Stuff you have fixed today

[Keithmac]

Had a Multistrada 1260 in for a while now, radiator failure.

Ducati wanted over £1000 for a radiator, bloomin joke really. Managed to find a good aftermarket one for a third of that (with some warranty).

Half the bike to bits to find the fault and fit the new radiator but happy it's all back in one piece.

Made a bracket to lift the oil cooler lines away from the radiator while I was in there (future proofing).

 

[Erie Fred]

Leetle 5' x 8' trailer I bought approx 8 years ago, have used it for everything.
needs a new tongue, lengthening it as well, repairing bowed cross members, and re-inforcing
the rear cross member, by boxing it in with 2 x 2 x 1/8 angle.

 

[JMS1972]

My Denford Micromill 2000 had a damaged control board. The memory backup battery (Varta NiMh) had leaked and the serial port was only working on Transmit.

I buzzed the connection to the microcontroller pins and it looked like the acid had eaten a trace. Managed to tack a bodge wire from a via to the driver IC (SN75155 from Ti).

Not the prettiest repair but it works

 

[Erie Fred]

I've put it back upright, and it's on the road again.

I was concerned how I was going to flip it over without hurting the fenders and such.
I put the forks on my skid steer and postioned it with one wheel in the ditch on the side of my driveway.

I've got a big crop of wild bamboo growing there, maybe 6' high.
I simply lifted up the one side with the forks, and flopped it into those bamboo plants.

Flipping it back over when done welding, was simply doing the same thing, using the bamboo as a soft landing.

 

[Erie Fred]

One vacation day, $475 for 23.6 tons of asphalt millings, and 3 hours on my skid loader later....

 

[minimutly]

Front upper and rear nearside upper wishbone, rear brake pads on the Jag xf today, on top of front wheel bearing and rear upper offside wishbone and calliper last week. Bloomin thing is costing me a fortune right now. Still have to remove the diff to fix the electric handbrake (cables are slack), and weld new female joints on the back boxes.
I have a 5 year plan with my cars, normally if I've picked the right one they work out ok, but the Jag has cost me more than all my Rovers and MGs together. It's lucky it's such a nice drive...

 

[pedrobedro]

My Denford Micromill 2000 had a damaged control board. The memory backup battery (Varta NiMh) had leaked and the serial port was only working on Transmit.

I buzzed the connection to the microcontroller pins and it looked like the acid had eaten a trace. Managed to tack a bodge wire from a via to the driver IC (SN75155 from Ti).

Not the prettiest repair but it works

View attachment 454502

I like to put a few blobs of hot glue along the wire to help keep it in place. It's not a bodge if it works.

 

[minimutly]

Leetle 5' x 8' trailer I bought approx 8 years ago, have used it for everything.
needs a new tongue, lengthening it as well, repairing bowed cross members, and re-inforcing
the rear cross member, by boxing it in with 2 x 2 x 1/8 angle.View attachment 453968View attachment 453969View attachment 453970View attachment 453971View attachment 453972

That drawbar is flaky imho, should go a lot further back or be a "V", even for a lightweight trailer

 

[JMS1972]

I like to put a few blobs of hot glue along the wire to help keep it in place. It's not a bodge if it works.

Good point, if you look very closely you'll see blobs of super glue holding it in place. That's what I was taught to use ... Well it was called TacPak but smelled like cyanoacrylate based glue

 

[Matt2223]

Radiator change in the Mazda today. I love how easy these are to work on compared to most vehicles.

 

[ajlelectronics]

Friday I got the LT largely back together. The work is currently focussed on the triangulation light installation, so I have been experimenting with firm and secure fixings. For lamps that really are a bit heavy duty for the purpose and more premade cable loom than you can shake a stick at.

Some experimenting with stepped washers and spacers. You might need to squint a bit until you see what it is!

I also had to fabricate a mount for his Satnav too. That took some thinking about!

 

[ajlelectronics]

Experiments continue. They are far too bright as triangulation lights although the amber does tone it down a bit.

Correctly aligned without the filter, they could light the way to the next town!

