Good news with fresh MoT too I hope.

 

Thread repair kit?

 

I used a thread tap rethreaded it luckily it was only damaged a couple of turns then threaded into the original thread. Took a quick ride down motorway snd mpg was great. Mot tomorrow 🙈

10 minutes ago, Stewartasb said:

Mot tomorrow 🙈

 

Hope it goes well.

Good luck.

 

Check, lights, wipers, etc., all you can and if possible get there just in time with a warm engine.

 

Better to pay more for an MoT at a decent and honest garage (they do exist) than somewhere looking for more work and willing to get the trade by offering discount MoT.

 

Don't forget screenwash! 

I believe Alex Kirsten of CarThrottle did an excellent video on the things to check for before an MOT.

Yeah I've done a full check and will do a few miles before the mot get there just before time, it's like waiting on the birth of your first born awaiting mot results 🤣

21 minutes ago, Stewartasb said:

it's like waiting on the birth of your first born awaiting mot results 🤣

 

The moment where your heart stops when your phone rings, you pick up, and it's not the garage...

On 19/11/2021 at 22:35, Stewartasb said:

Yeah that's fine if you have a welder etc but no garage is going to want to strip off a 2 year old mild steel exhaust pipe to cut out an 02 thread and weld in a new one I guarantee they will say its not feasible that would be a home job with a welder etc which I don't possess or have the skill set to do.

 

You were speaking about doing the work yourself because the garage had butchered it, the suggestion to fit a new boss was to yourself, not "get a new boss welded in by the garage"

 

It sounds like you are handy with the tools, if you cannot recut the thread then remove the downpipe, if it comes off in good shape then buy a boss (it will be cheap) and take it to a fabricator welder and ask him to weld it on, it would only cost you beer money.

 

If you have an old or scrap 02 sensor then you can make a thread reclaiming tap from it using a file and a hacksaw or simply a traingular file at a pinch, you file back the first few threads to the root diameter to create a pilot spigot then cut spiral flutes in the remaining threads, you screw it in paying great attention that it doesn't move off centre to follow the crossed threads, you can knock it carefully back into line while tightening.

J.R. it's done and by Stewartasb's own fair mittens.

 

4 hours ago, Stewartasb said:

I used a thread tap rethreaded it luckily it was only damaged a couple of turns then threaded into the original thread. Took a quick ride down motorway snd mpg was great.

 

 

I like the idea of using a scrap O2 sensor but who keeps these old scrap parts and I'd not want to trust the last one if it only lasted a couple of years perhaps it was so ****-poorly made that the threads were bad on it causing the issue, admittedly a ham-fisted mechanic might have contributed but very unlikely in such a trained profession.

 

That should be in the joke section! 😆

 

I keep old scrap parts like that, tons of them, they have saved my bacon and other peoples many many times, my UK garage has now been demolished and a new house is being built on the site, I had a big clear out and only packed the really necessary things to go into storage in France awaiting my new home, I tried, I really tried but most of the crap has remained 🙄

 

And I'm sure many of the bits will continue to save mine and other peoples bacon.

 

Bad threads would not cause premature failure of an 02 sensor, its simply a very corrosive environment. I would not keep an old non functioning sensor if the threads had stripped on removal.

Edited 25 November, 20214 yr by J.R.

13 minutes ago, J.R. said:

And I'm sure many of the bits will continue to save mine and other peoples bacon.

Yes I'm sure.  Years ago I went round a mate's who has a small greenhouse full of old car parts off his cars , I only wanted an awkward to get fitting off a carb and he gave me a pair of old mismatched carbs and I've still only used that one fitting and not ben able to pass on any more bits from them.

 

I don't have a garage let alone a garage full of old parts, you chaps who regularly mess with cars sometimes forget not everyone has in their back garden a small shanty town of sheds with all manner of tools and equipment, lathe here and there, pillar drills, press, three-phase, etc. or the room for any of them - let alone the knowledge or desire for some of us. 😩

 

I am currently without the shanty town and all the things you describe and a lot more are languishing in 3 mobile site hut trailers awaiting my move to my new property.

 

The whole of the ground floor is a workshop with the living accomodation above, a lean to barn on the side which may be cropped on the photo and 1/3 acre of land

1 minute ago, J.R. said:

The whole of the ground floor is a workshop with the living accomodation above

 

The dream...?

I bet one of your mobile huts is bigger than our place, you're just flaunting your wealth to the likes of me without. 😁  Being serious I do live in a very small semi-detached but I wasted our money on British cars and hi-fi (a lot of that British) but what you have is something I thought would be handy for a hobby of redistributing money from old car ownership.

 

You've got to build on the side though for the lift, unless you go open air.

 

You could be a true loyal Englishman, living abroad with "foreigners and their funny foreign ways" with deliveries of the Daily Mail. 🤣

 

At least you have the good manners to put up a photo without bright sunshine.

 

Those wooden(?) doors would have to go and I'm thinking of how much concrete driveway and parking I can get in to save bothering with all that grass stuff, the rest could be left to become a world renowned wild life sanctuary but I expect you'll have to have a sit on lawnmower out of old habits.  😁

 

Good luck to you, I hope the locals don't mind your funny foreign ways. 😁

 

11 minutes ago, nta16 said:

the rest could be left to become a world renowned wild life sanctuary

 

This is my plan for my front garden. My Mum bought the house in 2009 and it's a former show detached home so the garden is massive with a 77m fence going around the front in an almost semi-circular fashion... . The lawnmower-ing kills me every time.

