DIY guides to keeping end of life vehicles running on a shoestring budget. A window onto the world of home mechanic'ing of cars everyone else would have given up on a long time ago
9 Aug 2021 4 minute read 2 comments Lawnmower
Today is the start of a new chapter in my vehicle ownership - a raffle Win Mercedes. I won this fully working vehicle in a raffle on a car forum, the back story is the previous owner bought it on ebay for £500 to drive to his 2nd home in the sount of...
2 Aug 2021 4 minute read 1 comment Lawnmower
To close the Saab chapter, it ended on a sour note. My brother and I took it to Germany, to a music festival near Hannover. It made it to within a mile of the campsite before blowing out a spark plug, snapping the coil pack that sits atop it in half,...
26 Jul 2021 4 minute read 0 comments Lawnmower
Having got up at 6.30 this morning to take my youngest to swimming classes then dispatched the shopping and home by 11am, the sun came out and I thought it'd be a good time to tackle the ATF change. A 5 litre bottle of JWS3309 compliant ATF arrived w...
19 Jul 2021 3 minute read 0 comments Lawnmower
One outstanding item from the last test was and advisory notice that the the nearside track rod end balljoint dust cover was damaged but not (yet) allowing ingress of dirt. The MOT chap reckoned it was easier to replace the entire TRE but this would...
12 Jul 2021 7 minute read 0 comments Lawnmower
You know how it goes, you go out to take the kids to the park because you can't face them rampaging about inside any longer, you mooch down the road and notice some random bits of paper on the parcel shelf of an otherwise nondescript vehicle, so you...
9 Jul 2021 1 minute read 0 comments Lawnmower
Another member of the fleet is a 2003 Toyota Yaris/Vitz which is a brilliant car, only slightly let down by sun-damaged headlight lenses. This seems to affect a lot of early 00's cars when many manufacturers moved over to use plastic lenses rather th...
5 Jul 2021 2 minute read 0 comments Lawnmower
A bit more home mechanic-ing today. My Saab has been smelling oily after a run for a little while now, closer inspection suggests oil has been escaping from the top right hand side of the cylinderhead and pooling in a recess in a strengthening rib in...
2 Jul 2021 3 minute read 0 comments Lawnmower
Several weeks back, my wife took the Saab out to see a friend of hers, on on her return she said 'You do know the fans don't work don't you?'. I didn't. The motor had been a bit squeaky for a long while, but it worked when I last used the car. Howeve...
29 Jun 2021 5 minute read 0 comments Lawnmower
The gearbox on my 1995 N15 Almera of many miles has been on its way out for some while. At the last MOT it flew through with but 2 advisories for negligible issues however the gearbox was rated officially 'b0rked' and not long for this world. Rather...
