What did you do to your van today?

marchie said:
...... I have a full box of sockets, ratchets etc (with an ancient bit of carpet copydexed underneath c. 30 years ago). The socket set is just shoved into the driver's seat tray (elektroblok on passenger side), and has travelled like that for almost 17000 miles without moving,........

Steve
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Trouble is, as you put the sockets in there 30 years ago, the world has gone metric and your Whitworth sockets and most of your A/F sockets won't fit anything now. 🤔
 
gasgas said:
Trouble is, as you put the sockets in there 30 years ago, the world has gone metric and your Whitworth sockets and most of your A/F sockets won't fit anything now. 🤔
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If those Whitworth & A/F sockets are going spare I will gladly take them !!
Just fell heir to my dad's Morris Minor & I will need to collect all those long forgotten tools.
 
What did I do today? Went outside to move the newold van, and there were no volts in the battery. Someone has nicked all the volts over the last two days. So on with the charger, and after a bit of charge I found a current drain of 340mA. Now what I wonder is drinking to excess? I reckon it will be the alarm. I systematically disconnected each of the battery wires in turn till the current drain stopped and followed the draining wire as best I could. There were two of those alarm sirens under the bonnet so I started by hacking them off. I followed the wires through the bulkhead into the dashboard innards, systematically chopping all alarm connected wires as I went. Finally with pretty well all the dashboard apart I found the actual alarm box. It was quite different to the cheap ones which were usually part of the siren. This one has two multi pin sockets. I prized it apart and it's got more microprocessors in there than NASA. I think. I disconnected it and the current drain from the engine battery was now gone. However, although the dashboard lights came on, the engine wouldn't start - no volts to the solenoid. I reconnected one of the multi pin plugs on the alarm box and the engine started just fine. With the engine stopped, I re-measured the ambient current drain which had now dropped to zero. So it looks as if that alarm box also includes an immobiliser. I'll have to find which two wires are connected inside it, and short them on the outside. Or find out where this fat wiring loom from the alarm box, with about 25 wires in it, goes to and do some re-jointing there.
 
Reiverlad said:
If those Whitworth & A/F sockets are going spare I will gladly take them !!
Just fell heir to my dad's Morris Minor & I will need to collect all those long forgotten tools.
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Where are you reiverlad? I've got a box of whitworths you can have. I'm at M1 J20.
 
Reiverlad said:
If those Whitworth & A/F sockets are going spare I will gladly take them !!
Just fell heir to my dad's Morris Minor & I will need to collect all those long forgotten tools.
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I can't remember the last time I picked up an imperial spanner or socket other than by mistake.

I find it confusing how Americans seem to be able to instantly work out that two sizes below a 1/2" socket is a 7/16" and one above is a 17/32" but apparently cannot get their heads round a Metric system that generally involves simply removing or adding 1 to the previous size?
 
And of course 7/16 is the same as 11mm. And I think from memory that 3/4 and 17mm are interchangeable. As for Whitworth, they are just ridiculous with no common sense to them. 1/2 Whitworth is what? 3/4 inch? where's the logic?
 
marchie said:
They were (and still are) metric sockets

Steve
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Have you worked out what sizes you actually need in 99% of cases?
I found works out to 8mm, 10mm, 13mm and 17mm.

If wanting to reduce the size of the toolkit as much as possible, a set like this can be handy .... https://amzn.to/4d0v0K1
2 physical spanners but 8 sizes covered (y)
 
oppy said:
We've driven our tin tent over to France today and are now sat in front of a roaring fire, drinking wine and really suffering !!!, although I've developed a dose of the squits, ah well, se la vie
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Screenshot_20240418_222437_Facebook.jpg
 
gasgas said:
Where are you reiverlad? I've got a box of whitworths you can have. I'm at M1 J20.
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You lot and your modern Whitworths. 🙄

I've still got a few spanners given to me by an old boy who originally sailed on proper ships with masts. With carefully placed washers they used to be made to fit anything. 🤣

My modern socket set came from "House of Holland" using 'Green Shield Stamps', although I must admit that I bought a cheap torque wrench about 15 years ago.
 
wildebus said:
Have you worked out what sizes you actually need in 99% of cases?
I found works out to 8mm, 10mm, 13mm and 17mm.

If wanting to reduce the size of the toolkit as much as possible, a set like this can be handy .... https://amzn.to/4d0v0K1
2 physical spanners but 8 sizes covered (y)
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When I bought the original sockets round about 1978, I also bought a reasonable quality set of ring spanners, that offered 8&9mm, 10&11mm etc (left most of them in France so must retrieve them!). I subsequently bought a pair of 13mm combination spanners for the trailer load bars for the bike bars, where I had to make custom security plates and longer bolts to make the clamps close safely, so 2 sets of fittings.

And I have at least 2 x 19mm sockets (broke a couple!) for tightening up the wall plates that hold the then new oak floor joists in what the English Estate Agents laughingly described as 'the Barn'. Again, the wall plates were not big enough for the 7 inch square beams, so had to cut, chisel and drill rebates for 7 bolts each side for the 14 beams. Took forever! The result of all this is that I have various combinations of spanners and sockets, split between France and Scotland, and sundry duplicates for when the required spanner or socket is in France and I'm in Scotland (or vice versa)

Steve
 
Today:
I washed my van.
It was quite easy really, I just sat indoors and read a camper magazine and let the rain do the job.
Next. I'll have to stir myself and make a cup of tea. Oh this retired life is hard, innit?

In reality I will have to spend the rest of the day working out how to disable the remains of the alarm immobiliser wiring that was draining the battery, whilst still enabling the engine to start. Yesterday after 6 hours of work dismantling the whole dashboard I found the blighter and removed it. then the dashboard lights would come on but the ign key wouldn't send 12v to the starter solenoid. I discovered that if I reconnected one of the 18 pin plugs to the immobiliser the engine would start. So that means there is a circuit inside the immobiliser to join two of the 18 pins so today's task is to find out which two, trace the immobiliser wiring back to the main chassis loom and reconnect wires that were diverted to the immobliser.
There's a label on the two cab doors which reads "Warning. Sophisticated alarm system installed". They are not joking, the wiring loom for this alarm immobiliser is no less than an inch thick. I haven't even counted the number of wires in it.
 
Put fridge on 230v yesterday, down to -2°c it was +9°c at first.

I put it on gas to see if it maintains it overnight.
 
wildebus said:
I can't remember the last time I picked up an imperial spanner or socket other than by mistake.

I find it confusing how Americans seem to be able to instantly work out that two sizes below a 1/2" socket is a 7/16" and one above is a 17/32" but apparently cannot get their heads round a Metric system that generally involves simply removing or adding 1 to the previous size?
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And they measure weight by the pound even the weight of a bridge, and they can't spell for toffee.

They make it all easy to do for their tiny brains by using an adjustable anyway, rounding off their nuts :) :) to keep the MIG in use.
 
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