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Do people try and fix things anymore?


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1 hour ago, Dougy said:

Every thing i saw that was broken at home and at work i intended to fix in my cave, it got to a point that i couldn't see what was in my cave that i was going to fix due to the mount of stuff in there. 

So , i cleared a load of tat out thinking I'd rather spend my life outside of my cave living my life rather than inside my cave wasting my time. 

I think I’m doing that at the moment! Had the morning clearing the cave, but so far have made it worse, not better!!

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I don't necessarily repair a broken item BUT I never throw it away until I have harvested all the likely bits for the future.  One of my farms had a large fridge on the scrap heap.  I harvested all the metal sheet from it and that now is turned into squirell flip top feeders.  Might be some more bits in it I can use when I look closely.  My wife goes mad because I have bits of what look like scrap lying about which I know will eventually come into use again for something totally divorced from the initial item.

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19 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

I don't necessarily repair a broken item BUT I never throw it away until I have harvested all the likely bits for the future.  One of my farms had a large fridge on the scrap heap.  I harvested all the metal sheet from it and that now is turned into squirell flip top feeders.  Might be some more bits in it I can use when I look closely.  My wife goes mad because I have bits of what look like scrap lying about which I know will eventually come into use again for something totally divorced from the initial item.

Every bloke should have a scrap pile nev , mine has saved me a fortune over the years. My back garden does look like steptoes yard though.

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1 hour ago, mel b3 said:

Every bloke should have a scrap pile nev , mine has saved me a fortune over the years. My back garden does look like steptoes yard though.

The corner of my workshop has a pile of stainless, aluminium, brass and tool steel offcuts gleaned from the scrap bins of the various engineering companies I worked at over the years.

It all comes in handy at various times and, as you say Mel, saves a fortune.

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I will try to fix anything I can...bugs me to death having to replace stuff

Scrap piles........I was rooting around in the workshop for some plastic bar stock the other day to machine a part for my sons pallet wrapping machine. Typically everything was too small as I ideally need 90mm. Anyway in the process of finding what I needed ( it's there somewhere but I can't see it yet!) I came across what I thought was a bit of brass bar....it was actually 2' long 2" diameter and I couldn't lift it with one hand!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Worst of all I didn't even know I had it as it wasn't where it should have been! BUT when I need a piece I have got some

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Just this minute 3D printed a part to fix my tractor mirror. Cost about 12p. It's the ball joint piece - the original had snapped when I was going near some trees. Took about half an hour to design and about the same to print. Aside from the cost of a new mirror (because that part doesn't appear to be available elsewhere), it's saved on the carbon footprint for delivery as well as the old one going into landfill.

 

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Edited by spandit
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I have an electric mower, but it wasn't any good on the long grass, so a couple of weeks ago i bought a petrol mower for £10 at the car boot sale, 4.5hp 2 stroke briggs and stratton engine,it started but sounded awful, took air intake off noticed gasket was missing, and replaced it, sounded better but was leaking fuel, took carb off and looked at fuel bowl, the seal had a tiny twist in it,can't seem to buy the seal so used some fuel resistant sealant and fuel leak stopped, then emptied the fuel and put a 50:1 mix in as specified by manufacturer, sounds great now.

The result a petrol lawn mower built like a tank cuts great and goes great, total cost £15, 10 for mower 5 for sealant.
Just need a grass catcher now, new they are £120, cheapest i can find is £50.

rover.jpg

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5 hours ago, welsh1 said:

I have an electric mower, but it wasn't any good on the long grass, so a couple of weeks ago i bought a petrol mower for £10 at the car boot sale, 4.5hp 2 stroke briggs and stratton engine,it started but sounded awful, took air intake off noticed gasket was missing, and replaced it, sounded better but was leaking fuel, took carb off and looked at fuel bowl, the seal had a tiny twist in it,can't seem to buy the seal so used some fuel resistant sealant and fuel leak stopped, then emptied the fuel and put a 50:1 mix in as specified by manufacturer, sounds great now.

The result a petrol lawn mower built like a tank cuts great and goes great, total cost £15, 10 for mower 5 for sealant.
Just need a grass catcher now, new they are £120, cheapest i can find is £50.

rover.jpg

Use the petrol mower to get the long grass down and develope into hay, better for the electric mower to collect and better for compost too.

Edited by Dave-G
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32 minutes ago, Dave-G said:

Use the petrol mower to get the long grass down and develope into hay, better for the electric mower to collect and better for compost too.

The long grass is down now, and raked up by hand i just let it mulch in now it's short, the grass catcher would be handy if i missed a couple of cuts  but it's not the end of the world.

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Just bought a trials bike - no brakes and rear brake minus a connecting rod from pedal to cylinder. Local breakers didn't have one, but could sell me a pedal and rod as a kit - which I didn't need.

