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** 26/02/23 Heading Up ** Probably how not to restore a Herald!


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Just realised that the photos aren’t showing on my I-Pad, not sure why as they were visible when I posted on my laptop.

Will have to have a look in a moment.

It was a definite eureka moment when I worked out the torch was faulty, and it wasn’t that I was too dim to operate a welder.

Welder is a Clarke 150 EN Turbo, so a well known make with a good track record, but mine must have been a Friday afternoon special.

Karl

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23 minutes ago, Badwolf said:

Karl - Can't believe that you managed to get any welding done at all with a dodgy welding torch. Glad you've sorted it out and hope that you don't have to re-do to much of your work. What brand is it, so we can keep away or at least check the assembly if buying one. Not sure what has happened to your photos. On my tablet, only the URLs are showing, not the pictures. I will check with my PC tomorrow. Keep up the good work, you are doing better than me. Regards BW,

Same with me , no pics visible 

Paul 

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Did wonder whether this was an issue with the new forum software release, as being an ex IT Change manager, the finger of suspicion will always point at the last code or setting change for me.

Either way, I have managed to get the images to load by utilising a direct link, rather than the usual forum URL.

Thanks

Karl

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Apparently it's not just previous Triumph owners who can bodge repairs, as I rediscovered this week after Mrs B highlighted a wet patch of plasterboard in the downstairs loo, not down to poor aim on my part!

My heart sank at this news, as although our house is only 5 years old, it has suffered a litany of woes, many of them plumbing related, and this news almost certainly signalled the end of my plans for the weekend.

I wasn't wrong either, as Bovis, in their ultimate wisdom, chose to fully box in the toilet cisterns, and associated pipework behind the toilet, with no access for maintenance, cue cutting out of much plasterboard to reveal this.

RDRyS5.jpg

Last time I checked, and I appreciate that I am not a plumber, but gaffer tape wasn't a recommended way to repair a leaking soil pipe.

This was done before we moved in 5 and a half years, so was done as part of Bovis' rectification work prior to us taking ownership.

To add further to insult to injury, I had to use an angle grinder to remove the screws that held the pan to the floor as they were both bent in an attempt to get them in the misaligned holes, which then required re-drilling in the correct place. 

Of course that meant drilling holes in the tile floor, which none of my existing drills could handle, and thus lead to the purchase on a very expensive, (£18), Erbauer tile drill, which made short work of the holes.

Would definitely recommend one of these for the toolkit. Looks like it would work on spot welds as well!

All of which took up the bulk of the weekend, and lead to me getting absolutely nothing done on the car whatsoever. Thank you Bovis, said no one ever.

So more whinge than update I'm afraid this week.

Karl

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  • Bordfunker changed the title to **13/09/20 Bloody Plumbing! ** Probably how not to restore a Herald!

Ouch!

My other half bought a late-90s semi just about the time we met. She and her son lived there for a few years before we moved here, with no apparent plumbing problems. Because of how things worked out, we decided to rent out that semi instead of selling. The young couple with two small kids that moved in noticed a damp patch developing on the kitchen ceiling. When we investigated, we discovered that the bath drain had a hole and the previous owners had "fixed" this by placing a foil pie tray underneath it to catch the drips, then reinstalled the bath side panel to hide the bodge. Presumably with only two people having one shower each per day it evaporated faster than it collected but with a family of four...

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Right.......... our house in stevenage.

Left by the previous owner

Gas pipe to the greenhouse in plastic push fit !!! Found when we got home after our first holiday to the smell of gas in the kitchen.

Bathroom with a light fitting balanced on a false ceiling with enough cable to go into the bath!!!

A boiler that took 20 times to light cause it kept going out.

The roof was new but not paid for, council tax not paid. His daughters house secured on the house he did not cover when she defaulted , he moved to spain. Left us to sort the mess out. Yes nothing to do with us but we had to deal with it.

Still in norfolk now, much better

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Luckily you found it in time! We found out the hard way, when darling daughter had a bath and the waste pipe under the bath disconnected. Nothing like a room full of soaking wet plasterboard to cheer you up in the morning... The pipes have all been replaced, the insulation goes on tomorrow and the plasterboard before the weekend, once I've rewired the ceiling light. After that, plaster and paint and we're back where we started.