 

[brewdexta]

I fitted a bed lift to the Kawasaki Mule a couple of weeks ago, or rather all the bracketary needed to mount the ram. It was new old stock, original kit was about a grand, I got this for 300 quid. I got chance at the weekend to fit it and wire it up. Damm thing would go up, but not come down.

Looking at forums where people have had similar issues, it can be the linear actuator, they are 700 USD each.

However, given this was new and there was no whirring noises coming out of it, then I guessed if was this relay, all 4 quid of it. After getting the meter out I confirmed the relay was at fault.

I didn't have a spare so swapped the up and down relays and sure enough, it worked. New relay arrived this morning, all working now, the missus should be pleased as she now has a tipping motorised wheelbarrow for mulch, manure etc.

I just removed the bed catches before she tried to lift it with the bed held down

 

[Robotstar5]

Will you be fitting interlock switches to the bed catches so she can't try to lift it while locked?

 

[dobbslc]

The correct sized fuse will save the thing.
NOTE: Don't put fuse the under the bed...

 

[brewdexta]

Will you be fitting interlock switches to the bed catches so she can't try to lift it while locked?

I just removed the bed catches completely. The bed doesn't move with the ram in place so seem to be superfluous. Others that have fitted the kit have done the same.

 

[DennisCA]

A little over a week ago I had the fuel pump out of my car to replace an o-ring because I thought it was incorrectly installed, leading to a gas smell when filling the tank up too much. I apparently broke the pump removing it, it was a new replacement pump (ProParts), the internal hose barb for the fuel line broke off.... So I then had to improvise a new fuel pump assembly using the OEM assembly and the new fuel pump and some parts from it. But I had to use a cheap fuel hose not rated for submersion in fuel when I did so.

So now I have it out again and I am going to replace that temporary hose with a submersible rated fuel hose I bought instead. I don't want to worry about it failing on the road at some point...

The automotive hose on the pump, after about 1 week it still looks OK but I guess they're not fuel resistant on a different timescale, could be months, maybe years?

Start by splitting the pump assembly apart

Extracted the pump itself with filter housing and put on the new hose, 13mm clamps. WD-40 is gold here for getting the hose pushed on.

Everything back together

And back in the car with a new o-ring as well. Now I can just hope not to have to smell petrol next time I fill it up.

Despite having the proper tool for installation I managed to break a lot of the teeth of the lock ring. Never happened before, just kept slipping this time. But torqued to 55nm as per specs. I have a spare lock ring for future needs anyway.

 

[Robotstar5]

The stables wheel barrow tyre was ready to fail

So fitted a new tyre & tube today, even treated the wheel bearings to some fresh grease to stop the annoying squeak.

 

[Dcal]

Today I fixed (well improved) the vacuum pump I've been playing with for degassing PU resin.

I bought it on here and it seemed to suck just fine.
However, when trying it out for degassing it didn't seem to give the results I'd been expecting so I checked and it was pulling 70kpa which is about 0.525 m/Hg

So I took it apart for a look.

The valves are aluminium discs with a rubber valve and were pretty tarnished.

I took them to the surface plate and went down from 180 to 320 and finished with 600 grade paper.

I could have spent more time polishing them up but I also rubbed through the skin on my thumb and thought the better of it.
I put it back together with a thin smear of silicone grease on the rubber parts. Probably not recommended but we'll see.

It now pulls 0.62m /Hg (82.5Kpa) which is a useful improvement.

@Martin Hocking mentioned in another thread that the pump could be arranged to give more vacuum so I changed the pipework so it runs in series and I now get 0.71m /Hg (94.6 Kpa) which is more than the data sheet says it should.


It leaks down slowly when the pump is switched off so I'd say the valves are leaking slightly, however, it's absolutely fine for what I need.

 

[brewdexta]

Sprucing up the Kawasaki Mule a bit to slow down the rusting process.

It was like this. Not too bad, mainly surface rust, only one perforation.

Lots of elbow grease and the use of roloc abrasives on the die grinder and two coats of epoxy primer later. Note the use of the inner bog roll to keep paint off the hoses, it didn't work

Now covered in black gloss, I was going to raptor it but changed my mind. I'll do the underneath on my neighbours 4 post lift.