Practically Classics Forum

Is it likely do you think that Osbourne and co will re-introduce a rolling date ?
The conservatives started it all off in the first place so its a maybe on my sheet.
One thing I am not in favour of however is the pre 1960 MOT ruling, I will still be MOT'ing anything pre 60 that I buy or (once I have the nouse) restore myself in the future.
No-one I have spoken to thinks that it is a good idea, we didn't want it and will still be MOT'ing our cars non the less.
The thing that does get my goat about the MOT are the introduction of foolish rules that have little or nothing to do with safety, what is this new one I have heard about where the steering lock needs to work - what in the name of....?? - WHY??

Oh and after a think there are a couple of post 1980 cars I would like to see classified eventually as classics - The MX-5 and the Rover 75 (in my opinion the finest car they made from the 70s to date). I assume in some circles the MX-5 has already reached that status, its only the Mk1 that I like anyway

suffolkpete wrote:I would agree up to a point, diagnostic software is available for popular applications. I was able to buy the diagnostic hardware and software for all Peugeots and Citroens from the mid 90s to the present quite cheaply. It doesn't help if you need to replace a large sub-assembly containing a lot of custom made electronics though. That's the reason you see so many sound looking cars in scrapyards. Corrosion isn't the reason any more, it's failure of an expensive electronic bit of kit.

Fair comment, but just as DIY enthusiasts learned to service and repair their cars in years gone by, so the newer generations of cars' owners can, and in many cases do, learn the skills required to repair those and keep them running reliably. Discrete components may seldom appear in today's ECUs but ICs are another example of modern technology becoming more and more affordable and repairing control units is also viable, the most difficult aspect of that task is often finding the right chemical to dissolve the unit's potting medium where one is in use.

The most recent ECU rebuild I've done was on the unit from a Rover 75 Diesel, a well-known source of trouble as a result of their location and the fact that they could be more waterproof. A replacement unit from a breaker would have cost around £40 tested and warranted (for a month ) which may well have been economically viable on the car in question as it is otherwise in perfect condition. However, the chips inside that box came to a grand total of €8 from a supplier in Germany that's always at least 50% cheaper than Maplin or Farnell, fitting them came to one hour of labour, charged at a mere £35 to the garage where the car had been taken by the RAC and the total cost charged to the customer by the garage was the hour's labour at their rate (£60) plus the parts at cost, meaning that the total came to less than it would have done had that used ECU been fitted, the work could be warranted for a full year (and should last a darned sight longer since I use real solder and make sure that the box can't leak) and the car survives.

Some cars will always end up at the breaker's and this has always been the way, but human beings are resourceful creatures so, as interest in a particular car grows and it suddenly becomes "classic", "retro chic" or just cheap and quite good to own, then there will be a bunch of people prepared to preserve the car and as interest develops, then techniques, materials and the will to do it suddenly appear.
Look at the real mini; it used to be, back when the car was relatively new, standard practice to remove the engine/gearbox unit to change the clutch, but one day, someone realised that in fact there was simply no need to do it that way and suddenly the labour cost fell from the thick end of a day to under an hour. This was reflected in the desirability of the car to the DIY enthusiast and the situation is similar with many of the soldering jobs that were previously thought unviable for the home repairer on more modern cars.

Yes, the 41st year exemption will - as the Tory party promised us way back in the mid '90s - be a rolling one, this is what the federations and the biggest multi-make UK-based car club are telling their members as a result of their being consulted during the decision making process. The only downside to this is that we can't vote for a coalition and neither of the present coalition's parties is likely to be elected so when we next have a change of political direction, then the rolling exemption could be halted yet again as a party that hasn't made the promise initially is under no obligation to maintain it and after all, who would sooner have the fiasco that is outwith the remit of this board than pay a little each year for their VED?

It's all very well repairing units that have discrete commercially available standard components and soldered connections, but you try it with something that uses a custom IC or is "potted" in resin. Auto electronics, like every other field of electronics, are using ever higher levels of integration. Also, the type of expertise required is shifting from mechanical to electronics, something that is harder to acquire at an amateur level and woefully lacking even in the trade. Technicians (I refuse to call them engineers) are trained only to plug the tester in and replace what they think it tells them, an expensive old business given the price of electronic parts, whereas the basic mechanical parts (engines, manual gearboxes and suspension) have not changed significantly within my motoring career of getting on for 50 years.

suffolkpete wrote:It's all very well repairing units that have discrete commercially available standard components and soldered connections, but you try it with something that uses a custom IC or is "potted" in resin. Auto electronics, like every other field of electronics, are using ever higher levels of integration. Also, the type of expertise required is shifting from mechanical to electronics, something that is harder to acquire at an amateur level and woefully lacking even in the trade. Technicians (I refuse to call them engineers) are trained only to plug the tester in and replace what they think it tells them, an expensive old business given the price of electronic parts, whereas the basic mechanical parts (engines, manual gearboxes and suspension) have not changed significantly within my motoring career of getting on for 50 years.

