get a mig welder, you can buy those for £100 used

you wont ever get anywhere paying other people to do stuff

I don't mind DIY and learning the stuff once it's cheaper than getting it done professionally, and I'll get one when it comes time to sort out Dora. But the Nissan needs a spot welder and they're a tad more expensive - £250 seems about the best price I can find. Don't really want to invest in one and only end up having to use it just this once

You don't need a spot welder. You can do the same effect by drilling a hole in the panel to be welded then filling the hole with weld on the car using a MIG welder. If you get what I mean? Plug welding I think it is called?

it doesnt need a spot welder , yes the factory spot welded it but mig welding is a perfectly accpetable way to fix it and what many bodyshops would do anyway

i dont say things on here to be smart or dig at you ...you could own a mig welder for the cost of a couple of hours labour at a garage

Oh, didn't know I could do that. Sounds like a plan

If I manage to completely repair a category C write off with no formal training and no help from a garage, I will be quite chuffed

not being clever but have you done any research at all?

nearly every car body repair thread online will involve using a mig welder but you didnt know you could use one?

get reading on some forums and threads and see what can be done

Let's just say that my knowledge in regards to welding is sub-par. I do know you need gloves and a mask, and that you can connect bits of metal together. I'll figure the rest out as I go along

I have a cheapish one that is okay but welding 3mm+ thick can prove difficult to get a a good penetrative weld, it just takes quite long to heat up properly.

Plug welding is a piece of piss but to get a good pool it's best to preheat the area with a heat gun so you have the heat straight away.

I barely know a thing myself btw but have learned bits from forums and welding random mild steel sheets in my garage... Have a look at welding web.

Word of advice...if you can only find one glove...when you have just finished welding. Don't pick up your fresh welded piece with the gloveless hand [emoji15] yes...I was that stupid.

Oh, didn't know I could do that. Sounds like a plan

If I manage to completely repair a category C write off with no formal training and no help from a garage, I will be quite chuffed

when i started to learn to mig weld i used youtube as my step by step guide. if you succeed fixing both cars you can open up a shop called 'vio's repairs' cat C & D specialist

Drained all the old gearbox oil out and put some new synthetic 75W90 in, hasn't had any effect on the noise though. No metal in the old oil either.

If you do the video again and get the wheels spinning really fast in 3rd or 4th, then drop it into neutral and kill the engine, leaving the wheels spinning. That way, we can hear just the noisy bearing and not the engine. Better chance of accurate diagnosis then.

I've had a few front wheel bearings go on 6N's and they all made a humming/droning noise.

Will give that a go in the morning & get a new video up. It seems to be a constantly changing issue though - it started fairly quiet and happened regardless of direction, then gradually grew louder over a few days, and now has quietened down again but gets louder when I turn corners in both directions, which it didn't do before. This thing is weird yo

would it be worth asking your garage what they think , chances are they will run the car up the road for free , get their opinion and come away and have a think what to do

would it be worth asking your garage what they think , chances are they will run the car up the road for free , get their opinion and come away and have a think what to do

Took it in today and asked just for a diagnosis, and a repair estimate. Figured if it was more than £100 or so, it wouldn't be worth it.

The problem was that CV gaiter I'd noticed in the MOT advisories which wasn't letting in dirt... well at some point it did start letting in dirt... basically the whole CV joint & wheel bearing needed replacing. They also said I needed new front brake discs & pads as well (I'd seen em a few days ago, they were pretty worn out tbf).

They were also nice enough to strip out all the old parts before I'd agreed to a repair, which didn't leave me with much choice. *sigh*

Let's not discuss costs, but it's a lot better than me having to get the diff replaced or something, which is what I was worried about. And at least I have a roadworthy Polo for a little longer anyway, and managed to get it all sorted out the same day. No more grinding noise, nice and quiet. I'd forgotten what it was like to drive a car that has nothing wrong with it

You sure they aren't mugging you off with the bearing? Sounds like they diagnosed the cv joint then chose to also do the wheel bearing...most likely it will be one or the other. Unless they are playing their cards close and couldn't do a proper diagnosis so decided that replacing both would be more necessary

I did wonder, but tbf it did seem to get louder when cornering which I'd usually blame on a wheel bearing, and if they said it was in pretty bad shape I'll take their word for it. As much crap as I talk about this garage, I do trust em we've had about 10 of our cars serviced and repaired here over the years, sure they like to make money when they can but they always do a damn good job for what you pay, and my dad and I know a thing or two about cars so they don't try and tell us stuff needs doing when it doesn't.

When asking about what exactly was wrong with it, they commented on how they'd have loved to seen me trying to replace a CV joint on my own, on the road outside my house tbh practically everything's sorted with the car now and I got it back the same day... for the price I paid I'm not complaining. Much better than spending 4 figures on a gearbox anyway

When asking about what exactly was wrong with it, they commented on how they'd have loved to seen me trying to replace a CV joint on my own, on the road outside my house

Was that a sarcastic statement? As changing a CV joint isn't a hard task especially on a 6n.

Anyway at least the car is pretty much sorted now. Even though it is probably a rather expensive 6n at least now it should be reliable for you.....I say this hoping you'll sack the idea of getting the Datsun fixed

buy parts from carparts4less.co.uk and use a haynes manual see it as a stepping stone learning to fix it your self. As you got dora to fix too

Anyway at least the car is pretty much sorted now. Even though it is probably a rather expensive 6n at least now it should be reliable for you.....I say this hoping you'll sack the idea of getting the Datsun fixed

That's like getting a flat tyre on a Rolls Royce Phantom, buying a Bentley Continential GT and changing the wiper blades, and then being asked if I want to scrap the Rolls. Noooooooo

buy parts from carparts4less.co.uk and use a haynes manual see it as a stepping stone learning to fix it your self. As you got dora to fix too

I'd love to have done that with past problems - gearbox on Dora, front panels on Neko, and now this CV joint on the 395... but I need to have something else that I can use for work etc. if I have to take one off the road for a while. That's why I bought Neko and the 395 in the first place, but... damn, all I ask is for ONE car to use as a daily that runs fine and nothing goes wrong on, and I will happily start learning to rebuild engines on the others, but I can't even get that far

Unless you have the money to buy a new car (with the associated dealer servicing costs!) or a properly sorted second hand one, buying a cheap car means you will have to be prepared for it to go wrong and work on it yourself or pay the premium for a garage to do even the simplest of tasks, sometimes (if you know what your doing & lucky) you can get a cheap car that will last you for years but that doesn't happen often !! I've just picked up an 03 Octavia estate for under £600 there are a few faults (interior trim) with it but a quick drive told me there was nothing seriously wrong with it and the 120 mile trip home didn't miss a beat :)It needs a full service inc timing belt, but with that done for around £150 in parts I'll have a car worth £1.5K :)