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Which would you rather work on?


travonconroy
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I have just spent the day working on my Wife's old car which is now my runaround. Is it just me or are cars more of a pain in the a**e to work on than Bikes or am I just unlucky having a french car? :?


had to fit a new TDC sensor which was in the most awkward of places to get to, ideally it would of being easier to hoist the engine to get to it :shock:


when I compare it with working on my bike it seems like night and day. Though to be fair my engine is completely open without any body panels to remove which will make it easier to access bits.


What are your thoughts, Bike or Car? which would you prefer to tinker with?

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Welcome to the forum :cheers:


Bikes are usually easier to work on I find. I needed to fit a new starter to my old astra and gave up in the end as I just had no room at all to get at it without taking off too many parts and even then I wasn't happy with how much clearance I would have. I paid one of the local lads I know at the garage £50 to do it during his lunch :lol:


Funnily enough my Wife used to have a Renault and to change the bulbs in the headlight you had to remove the front wheels :shock:

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Modern cars are a pain to work on, so glad we have a motability car as we don't have to worry over servicing or if anything breaks, just make a phonecall and either an engineer comes to us and fixes it or i can usually drop it off to be done, but luckily our current car has never had any issues :thumb:

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I don't mind which - but French cars are a law unto themselves. A few years back an elderly neighbour had a visitor over Christmas whose car broke down. It was a Citroen and the main dealer couldn't get it going so she was stranded over Christmas. My neighbour asked me to take a look - though I usually avoid Citroens like the plague.


On the basis that I suspected an electrical issue and it was French I decided to look at the most stupid place to install a delicate electrial component - right down at the front where everything gets the worst of grit and water. Sure enough there was a box full of fuses full of water. Took it out, dried everything, replaced all the fuses, it fired up first time.


Generally to be fair bikes are easier to get at, but car diagnostics I find easier.

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VW beetle (old models) or citroen 2CV for cars :)

Could do a Renault 4 too

Those were fun to work on.


Comparing to modern cars, bikes will take my vote :thumb:

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As many will know I've never bothered with cars . I think I would probably enjoy working on a classic car but I think modern cars are a nightmare . I was trying to help my neighbor with a Citroen C4 and we couldn't even find the Starter Motor .

Polish_20201012_111116349.thumb.png.5f853e215c48433a403c96d0c93e10c9.png

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I'm not temperamentally suited to tools.

 

Oh I don't know, you get on reasonably ok with most of us on here.

 

Certainly with you MB.......but you are one of the more cerebral and better educated members.

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The Wife's old Renault had another lovely fault (Electrically related, surprise surprise)


Occasionally the windows would just decide to wind themselves down completely with no simple way of getting them back up. First time it happened to us we were coming back from the supermarket and though we had been broken into :shock:


Faulty Window regulators were the culprit. At the time the cost of new ones was ridiculous so we only fixed drivers side. To get the windows back up you had to pull the fuses or disconnect battery, refit/reconnect, close the door and lock it. That would make the window go up approx 1 inch :bang:

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I used to rebuild old series 2 and 3 Land rovers a few years ago as a hobby, absolute doddle to work on, wouldn’t attempt anything with a modern car, much prefer working on bikes, the vast majority of jobs on bikes can be done without specialist tools or computer diagnostics, when they do need those things then it goes to the garage.

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Replaced my stepdaughters drivers seat tracking ( coz it had jammed on a pen & some dickhead ... aka her ex, broke the tracking by trying to force it ) in her Clio, got the parts from a breakers & it was a simple enough job, except I had to disconnect the battery & when it was reconnected the radio needed a code, which wasn’t provided by the person she brought it off - second hand 😡

So she’s dead miffed that she can’t listen to the music even though she can now reach the pedals & drive the bloody thing.


& while I’m at it, they didn’t provide the locking wheel bolt key or the tool to remove the wheel centre cap !!

Cost £30 to get a garage to remove them & replace with std bolts that were actually in the boot.

Not the fault of the car though

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[mention]Mickly[/mention] I once bought a cheap Corsa that had the radio locked and needed a code. I bought one from eBay for a couple of quid and it actually worked!!


https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313&_nkw=renault+clio+radio+code&_sacat=0

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@Mickly I once bought a cheap Corsa that had the radio locked and needed a code. I bought one from eBay for a couple of quid and it actually worked!!


https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313&_nkw=renault+clio+radio+code&_sacat=0

 

Thanks for that [mention]Tiggie[/mention]

I might get one once I’ve done all the other sh*te that she needs doing.