Yes but yes but Yes....

a) ECUs etc. are incredibly reliable, and even in 20, 30, 40 years time are highly likely to still be working fine

b) in the even of some rare unobtainable ECU fault in 40 year's time on a current car, I still bet a decent "restorer" could make it run with a proprietary system such as Megasquirt etc. - OK, it won't be original, but it's a far cry from seeing cars totally disappear.

I agree with JPB, if the will and enthusiasm is there, a way will always be found.

Cheers!

+1 to that and JPB's previous post! There are plenty of technicians (and engineers) that could make a completely new control unit with more modern components (be it PIC or "proper" computer stuff) which, with suitable firmware, could work on a number of different makes and model of car. After all, it's only a control system with inputs and outputs. However, looking at courses the local college offer, I fear that few will be able to use a soldering iron in a few years!

Not sure what John means about "proper solder" - I prefer lead-based stuff but am surprised how many think it's not safe to use! The lead-free stuff isn't really dangerous to use (so long as you wash your hands before eating!) - it's resin/rosin-cored stuff that's nasty to use. Lead free is really for manufacturers who use tons of the stuff a year and hence cause millions of tons of lead to be dealt with when disposing of old equipment. One of my next projects in my "new" electronics/IT/model railway workshop will be to make a fume extraction system, though my magnifying lamp does keed the fumes from my eyes.

One of my neighbours bought an almost immaculate 2003 Pug 106 with a personal number plate for £140 as a MOT failure! It needed a new flexi hose on a back brake (he has replaced all of them for peace of mind) and has just returned from its MOT and will be on eBay soon. If he hadn't spotted it, it would be in a breaker's by now - he paid "scrap price" for it as the lad couldn't be bothered to haggle over a worthless old banger!

Yes, by proper solder, I was indeed referring to good old 60/40 with real lead. That lead-free stuff and its random nature is responsible for about 90% of the free DVD players, mobos, bits of hi-fi kit and other random modern things that I can mend with the good stuff, recap and flog on via Gumtree to fund my ancient audio fetish.

Come to think of it, teaching kids to look out for physically leaky electrolytics and replace those (whether leaking or not) would enable them to repair a similar percentage of all components built since the demise of the lead solder in high street hardware shops. I buy my 60/40 by the kilo from eBay. Where else?

It does cause me some dismay these days when many students are taught to test and replace ICs without knowing their function or having any understanding of how they interact with the other components in a circuit.
More distressing is that radio amateurs no longer need to know Morse and that's .--- ..- ... - / .--. .-.. .- .. -. / . -..- .--. .-.. . - .. ...- . / .-- .-. --- -. --. .

-. --- / -... ..- - / .- -.. -- .. -. ... / -.-. .- -.
I must edit the naughty word filter to read morse

tractorman wrote: There are plenty of technicians (and engineers) that could make a completely new control unit with more modern components (be it PIC or "proper" computer stuff) which, with suitable firmware, could work on a number of different makes and model of car. After all, it's only a control system with inputs and outputs.

That might be true for the fuel injection systems of the 90s, but the enormity of the problem is increasing exponentially. My late Citroen C5 had ECUs for everything, engine, climate control suspension , ABS, airbags, I think there were 19 in all and that was a ten year old car. The current crop of models doesn't bear thinking about. Yes ECUs are very reliable, but that means that nobody to going to bother to re-engineer them, even for the Morris Minors and MGBs of the future

tractorman wrote: One of my neighbours bought an almost immaculate 2003 Pug 106 with a personal number plate for £140 as a MOT failure! It needed a new flexi hose on a back brake (he has replaced all of them for peace of mind) and has just returned from its MOT and will be on eBay soon. If he hadn't spotted it, it would be in a breaker's by now - he paid "scrap price" for it as the lad couldn't be bothered to haggle over a worthless old banger!

I expect it was because some garage, keen to sell another car, quoted a silly price for the repair to a gullible punter. If cars are being scrapped for such trivial reasons, then there won't be anything left to preserve as classics in the future.

I'm not sure how many ecus the last (2002) Golf had, but I did open the "Comfort Pack", which controls the door locks, windows and various other things. It would have been fairly simple to rework that with different components. However, as with pretty well everything these days, it was coded to the car and part of the problem would be getting the main "computer" to accept that a home-built pack was acceptable without messing the immobiliser/alarm system. I know the system can be reset with a laptop and VAG-COM (or whatever it is now) software, so I would expect a half decent "technician" to be able to make it work!

The lad who owned the Pug was going to sell the car anyway, so might have decided that the p/x value wasn't enough to make it worth his while getting it repaired. That's why I "gave" my Passat away instead of putting it through an MOT. As I say, moderns are "white goods" to many owners.