Gondor's Grumblings

[Gondor]

Talking about over-engineering things, now that I have my 3D printed Avro Manchester conversion set, the Blackbird models set that I was going to use is now available for other things. One thought that comes to mind is to use my old Airfix Short Stirling, when I find it, and re-engine the inboard engines with the Vulture's from the blackbird kit to convert it into an engine test aircraft. The wings from the conversion set could get a set of nasals from an Airfix Lancaster and engines too possibly, just need to come up with a suitable fuselage to make a light to medium bomber or such to go with the wings.

Gondor

[Wardukw]

Talking about over-engineering things, now that I have my 3D printed Avro Manchester conversion set, the Blackbird models set that I was going to use is now available for other things. One thought that comes to mind is to use my old Airfix Short Stirling, when I find it, and re-engine the inboard engines with the Vulture's from the blackbird kit to convert it into an engine test aircraft. The wings from the conversion set could get a set of nasals from an Airfix Lancaster and engines too possibly, just need to come up with a suitable fuselage to make a light to medium bomber or such to go with the wings.

Gondor

That set does look bloody impressive bud ...would love to see what you come up with  when the hacking and slashing is done 😆

[Wardukw]

I know why first hand Kit ...luxury euro car workshops are very picky about who works on their cars ..alot of professional mechanics are trained at the manufacturers own schools so to speck..so Mercedes will send a mechanic from here to Germany to be fully trained and then certified...there's the money bud..professionals can then be charged out at a huge rate compared to a git like me .
Course the higher the brand ..the higher the price ..to service a Lamborghini Aventador here is $25 grand ...eee gads   

Oh sure, I know that's what they do, but I bet you could have the Lambo apart and sorted just as well as the Lambo trained guy.

At Pressed Steel we had all sorts of cars in FVE (Foreign Vehicle Evaluation) all made by OTHER manufacturers and we stripped them down to the last nut and bolt and put them back together again. Only rarely did we run into problems where we COULDN'T get them back together properly. The Ford Corsair story was a zinger! 

Oh there's zero doubt I could pull any engine to bits ..that's a certainty...the problem is the specialized tools needed for some of these engines and the computers needed to turn back on again .
I did a cam change on a 325I BMW ..super easy...then had to get a BMW specialist to come to the car to tell it it's OK to start ..that was another $135 bucks in top of the  bill ...it's narly mate .

Now you've gotta speck up about the Ford Corsair matey   

[Rick Lowe]

Yeah, my Euro Ford is a Mondeo, so it's entirely down to location, location, location as they say in the other Ridiculously Overpriced Industry.

The previous Mondeo had the window winder mechanism quit, and even a second-hand unit was $700 IIRC...     

At least it's a manual, not one of the autos with made-to-fail plastic transmission parts! 

[Wardukw]

Yeah, my Euro Ford is a Mondeo, so it's entirely down to location, location, location as they say in the other Ridiculously Overpriced Industry.

The previous Mondeo had the window winder mechanism quit, and even a second-hand unit was $700 IIRC...     

At least it's a manual, not one of the autos with made-to-fail plastic transmission parts! 

There's your mistake right there mate ..euro cars here cost a fortune to repair ...case in point ...my mates Ford KA pile of crap .
A week before he saw me I did a clutch change on a 04 Toyota Hiace van ...$295 my price for a complete clutch kit....Colin's Ka ..$ 1200 ..that for a car with a modernized Ford Escort engine..a MK1 Escort engine!
$1200 for a clutch kit ..bloody incredible  😲

[PR19_Kit]

Now you've gotta speck up about the Ford Corsair matey   

If you insist. 

We'd had a previous Mk 1 Cortina in FVE which horrified the body engineers as it was made from such very thin steel, 028 where we'd used .031 and .035 on the Mk V Hillman Minxes. It was SO thin that the roof oilcanned inwards when we pulled a light vacuum on it for a dust intrusion test, and I had to shove it back out again with my feet while I lay across the back seat! So they were very interested when the Corsair came out as it was obviously a tarted up Cortina.