Spent about 3/4 of an hour making a u-shape, drilling, tapping and making a 6mm connecting rod. Works a treat and quite pleased. There is a lot of satisfaction solving little problems.

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On 08/06/2019 at 18:51, bornfree said:

Yes. And the circuit boards are not available for most models over 6-7 years old.

There is company that sells second hand circuit boards for tellys etc.

Got one for my LG about two months ago.   I put it in to a bloke in Bury St Edmunds and he got the board.   Guaranteed for one month.   If it goes phut they will send you another.

Mine is still working ok.   I don't know their name but you should be able to Google it.

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I've fixed and binned stuff depending on cost and my ability to fix. The dishwasher has been repaired twice now the first time it would fill then empty and fill then empty etc. I forget the name of the part but it monitors how much water was going in and this one wasn't so it would over fill then dump the water. Second time it was flooding the kitchen every now and again and after a wash it would still have water in the bottom, but it was clean water. After a sudden AH moment I realised it was working ok but it was slowly refilling because the water cut off was weeping and filling the dish washer up. I replaced that and it is still going the only problem is the trays are starting to get a bit rusty.

The gtech hoover ended up as spares for my mum and the inlaws  hoovers. There is a clutch assembly in the gtech  and you cannot get it from gtech so you have to get them from ebay or similar but they are **** and it failed again in hours.

I've just fixed the ice dispenser in the fridge freezer, I took the gearbox off and striped it (against the label saying don't ) I put the spring back in place and plugged the motor back in and it went through the motions ok and then I suddenly went ****** it will try to fill the tray now! It then proceeded to spray a trays worth of water over the kitchen floor! oops. When I put it all back together it worked ok but only once I then realised all the condensation that had formed on it whilst I was tinkering had frozen it all up. So out again let it all dry properly and put it back. Still working now and almost a full bucket of ice in it.

I've rescued a laptop from a skip it needed about £45 quid of parts as the screen had been broken when chucked in the skip but it works fine to run the diag software for my car.

Fixed a couple of laptops with the baking in the oven method but after further research it seems it is not the solder that is the problem but the chips ( usually graphics)At best it is a tempfix and both machines that I have done this on eventually died again in a similar way. Although they did both get at lest another year out of them.

 

A mate hardly ever chucks anything out but his dad is worse. they have about 13 pedal bikes hinging from the garage ceiling,  they only ride motor cycles lol

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Just stripped the engine on a Honda CRF 250, which had locked up. It had just had new big end, main bearings and camshaft according to the lad - less than an hours running.

It had actually dropped an inlet valve. I could only find one of the two valve collets, so I assume this caused the valve problem. It has trashed the head, barrel, piston and snapped the conrod - an uneconomic repair.

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Back in another lifetime when I was a mechanic, it always amazed me just how much damage a small piece of metal can do inside an engine. Another thing that always surprised me was water getting sucked into an engine, the damage was usually instant and massive. 

One massive lesson that I learned from my years working in garages, was ,never buy a landrover 😆

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4 minutes ago, mel b3 said:

Back in another lifetime when I was a mechanic, it always amazed me just how much damage a small piece of metal can do inside an engine. Another thing that always surprised me was water getting sucked into an engine, the damage was usually instant and massive. 

One massive lesson that I learned from my years working in garages, was ,never buy a landrover 😆

One massive lesson that I learned from my years working in garages, was ,never buy a landrover 😆                                                                                                                                                                Wash your mouth out. :lol::lol:

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7 hours ago, la bala said:

One massive lesson that I learned from my years working in garages, was ,never buy a landrover 😆                                                                                                                                                                Wash your mouth out. 

We had several customers that owned landrovers, their bills were so big(compared to everything else)that I used to get embarrassed when they came to pay. I would actually love to own a landrover,I think that they're fantastic ,and one of the coolest things on the road,and one of the best machines off road ,the problem is that they're just always broken.

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1 hour ago, mel b3 said:

We had several customers that owned landrovers, their bills were so big(compared to everything else)that I used to get embarrassed when they came to pay. I would actually love to own a landrover,I think that they're fantastic ,and one of the coolest things on the road,and one of the best machines off road ,the problem is that they're just always broken.

That's a fair assessment. 

I used to have a landrover. taught me loads about mechanics. I spent more time under the bloody thing than I did in the cab. 

Their popularity is just romance. They fall to bits, are badly put together and they aren't any better off road than most other 4x4's

I bought a Hilux after that. I've changed the oil, filters etc every 6000 miles (interval is much longer 6000 is habit for me.) and the brakes once in over 80,000 miles. It's more comfortable, Better on fuel, doesn't lose oil from every part of the engine, and is just as good off road. 

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