Old days

[pilgrim]

I recall many years ago that the vw was one of the first to have a 'diagnostic' plug fitted and an article in the press at that time said that electronic management systems were the start of the demise of the local garage due to the requirement to invest in expensive equipment just to say what was wrong, or even to do anything with the car!

Audi were the pioneers of ABS and I recall talking to an audi  development engineer who said it works but no-one presses the brake hard enough to make it work properly!

Over the years I have had engine warning lights come on screaming of impending doom and self-destruction and possibly Armageddon, and when the machine was plugged in it invoked a general scratching of the head and usually -' not seen that one before' or 'there is nowt wrong with the damn thing!' but a nice earner for some garages at £100 an hour labour and all they do is reset the diagnostic (why is the spell chucker insisting on hyphens??? - or is that a hint about the subject matter? ((agnostic - as in blind))  - fuse 13 on BMW used to reset the damn things. Luckily our local garage doesn't charge us to plug the machine in and the first thing to do is CHANGE THE SENSOR. I do miss the days of proper carburettors and vacuum gauges etc.  BUT life moves on and you can't fiddle emission levels with a carb!!!!!!

[webtrekker]

I've got a Bluetooth OBD II connector (eBay = cheap!)  that communicates with the Torque Pro app on my mobile phone. Very nice setup. Apart from giving me all the usual fault codes and allowing me to reset them, it also displays a multitude of gauges and pages of data while driving. 

[Canny lass]

Speaking of "red", what was that fluid you could put in a leaking car radiator to seal the holes? It ran out and stained everything red.

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

7 minutes ago, Canny lass said:

Speaking of "red", what was that fluid you could put in a leaking car radiator to seal the holes? It ran out and stained everything red.

Could be Radweld that your thinking about. Some people used to say they would pour an egg white, albumen, onto a hole in a radiator, so the hot water would boil the white and seal the hole. 

[Canny lass]

That's it! I hadn't heard about the egg white trick but I once knew a lorry driver (ex father in law) who said a peeled boiled egg would block a leaking petrol tank. never tried it though.

[HIGH PIT WILMA]

Curling tongs used to be heated on the fireplace !!

Maggie,the Hurricane Annual pic takes me back!

Just the pic,not the book!,as a kid,I was obsessed with drawing helicopters exactly as seen here....

I have old archive material from my childhood days,remnants of sketch pads,with exactly this type of image,drawn by me....circa 1954-0n!

It was either a chopper or a speedboat that I sketched...always!

My first house was an old colliery house,with wall sockets wired from the lighting circuit,with white twin 12 volt shotfiring cable from the pit!

I found out by innocently plugging a dimplex oil-filled radiator into our bedroom wall socket....guess what happened!....[around 1970-ish].

[HIGH PIT WILMA]

Heh heh! I thought my last post was topical...didn't realise it was on page one!

Nivvor  mind,on this subject I always had old cars,[not bangers..just old!],and did all my own repairs and maintenance,from1969 till just a few years ago when ill-health stopped all that!

A few times, sometimes in the Scottish highlands away from civilisation, I had to crack an egg into the radiator,in the days when they were mounted at the front,with a direct access filler cap.

Rev the engine very gently,and in ten seconds......hard- poached egg blocking the hole....as well as the rest of that section of matrix!!

That's what Radweld did also,blocked your system!

Thowt nowt of hoying the cylinder heed off and de-coking the top-end....new valve-springs and seals,polish the ports,grind the valves in with a wood dowel and a rubber sucker.......set the twin S.U.'s  with a length of rubber hose ti ya ear,and the other end in the carb venturi......ssssssssssssssssssssssss!!

Aye,a canna see me battery noo,nivvor mind me engine!

Redex was a penny a "Shot",so you got a couple of gallons,and a couple of shots....cud nivvor afford a full tank of juice in them days![Ford Anglia 105E 1961.....but aa got it in 1968..needed new wings and door pillars welding!]

The Vauxhall Signum that was written off last year in the hit and run-stolen car-cloned number plates,was 13 years old and still pretty immaculate,all the exposed inner sections were like new![they were ripped away like paper,due to the force of the impact..]

Different tale to the Vauxhalls of the 60's!!

[pilgrim]

Vauxhall were the first car maker to use thinner plate for the bodywork and 'the rot set in then' you never seem to see rusty cars these days!!

On a lighter note - this brought back memories of being off to the lakes on the old triumph 6T thunderbird with side car. Some sausage and bacon well wrapped in foil and wired to the cylinder head and by the time you got to Alston it was cooked! Mind you, you had all the upper cylinder lubricant you could wish for and the aroma was with you all the way (and the bike never rusted)

[Maggie/915]

We are still trying to work out what to dispose of and what to keep.

These maybe of interest today

[Maggie/915]

May 1982

Miners back action to save pit

[Alan Edgar (Eggy1948)]

Cut youphoto up to make it easy to read Maggie 

[Maggie/915]

Thanks Eggy

i foolishly thought 'job losses' might prove to be a more wholesome debate.