A4E56DF4-9411-4880-A53F-2B995C32FB8F_1_105_c.jpg.d2d31e8582db208b5dd66e2355f6f11a.jpg 

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our elderly next door came round in wet slippers  and said ive got water in the kitchen, dash round and 

water  YES  Niagra falls the loo cistern upstairs ball valve had failed to full flow and the overflow went out on the floor   the bathroom under 2" which rushed down the stairs on opening the door dont know how long this had been running but a long time .

so kitchen cupboards all blown ceiling down water pouring out the lights and power sockets 

called her son and left them too it 

he had installed the loo. 

pete

 

 

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11 hours ago, Colin Lindsay said:

the waste pipe under the bath disconnected.

Doesn’t sound like her fault, who connected it in the first place, Colin?😆 My daughter on the other hand started to run a bath and forgot about it 😡

Right through the floor and pouring onto the GT6 in the garage below.

”It’s only a little bit and anyway your car shouldn’t leak”👩‍🦳

Got away with the ceiling, but bathroom carpet had to go. Don’t know why the builder put carpet in a bathroom, bound to happen.

Doug

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1 hour ago, dougbgt6 said:

Doesn’t sound like her fault, who connected it in the first place, Colin?😆 

You mean who DIDN'T connect it? It was actually the overflow pipe, it had come away behind the bath and I can blame that on the previous owners; however we'd used it for some time and I reckon darling daughter likes a much deeper bath than the rest of us, so instead of a slight overflow we had gallons... however it worked out very well as once I saw where the pipes were routed, from below, I was able to move the entire bathroom round and fit a bigger shower and more modern bath, so she's forgiven.

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Thanks all, good to know I am not alone in suffering bodges in the house as well as in the garage where I’ve come to expect them.

The sad part for me is that this a new house, and we are the first people to live in it, so all ‘bodges’ are the work of so called ‘professional’ trades people!

As our house is on an estate that is still growing, Mrs B put up some pics on the estate Facebook page, and tagged Bovis Homes!

She had a phone call this afternoon from you know who offering to cover some of the repair costs. I do love Mrs B’s evil side sometimes.

From the comments we received from other residents, it appears this level of bodgery is not unusual.

I do hope any prospective buyers check the Facebook page before putting down a deposit.

Karl

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12 hours ago, Bordfunker said:

The sad part for me is that this a new house, and we are the first people to live in it, so all ‘bodges’ are the work of so called ‘professional’ trades people!

It was ever thus. I've had 3 new houses in my time and everyone had jaw dropping cock ups by the "tradesmen". This house, door frame 1" further forward on one side than the other. Can't be fixed without taking the staircase out and reinstalling it. The plumber used so much flux constructing the central heating that it rotted the hot water tank which sprung a leak after 18 months. 9 tanks replaced down my street alone. The tiler didn't use the proper grout in the on-suite shower, tiles and plaster board fell of the wall after a year.

To add insult to injury the builder quickly discovered his most incompetent workman and he became the "fixer", one visit and you don't ask him back. 

"This drain pipe is on the wrong side of the house, it's just emptying onto the grass" 

"No that's how it's supposed to be"

"So what's this empty pipe in the ground on the other side of the house?"

"Dunno"

"It's the soak away, move the down pipe!" :angry:

Doug

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  • 2 weeks later...

It's been a fortnight since my last update, and after the weekend of plumbing, the following weekend was spent doing more DIY, just this time in the garage.

Like most of us, I struggle with enclosed storage space in the garage, as grinding out all the rust on the Herald, creates a load of dust and crud which gets everywhere.

So, when Mrs B alerted me to an old kitchen base unit and wall cupboards being offered for free on our local market place, I was all over it.

It got even better when we turned up to collect it, as it came with a couple of metres of old melamine worktop as well.

So, despite best intentions, last weekend was spent fitting all of this, and filling it with all of my stuff, most of which needed cleaning first.

yZp2EF.jpg

uHjWSN.jpg

Note orderly storage of spanners, which just needs me to write the sizes under each hook for ease of location.

All of which freed up space on the shelves, for my various tool boxes which had previously been scattered around the garage.

LJvIqG.jpg

Note little chest of draws which was another score on the local Facebook market page, and which is now full of various sized washers and screws from the car.

