What's made you smile today?

[The Panda Nut]

Try dishwasher solution, not the tablets.
Although a friend of mine used to specialise on buying Rover 400s with the common head gasket fault at the time and used to pop a few dish washer tablets in the coolant tank then run engine for a bit and flush out to get the oil out, it took a while, but I have used that method myself on a Doblo1.6 MJ where the oil cooler had leaked into the coolant system.
Of course with the original oil on drive issue I simply turn on my commercial steam cleaner.

The only way really, but you need to do the lot or you just have a clean stain on a dirty drive.... Got knobbled with this more than once when we were accused of a works vehicle staining a drive....

 

[PuntoHowTo]

The typical 4x4 owner in 2025

 

[StevenRB45]

Little bit of adventure..with the lads.

Chalk and cheese at present right down to the eldest being unable to stay awake in a car while the youngest doesn't seem to like them a huge amount.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Came across this today:



What an interesting piece of kit. Now I'm wondering how we ever managed to diagnose driveline vibrations on stuff like Morris Marina, Minor, Triumph Herald (boy did they ever have propshaft vibration problems) and others. The front ball joints are, I think, like the old Vauxhall ones. Held in with a circlip and a very VERY tight fit in the arm. He says the customer did the joints himself so I think it's very likely he's crushed the cap on the bottom of the new joint while trying to get it into the hole in the arm, which would pinch the ball. Almost certainly be cured with a couple of new ones correctly installed.

Interesting too to see he's using Topdon branded diagnostic gear. I really fancy one of their BT200 battery diagnostic testers.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Wife working long days this weekend so just me and the boy.

This basically means the weekend is a writeoff and I’m not going to get anything done that needs doing.

Friday night started off with a fish and chip supper, out of the paper which went down very nicely.

Yesterday a trip to the toy shop. £6 spent on some weird truck/dinosaur skeleton thing that you can put cars inside of, I dunno but he was pretty happy about it.

What made me laugh was the excellent business model of this ice cream van, parking right on the door step to the toy shop.

As you can imagine he was doing a roaring trade.

That afternoon the boy (now 3yo) finally sussed out how bike brakes work.

That’s on the balance bike I built him to look like Daddy’s because he wanted his bike to match mine.

Today was a long walk/balance bike around Eaton Park in Norwich it has a huge playground where many new friends were made.

We went for a ride on the model railway and we watched the boats in the boating lake. Then with his new found skill of using the brakes he managed to ride down a few hills without nearly breaking his neck, which he has done in the past.

He was completely knackered when we got home so he went off for an afternoon nap while I was given a couple of hours to finally finish the shed, I’ve been working on for what is now probably months.
The world’s most expensive “free” shed.

Still o can now finally move some of the crap out of the garage and start getting on with work on the Punto once more.

So all in all it’s been a really good weekend, better still I’m only working 3 days next week.

 

[bugsymike]

That afternoon the boy (now 3yo) finally sussed out how bike brakes work.
That’s on the balance bike I built him to look like Daddy’s because he wanted his bike to match mine.

Youngest grand daughter has just turned four and has progressed from balance bike to pedals and brakes but can't reach the brakes so my daughter is doing a lot of running, I did remind her I had to do that for her and her twin sister nearly 30 years ago.

 

[portland_bill]

Interesting too to see he's using Topdon branded diagnostic gear. I really fancy one of their BT200 battery diagnostic testers.

Go for it. Mine has proved very useful. Takes guesswork out of it. Nicely shows why the stop/start on the Fabia is lazy, until after quite a long run (OE battery 10 yrs old) and why the Doblo stop/start does not work at all. (OE battery, 8yrs old) Both batteries over specified, but both start the car without issues, both showing no more than 85% capacity. Same battery fits both.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Little bit of adventure..with the lads.

View attachment 464794

Chalk and cheese at present right down to the eldest being unable to stay awake in a car while the youngest doesn't seem to like them a huge amount.

My daughter - now grown up with her own kids - used to suffer terribly from travel sickness on long car journeys. Mrs J used to dose her up with Dramamine. Don't know how many tablets she used to feed her but she looked very similar to your boy in the rear view mirror. Doesn't seem to have harmed her at all though, she's now a very successful civil engineer.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

He was completely knackered when we got home so he went off for an afternoon nap while I was given a couple of hours to finally finish the shed, I’ve been working on for what is now probably months.
The world’s most expensive “free” shed.
View attachment 464903
Still o can now finally move some of the crap out of the garage and start getting on with work on the Punto once more.

