The community repair thread

boogieman

Our Miele vacuum cleaner has been playing up. It’d turn on but the power setting would immediately go down to the minimum suckage level. I changed all the filters and cleaned it out, but still got the same issue. So, I found a YouTube guide (who knew there were actual vacuum cleaner nerds out there?) and stripped it all down. Sure enough the fan housing was full of crud and the motor windings were caked with dust. Cleaned everything out and….. that didn’t fix the problem. It turned out to be the “minus” button on the power selector was sticking in the down position. Bit of WD40 sorted that and probably would’ve done so in the first place. 

So I guess the moral of the story is, always check the bleeding obvious first. Although we do have a nice sparkly clean vacuum cleaner now and I now know how to take it apart again if something else goes wrong. (A Torx T20 bit is your friend, vacuum nerds!) 

menamestom

Cmax 1L Ecoboost oil sump filter clean.  These engines are driven by a wet belt which sheds material over time which blocks the oil pump pickup filter.  In this case the oil light was staying on for around 10s on startup.  Eventually the oil pressure overcame the blockage but I would imagine a few more particles this would have been fatal for this engine.  Look at the amount of gunk in the filter and sump.

Basically, to complete the job it's take of the exhaust heat shield, lambada sensors, drop Cat section of exhaust (as it goes over the sump), remove air con pump, remove auxiliary belt and then drop sump.  Clean out filter (or replace the oil pump), reinstall oil pump then put silicone around the sump mating surface and reinstall sump.

If you have one of these engines (Ecoboost 1l pre around 2018), it's worth noting that this may be something you need to do.  My advise is always pay attention to the oil light, how quickly does it go out at startup.  Always use the correct oil (Castrol 5W20e) and if possible change the oil more frequently than the service interval.


Big job to be fair, over 3 days.

Kittyfrisk

^ That is a shocker. Another example of belt v chain cost cutting by the manufacturers.

menamestom

Kittyfrisk said:

^ That is a shocker. Another example of belt v chain cost cutting by the manufacturers.

I know.  Although belts work reasonably well when not bathed in oil.  In fact it’s not so much the oil per se, it’s when the oil gets fuel in it from short journeys, or it’s not changed often enough.  Basically a system which may work OK in perfect scenario’s but with no redundancy or robustness.  More designed to pass pointless non real world efficiency tests.

I think they have changed to a chain in the last few years.  Shame a decent little engine is hamstrung by poor corner cutting decisions.

Danny1969

Some good info in these last few posts. Nice to see people getting stuck in and fixing stuff. Especially now when everything seems to be going up in price 

Kittyfrisk

OK, here's something that last week I had no idea I'd be talking about .

Skoda Fabia SE, 2015, only 14k miles! got it as a gift 2 years ago from my Mum when she gave up driving.
It's a boring piece of crap that wouldn't pull your hat off but it's cheap to tax, insure, run & has aircon, DAB radio, SD reader & handles & rides reasonably, so a 'sensible' choice.
 
Trip to Scotland (planned since SARS Cov began!) next week to see my sister & the family on my birthday.

Last Saturday, the interior fan misbehaved a bit, then quit. No cold air, no heating, no aircon, no screen demist... nothing.
 Tried to find a garage to sort it quickly, no chance & quoted cost would be around the £400+ mark   . 
So, to the internet & Skoda user groups.
Seems likely it is the resistor pack or fan motor, both or a host of other possibilities.
Ordered the resistor pack (cheapest option & likely candidate apparently) & set to it.

Stripped out the passenger storage unit (6 bloody screws not the 5 that everyone said, grrrr...) & found everything completely covered in insulation held in place with strong double sided glue... again no mention of this in the guides & advice.

Looked like this afterward, see the beardy insulation bits mainly on the fan unit.


Eventually got the bastard resistor pack out & replaced it.



From here... proper fiddly bastard job with no room. I bled a bit & swore a lot.


Reassembled it &... no go 

Researched fan prices (OEM or Skoda official Valeo £255!!!) then called a local spares place & got a guaranteed fitting generic one with next day delivery for £75.

Arrived today, spent some time bent double & often upside down sweating copiously, got the old one out & fitted the new fan.
Old unit on top, note rusty spindle 



Back together & it only bloody works !! Woo Hoo!  

That is apart from the sodding car reporting an airbag fault, as in opening it all up you have to disconnect the passenger side airbag connector which is fastened to the passenger storage/cubby unit for some stupid bloody reason that I can't figure.

So I'll sleep happy tonight & tomorrow I'll look into resetting the fault code with my £20 OBD2 scanner   
Otherwise it can beep at me all it likes as I don't give a shit anymore.

Modern cars... Pah!!

Emp_Fab

menamestom said:

Basically, to complete the job it's take of the exhaust heat shield, lambada sensors....

Wow.  Sounds like it led you on a bit of a merry dance.

Kittyfrisk

Got up this morning to no central heating, so 6º inside 
It had been intermittently firing up for a day or two, so not entirely a surprise but the timing is not great.
This is something that happens every few years & is a design/manufacturing PCB flaw.
The boiler is a Potterton Profile, at least 25 years old & parts are still available. It is otherwise bulletproof, just needing routine servicing. Not hugely efficient by modern standards, but not economically worth buying a new replacement heat only boiler (pressurised combi's aren't suitable as my multifuel stove feeds into the system too).
For comparison, my sister has needed 3 new replacement high end combi's in 10 years. My parents have needed 2...