We got a fairly new one, maybe 3 weeks after it was announced, did all the usual track tests on it, and stripped it down to the last nut an bolt, equally as usual, and they evaluated all the panels and stuff (and were still horrified of course...)

Then they gave it back to us to put back together, which we did. The Corsair, unlike the Cortina, had a remote control gear shift that had the shift lever maybe 18" further back on the floor from the gearbox itself, the same gearbox as in the Cortina mind. When we bolted it all back together it had four neutrals, well five actually as reverse didn't work either, so we thought 'Oh dear' or something like that, and took the remote off again, re-jigged it and replaced it. Five neutrals.............

This went on 3-4 times, and at one time I'd had about enough of Ford BLOODY gearboxes and slung one of the large spanners out from the inspection pit up against the workshop door. (I had a pretty volatrile temper in those days...) and the mark on the door was still there 20 yrs later. 

Eventually my boss, John Barlow, said we better take advice from elsewhere and told me to go down to the local Ford dealers and ask them how to do it. They knew exactly what we were doing of course as all the manufacturers did the same thing with their competitors cars. Off I went and had a chat to the workshop foreman there who said 'Oh bloody Corsair remotes? Designed by an idiot they were, the gearbox and the remote have to be in reverse before you try and hook them back up, should go easy then'.

So we slotted them both into reverse and it worked a treat. Madness, eh?

[Wardukw]

Now you've gotta speck up about the Ford Corsair matey   

If you insist. 

We'd had a previous Mk 1 Cortina in FVE which horrified the body engineers as it was made from such very thin steel, 028 where we'd used .031 and .035 on the Mk V Hillman Minxes. It was SO thin that the roof oilcanned inwards when we pulled a light vacuum on it for a dust intrusion test, and I had to shove it back out again with my feet while I lay across the back seat! So they were very interested when the Corsair came out as it was obviously a tarted up Cortina.

We got a fairly new one, maybe 3 weeks after it was announced, did all the usual track tests on it, and stripped it down to the last nut an bolt, equally as usual, and they evaluated all the panels and stuff (and were still horrified of course...)

Then they gave it back to us to put back together, which we did. The Corsair, unlike the Cortina, had a remote control gear shift that had the shift lever maybe 18" further back on the floor from the gearbox itself, the same gearbox as in the Cortina mind. When we bolted it all back together it had four neutrals, well five actually as reverse didn't work either, so we thought 'Oh dear' or something like that, and took the remote off again, re-jigged it and replaced it. Five neutrals.............

This went on 3-4 times, and at one time I'd had about enough of Ford BLOODY gearboxes and slung one of the large spanners out from the inspection pit up against the workshop door. (I had a pretty volatrile temper in those days...) and the mark on the door was still there 20 yrs later. 

Eventually my boss, John Barlow, said we better take advice from elsewhere and told me to go down to the local Ford dealers and ask them how to do it. They knew exactly what we were doing of course as all the manufacturers did the same thing with their competitors cars. Off I went and had a chat to the workshop foreman there who said 'Oh bloody Corsair remotes? Designed by an idiot they were, the gearbox and the remote have to be in reverse before you try and hook them back up, should go easy then'.

So we slotted them both into reverse and it worked a treat. Madness, eh?

Bloody typical ain't it ? ....some brilliant idea to make the car more exclusive just made it more annoying.
Ford clearly never learned too .
My neighbor has a 04 Ford Courier twin cab ute..the ute I'd in great condition..except for the windows in the back doors ..in Fords brilliant design mind the rear windows are knackered...who ever came up with this design needs their fingers removed 😀
The window regulator rusts out and I like all normal cars you can unbolt the window from the frame which supports it and connects it the the lifting part of the regulator...not Ford..it cannot be removed and instead you have to replace the entire window   
Oh and good luck replacing said window because Ford basically never made spares for this model of Courier 
So poor ol Wayne ..my neighbor has windows he can't roll down and can't repair or replace..wonderful 
Spares from wreckers ...nope..none anywhere .

