house so we're selling it cheap". Hmmm
Sparks were good but the piston and cylinder were scrap. A full rebuild kit was ordered with seals, gaskets, barrel & piston.
Fitting just the barrel & piston has it running nice so I have seals & gaskets in stock if I ever need them.
It's a whole lot more powerful than the one I've been using, comparing them shows a big difference between 30cc DIY type against 42cc commercial type.


My Alfa 145 is acting up so I thought I'd have a break from fault-finding the misfire and work on the seat as it's always been far too high.
I lived with it for more than a year before removing the seat to see why the height adjustment wasn't working - turns out it was working but very stiff. I could put the seat up higher which was the last thing I wanted to do, but it wouldn't go any lower.
Advice on the forums was to remove the seat, strip it all coverings and foam to expose the fixings then remove the (detachable) height adjusting kit, then refit the seat.
Driving position is now great and I can see a lot more of the road ahead, before the top of the screen was limiting my view.

Note the height of the seat adjuster above the sill


Much lower with the height adjusting gubbins removed.


Good progress but it doesn't help with my 2 main projects - finding the cause of the Alfa misfire or putting new floors in my other car.

 

[Richiew]

I've finished faffing with this Tauco drill. Still scruffy but useable now.

Before as purchased:

After:

New quill spring fitted. Switch and mounting plate added. Cable gland fitted to the motor and switch. Cleaned up most of the bare metal with a brass wheel. The top of the column has been mullered by previous owners so the body won't come off the top. I think it could do with a new pulley bearing but they are only available in the US. They retail at 60 odd dollars before shipping and customs. Will just have to live with it. I reused the cable which is chunky 2.5mm square, hence the large loop from the motor to the switch. The switch makes it look like an Aldi Special Buy, but I couldn't find anything period and cheap.

 

[blackolive (Ste)]

“On tonights episode of the repair shop, steve and stella probably destroy a pair of £3 russian binoculars attempting to clean the prisms

 

[Maker]

Can you re-collimate binoculars yourself? I'd always imagined it was something that needed special kit, maybe lasers and an optical bench.

 

[blackolive (Ste)]

Can you re-collimate binoculars yourself? I'd always imagined it was something that needed special kit, maybe lasers and an optical bench.

Ive left the prisms in. I do have a book on how they were collimated. Manahed to clean them, there were a few spots of fungal growth . Theyre good quality fully coated not sure when they were made

 

[blackolive (Ste)]

The patient survived. Much cleaner optics

 

[Farside]

Ive left the prisms in. I do have a book on how they were collimated. Manahed to clean them, there were a few spots of fungal growth . Theyre good quality fully coated not sure when they were made

Made at the KOMZ plant (thats the logo), possibly in 1965 - the Soviets had a habit of the first two numbers of the serial being the year, but it's not always the case.

 

[MattF]

The switch makes it look like an Aldi Special Buy, but I couldn't find anything period and cheap.

Function tops form every time. Nice to have both, but the latter isn't necessity.