All done clean bill of health and another 12 months of hassle free driving for the little furby lol until the next thing goes pop 😄 

1 minute ago, Stewartasb said:

All done clean bill of health and another 12 months of hassle free driving for the little furby lol until the next thing goes pop 😄 

 

Glad to hear it. Start putting your pennies away right now though.

37 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

The lawnmower-ing kills me every time.

Very strange English disease and Scottish  golfers I suppose.  😁

 

I used to cut my neighbour's grass and the grass verges outside mine and a few other neighbours, it was like working on cars for me in that it could only be done when the weather was right which is the very times you don't want to be wasting your life's time on such things.  Now I no longer do any grass cutting I can't say I miss it at all, I had to use small electric mowers with at least a couple of extension cables and the cables were always a PITA to handle and deal with despite the nearly 40 years of practice.

 

A friend was going to buy a place with a fair bit of land between roads and part of that would have been left wild.

 

Edited 26 November, 20214 yr by nta16

4 minutes ago, nta16 said:

I had to use small electric mowers with at least a couple of extension cables and the cables were always a PITA to handle and deal with despite the nearly 40 years of practice.

 

Same for us. I've cut through the cable and lived too many times...

Buy a pet goat 😜

1 hour ago, nta16 said:

I bet one of your mobile huts is bigger than our place, you're just flaunting your wealth to the likes of me without. 😁  Being serious I do live in a very small semi-detached

My UK house is a small semi-detached but on a corner plot, I built a nice garage years ago, then a shed for woodworking extended with a wooden conservatory then converted as a tiny self contained chalet which is what I have been living in when in the UK since 2004, now both demolished as the land is sold which has paid for the new French house.

1 hour ago, nta16 said:

 

You've got to build on the side though for the lift, unless you go open air.

It already has the lean to barn with enough headroom, its where they stored the tractor. OK, I see what you mean about open air, yes I much prefer that, am working under a cantilever car port at present.

1 hour ago, nta16 said:

 

You could be a true loyal Englishman, living abroad with "foreigners and their funny foreign ways" with deliveries of the Daily Mail. 🤣

 

Good luck to you, I hope the locals don't mind your funny foreign ways. 😁

 

 I have lived in France for 17 years in total immersion, have never mixed with the English or spoken English, my funny foreign ways only show when I return to the UK.

Edited 26 November, 20214 yr by J.R.

9 hours ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

 

Same for us. I've cut through the cable and lived too many times...

No, I've never cut through any electric cable, I was born in the 1960s.  I would allow one mistake and from that you should have learnt but after that it's the seat of your trousers dusted with a toe cap, or your parent or guardian if they didn't teach you.

 

I repaired a hedge trimmer for a neighbour, she said it was a friend's she'd borrowed and she couldn't return it not working.  I had a look at it and despite it looking quite new there was evidence of a previous repair possibly not proper finished.  I said I would try but it didn't look like an expensive machine and I doubted I could get any major parts for it if needed (throwaway society) so she might be best just replacing it with new.

 

Anyway as it turned out it was an easy if messy repair most awkward bit was taking it apart and getting it back together again.  A year later, the machine it appears hadn't been returned to its owner but the neighbour's 18 year old grandson had cut through the cable near to the machine, so it was just a matter of shortening the cable by taking the messy thing apart again and fighting to get it to fit back together.  The screws into plastic body weren't designed to be put back in too often.  I said if the lad is 18 if made the same mistake again he could do the messy repair while I instructed him.

 

I bet if I see it next year the neighbour will say she don't in and not her 19 year-old grandson. 😁

 

Edited 26 November, 20214 yr by nta16

11 minutes ago, nta16 said:

No, I've never cut through any electric cable, I was born in the 1960s.  I would allow one mistake and from that you should have learnt but after that it's the seat of your trousers dusted with a toe cap, or your parent or guardian if they didn't teach you.

 

It's the only cable I've ever cut through to be fair. I'm rather sensible otherwise, I'll have you know, or so I like to tell myself...

 

Anyway, we're maybe getting a little off topic here... 

8 hours ago, J.R. said:

I have lived in France for 17 years in total immersion, have never mixed with the English or spoken English, my funny foreign ways only show when I return to the UK

Very glad to hear that.  I don't think I could live anywhere else because I can hardly speak English let alone another language, I tried but my accent was too thick and so was I.  I think England is a marvellous place and we are very lucky to live here but for some of the English people, but it must be the same in most countries and I don't just mean some of the English in those other countries.

 

Other than the space available and the more sensible attitude to life I can't say i'd rave about the bits I've seen and as I don't drink wine or coffee and like real ale and tea I'd certainly have funny ways.  I did bring home some bottle of French ale, all bottle ales are fizz or one sort or another, because with the meal on holiday the ale seemed quite reasonable, once home it tasted different.

 

If you've ben abroad for 17 years I'd take your British passport away, you can't have your cake and eat it, you either stay and suffer like most of the rest of us or you go forever. 😉