Today I mostly .....

[Zelandeth]

We're on Sky's fibre service here, and are about 1/4 of a mile from the cabinet. Speeds are usually between 38 and 40mbps, which given the claimed speed is 40, is fine by me.

The biggest bottleneck we usually find is our own wireless as there seem to be some serious signal reflection issues in this house for some reason that I need to properly investigate at some point. The entire south wing seems to see really slow wireless speeds (right down to 1mbps at times) despite nearly full signal strength indicated. The reflection theory was based purely on what I was seeing when I stuck a scope on the receiving antenna on my desktop when first investigating it. West side of the house doesn't have any problems whatsoever.

At some point I'll probably just route some cabling through the loft and stick a separate wireless access point for the south side which should functionally speaking solve the issue. If it wasn't that it sometimes plays havoc with the Chromecast I probably would just live with it to be honest!

[Hannesb]

Buy a smaller house

[GvidoR]

Define 'simple'.

[Hannesb]

Wow. Haven't seen one of those Compaqs for a while... It can probably double as a tool for fixing a Niva as well if you wield it correctly.

[Zelandeth]

Dug the old Compaq Armada 500 out a few weeks ago myself so I have a suitable machine to run Diagbox and Lexia for the Xantia. Not needed it yet, but pays to be prepared. Thankfully I don't have a fully multiplexed system to deal with at least...

Yesterday I mostly established that a Sinclair C5 does fit in the back of the Xantia - just. You do need to remove the rear seat squab though to get enough lenth. This was necessary as we're away at Center Parcs this week and I wasn't about to pass up a chance to use it that much, especially on a decent surface (unlike some of MK's redways which are more suited to a Niva...).

[Ged]

coincidentally, i just bought a "simple" merc....



no sensors, no ECU, no OBDII plug....

simple

[Neil Chowney]

running on chip fat?

[GvidoR]

Put these seats in the Golf.



Here's a before pic



Also put in this head unit in the Astra

[Zelandeth]

Pretty quiet round here lately, day to day life is generally keeping me busy enough that I've not had much going on car-wise.

Xantia has had the loose clearcoat blasted off the roof now, and the first coat of its replacement applied. Increasing wind and running out of the stuff put an end to progress on the day, but with a few more coats it should have a reasonable finish again I think. I've no problem with it showing some scars for its miles, provided that the car is generally presentable and that it's obvious that despite the scars that some effort has been made to treat the wounds.

Saab was moved out of its corner yesterday and given a decent clean, hoping to get it booked in for an MOT in the next couple of weeks so I can get a proper to-do list to get that back on the road. At least it's not green any more. Unsurprisingly, she started first touch despite having not been started in several months.



Once that's done, it's likely that the Skoda will be getting put up for sale as much as I adore driving it, the fact that there's no equivalent of this site to get parts is a major headache, and the forums just never seem to have the same level of friendly and helpful advice and chit chat as we see here on UKSaabs and the French Car Forums. Those things put together detract a lot from the ownership experience for me.

This evening while out walking the dog, I spotted a decent sized petrol lawnmower among the rubbish bags outside one of the houses a few streets away. I politely enquired of the owner whether they had a problem with me bagging it, and after a half hour natter about the Skoda which I turned up in, I took it home.

We currently have a *really* rubbish electric thing that is beyond useless (you show it anything resembling grass more than a quarter inch long and it virtually stalls), and I've had a petrol mower on the wish list for the last year - but it's not something I can say that I need - the electric one does the job...just really annoyingly slowly!

So this is now sitting outside waiting for me to have a look at it.



I figure I'll give it the once over and see if I can get it going. If it needs too much work, it'll go back in the back of the car and be dropped off at the local recycling centre/tip - which is all of ten minutes away. Figure given how much a petrol mower of that size costs, it's worth sinking a couple of hours into. It's a Briggs engine as well so even if that needs TLC bits are dead easy to come by. Immediately obvious is that the fuel primer has a hole in - if that's all it needs other than a service (and a clean), I'll have to laugh!