So all in all it’s been a really good weekend, better still I’m only working 3 days next week.

Moving some crap out of the garage into the shed? I started off with a normal sized shed which got too small and was extended into a 10x8ft. This however proved to be too small for all my Imp stuff (garage was already so full of "stuff" I couldn't get a car in it any more) so I custom built a 10x8ft extension onto the side, thus doubling my storage space. Funny thing is that when I got over my obsession with Imps (only to replace it with a much worse Panda infection) and sold off my vast stockpile of Imp spares, the shed doesn't seem to have any spare room in it?

 

[StevenRB45]

My daughter - now grown up with her own kids - used to suffer terribly from travel sickness on long car journeys. Mrs J used to dose her up with Dramamine. Don't know how many tablets she used to feed her but she looked very similar to your boy in the rear view mirror. Doesn't seem to have harmed her at all though, she's now a very successful civil engineer.

Thankfully not that so far...we've had two "incidents" since the eldest was born both of which are relatively recent one in the Citroën about 18 months ago. Of course being an expert he vomited into a rear door via a speaker grille...the clean up for that was extensive .

He also christened the at that point beautifully valeted Toyota 2 weeks after it arrived but that was mainly into a bag...other than that we've actually been quite lucky so far.

Smallest one though may have been grumpy due to an error on my behalf, there was something off about the child seat (which some may remember I'd stripped back to the plastic and put back together as it all needed cleaning) when I came to use it. He didn't fit right.. eventually after poring over the tiny black and white pictures in the manual...watching about 2 hours of YouTube videos on Joie childseats and testing the definition of insanity by taking the seat apart and rebuilding it many times I discovered an adjustment tab had fallen inside and I'd then reupholstered over it.

It's now properly adjusted and he no longer sits in it like a bar of soap on a soap dish.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Thankfully not that so far...we've had two "incidents" since the eldest was born both of which are relatively recent one in the Citroën about 18 months ago. Of course being an expert he vomited into a rear door via a speaker grille...the clean up for that was extensive .

He also christened the at that point beautifully valeted Toyota 2 weeks after it arrived but that was mainly into a bag...other than that we've actually been quite lucky so far.

Smallest one though may have been grumpy due to an error on my behalf, there was something off about the child seat (which some may remember I'd stripped back to the plastic and put back together as it all needed cleaning) when I came to use it. He didn't fit right.. eventually after poring over the tiny black and white pictures in the manual...watching about 2 hours of YouTube videos on Joie childseats and testing the definition of insanity by taking the seat apart and rebuilding it many times I discovered an adjustment tab had fallen inside and I'd then reupholstered over it.

It's now properly adjusted and he no longer sits in it like a bar of soap on a soap dish.

Ooooh! you want to do "disgusting incidents" with children in cars? Get ready for this one.

We've done a lot of long distance journeys in the car with the kids right back to when they were really quite young with lots of "entertaining" incidents I could recount. However probably the "best/most revolting" was back in the 70's in Cyprus. Joy's sister's husband flew for Cyprus Airways and they lived in Cyprus - which was lovely for us as all we needed was the airfare to have a lovely holiday. Anyway, on this occasion we had borrowed one of his fellow captain's car - an Opel Cadet (like a mk1 viva) - to explore the west end of the island. We'd had a great day out and were returning along the quite decent south coast road towards Larnaca - this must have been just after their war - when there was a wail from the back seat from Mrs J. My young daughter had fallen asleep across her lap and my older boy (younger boy wasn't even being thought about yet) had fallen asleep on the floor under Mrs J's legs. Well, poor daughter had explosive diarrhea which had leaked everywhere, all over Mrs J's lap and was dripping down over my poor boy. It was awful! Luckily we were at a beach turnoff so I just parked up on the edge of the beach and they all plunged into the sea and took most of their clothes off. The kids ended up naked and Mrs J was down to just underclothes.

And the car? I hear you all say. That was quite lucky really. Being what it was it had "old school" plastic seating and rubber floor mats. The seat base came out with just a strong pull and the rubber floor mats lifted out easily. I took them all down to the sea and washed them. The mats were easy but the bench seat was a little more difficult in that I didn't want the stuffing to get wet. The plastic facing - which all day long we'd cursed in the heat because it didn't breath and, if left in direct sunlight, was too hot to sit on - was actually a blessing as it cleaned easily due to not being porous. Also we'd spread some beach towels on the seats to make them more comfortable and this caught some of the mess.

