Evenin' All

[Doo]

Andi from Scotland.

Pleased to make your acquaintance

I'm over 21 (stone ) and a talentless fat mess.

Hobbies are watching films, tv , writing & reading, forums, fixing cars, driving cars & my bike.

Married with a son and boring as hell.

Used to work for myself until an industrial accident broke me.... I was closing a gate & the top hinge failed, it fell on me. It weighed the same as a Range Rover, so did a fair amount of damage. But I'm still here. Chuck McNorris

I used to be big time into fixing cars, but my injuries cause me a lot of pain so can only do the light stuff now.

Here is how I bought my Jaguar back in 07. 1 not so careful owner. Took me 14 months of tracking parts and repairing it. I put it to a local garage to get it jigged, then did all the repairs myself.



It turned out ok though.



My small fleet (missing the photo of the For Four...)









This is me fixing heated seats...










This is a view from my apartment in sunny Inverness





This is a view of Loch Tarf, nr Ft Augustus. Took this shot with my phone one day while driving with a trailer to deliver to some workies.





I used to drive anything and everything, but here's a Defender with a welfare cabin heading to Mallaig.





Yet another Defender on a job near Ullapool...






Here's us doing father son things...







And the latest project was replacing blend motors in the Range Rover. What fun that wasn't





So that's about it. Me in a nutshell.

Please to be aboard

[Hell Razor5543]

That last photo looks almost as complicated as replacing the heater matrix in a Xantia! Some beautiful pictures there. I used to live in the lowlands of Scotland, near to Tweedsmuir.

[Doo]

That last photo looks almost as complicated as replacing the heater matrix in a Xantia! Some beautiful pictures there. I used to live in the lowlands of Scotland, near to Twwedsmuir.

Actually, the last photo was one of the easier jobs I've tackled.

But it wasn't that simple all the same.

I've got loads of cracking pictures, but saving some for POTD

Scotland is a gorgeous place for sure

[NewcastleFalcon]

That has to be the best introduction post ever. Superb pictures, and I have a feeling that you are going to be an active participator, and an valuable member of the forum! both on tha car problem solving bit, and more importantly on the chat and general banter side which I hope distinguishes this forum from others you may have come across before.

Regards Neil

[Doo]

That has to be the best introduction post ever. Superb pictures, and I have a feeling that you are going to be an active participator, and an valuable member of the forum! both on tha car problem solving bit, and more importantly on the chat and general banter side which I hope distinguishes this forum from others you may have come across before.

Regards Neil

Thank you, I will do my best. I have to admit I am still suffering from the accident. It almost killed me, broken ankle, leg, neck, ripped off half of my left deltoid muscle (which now sits on my shoulder), head injury and damaged a bunch of other stuff. But it took the best part of 2yrs to discover I am suffering PTSD which leaves me happy some days and less so on other days. I am waiting for help, but the waiting list is 2yrs....I told them not long after that I was having nightmares. Then came the panic attacks. I have never experienced anything like it. One minute I was fine, the next I was sobbing and frozen to the spot. Lucky the manager of where I was turned out to be a proper darling and she helped me. Took a few months to get over my fear, but it happened again so I have to take each day as it comes.

The reason I am sharing this is to let people know that it's ok to open up. You never know what personal demons people are fighting so sometimes, no matter how much you want to say something or slap someone, you have to bite your tongue and count to ten.

So if I come on and start spouting nonsense, it could be the pills. Although, I'm not half as reliant on them as I used to be. I was on 8x cocodamol 30/500's a day. I've cut it down to 2 or 3, depending on what I've been doing. I can't wait to get it down to 0, but I think that may take some time as I am in pain 24/7 and only the same thrawn "take no sh!t" attitude that saved me that day is what forces me to keep trying and keep trying even if it hurts so much that tears fall readily because of frustration, anger, pain and a real need to do something I could do before all this happened.

I'm not tough or hard, just stubborn as red wine on a white shirt.

Anyhoo, I am on here thanks to wife's car being a tw@t, but I liked the fact I had a reply in minutes and no snarky comments that you sometimes get on other forums. I have been playing with cars since I was young. I started on bikes, motorbikes, boats and junk. I weld and know a little bit of a lot of things. I'm no expert, but I have learned by making mistakes and am not too proud to admit it.

So, once again, thank you for the kind words and I shall do my best to contribute & help.

I can't wait until the 23rd to get the LEXIA and kick my wife's cars ass back into line

Andi

[Hell Razor5543]

Definitely to the forum. The attitude is (and has always been) that the forum was set up to help people with problems with their French cars (so if the first post is a cry for help it WILL get a proper meaningful answer). Yes, we do take the p155 out of each other, and there is friendly banter, bit those seeking help will always get assistance.

Be aware that, when you get the Lexia, there is not much documentation. This is because it will be a clone of the equipment PSA use (and was never meant for the general public to use), which goes for thousands of pounds (the number I have heard is £30,000). If you are getting the Lexia from Easy Diagnostics it will have the full, most current chipset, and will have a year of aftercare. They (in my experience) have been very helpful. A couple of advantages behind having your own Lexia is that you can diagnose the faults for yourself (and after a couple of sessions the Lexia will have paid for itself), and you can help out friends if they have issues with their Citroens or Peugeots. If you also get the little 'van' adaptor you can fault-find PSA vans too!