[Zelandeth]

Yep, it's been a long while since I last poked one, but I have worked on these engines before.

Favourite motor I've had on a mower though was the one on our old petrol hover mower (Flymo L48 from memory) which had a two stroke beast that would have been more than capable of powering a moped. That thing ate anything I threw at it and sounded like a cross between a two stroke sports bike and a hovercraft. Can't offhand remember who made the engine now. It eventually died due to wear of the rings/bore - but in fairness to it, the thing was ancient when we got it, was an ex council unit anyway so had a hard life, and we had a huge garden so it earned its keep...and we got well over ten years out of it from when we found it buried under a tarp with a cylinder full of water.

Another one of those is definitely my eventual mower of choice (not least because it had a massive cut and actually did hover thanks to a decent power plant) thanks to how easy it was to use. Even second (or fifth) hand they usually go for over 150 quid...so will stay on the wish list for now.

Be interested to see if I can get any signs of life out of this one tomorrow. At least I can finally consign the Tri-Ang My First Lawn Mower...sorry...Flymo Rollermo to the tip if it will go!

[Zelandeth]

The mower lives!

A picture is starting to form here with regards to what happened. What I think has happened here is that the poor thing has been stored through the off-season sitting on its cylinder head.

The logic behind this is the fact that there was *no* oil in the sump whatsoever. The cylinder, carb, air cleaner and exhaust however were full off it. Literally full. The engine when I first got it was completely locked up - not surprising when the cylinder was full of oil!

So, stuck some fresh oil in the sump, removed the plug and shifted as much of the crud as I could by spinning the engine over. This made a lovely mess!

The spark plug was cleaned up using brute force and a blowtorch. This was also part of my starting plan - as I was pretty sure that there was enough oil still in there that it would just instantly foul up the plug - as such my plan was to get the plug about as close to red hot as I could get away with, stuff it in rapidly, then stick a scoosh of easy start into the intake before cranking it.

It worked - first try resulted in several coughs and a cloud of smoke which made me immediately relocate the work area to a less enclosed area of the back yard! ...Oh...and the resulting oil spray that was ejected from the exhaust left this on the wall of the house. That'll be fun to clean.



I turned my attention at that point to fuel delivery - the primer bulb has a hole in it, and if I remember rightly, fuel is sucked from the tank under vacuum - so that hole will mean that the engine won't get any fuel. My temporary solution involves a duct tape patch over where the button is, held around its edge with a cable tie. The button will need to be changed though - I imagine these perish over time, so I would assume they're available as a service item...At least that seems logical...

Another scoosh of easy start and another clean of the spark plug and the engine actually started properly - and kept running.

...Proceeding to blanket pretty much the entirety of Central Milton Keynes in a dense blue fog.



After a couple of minutes the smoke levels started to noticeably decrease as the crud in the cylinder and exhaust burned away, and it sounds exactly as I would expect a little Briggsy to, no untoward knocks or anything. If anything, it's quieter than I would expect...a LOT quieter than engine on my father's mower - though that's an OHV engine from an unnamed Chinese maker, so that's not saying much!

Unfortunately there was only about a cup of fuel in the tank, so it ran out after only a couple of minutes. I've got another can now, so will put a fresh tank in tomorrow and see how things go then. The air cleaner was a solid block of oil, so that's currently being cleaned.

Will report back tomorrow when I've had a chance to run it for a bit longer, but initial indications are positive I think.

[Zelandeth]

Agreed, GB! Takes a lot to kill one. Wonder how many years this design has been around now, different carbs, exhausts and the ignition system has obviously been tweaked...but the basic unit has been around forever it seems...

Will need to do some reading to see what's best in terms of looking after them, seems only fair to give it a bit of TLC now given the neglect it seems to have been subject to so far!

[GvidoR]

Bought some bulbs, oil and filter for Astra.

H3B bulbs are weird.

[Zelandeth]

H3B...those are the ones with the odd (and usually awkward to get to) right angle connector on aren't they?

