Plus side - fitted the Xenon bulbs I bought into the headlamp conversions and they certainly look brighter.
Mounted the relays quite cleverly I thought to where the two earthing points are behind the front panel either side of the radiator in the engine bay.
Started a service - drained the oil and replaced it and changed the filter.
Checked the gearbox oil level.
Fitted another speedo drive to see if I can rectify the speedo over-reading.
Fitted the tyre and wheel from the spare wheel well to the rear nearside, rear nearside to front nearside and so on until the rear offside wheel/tyre assembly was in the spare wheel well.
Down side - The frigging car won't start! Either the battery has been drained whilst fitting and testing the new bulbs or the earths have been disturbed by my removing and fitting the relays. Tried to resolve this by removing the relays and cleaning up the earthing points. No joy so the battery is now on a slow charge until next weekend.
Oil change OK as far I know but I can't run the engine to make sure all is well (no oil leaks around the oil filter for example).
Gearbox oil level seems OK but I need to buy some more ATF really so that I can really pump some in and make damned sure.
That speedo drive replacement - a 5 minute easy job once the car is in the air. Or at least that what I was assured by someone - you know who you are Burnerboy! Well, not on this one and I had to resort to gripping the end of the shaft with a pair of molegrips and then hitting those with a hammer. Thank you very much you git! Of course I can't see if it has made a difference as the car won't start so I can't take it out on the road - grrr! I don't think it will actually as the drive looks the same as the one that came out.
Rotating the tyres around the car is a good idea - why let a brand new tyre on a spare wheel sit unused for years. It did mean however that I found this.
What you see here is one of the bolts holding the front hub to the disc on the floor when it fell out as I removed the wheel! Followed by one of the other bolts being loose.
Doesn't bear thinking about really. This might be why I have sometimes felt a "pulsing" under braking through the brake pedal and a knocking from the front end recently too - so much so that I had done a spanner check of all suspension components to make sure nothing was amiss.
Of course I replaced the bolt and retightened everything but this is something I will be checking again for a while!
By now I had had enough for the day so all tools etc were put away and I managed to get in the house just in time to catch up with the FA Cup match between Sunderland and Arsenal before the goals had been scored. Some consolation then for a very frustrating afternoon.
This morning it's just been a little tidying and getting that battery on charge.
Looking forward to Stevenage v Tottenham on the TV this afternoon, again in the FA Cup. I used to live in Stevenage from 1996 to 1998 and remember the buzz in the town when they played
Newcastle in the cup so let's see if they can have a good game this afternoon.
No comments:
Post a Comment