[Doo]

Definitely to the forum. The attitude is (and has always been) that the forum was set up to help people with problems with their French cars (so if the first post is a cry for help it WILL get a proper meaningful answer). Yes, we do take the p155 out of each other, and there is friendly banter, bit those seeking help will always get assistance.

Be aware that, when you get the Lexia, there is not much documentation. This is because it will be a clone of the equipment PSA use (and was never meant for the general public to use), which goes for thousands of pounds (the number I have heard is £30,000). If you are getting the Lexia from Easy Diagnostics it will have the full, most current chipset, and will have a year of aftercare. They (in my experience) have been very helpful. A couple of advantages behind having your own Lexia is that you can diagnose the faults for yourself (and after a couple of sessions the Lexia will have paid for itself), and you can help out friends if they have issues with their Citroens or Peugeots. If you also get the little 'van' adaptor you can fault-find PSA vans to!

That is excellent news on the LEXIA. I had an excellent code reader when I bought the Jaguar as I needed something that would communicate with it. But it's way out of date so it no longer gets used. I have a bluetooth dongle (I'm half robot ) which does the code reading. It's ok, but not the best. However, the fact to reads to my phone means I can lookup codes and usually figure the best course of action. But it wouldn't communicate with wife's ABS and neither would friends expensive one.

I look forward to getting it

[van ordinaire]

Nobody's mentioned wandering off the point, shooting off at tangents &/or general rambling (another hallmark of THIS forum), so here's an example: left Devon in a hurry last Tuesday (yes, it was a long w/e) & forgot my laptop & a 3-day working week meant no real chance to use the firm's IT to log-on plus not been back that long (yes it's another - slightly shorter - long w/e!) 'cos I was at "Chevrons" Saturday & a car show at the Rural Life Centre in Farnham today; all of which means, I'm just starting to catch up. An underlying theme of this forum is members' health issues, so there is more empathy here than most.
As for "talentless" you're doing more than merely selling yourself short AND - making me feel totally inadequate! e.g. I wouldn't even notice if the heated seats on my Eldorado didn't work (or the Xantia for that matter, which I'd quite forgotten about) & when things behind the dash fail - I just accept it, & i'm not even going to mention diagnostics.

[Doo]

Nobody's mentioned wandering off the point, shooting off at tangents &/or general rambling (another hallmark of THIS forum), so here's an example: left Devon in a hurry last Tuesday (yes, it was a long w/e) & forgot my laptop & a 3-day working week meant no real chance to use the firm's IT to log-on plus not been back that long (yes it's another - slightly shorter - long w/e!) 'cos I was at "Chevrons" Saturday & a car show at the Rural Life Centre in Farnham today; all of which means, I'm just starting to catch up. An underlying theme of this forum is members' health issues, so there is more empathy here than most.
As for "talentless" you're doing more than merely selling yourself short AND - making me feel totally inadequate! e.g. I wouldn't even notice if the heated seats on my Eldorado didn't work (or the Xantia for that matter, which I'd quite forgotten about) & when things behind the dash fail - I just accept it, & i'm not even going to mention diagnostics.

When I say talent free, I mean I left school with a few A's & B's, but I couldn't wait to escape because life at Banff Academy (BXA) was the WORST. Lets just say back then you couldn't run to the teacher and tell you were getting a daily kicking from the Gamericks (people from Gardenstown, also known as Gamrie). So, I basically had to work hard to be able to prove myself back in the day.

As life went on, I found I was able to do mechanical stuff and I imagine that was due to my dad who could turn his hand to just about anything.

When I got the Range Rover, I'd never so much as driven one let alone fix one! I had driven plenty of them for work and was more than happy checking things around them. Anyway, the 1st job on George (my P38) was to replace the air suspension. Then I had to strip & service the EAS valve block and air pump, then..... You get the picture This car sat on a farm for 5yrs so needed a lot of TLC. But she turned out well and is my daily driver.







I love this car for it's superb comfort & ability. It goes anywhere, but I don't do off road nonsense because I don't want to damage it. Although winter doesn't bother me in the least. We just swap the summer wheels for the winter wheels (I got 9 wheels with it so put winter tyres on one set, summers on the other and one for luck ) and I know whatever the Scottish winter throws at us I'll get where I'm going

She had a grey interior which I hated. It was like John Major's underpants, boring! So when I was offered a Light Stone interior with black piping I jumped at the chance. The headrests even have screens in them. So I then had to buy an entertainment system to allow me to utilise the screens . Took days to wire it in properly...



Quick test before final installation...



Back up camera...



Sat Nav...



The only station worth listening to



And No1 son i happy too



So I pretty much have to find a way to fix it because of the crippling cost at the local LR shop. That and the fact they aren't mechanics as much a fitters

My EAS (Electronic Air Suspension) failed at the weekend which brings up dash faults and a lack of operation until the fault is fixed and the EAS computer reset. Lucky I have software on my laptop to be able to interrogate the system, reset everything and adjust the height settings.

So not talented, just able to turn my hand. But I make mistakes which if I was talented, I wouldn't do... At least I'm honest

[van ordinaire]

Well I'm still impressed with your undoubted abilities, long may you continue to apply them.

[Doo]

Well I'm still impressed with your undoubted abilities, long may you continue to apply them.

Thank you, it is appreciated. May I point out a mistake in my narrative... I said I had never so much as driven a Range Rover, but driven plenty at work! That should have read "I have driven plenty Land Rovers" for work. Plank alert Anyway, that's it sorted out.