Really do need to think about getting some better lamps in the Xantia's headlights, as they're pretty rubbish to be honest. Think they're H3 lamps in my case...is a ways down the priority list though.

The 107 has been taken off the road today. It was reported that there was a vibration coming from somewhere and could I have a look? Taking it out for a run revealed that there is something decidedly odd going on somewhere. Once you get to 40mph or so there is a very odd, irregular clunk coming from somewhere (it feels almost like you're hitting cat's eyes with one of the front wheels), which persists until you stop. Once you stop, it doesn't reappear again until you get to 40mph or so again.

Wheels off the ground everything spins smoothly and there's no play that I can detect in anything (and yes, I did check the wheel nuts were done up properly!). The nearside front wheel bearing was changed about a month ago. The only theory I had was that if it wasn't locked properly that the hub nut could have worked loose allowing the whole hub to move - but that seems OK. Seizing CV joint? Can't really think what else it can be other than something dire going on in the diff. Doesn't appear to be affected by acceleration, deceleration, cornering or braking. The really annoying bit is that I can't make it do it when stationary - it only starts at 40mph or so, and stops every time you do until you hit that speed again...

Have booked it in to the garage to be checked on Friday morning, it'll be getting driven there very carefully, as I'm really not happy with this. Open to ideas though! It's currently parked up with the dreaded "Do not drive!" cover over the steering wheel.

In other news, the resurrection of the old mower has been rather more successful. Trip out to our nearest Briggs stockist got me a new fuel primer bulb (for the princely sum of £3.12). Before fitting that I took the fuel tank off and gave it a good clean out (as there was more water in there than petrol).

New primer fitted (30 second job) and the tank filled with fresh fuel and it started up not even first pull, but first revolution. Ran like the day it left the factory, if not better. After about five minutes the smoke-screen from yesterday disappeared, leaving the engine running without any visible smoke whatsoever. Even the self-propulsion system seems to work perfectly. It was obvious that there were a couple of loose screws, not least the one holding the guard around the silencer on as that was bouncing around like a caffinated meerkat. The guard around the cooling fan air intake/pull cord was also bouncing around quite unnervingly because it's cracked - a few cable ties will sort that until I can find a replacement.

That reduced the amount of rattling by about 300%, and I decided to quickly throw it at our rear lawn to see if it would actually cut grass. Yep...My five minute test resulted in the whole lawn being mowed, can't have taken me more than ten minutes...usually took me about an hour with our old mower!

So, got one sticky front wheel to free off, it could do with a new pull cord as this one is a bit frayed, half the pull cord handle is missing (though in fairness it starts so darn easy that isn't really a problem for anything other than my OCD), and I could do with a grass collection bag. The original spark plug now the engine has run for 20 minutes or so looks like new, so am happy to leave that there for now, especially given that I don't think it's missfired once today.







The more I look at this thing the more I think that it's actually done hardly any hours service, but was kept outside. It then got stuffed in a corner (stood on end) when a minor fault (the primer bulb) stopped it running. Think that was largely due to being left with manky old fuel in as well, it had taken on a consistency not unlike toffee.

Now I know it runs well will try to sort that one wheel tomorrow, give it a proper external clean tomorrow and give the metalwork a quick lick of paint just to tidy things up, then call it good. Not going overboard, but I like things to be tidy.

Primer bulb: £3.12.
Bottle of oil: £4.99.
Total cost: £8.11.
Plus roughly two hours of my time.

Cheapest mower this size in B&Q is £219...

Think I'll call that a bargain. Well happy with that as a kerbside find!

[GvidoR]

H3B...those are the ones with the odd (and usually awkward to get to) right angle connector on aren't they?

Really do need to think about getting some better lamps in the Xantia's headlights, as they're pretty rubbish to be honest. Think they're H3 lamps in my case...is a ways down the priority list though.

They are indeed.



I didn't really care what bulbs I'm putting in the Astra as long as they work since I don't plan to keep it for much longer. I will drive it from mid-June until I sort out the engine in the Golf (that's what the donor Vento is for). Then I'll sell it, making room for something more interesting.