What have you done to your car today?

Man of Honour
Joined
13 Nov 2009
Posts
11,596
Location
Northampton
Well yeah but they're the same thing. Different bumpers and tail lights. I thought he was close enough for a ding!

Helping a friend learn to drive. It's stupid cheap to insure and 300 quid with a years ticket. :p

The most useful thing you can do to help the friend learn to drive is point them towards a professional :p
 
Soldato
Joined
29 May 2010
Posts
4,731
Location
Tampa, Florida
Put some left over sound deadening in the doors, was actually a very easy job on this car.

Also found an exact replica of my car in little scale model form but it had black wheels, so I painted them silver :D
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
18,299
Fixed the reverse camera, when I got the car the picture had a hazy line across the middle. Tried to do a quick polish job but it made it worse, the entire picture was then hazy and it was totally useless. Just lived with it, couldn't be bothered to ship a camera from Japan so lived with it. Took it off the car today and tried polishing it for a long time with a few different compounds, had no effect so thought had nothing to lose by sanding it. Must be a hard plastic because even after I punished it with P800 for a couple of mins it hadn't even turned hazy. Anyway, 1500 then G3 had it looking better, and back in the car the picture is now perfect. Happy with that result.

As an aside, I had wondered if the cameras were modular, and they are. Actual camera separates from the bracket, and looks like any camera from other Toyota/Lexus models could fit the Mark X bracket. Toyota don't sell the camera alone, only the car specific camera assembly. They are pretty pricey for new ones too, so good to know that a normal headlight restoration procedure can bring it back to good. I was worried the sanding would distort the optics but it doesn't seem to have had any effect.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 May 2004
Posts
5,998
Location
Fareham
I also hopefully fixed a reverse camera related issue on my car today. As I mentioned previously, my reverse camera is a retrofit kit that I fitted with wire taps:

Had an interesting issue last night where after I'd been driving for 5 minutes the central display and instrument cluster flashed up a "lighting system malfunction" warning then went away after a few seconds. It did it a few more times before I got home.

When the new cable arrives I'll have to check out the wiring for the parking camera module as either the module is dead or there's something dodgy with the wiring which is entirely possible as I did only use wire taps on it. I'll first try soldering the connections and if the problem persists, I'll have to get the module swapped out.

I replaced the cable that I destroyed from the head unit to the display so now I have working iDrive again. I also removed all the wire taps and soldered the reverse camera module wires in place and put it all back together. No more errors for now, so hopefully it was just something relating to the wiring. Otherwise I'll be swapping out the reverse camera module.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Apr 2010
Posts
2,848
Location
Midlands
Quick wash on the Merc today. Standard alloys first then two bucket wash affair, with a chamois after. Would love to use snow foam etc but I don't have an outside tap to put a pressure washer with. :(
 
Associate
Joined
25 Sep 2007
Posts
753
Location
Scotland
Major service for the golf and a new/refurbished abs pump fitted. £850 lighter :p .

Next on my list soon will be a new exhaust system to replace the custom one that came with the car. Will probably get a miltek resonated to reduce/eliminate motorway drone!
 
Caporegime
Joined
29 Jul 2011
Posts
36,380
Location
In acme's chair.
Got a ride in one of those a couple of weeks back in Malaysia, out of your description I think I'd only agree with the slow and basic :p

3 cylinder engine screaming at 8000RPM sounds great :p Its miniascule stature is amusing, I can touch the passenger window without even stretching. Just when sitting bolt upright in my seat.

Anyone recommend a decent Daihatsu forum? I know a few people in here have JDM nuggets. Or did have... Daihatsu-Drivers-UK seems a bit quiet.
 
Soldato
Joined
12 Mar 2008
Posts
22,917
Location
West sussex
3 cylinder engine screaming at 8000RPM sounds great :p Its miniascule stature is amusing, I can touch the passenger window without even stretching. Just when sitting bolt upright in my seat.

Anyone recommend a decent Daihatsu forum? I know a few people in here have JDM nuggets. Or did have... Daihatsu-Drivers-UK seems a bit quiet.

it's not MCM your grandads machine is not a "JDM Nugget" it's just a nugget.
 
Caporegime
Joined
29 Jul 2011
Posts
36,380
Location
In acme's chair.
Fiddled with the nippa. The airbox/intake design looked incredibly restrictive... So... Well I took it off and improvised something. :p

Before (not my car but I didn't take a before pic)

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After (hashtag nofilter...)

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Which then left me with the crankcase breather which goes into the airbox, so I re-purposed a hand-soap bottle as a catch can...

10Vcggnh.jpg

You may laugh, shake your heads, even facepalm... But it has made a very noticable difference, and with such a slow car it is easy to tell the difference between a real improvement and placebo effect. It picked up a full 5MPH on its comfortably reachable top speed, and it revs much more freely. :p

No, really! :p

Went out in the Ovlov afterwards and my God it feels fast after driving the Nippa around... I also stalled it twice before I moved off because the clutch in the nippa is like a feather.
 
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