What have you fixed lately?

[rhyds]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Bingo! Yep, exacerbated by the front half being from a Janspeed system and the back half a pattern part. and the pipe diameters aren't a good match.



Needs to hold for the MOT shortly. I'll be replacing the entire system with a stainless steel Viper performance unit with a de-cat pipe. Cat'll go on the shelf to be refitted when an MOT is due.

Sounds like a plan. I remember the fun I had of trying to get a £20 partco silencer to fit my 111i without blowing. I don't think I actually ever managed it.

[Taf]

Originally Posted by richard s

One good tip I have discovered is to use silicon spray on the solar panel, this keeps it clean, algae free and more water resistant.

I gave all mine a shot of WD40 before I installed them. The trouble is even the legs of the LEDs rusted.

[Osem]

New filters and rubber washers fitted to our 3 and 12 cup Bialetti stove top coffee makers. Cleaning off all the perished rubber from the old seals and stubborn calcium deposits was the hardest bit.

[dilli-theclaw]

Originally Posted by Osem

You fixed one?? What was wrong with it?

It turned out to just need formatting.

But the donor still didn't want it back so I'm up one phone. The accessibility is definitely getting better, not sure if it's worth giving up my iPhone for though which works much better for me (with regards a decent full screen magnifier and screen reader)

[Osem]

Well done that man! I love fixes like that. I reckons loads of perfectly usable stuff is chucked away simply because people don't check for simple faults.

[dilli-theclaw]

Originally Posted by Osem

Well done that man! I love fixes like that. I reckons loads of perfectly usable stuff is chucked away simply because people don't check for simple faults.

MMMmmm If it stays fixed.

It keeps skipping while I'm trying to play audio (music or book) on my Bluetooth headset.

I'll have to dig deeper when I've got more time but I suspect I'll be putting my sim back in the iPhone later

[Osem]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Central locking on the drivers side.

Attachment 25373

The units (made by Rockwell) play up every few years and it's usually muck on the commutator of the small electric motor inside. Not this time though - the spring on one of the brushes had broken at one end and the brush had fallen out. Bit of careful fettling of the remains and the motor now runs fine.

Gave it a shot of engineers' magic spray to keep it happy and refitted.

Fixing them takes no time at all but taking off and refitting the door furniture and card takes ages.

Odd you should mention that. For the last few years, the driver's side door lock on my car has been getting a bit hesitant during the cold weather and not opening/locking properly when the key has been turned. Until recently a few squirts of WD40 have sorted it out but even though it's now much warmer out, the door will no longer double lock on the second turn of the key and sometimes when I unlock the car the alarm sounds.



Anyway I've just fixed the leaking flexible connection running to the basin cold tap in our downstairs bathroom. It's obviously been leaking for ages because there was all sorts of calcium deposits built up on the hose, the connections and the copper supply pipe. Luckily the built in isolating valve I put in years ago still works so I didn't have to turn all the water off while I fiddled with it. A good soak in vinegar and a new washer seem to have done the trick but I'll be keeping an eye out for any leaks over the next few days. Good job I had one of those basin spanners...

[Osem]

Our washing machine I hope. Woke up this morning to find it hadn't drained. Did a manual drain and cleared a load of crud from the pump but it still wouldn't drain even though the impeller was working fine.

I'd already cleared the inlet so reckoned that a blockage in the pump outlet/hose might be to blame. I put the machine on its back and found the pump is readily accessible from underneath and without taking the top, control fascia and entire front panel off - what joy!!!. It's actually a two part pump and the main electrical gubbins part can be twisted off leaving the drain housing and pipework intact. I couldn't see/feel any more crud in the housing so figured the flexible drain hose might be blocked. After disconnecting it from the drain housing I was able to pass it out of the back of the machine into a large bucket. It was then just a matter of connecting my garden hose to the other end and turning on the water. I was amazed at how much smelly grey compacted slime came out - it was like a corrugated 8" turd

Anyway rather than put everything back first, I reassembled everything, filled her up and the machined drained beautifully with no leaks apparent. The washing's on now as a test run to make sure everything works properly but the signs are good so far, touching wood...



The good news is that I now know how to replace the pump if that ever packs up. It ought to be a very simple job.

[Osem]

Update - first wash complete and the machine purred all the way with no leaks visible. Clearly it'd been struggling for some time without us realising (we do the washing at night)so I'm hoping this job will give it a new lease of life.

[broadbandking]

I wouldn't say fixed but I installed the second smoke alarm as my wife had been nagging me for ages to do.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by broadbandking

I wouldn't say fixed but I installed the second smoke alarm as my wife had been nagging me for ages to do.

Not a fix but a potential lifesaver.

[Stuart]

I am in the process of gradually updating the system we use for students and staff to book equipment out. Finally managed to get a page (where each user can look at their own history of what they booked) working without taking 5 minutes to load. The reason it took a long time is that some users have a lot of bookings, and each booking generates lookups on 4 database tables, so refreshing the page *can* generate over 1,000 lookups.

Managed to get it to limit the number of bookings displayed at any one time by filtering the data by month, with an option to go to the previous month or next month.

Although the annoying thing is that the page works fine on the IIS server running on my own machine. However, we have a legitimate test site to use for development and testing, so I'd copied it to this, and went to look at it on the web browser. Nothing. No errors, just a blank page. Did View Source, got nothing. This is despite turning on the PHP error display and getting it to display all errors, notices and warnings.

The most annoying part is that if I connect to the server and run the php script that contains the page on the command line, it works fine.

[progers]

DVD Player, tripping the mains; two electrolytics on the power board leaking well, replaced and all OK

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Stuart

I am in the process of gradually updating the system we use for students and staff to book equipment out. Finally managed to get a page (where each user can look at their own history of what they booked) working without taking 5 minutes to load. The reason it took a long time is that some users have a lot of bookings, and each booking generates lookups on 4 database tables, so refreshing the page *can* generate over 1,000 lookups.

Managed to get it to limit the number of bookings displayed at any one time by filtering the data by month, with an option to go to the previous month or next month.

Although the annoying thing is that the page works fine on the IIS server running on my own machine. However, we have a legitimate test site to use for development and testing, so I'd copied it to this, and went to look at it on the web browser. Nothing. No errors, just a blank page. Did View Source, got nothing. This is despite turning on the PHP error display and getting it to display all errors, notices and warnings.

The most annoying part is that if I connect to the server and run the php script that contains the page on the command line, it works fine.

Sorted that. I'd written a function to sort the data that was causing errors on the server.

[TheDaddy]

I fixed six smashed door that'd had the locks crowbared or were pulled of their hinges, I was quite happy, I hate D I Y