colin-yorkshire said:
while the forum is still associated with the magazine the Practical side has all but disappeared it is now somehow deemed that DIY is no longer applicable. safe. or trustworthy except for tinkering around the edges
Some truth in what you say. There are several factors working against DiY these days. Its heyday was the 60s and 70s, partly because there was a post-war surge in owner-occupied housing, and partly because the second-hand car market was flooded with MoT failures traded in for new, which had then been repaired
whistle
by dealers and resold cheaply.
Taking the latter as a case of unintended consequences, instead of getting old bangers off the road, many were bought up mainly by working class young men who could never have afforded a car before, and kept them going in a culture of weekend kerbside and back-alley repairs with fibreglass and brake seal replacement kits. People were not afraid to roll their sleeves up then. No-one, no politician or car-maker, would have dared to challenge this popular culture.
Paradoxically, although DiY has now shrunk to a minority of enthusiasts who as a group are far more capable than the average 1960's kerbside worker, the non-enthusiast majority increasingly object to this group existing at all, largely for spurious reasons including a disdain for rolling ones sleeves up. It is an effect of democracy I suppose. Politicians in particular, almost all arts graduates, are easily persuaded to frown on "amateur" technical work. Yet, on the several practical car forums I subscribe to we are somewhat scathing about the skill of the average professional mechanic; I have been a deputy foreman at a Rover dealer and I certainly don't have such a rosy view of the professional mechanic as the general public does.
There are technical reasons too. Prof John here rightly points out that 12 volt systems can cause a fire if a wire is overloaded with a high current. That would have been unlikely to occur on my father's 1960's Hillman Minx as all wires on it as I recall were thick enough to need conscious effort to bend - probably around 3 sq mm copper, even for minor uses like the interior lamp. Modern cars however use the absolute minimum amount of copper needed for each function, so any additional current would overload them. There is no standard general purpose wire so the amateur must select with care.
Sorry Markm for this discussion going off at a tangent. I'm on your side, really
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