Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Kitchen and bathroom door latches.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

A colleagues scissors, got gummed up somehow, so a judicious dollop of shredder oil solved the problem.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Presumably you'll never get lost when you wear it now. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Thanks to lots of help from the usual suspects here, and AN Other, I've managed to fix our househild Freeview problems without having to get up on the roof! :D New loft aerial installed, working fine and all that remains is to cut off my broken roof aerial which is hanging on by its coaxial cable. My trusty Gardenia telescopic loppers ought to be long enough to do the trick.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Thanks - well if you need any technical advice you know where to come now... ;) :)

I always hated the roof aerial - big and unsightly and a magnet for dirty and noisy pigeons. Won't miss it one bit, just got to cut it free. Turns out that for us, a £55 on an aerial kit and some decent cable was money very well spent.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Reminds me of my old Fx602p. Bought it in the early 1980's and it finally gave up the ghost about 5 years ago. Pity I can't fix it but I can't bear to throw it away.

Just found this app though so maybe all isn't lost:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ge.uiq3.fx602p

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Fitted a new control thermostat and pump over run stat to our tired old Potterton Prima B gas central heating boiler, it's working now but still tripping the overheat stat occasionally.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Just upgraded a lady's Lap top, did the BIOS, Chipset, there were 130 updates for windows! all the other software updates as well. Many hours later... did get £50 for it though.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Lego plane and struggled to do so LOL and it said suitable for 8 years and over how stupid did I feel, but got there in the end :dunce: or what :confused:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Another watch strap - one of those pesky rubbery ones which always seem to perish and crack. This time it was the strap loop which broke. A little superglue and some black tape carefully applied did the trick.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Well I relocated my SHub, Asus RT-N66U Router & NAS drive to the hallway at the top of the stairs.

Now the Wi-Fi signal downstairs has jumped by 30meg, so instead of going through a wall and floor it just goes through the wooden floor.

I'm easy hitting 125meg over Wi-Fi:D

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2014/01/4.png

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

My age :LOL: and froze it ...

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

The old chap who is just around the corner from me.. His cold water storage tank in his loft was overflowing out of the pipe to his back garden. Had to fit a new ball valve.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I finally wallpapered the chimney breast wall in the living room. We bought the paper for it about 2 years ago. Same with the bedroom window-blinds, we bought them around the same time and fitted them on Tuesday.

I can't believe we're actually getting things done, be it little by little.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Replaced the tumble dryer vent cover. The slats cracked after 3 weeks of sub zero temperatures.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Blimey were do you live Siberia.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Sorry the whole forum is a bit grayed out/feint... Oh Michigan USA...


I do not know what is worst freezing parts of USA or drowning parts of UK.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Our badly sticking back door. My God it was a hard job opening it where the wood has swollen so much with all this wet weather. Haven't taken too much off as I'm hoping it'll dry out sometime before I reach pension age. :erm:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Well I've finally 'fixed' our household TV setup. We now have 2 newly installed Freeview HD recorders working perfectly (tough wood :erm: ) and Mrs Osem is suitably delighted. I seem to have ironed out the previous annoying reception issues with better quality coaxial cable and today ran new cable under the floor to feed our main TV in the lounge and the smaller set in the spare room.

I must say I'm very happy with the Freeview HD boxes, they're a vast improvement over what we had before.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Fixed a hanging basket that has a year-round display of sedums.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Just fixed one of Mrs Osem's watch straps. I'm on a roll... :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

There's something quite satisfying about being able to fix something that you know would cost you £s in the shops.

At the mo I'm doing loads of painting/repairing/gardening (when the weather is dry) as we are hoping to sell our house and downsize. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Too true - it's like a drug lol.

