FE54 - making her mine.

[Skillen]

Originally Posted by talkingcars

That's getting super complex as I suspect that is an electronic setting in the ATC ECU.

It gives a signal to at least the fans to kick into full speed and the vents to move so maybe a way of saying (when these two events happen together then activate this circuit)

That's probably the way I'd like to do it to keep it all oem.
I wonder if technozen would be able to tell me :/ *hmmm*

[talkingcars]

Been another quite week due to Mrs TC's shed - we bought a cheap £99 shed about 7 or 8 years ago from Wickes as Gemma didn't like sharing my "secret hoarders" shed full of "rubbish" (car parts to you or me). Over the last couple of years it has been subsiding and becoming unstable. Also the gap between the 2 sheds was becoming filled with DIY leftovers so independantly we had both been looking at replacing the shed.

Last year work was taken over by Wolseley (former car manufacturer and now building materials supplier) and this weekend was set as the first full stock count under the new owners, a few weeks ago we were given the go ahead to clear the depot of all non moving, damaged or obsolete stock and the staff were free to have anything that was going - I spoke to Gemma who agreed that I could build a shed but I musn't bring the materials home until I was ready to use them - fair enough to be honest - only problem was that I had to bring them home there and then or they'd go in the skip - the result is 200 tonuge and grove floor boards, 7 fence posts and 30 decking joists.

I've knocked togeather a side and started on a back panel, emptied and cut up the old shed, cleared lots of the DIY left overs and lots of car parts (including the last of the bits I'd saved from my first 2 cars, the Lada was scrapped in 1988 and the mini in 1992!)

This morning we've levelled the base from the old shed, I like to have the shed raised on joists so that air can circulate underneath and for some reason one corner had dropped by about 3 inches, I suspect it was the foxes we had a couple of years ago digging their access to the space underneath. This afternoon after the end of the F1 I hope to get the side and back in place.

And I have done something on the ZS's, I swapped the alloy x-power one from GV51 with the MG owners club plastic tax disc holder in FE54.

[talkingcars]

You lot found that interesting didn't you!

Made a bit of progress on the shed so tonight I decided to fit the DAB Kenwood in, the mk2 has 2 openings at the pack of the slot that you don't get in the mk1, but still not enough space to get all my wiring in so I cut a slot on the left hand side using a junior hacksaw blade.

It went in ok but the stretch for the DAB aerial is a bit too much so that will need re-arranging. Also there is a sort of buzzing in the front speakers when playing music from the auto changer. And I have issues with wiring the steering wheel controls - see seperate thread.

It'll be nice to have some company on the way to work.

[stamford]

These new head units are getting chunkier at the back, I had to hack the inside of my mk1 a fair bit to fit the iphone docking head unit, no way could the plugs fit.

[peterzs]

I find the valves on mine take soooo long to warm up, must get a DAB.

And Talkingcars, think we were all knacked from the shed building.

I have the "leaning shed of Bournemouth", getting so bad I hope it doesnt collapse when I'm moving stuff, that must be in there somewhere!!!!

[talkingcars]

So apart from washing FE54 prior to going to MGSD I've not done anything to her, it's been shed, shed, shed - the extension now has a side, a back, floor (all in tongue and grove) and shelf uprights and I've been making the shelves.

The only car thing I've done is replace the water pump on the F. I managed to get the alternator drive pulley undone with my new toy, a Ryobi one+ impact driver, took all of 2 seconds. I then struggled for a while to understand how the manual cambelt adjuster works before deciding to just undo the water pump bolts until the tension was eased enough to slip the cambelt off, I reassembled it the same way and was impressed to get it all back together and an initial bleed done.

I'm not so happy to have had to top it up a couple of times although just a little. I was happy enough to take her to West Wittering on Sunday and then to work today, until the N/S hydroelastic suspension failed on the way back!

[peterzs]

Oops, can you stll get the units?? or is it a scrappy yard hunt.

[talkingcars]

Not sure what has gone yet, I just parked it up and walked away.

There are some components available out there so I should be able to get something.

[talkingcars]

Washed her again

Fitted some locking wheel nuts.

(And stripped the transferring engine bay parts out of GV51)

[talkingcars]

Side airbags swapped so I have the correct ones for the car, only took 40 minutes, nice to see the SRS light to go out.