We sat on that beach for a while until everything had dried out in the heat and we were sure the bout of tummy problem was over and then drove back to the, very posh, apartment where Sister lived. It had a large lobby area which had a permanent concierge and several "posh" shops. Two naked children and a nubile younger Mrs J in just her underclothes, rushing across this open area to the lifts was talked about for years after!

Luckily, said concierge knew someone (almost certainly a relative) who valeted the car for us before we handed it back to my brother in law's friend. With some trepidation I did own up as to what had happened but he was ever so nice and didn't seem upset in the least - next time we went he had a different car!

 

[StevenRB45]

I wasn't going to lower the tone with poo-splosions..

When the C3 was 6 months old my son had exploded enough to fill his seat to the point it ran out and onto the rear seats. Strangely enough this was the day I discovered C3 seat covers are removable and washable in the washing machine.

This and a few none poo related incidents..i.e. my wife both knocking a mirror off it and then reversing it into a fence while sleep deprived before it's 1st birthday formed the idea in my mind that it was never going back to the finance company without getting some fairly massive charges for cleaning and damage repair and it was likely to keep happening.

This thought process then carried on to the Toyota..I could have got a very nice car (Leon Cupra Estate perhaps) if I'd used what the Toyota cost as a down payment and the monthly payment would have been reasonable. However you're always scared about what's going to happen to someone else's car.

Even yesterday it was parked up at somewhere reasonably nice and of course in the dust on the the side you could see a witness mark and trail from someone dragging a bag down the side then opening their door into it.

Very mildly annoying...if it was a brand new car my level of furious would have been off the scale. Although it wouldn't have been the first mark as I accidentally opened a front door into my wall 3rd day I had it..

 

[PuntoHowTo]

I used to get car sick quite a lot when was little, probably around a similar time to your kids jock, as I’ve grown up I always put it down to those horrific traffic light air fresheners they had in the 80s they were all the range and the sort of thing everyone would pick up in the petrol station I’m sure everyone knew about these


Edit: oh crap it seems like the still make the bloody things https://feuorange.net/

@steve, be warned about the sickness especially if your older boy has now swapped side, a friend of mine did the same thing having had a new baby about a month or two back and suddenly her little girl was being sick all the time, likely due to the change of position in the car

 

[StevenRB45]

@steve, be warned about the sickness especially if your older boy has now swapped side, a friend of mine did the same thing having had a new baby about a month or two back and suddenly her little girl was being sick all the time, likely due to the change of position in the car

Cheers for the heads up, I think we'll be ok as it's been in "Go" spec for about a month, i.e. baby seat on board hospital bag in the boot and he's not decorated the back of my head so far.

Although we do also have a selection of the blue emesis bags in each door pocket on board.

He seems to have a cast iron stomach in general, given he only slept in cars for a long time. The design of the car his heads well above the window line, the windows aren't tinted and he can see over my shoulder from his seat so plenty of line of sight, the lack of which is always what made me feel ill.

Always find it slightly odd when people go out of their way to block all line of sight out of the back of the car with dark tints and then window shades on top because they've got kids. I suppose it saves 30p a year on using the AC on sunny days...

 

[The Panda Nut]

My daughter - now grown up with her own kids - used to suffer terribly from travel sickness on long car journeys. Mrs J used to dose her up with Dramamine. Don't know how many tablets she used to feed her but she looked very similar to your boy in the rear view mirror. Doesn't seem to have harmed her at all though, she's now a very successful civil engineer.

My edest daughter also the sickest car traveller. I remember having to remove the back seat and the inertia reel from my BX by the side of the road once time to the endless amusement of the kind family who provided me bucket, water, disinfefctant rags,paper towels and cups of T. The seatbelt reel sat in a recess and it was full. Thanks to the locals kindness I saved it and a pile of cash. I usec to have a map book and we marked each place with a triangle and neat KCPH mark. Kath puked here. The wholemfamily got into the KCPH chant as we passed the dreaded spots. Really made travelling as bad form us as it was for her. Punch line here is that 2.5 litre ice cream boxes with a lid are worth their weight in gold.

 

[The Panda Nut]

I have decided to gamble £10 on an Italian Panda 319 workshop manual. It may be complete rubbish but might just be useful. More in due course.
Also on offer is ePER V84 which includes the Panda 319 Im wondering is this might have any value for not much more than £5.
Just had a look and its the same as the one we have on the forum so question answered by..... looking.