Best of luck with the DIY and house sale, we're not planning to move but there's loads to do here that I've been putting off for far too long... :erm:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Just decorated my daughter's bedroom, and fixed her coax on the TV aerial which had worked loose.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I often find that some jobs I do lead on to others like here >

1 st picture now you see it 2nd picture now you.............see it :rolleyes:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

A mates indicators weren''t working on his bike. so he rode it all the way to me 12 miles away because he's thick.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I did the same thing yesterday, Kiwi vines had got out of control. Managed to shred it all for composting before the sun set. 4 binbags full!

Picked more Kiwi fruit off that part of the vine... 3.2kg in all. I sense a jam session coming up....

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Kiwi chutney maybe?? Could be very nice... :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Good fix mate!

I fixed a problem with my phone intermittently rebooting. Since it only happened when I'd been out and about, I thought a loose battery might be the root of the problem so carefully positioned some thin card to prevent it from moving around. A few days later with no reboots, this seems to have done the trick. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I fixed the video output on my ZX Spectrum at the weekend.

The picture was pretty bad (even for a Spectrum) when I last used it a few months ago, but this time it was unusable.
So did a quick conversion from RF to use composite, can now see everything better than ever. :tu:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Hung/hanged a roll of wallpaper (been in the garage a couple of years) looks good with the new paint in conservatory. Cleaned the rone pipe at the back of the house, painted the wall at the front of the house. Tomorrow (hopefully) cut the grass front and back. Several more steps towards selling (I hope). :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Well done Tinks!

I've been keeping my old wallpaper for the day when it'd be back in fashion, just like some of my clothes... :D

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Just cleaned out the cooling fans and vents in my ageing Macbook Pro.

There's still some life left in it despite the abuse it's endured over the past 5 and a half years. Either way, no way I'll be replacing it with something that's held together with glue like the new one.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I fixed the dishwasher today :) well got it all working again.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

My mudguard strut to my bike frame with a zip tie. Whoever invented them deserves a medal.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Agree. He/she has probably made more than enough money to mint their own medals.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Saturday morning, visitors due...

Vacuum cleaner stops working; food processor motor running, but rotor stops turning.

Vacuum cleaner: speed control board had died. Followed friend's suggestion ("what's the worst that could happen?") and bypassed it. Now OK.

Food processor: cooling fan had come loose and shifted the drive belt gear wheel up the shaft. Levered things apart, glued the fan to the gear wheel and hammered it back together. All good again.

And in a separate thread: Found and tested a cheap way to upgrade my oldish XP machine to Win 8.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Painted outside window cills (10), brushed down garage outside walls with Jeyes fluid, cut the back lawn, raked up debris, hung out washing. My to do list is finally getting smaller. Now enjoying a large glass of wine.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Well done that lady! Enjoy.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Just replaced the main headlight bulb on a Renault Modus... 1 hour..

Loosening the bumper only on the side you are replacing the bulb x4 screws.

Remove inner wheel arch lining x4 plastic press studs button type.

Bend the plastic wing away a fraction.

Remove inner plastic light unit holder x2 screws

Unscrew headlight unit x2 bolts. Remove headlight unit ... pull off bulb holder.

Replace new bulb. Plug in the connector.

Reverse assembly. GO UP THE PUB AND HAVE A COUPLE OF PINTS.

The smaller the car bonnet length the harder it is to replace a bulb!!!!

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Fixed our faulty outside PIR/halogen security light. Well when I say 'fixed', I replaced it with an LED version which isn't as bright but still does the trick. Running and fixing the conduit was the hardest part.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Not exactly fixing but just finished cutting and working the body for my new guitar project (Telecaster/Strat Frankenstein jobby)

It's ready now for routing of the pickup cavities and drilling. I made the pickup templates ages ago for a different guitar... sod buying them from Stewmac.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

You should post some piccies.

