Navigon 40 Sat-nav

 Navigon 40 Sat-nav with no sound coming from the speaker.

4 small torx screws keeps the cover in place (yellow circles).

Pry the front and back cover apart, using a "soft" tool. The tool I'm using is made out of plastic.

Lift the plastic "lock" (yellow square) in order to remove the flat display connector.

2 plastic hooks (yellow circles) keep the PCB in place. Push them outwards.
Lift the speaker connector (red circle) and the battery connector (green circle).

2 Phillips screws keeps the speaker in place (yellow circles). 

Remove the speaker.

I used a standard 28 mm, 8 Ohm, 1,5W speaker which I put back in place using some black silicon.
I had to swap the old cable and connector to the new speaker by soldering (green circles).

Vw T4 Multivan 1994 front brakes

Changing brake pads.

I thought it would be a straight forward job, taking just 10-15 min. But it was not going to be this time :) I removed the metal piece (red square) and tried to push the metal pins (yellow) in the direction of the arrows. No chance! I tried with a hammer. Still not moving at all. It was time to get serious. I picked up my angle grinder and cut the pins in several parts. I used heat and a hammer.

In the end I had to drill the bits out. :(

From there on it went very well. I put the new pads in place.

I sprayed the new pins with copper grease, my best friend. I use it on every bolt, nut and piece of metal that I put together. I is very easy to take apart again, even after some years.

Finally I put the metal spring in place to lock the pins in place. Job done! A couple of hours later but anyway. :)

Hyundai Elantra GLS -1999

Changing a rusty crossmember.

Hyundai Elantra 1999 is famous for its rusty crossmember bars. In fact, if you listen very carefully, you can hear it is rusting away.
All the nuts, bolts and sleeves inside the bushings which I had to remove were completely rusted together. The only way to remove them were by using an angle-grinder.

Red circles shows the bushings I chose to remove in order to get the crossmember removed from underneath the car.

As you can see from the picture, it was very rusty. The metal was like crackers.

 I used an arm puller tool to remove the bushings from the stabilizer arms.

I photo of the "new" crossmember after it was cleaned, blasted and painted.

I made myself a press tool to put the new bushings into place. I cleaned the metal on the stabilizers, using a Dremel andI  had some Fairy dish washer soap on the bushings and the stabilizer before I used the press tool to put it together. The press tool is made of a long bolt, 2 x nuts and 2 x washers. The long bolt goes through the bushing and stabilizer. Then it is just to use the nuts in order to push it together.

Part list:

2 x Nut                                   1310412001
2 x Washer-spring                  1361212001
2 x Plate                                 5523322001
2 x Bolt-cam                          5523029000
6 x Flange nut (self locking) 5455928000
4 x Bolt-flange                      551173F000
2 x Bolt                                 5521722000
4 x Bush-rr susp rr arm         5277329000
4 x Bush-rr susp fr arm         5521529000

Jotun wood paint and wood cleaner, really shitty products!

Painting a wooden house.

6 years ago I decided to paint my entire house. After some serious considerations I chose Jotuns wooden paint. The paint itself was bloody expensive (160 €/10 litre. In total I needed 90 litres. I bought as well 3 litres of Jotun wood cleaner in order to prepare the walls before painting. The wood cleaner costed approx. 10 €/ litre. I was really going to do this by the book :)

The walls were whitish before I started cleaning, using Jotun wood cleaner and it was still whitish after I had finished. Absolutely no difference whatsoever. I went into the kitchen and picked up a bottle of Fairy dish soap, mixed it with water and sprayed it on the wall. The dirt was "flowing" down the wall. The rest of the house was cleaned with Fairy dish soap. The result was superb and the cost was next to nothing. So much for Jotuns wood cleaner.

After the cleaning process was done I continued with painting the walls. The painting job itself was no problem. The problem was discovered 3 years later. 2 of the walls (red) are in an eastern direction. (Rain, snow and wind tend to come from that direction.) The paint on these two walls had started to peel of. The 6 other walls seem to be ok.

I removed the loose paint and repainted the walls with Alpina wood paint. Today, 3 years later the walls still looks like they were just painted. Fingers crossed.

Northcar stal min sambos skylthållare

Service på Northcar i Sundsvall:

Min sambo lämnade in sin bil på Northcar i Sundsvall för att de skulle byta olja på den automatiska växellådan. Oljan bytte de visserligen,  men det var något annat de passade på att byta samtidigt: registreringsskylthållaren bak blev utbytt med en reklamhållare från Northcar. Så nu har hon två olika fram och bak. Fräckhet är väl bara förnamnet? Jag undrar vad de tänker betala för den reklamplatsen?

Reconditioning of a coffee-table

A coffee-table in need of some reconditioning.

My girlfriend spilled nail-polish remover with acetone (CH₃)₂CO on an clear coated oak table. It does not work very well. Just a word of advice :)

The tabletop was not in a good condition anyway so I decided to have a go on reconditioning it. First of all I cutted out a part of the tabletop using my Bosch PMF 180 e multi tool.

I sanded down the top using 180 and 400 grit sandpaper and my Bosch PSM 80A Sander.

I used a 22 mm thick mdf board as a new top.
I painted the rest of it with Bloom wood paint (dark oak), 3 layers, in order to get the right colour.

 The table top was then covered with black glass mosaic, black grout and 2 layers of clear paint (over the wooden part).

Pretty happy with the final result :)