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Replaced my stepdaughters drivers seat tracking ( coz it had jammed on a pen & some dickhead ... aka her ex, broke the tracking by trying to force it ) in her Clio, got the parts from a breakers & it was a simple enough job, except I had to disconnect the battery & when it was reconnected the radio needed a code, which wasn’t provided by the person she brought it off - second hand 😡

So she’s dead miffed that she can’t listen to the music even though she can now reach the pedals & drive the bloody thing.


& while I’m at it, they didn’t provide the locking wheel bolt key or the tool to remove the wheel centre cap !!

Cost £30 to get a garage to remove them & replace with std bolts that were actually in the boot.

Not the fault of the car though

 

If its no good to her as it is I was once told that an overnight stay in a freezer can remove radio code.

I have no way of knowing if this is true but if the thing is scrap otherwise nothing to lose.

Cheers

Ian

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Not a great fan of DIY mechanics as I'm basically rubbish at it and don't have the patience. That said my wife's previous car - BMW 3 series - had the most ridiculous headlight accessibility I've ever seen. To change the lamp you had to go via the wheel arch. Usually in the rain. Stupid bloody design.

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If its no good to her as it is I was once told that an overnight stay in a freezer can remove radio code.

It sometimes used to work with early coded radios, something to do with early silicone technology.

Pretty certain anything since the 80's and it's no longer works...

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If its no good to her as it is I was once told that an overnight stay in a freezer can remove radio code.

It sometimes used to work with early coded radios, something to do with early silicone technology.

Pretty certain anything since the 80's and it's no longer works...

 

I tried it on a few old radios I was given with no codes, it didn't work. The idea is by freezing you kill the battery that keeps it locked. Or at least that's what I was told back in the day.

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If its no good to her as it is I was once told that an overnight stay in a freezer can remove radio code.

It sometimes used to work with early coded radios, something to do with early silicone technology.

Pretty certain anything since the 80's and it's no longer works...

 

I tried it on a few old radios I was given with no codes, it didn't work. The idea is by freezing you kill the battery that keeps it locked. Or at least that's what I was told back in the day.

 

Would that not turn it into a Superconductor ?

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I've been tinkering with both cars and bikes since I was about 12 and am quite comfortable working on either.

Would be at home setting the points, timing, valve clearances and SU carbs on the Triumph Spitfire? that Fastbob posted to rebuilding the engine on my RGV or fitting a new steering rack on my Dads Rav4.

Had a couple of French cars, Citroen and Peugeot and know they can be tricky, try doing a cam belt on a 206 GTI 180, there's about an inch between the chassis leg and belt cover, the back of my hands were skinned after finishing it : :cry:

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It sometimes used to work with early coded radios, something to do with early silicone technology.

Pretty certain anything since the 80's and it's no longer works...

 

I tried it on a few old radios I was given with no codes, it didn't work. The idea is by freezing you kill the battery that keeps it locked. Or at least that's what I was told back in the day.

 

Would that not turn it into a Superconductor ?

 

It might, but our freezer wasn't up to it.

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I've been tinkering with both cars and bikes since I was about 12 and am quite comfortable working on either.

Would be at home setting the points, timing, valve clearances and SU carbs on the Triumph Spitfire? that Fastbob posted to rebuilding the engine on my RGV or fitting a new steering rack on my Dads Rav4.

Had a couple of French cars, Citroen and Peugeot and know they can be tricky, try doing a cam belt on a 206 GTI 180, there's about an inch between the chassis leg and belt cover, the back of my hands were skinned after finishing it : :cry:

 

It was a Herald actually but essentially the same car with a different body I believe .

Edited by fastbob
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I've been tinkering with both cars and bikes since I was about 12 and am quite comfortable working on either.

Would be at home setting the points, timing, valve clearances and SU carbs on the Triumph Spitfire? that Fastbob posted to rebuilding the engine on my RGV or fitting a new steering rack on my Dads Rav4.

Had a couple of French cars, Citroen and Peugeot and know they can be tricky, try doing a cam belt on a 206 GTI 180, there's about an inch between the chassis leg and belt cover, the back of my hands were skinned after finishing it : :cry:

 

It was a Harald actually but essentially the same car with a different body I believe .

 

My Grandad's name was Harold, but he never had a Triumph Herald.

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