I just fixed the wife's car. Well replaced the battery anyway. It failed a few months back but after an overnight charge seemed to be working ok until a few days ago when the car wouldn't start even after an overnight charge. £60 battery from Halfords with 4 years warranty seems to have done the trick even if it was a pain to fit.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

What car is it Osem.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Solar LED strings in the garden. They are marked as "outdoor" but corrode very quickly (especially the battery contacts and the switches). Luckily I have fibreglass cleaning sticks.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Is that on the metro? If so I can guess which bit it is (centre section to back box).

With firegum/gungum the best thing to do is once it dries a bit (say an hour) run the engine at idle for a while to heat the exhaust up and dry the paste out. If you managed to get shot of any loose rust and the rest of the pipe is good then it should last a while.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I sure will over the weekend, just had a prep coat of Wudtone and drying in the workshop (my big shed where the wine lives ;))

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

A moto g phone.... Nice

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

That sounds a very pleasant place... :)

---------- Post added at 09:49 ---------- Previous post was at 09:48 ----------

You fixed one?? What was wrong with it?

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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 ;)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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...

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Not a fix but a potential lifesaver. :tu:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

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

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Fixed some shoddy wiring to a socket spur installed by a previous occupant of my house.

Nearly 10 years and I'm still stumbling across little bits of bodgery here and there.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Ingenuity at its best! :tu:

I used something similar to a broken release button on some telescopic garden loppers a couple of years ago. Still working... :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

About 10 more coats to go! been having some small problems with a bit of oil that must have been in the wood.

Attachment 25420

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Front brake pads on the wifes Renaultsport Megane series2, the uprated Brembo 4 pot calipers are notorious for seized pad pins, and low and behold 3 out of the 4 were solid, Renault's answer was to buy new calipers costing silly money, but an angle grinder, extra long pin punches, a large hammer and a lot of tenacity saw the stubborn buggers come out.

Cleaned and rebuilt with decent pads and the brakes have never been so keen, almost to the detriment of a car behind her today coming home from work :).

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I love fixes like that! :tu:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

The front wheel bearings on an R6.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Some bugs in the new version of an online booking system I designed for work.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Caliper had seized on the front of my car. so I fixed it.

I'm good with my hands, ladies.

and gentlemen.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Replaced the cracked screen on my iPhone 4s using a kit from ebay costing £5, took 2 hours though!

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

An HP Touchpad, installed latest 3rd party release of Android KitKat on it, works like a charm now

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

My rear ones are partially seized but the nuts are seized too so i cant get the buggers off.....

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Nice one hubby's pal has one, hubby has a kawasaki ninja and lately it seems is always needing fixed :( money pitt IMO he should get himself a nice reliable car. He say's no chance the bike or van for him.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Our new porch. The stuff was delivered but the French doors supplied were handed incorrectly i.e. they were rebated to open inwards not outwards as specified.

Anyway since it wasn't such a big deal and to avoid further delays I decided to modify the frame and layout to suit the inwards opening doors. This involved using some of the many useful tools I've acquired over the years which have been waiting for their time to come. Most satisfying of all was cutting a new groove in the hardwood sill to accommodate the weather seal in its new position. First time I've used my router and it was a pleasure - superbly accurate result which fits perfectly.

I'm due some Brownie points from the missus anyway... :D

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Hope to fix/replace the fill valve on the loo later.

Seems to have sorted itself out? Turned the water off all night & now seems to behaving normally. :scratch:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Fixed my 15 year old Ferolie boiler with a new main board. One of the relays had failed and it had no info on it so i could replace it. I found a company on ebay that will swap your old board for a refurbished and all for £50.00. Saved me £258 for a new board.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Fixed Osem Jnr # 2's shorts which were too loose and kept falling down.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I usually find drawing pins work, if you can't find the staple gun.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

The chain on the bath plug, but who knows how long it will stay that way. LOL

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Yeah they are a pain, always breaking. Given up repairing mine now.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Just fixed the wifes Renaultsport Megane 2 again, the drivers side dipped beam had stopped working, tried the usual bulb and checked the fuses but neither were blown, so had to take off the front bumper, both headlights, Battery, Battery box, ECU, and lots of plastic trim just to get access to the wiring harness from the fuse box to the light fitting