So I get out my spare PCB/controller unit & set to it.
A few scraped fingers & an hour later it's back up working. No gas work was undertaken in this repair 
Currently basking in the warmth of a good cheap effective fix for far less than the hassle & cost of a heating engineer callout.

boogieman

Kittyfrisk said:

Got up this morning to no central heating, so 6º inside 
It had been intermittently firing up for a day or two, so not entirely a surprise but the timing is not great.
This is something that happens every few years & is a design/manufacturing PCB flaw.
The boiler is a Potterton Profile, at least 25 years old & parts are still available. It is otherwise bulletproof, just needing routine servicing. Not hugely efficient by modern standards, but not economically worth buying a new replacement heat only boiler (pressurised combi's aren't suitable as my multifuel stove feeds into the system too).
For comparison, my sister has needed 3 new replacement high end combi's in 10 years. My parents have needed 2...

So I get out my spare PCB/controller unit & set to it.
A few scraped fingers & an hour later it's back up working. No gas work was undertaken in this repair 
Currently basking in the warmth of a good cheap effective fix for far less than the hassle & cost of a heating engineer callout.

I had a Potterton boiler at one of my old houses, although it was a Suprima. They’re notorious for the rubbish PCB design, or rather the placement of it right next to the burner chamber. Boiler heats up, board flexes and eventually some of the tracks crack, which brings up an error. When the thing cools down enough the tracks reconnect and the fault clears. Potterton eventually redesigned the PCB. 

Sporky

I am debating repairing our washing machine. It needs, I think, a new bearing for the drum, and new door seals.

But it's old, came free with the house, and was horribly noisy even before the bearing started going. And next to my office. So a quieter new alternative is tempting. 

Kittyfrisk

Sporky said:

I am debating repairing our washing machine. It needs, I think, a new bearing for the drum, and new door seals.

But it's old, came free with the house, and was horribly noisy even before the bearing started going. And next to my office. So a quieter new alternative is tempting. 

I recognise that situation.
I had a Bosch washer/dryer that was getting very noisy in operation & had door seals that ermmm, didn't.
The door seals were no problem to get spares, but getting access to fit them was going to be a real sod of a job.
The worn bearing should have been a cheap fix, except that the old one was a press fit & 'locked' in place with a hammer & punch.
 In wearing out, it had damaged the aluminium 'spider' that held the bearing, so that needed replacing too.
I reluctantly had to give up the idea & get a new machine. I hate it when that happens.

thermionic

Not really a repair, but my partner found an old Roberts Radio in the loft, which was in a filthy state:

https://i.imgur.com/sIgtkSs.jpg

I’ve been intrigued by radio receivers since an early age and I used to love opening them up as a kid, although I didn’t have much of an idea about all the strange-looking components I found inside.

https://i.imgur.com/iTaUaL2.jpg

With the benefit of a fine scientific education and some years working as an electronics engineer, I now have some useful knowledge. It’s an RT7, which dates it to 1960-1962. I found a service manual online and it’s an interesting circuit - it must have been one of the earliest transistor radios, but the circuit retains some valve-era ideas, like an output transformer driving the speaker.

https://i.imgur.com/dRTkyne.jpg

I powered it up with a PP3 (the original battery was the now obsolete PP10) and it seemed to work fine. I’m sure some of the capacitors are past their best as they would now qualify for a free bus pass, but I didn’t want to mess around unnecessarily.

https://i.imgur.com/sXbT09q.jpg

I thought then that just a clean up and spray contact cleaner into the switches and pots (which were understandably crackly) would be the best option.

https://i.imgur.com/C86NgGd.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/UsYthiS.jpg

boogieman

That’s a really cool radio. I keep longing for one of those 1930s wooden cased radios with the sunray style speaker grille and the light up dial. 

thermionic

boogieman said:

That’s a really cool radio. I keep longing for one of those 1930s wooden cased radios with the sunray style speaker grille and the light up dial. 

There seems to a load of old 1930s/1940s valve radios on ebay for peanuts. It’s tempting to get one, thinking that I’d be able to get it working knowing what I’ve learnt from building a couple of valve guitar amps.

boogieman

thermionic said:

boogieman said:

That’s a really cool radio. I keep longing for one of those 1930s wooden cased radios with the sunray style speaker grille and the light up dial. 

There seems to a load of old 1930s/1940s valve radios on ebay for peanuts. It’s tempting to get one, thinking that I’d be able to get it working knowing what I’ve learnt from building a couple of valve guitar amps.

They’re probably cheap because you can’t get any signal on them anymore, well I think that’s the case. Is AM broadcasting still a thing? 

thermionic

The one I fixed is AM (MW/LW). Radio 4 still transmits on LW but there doesn’t seem to be as many MW stations as I remember. What’s sad is that the SW bands are now almost silent - I used to love finding SW stations from obscure parts of the globe.

Sporky

I did a trivial-yet-utterly-heroic repair.

The pin that holds our kitchen tongs together was wearing out. These are the tongs:

 
And a close-up of the failed pin. 



I drifted the pin out with a transfer punch and hammer. 

 
It was a bit mangled. The rest looks fine. 

 
I decided to replace with an M4 bolt, because that would be more work than an M3 which would go straight through the existing holes. So I drilled out the holes. 

 
And tidied them with a hand reamer and some sandpaper. 

 
Then with the aid of the bench vice, a bit of wood, some pliers, a rubber mallet, and some teeny spanner, I bolted it back together.

 
Two notes on the other side so it doesn't have to be done up tight to stay together. 

 
I gather there is to be a parade in my honour this afternoon. 

Kittyfrisk

^  I am developing bench envy 

Nitefly

@thermionic that must be the first time I've seen the word "Hilversum" in about 50 years 

drofluf

Kittyfrisk said:

^  I am developing bench envy 

Me too. I thought it was a kitchen worktop to begin with.