qwakers

did some more fiddling with the lorry. 2 minor irritations that i wanted to solve. 1st the rear roller door is sticky, and can sometimes be hard to roll up past the first foot. 2nd the side door catches on the frame and jams. it can take quite some effort to open it sometimes. sorting the roller door was a little more involved than planned. i knew some of the rollers where worn out, some where flat spotted so badly they where D shaped. so first plan was to replace some of these. https://www.nationwide-trailer-parts.co.uk/products/2-inch-nylon-roller-2 nice and cheap whilst doing this i realised that the top fixtures (hold the top of the door, act as stops when at end of travel and hold the two last rollers where badly bent and holding the rollers at a angle, which means they where jamming. think being dragged behind a lorry on a chain and holding the car at full left lock... you WILL go straight, but there's a lot of effort involved :mrgreen: https://www.nationwide-trailer-parts.co.uk/collections/mobile-door-hinges-roller-holders/products/adjustable-top-fixture so i took them home, bent them straight and welded two triangles in the the sides so they cant bend again. last i decided to move the bottom wire anchors up a bit so the wires (go up to a spring at top) dont pull at such a angle. i did one at a time with the idea that the other side would hold whilst i did it. this worked well for one side, but as soon as i drilled the last rivet out of the right hand one, it snapped the cable on the opposite side and the spring sent the one i was working on straight up at quite some force. no harm done, but now i need to re string the doors. which i did re-tensioning the spring was fun, but there are manuals all over the interweb's for stuff like that, so that all done, i just had to do it 3 or 4 times to get the tension right. that done i needed to sort the side door out. this was pretty simple, i pulled the door out, trimmed the hole so it fit a bit easier, put it back in with new sealant, screwed up the hinge side then set the catch side so it had some clearance. job jobbed... a hour after dark.... hence the crappy picture.

14mpg if i sit on the limiter on the motorway, 16mpg at 50. 22 mpg if you stick to 40 everywhere. not worth it lol.

a full year of updates

its a different car blew the laguna up in febuary. went looking for a cheap replacement and found the astra at auction, 1 owner from new (cornwall fire and rescue) and only slight damage..... soon fixed it up. its a good car, lots of toys, a bit smaller than the laguna but still big enough...

ok guys, thats up to date.

Modified bolts fitted. Used a circlip groove rather than a hole to make the pin stronger.

got a break on the oil too..... was perusing facebook on friday evening and this popped up on the feed. 15w40 is one of the correct oil weights, its cummins spec (my engine is a cummins) and its £30 for 20l.... ended up using 15l of it, so plenty left over for topups. talk about lucky. saved me a fair few quid.

Engine service done, all filters changed, and stainless pins fitted

2 fuel filters, a oil filter, adblue filter, air dryer cartridge and cabin filter... Not a bad way to spend £80.. Same day delivery and cheaper than at the local hgv factors AND online. Win win

people (not on here so much) moan about the cost of servicing their cars.... well for a bit of perspective... the filters alone (not including the main air filter which is £60 and Not included here as I've changed it recently) cost the thick end of £80. plus, it takes 11 litres of 75w80 gear oil plus another 10l of 75w90 gear oil plus 13l of engine oil. (10w40) for engine oil i use shell helix hx7 in everything and it so happens it takes the same grade of oil as the rx8 so that's ideal. £80.07 for 3x5l 75w80 i use triple qx mtf gl4 at £58.18 for 10l, I've already got 5l here. 75w90, same total price £53.98 that's £270.95 in oils and fluids alone... pricey, this lorrying lark!

one of the things i needed to do since brands was to replace the locking pins for the ramp. as it so happens to be the same size bar as the locking pins for the side guards, i decided to buy some stainless bar and do the lot. ramp pins spot the one that i bent wrong....... side guard pins, just need to finish drilling once ive got a decent drill bit...

It's not a bodge if it works... Gearbox fill plug was rounded off and I wanted to check the level... which I've never been able to do. The socket cost me £1.50 (cheapest I could get) and 30 secs welding it on resulted in this... A new plug costs £20 so it can stay like that

Lorry's much quieter now

Hmmm, I wonder why its blowing... Interesting point, the adblu system took 400 miles to figure out there was something wrong and put the eml on.

Happily parked up at brands watching netflix.. Voxi do unlimited data. I'm going to give that a good testing this week... Only one slight issue. Less than a hour from home the lorry decided it wanted to go from nice and quiet to open headers.... Exhaust now goes from turbo to a short length of pipe to atmosphere. Just a fyi..... I thought it would sound cool with no silencer on it. It doesn't. It's just annoyingly loud..

Called daf at 11am. Part ordered. Called me back at 12. Payment taken and address confirmed. 2pm delivered to the dealer from central stores. 4pm delivered to my house by a tech passing to a callout. Part cost me £25, delivery was free. Cant complain at that service. Always pays to make friends with the guy at the parts desk.

so among the above paint work I've been prepping it for the coming week and a half away. went through all fluids, bulbs, etc. got to the coolant.... oh dear.... taking the lid off released the vacuum leading to the lorry leaking all its coolant onto the floor somewhere in the region of the back of the engine.... after a lot of swearing and a quick cab tilt and general scrabble around I found the coolant pipe to the air compressor is split at the connector. must have trodden on it whilst fitting the air kit back on after painting... which sucks, but is better than the other options. hopefully i can get one from daf tomorrow.

This corner panel ended up covered in overspray as is was foolish enough to neglect covering it whilst painting the second batch. It's now been wiped down with thinners (big upside or 2k paint is it doesn't react with thinners once cured) polished and waxed. Big difference. The whole lorry cab will be looking like this... in a year or so...

last of the air deflector kit installed.

yesterday's efforts. primer top coat. just lacquer to do.

panels reattached. just need to wash it... lorry moved back to its normal parking place with its new hard standing so i dont get plastered in mud.,, next!!!

getting there

damn thats a nice colour...