Unpicked all the old insulation tape and got busy with my circuit tester, several hours later I found a broken live wire that had been rubbing behind the horn bracket, one scotch lock and bit of insulation tape later and the problem was fixed, total cost was less than 2 quid :D

Then 2 hours putting it all back together again, it felt good being able to stick it to the frenchies yet again though :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I would have torched the car. and sent them a proper message :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

That's the point, lights not working :D:D

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I've just 'fixed' the 5 lever mortice lock into our porch doors. The doors are rebated so this has been no easy task for my limited carpentry skills but I think I've done an OK job so far. Now I just have to fit the strikeplate and rebate kit to both parts of the lock and it'll be another job done.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Well there's a lesson learned. When fitting the strikeplate on the rebated French doors I had a flash of inspiration and decided to try cutting out the mortice using my CEL sonic cutter. I can't tell you how much easier, quicker and more accurate it was than the usual method of marking the cut, drilling holes and chiselling out or otherwise removing the excess material. For anyone who's never seen/used one, these things are terrific - the cutting blade is flat and oscillates slightly at a very high frequency which means it's very controllable and accurate (no kick back), there's minimal dust blown around and plunge cuts are very simple to make and keep square/true. I wish I'd thought of using it for fitting the 5 lever sashlock on the opening door but c'est la vie. I'll remember next time and I'm definitely using it for cutting the letterplate opening...

:doh: :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I've finally sorted the very annoying engine rattle/top end noise on my Rover 45.

Ever since I changed the head gasket last year the top end had got a bit noisy, and was slowly getting worse. I'd tried to use a stethoscope to isolate which tappet was noisy but I simply couldn't. The only other issue was that on overrun, the radio would start lightly crackling, so I decided to give the coils and HT leads a good clean.

In the end I also removed the spark plugs, and found them to be oddly loose (not overly, but not exactly tight either). So I nipped them up, along with a few of the 8mm bolts holding the rocker cover down. Once I started the engine the difference was remarkable. The tapping noise was gone, and I can only assume it was down to a loose plug "chuffing" when the engine warmed up.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Wonder how much your local 'reputable' garage would have charged you? :erm:

:tu:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Not a lot I suspect, as they're a good bunch of lads (as are most in the trade).

An estate agent on the other hand...

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Just "fixed" my broken hdd/dvd recorder so that the bin-dippers don't get anything useful out of it when I chuck it on the tip. DVD/RW transport is fine and it might come in handy for something later on.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Just fixed a broken round-over router bit. The bearing disintegrated as I was fabricating some glazing beads for my porch (luckily it didn't damage the work too much) but I managed to salvage another bearing from an old bit and used that.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

My mobile phone. It got very wet yesterday and just turned itself off. I found a video on youtube of somebody disembling the phone to its component parts, to replace the touch screen so I could see how to get it apart. Especially having undone the six inviting screws and the thing staying firmly assembled. :erm:

I stripped it down and fortunately the water hadn't got onto the LCD or circuit board. I dried it out overnight and have just re-assembled it. Seems to be working fine now. I wonder if it has some kind of humidity sensing to get it to turn off in the presence of water. :)

It's not an expensive one, a Samsung Tocco Lite, but is a handy size and quite capable.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

New water cooler and additional intake fan fitted to big pc. Everything hunky-dory again.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

That's what Mrs Osem says to me... :D

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Fixed??? I built a biltong drier from odds and ends. Cost £2 for light sockets was all. A week later I have 1kg of biltong. Yummmmm

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

A section of fascia board at the back of the house causing part of the gutter to drop and collect water. The whole lot will need replacing at some point but it'll do for now.

The local wood pigeon population has also been adjusted today courtesy of Mr HW100. I am sick and tired of them destroying my pots and crapping all over the garden furniture.