6 June 2013

Central locking on a Subaru Impreza GF 1997.

Central locking on a Subaru Impreza GF 1997 was not working.

To remove the door panel.
Remove the plastic around the door handle. It is kept in place by a door panel clip. Pry the clip with ex. a flat headed screwdriver. (Red circle)


Pry the control panel for the electric windows in the front. (Red circle)


There is one door panel clip (green circle). See picture below.
There is a piece of plastic covering one Phillips screw (left red circle) See picture below.
Remove the 2 x Phillips screws. (Red circles)


Door panel clip (green circle above).


Piece of plastic covering one Philips screw (left red circle) See picture above.


The door panel is kept in place with several door panel clips around the bottom part of the door panel. Pry the door panel clips with a plastic pry bar.


Lift the door panel upwards to get it of the "hooks". (Green circles)


The reason for a faulty central locking was found in the connection to the actuator. One of the cables had broken. I took the contact apart and soldered the cable to the pin. Surprise! It was working again.









5 June 2013

Immobiliser tag for Subaru Impreza GF 1997 key.

Moving a immobiliser tag from one key to another.

I was changing a broken ignition switch in a Subaru Impreza. Since the car was equipped with an immobiliser I had to move the tag from the old key to the new one.


There is a small plastic lid, marked with a red triangle. Use a small flat headed screwdriver to remove it. The tag "CN" will come out. Move the tag to your new key and the job is done.

Blocked sanitary sewer.

The waste water was not flowing to the sanitary sewer.


The sanitary sewer had been working since 1974, without any problems. At first the waste water from the WC and shower was disappearing a bit slower than usual. Nobody was considering it to be any big problem before it completely "packed up".

It should be working like the picture below. Waste water and other waste coming to the sanitary sewer through the "in" pipe and water flowing out from the "out" pipe.



After an inspection of the sewer I noticed it was filled with water above the "out" pipe, which indicated the "out" pipe was blocked. The "out" pipe was opened up and cleaned, using high pressure water cleaner. The water started flowing through the "out" pipe and the level inside the sanitary sewer sank to the normal level. But, this did not explain the fact that the waste water from the house was not going anywhere.


The next thing to do was to dig a trench to get to the "in" pipe".



Close to the sewer I found a broken pipe. Pressure from the ground (2 meter/8 feet gravel in a steep hill) had broken the pipe. 

The pipe was replaced with a new one (110 mm.). 


4 June 2013

How to repair plastic parts for cars and motorbikes.

Repairing a steering column cowling for a Subaru Impreza 1997.

The cowling was broken into 3 pieces which I glued together with super glue. The glue dried in just a few seconds and helped to keep the parts together for the next step.


I cleaned the parts with a silicon remover. On the inside of the cowling I used fibreglass and polyester in order to glue the parts together.


I made a "shallow V" on the outside, with a Dremel.


I filled the "shallow V"with fibreglass padding and sanded it with 240 grit sandpaper.


I sprayed it with plastic primer before I covered it with black plastic paint. I'm pretty happy with the result.