[Rick Lowe]

Would Mazda units fit?

[Wardukw]

Would Mazda units fit?

It's a good question mate ..but no ..Mazda never made a twin copy of this ute or vice a versa .

[Gondor]

So it's been a while since I posted in this thread. Now I have more car problems to report. This time though I have cured a problem on my own 

Since the car was in the garage for its MOT the driver's door mirror was not folding, or rather it was not unfolding all of the time or fully. It would behave itself for a while then start playing up again and then work again. I got fed up with this when it was almost refusing to move last weekend. 
Onto the internet and search for videos of how to repair/replace the door mirror. That was not easy as I could not find exactly the same kind that was fitted to my car, I did find one that was similar, three nuts and a cable connector! Looked easy enough too 

Next up was a search online for what I needed. Now quite a few of you will realise that it is not as easy as saying that the car year is two thousand and something as each version of a car evolves while in production so the year is not always exactly correct. So the only thing was to buy from an authorised dealer which I found and they asked for the car registration to make sure that I got the correct parts. Both the door mirror and a new cover for it arrived yesterday afternoon. I opened the box yesterday to look at the parts, screw holes and an extended part with a clip on it  Different from the video I watched but not too dissimilar.

It has been a nice day today, so I gathered my tools together and went to the car only to find that some inconsiderate idiot had parked next to my car and I was unsure about having enough space to work around a fully open door. After a couple of mugs of tea and catching up on a few posts from Britmodeller and a few videos on YouTube I found the idiot had gone so I went down to the car with the parts and got to work. The job was almost as straightforward as the video I had watched other than having to deal with screws that looked like roofing bolts and managing to get the tools in a position to work on them. The electrical connector for the mirror was a pain to get at to release the retaining clip as well.

Fitting everything back in place with the new door mirror was a bit easier. Two minor problems occurred though. Part of the inner door panel has not fully seated, I probably have the clip slightly off-centre from its hole, and one of the screws decided to fall between the two panels of the door    I am not taking the whole door panel off to try and recover it so it can just stay there! I have contacted the company that supplied the parts and asked if I could buy a couple of replacement screws, working on the principle that I could easily loose another screw the same way. I did make sure though that the two remaining screws are very firmly tightened. The new cover was fitted and then the operation of the door mirror was checked. Everything works great    The mirror both folds and unfolds properly and I was able to set up the tilt and pan to ensure that I have good rearward vision from the mirror that I require rather than pointing at the sky, road or door.

So a result, and that's about the only one recently as everything else appears to be one step forward and two backwards.

Gondor

[Pellson]

That really good work, mate! 

[Rick Lowe]

That really good work, mate! 

Yes, indeed! 

[zenrat]

 

[Gondor]

To my mind it's nothing fantastic, anyone with half a brain should be able to do what I did, without losing the screw.

Managed to get some more work done today. I now have another couple of IKEA boxes in the loft so there is some room to breathe in the model room. Only forty-eight boxes up there with a total of just over six hundred and fifty kits between them and a total of listed models a little under one thousand and two hundred.

Next on my list of things to do is to make a couple of shelves to go into the corner of the hall and then strengthen the shelves in the largest bookcase I have. But that's for next weekend, well part of it anyway.

Gondor

[Gondor]

I had to go back into the loft yesterday. I had forgotten to remove the normal engine from a Lycombing-powered Chipmunk so I can use it elsewhere. What I did wrong, other than forgetting to remove the parts before the box went into the loft, was to take a bag into the loft to put the parts into to make it easier to carry them out of the loft. It's not easy to carry a handful of small parts in one hand while trying to climb down a ladder. 

I received an email from the parts supplier just before I had my lunch, £2.88 per screw for the door mirror, so I ordered two to be on the safe side, total less than £9 including postage which is ok for my stupidity. Some double-sided tape will be used to hold the screw into the socket when I fit it.

Gondor