So that was last weekend, nothing done on the car, but storage sorted, and as part of the fitting of the cupboards, I ended up with a new cordless drill/driver! Result!

This weekend was a bust in terms of Saturday as I was busy decorating, but after walking the dogs, and mowing the lawn, hopefully for the last time this year, it was time to hit the garage for a few hours on Sunday.

Again I spent the first couple of hours doing more tidying up as I needed to move the compressor so that it was accessible.

This tidying up lark takes forever!

First job was to cut out my previous attempts at repairing the lower front of the arch with a combination of angle grinder and air powered die cutter, and to fabricate a repair section.

Now, I did make a start on this one night last week, cutting out, and forming a rough patch, but this needed a lot of finessing as this is a complex shape to replicate.

An hour of hammering with a variety of hammers and dollies, as well as grinding and filing left me with this.

pP3UM2.jpg

I know it doesn't look that impressive, and ignore the rough edge of the flange, this will get cleaned up when the arch repair goes on, as well as cutting the top section down to size, but it fits nicely, and it's generally the right shape, more later.

jRi1et.jpg

A bit blurry, but it illustrates the curves inherent in this patch.

But it's missing one curve, the one that matches the curve of the arch, see the black line in the pic below.

eFbR5F.jpg

The black line is where the arch lip sits, so next step will be to cut a series of slits in the flange, bending each one to create a series of flaps which form a curve. I can then weld the flaps into one continuous profile, which matches that on the arch edge.

By the time I'd got to this point, it was too late to consider welding, so I took the grinder to the base of the B-pillar, as I knew it was hiding a multitude of horrors, and I wasn't disappointed.

v3hlEq.jpg

Flaky!

lLUlR2.jpg

Ground back carefully, the mounting bracket is in fine nick, pity the same can't be said for the bottom of the B-pillar, which is decidedly crusty.

G9sQSS.jpg

xeCPJZ.jpg

More investigation will be required next week to work out what needs replacing, and how I'm going to go about doing it.

But at least I now have a nice clean, and well organised garage in which to work on the car.

Karl

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  • Bordfunker changed the title to **28/09/20 Tidy Time ** Probably how not to restore a Herald!

Poor harmless spiders my arse!

We’re loused out with False Widows here, and they are not nice!

I’m not generally bothered by spiders, but False Widows I just don’t like.

Tony, as for being able to find stuff, I did actually box a whole load of parts and spares up, but rather cunningly have attached a list of contents to each box!

I even managed to find tools that I’d forgotten I had!

Karl

  • Haha 1
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1 hour ago, poppyman said:

The day after spraying it your garage floor will be covered in dead creepy things, and carries on for about 12 months.

Tony. 

I can confirm that it works, it actually knocks the spiders down immediately. No idea what the chemical is but they just drop to the floor, tatey bread. My biggest problem is large flies, I think it's the LED lights in the garage are too sun-like and if I work with the doors open in daylight they swarm in, cover the roof light windows in their hundreds, then drop off all over the floor and have to be hoovered up. And no, the spiders don't eat them...

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2 hours ago, Colin Lindsay said:

I can confirm that it works, it actually knocks the spiders down immediately. No idea what the chemical is but they just drop to the floor, tatey bread. My biggest problem is large flies, I think it's the LED lights in the garage are too sun-like and if I work with the doors open in daylight they swarm in, cover the roof light windows in their hundreds, then drop off all over the floor and have to be hoovered up. And no, the spiders don't eat them...

Do your local farmers use chicken sh*t on the fields Colin, we get those damn things but only for a couple of weeks after muck spreading......

Tony.

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1 minute ago, poppyman said:

Do your local farmers use chicken sh*t on the fields Colin, we get those damn things but only for a couple of weeks after muck spreading......

Tony.

Funny you should mention that, we're surrounded by fields on three sides and they were out spraying last week, my garage then being inundated with flies on Saturday... the connection never occurred to me. Wonder why they swarm into the garage but never the house?

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14 hours ago, Colin Lindsay said:

Funny you should mention that, we're surrounded by fields on three sides and they were out spraying last week, my garage then being inundated with flies on Saturday... the connection never occurred to me. Wonder why they swarm into the garage but never the house?

I can only think it's the bigger doors Colin?

Tony.

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