Picked up the baton or Dropped a bad 'un

[Semi-C]

Some philosophical Ham wrote (ambiguous conspiracists profess it isn't punctuated correctly) "I thought I was cured"

 

My wife's news that we had won a replacement sofa for £21 left me with little option than to start searching for a van to go and collect it with and with more than a couple of days worth of logistical solutions requiring dissolution, I felt that hiring a van could be costly.

 

 

Advertised as spares/repair due to a crunching on 4th & 5th gear changes, that aside it's tolerable. No rot to speak of, drives well, mot until sometime in October. The seller took my £250 and I had my first French voiture.

 

 

Double de-clutching stops the crunching gear changes but it doesn't restore feel through the gear stick. There's a little bit of judder when pulling away, possible engine mount(?) probably poor piloting. Both these ailings aside, it romped the 170 mile round trip to collect our sofa, using less than £20 worth of diesel.

I know nothing of these Relays whatsoever, it's a 2005 2.0 hdi Enterprise (got that off the V5) and I hope it doesn't explode.

[320touring]

Excellent, I used a similar excuse ("we need a van*") to buy a shitroen Picarsole

 

#budgetvannerZ

[Ohdearme]

Sudden urge  to 'hack' the wife's ebay account so she wins something I then have to buy a van to collect

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

The gearstick mount rips off the dash cross member and then is usually cobbled back on with softwood and drywall screws, you'll see it by removing the stick gaitor. Check that first as it messes up the gear control cables... speaking of which are junk anyway, and check for linkage wear on the ball joint connections at the box. Gearboxes are also junk. Hope that helps to start.

 

I'd have another one.

 

Who was the supplying dealer on that when it was new?

[Wingz123]

My experience of these has been rot on the inner sills....but as you say, yours isn’t rusty so you should be ok for a while yet....

[eddyramrod]

That's proper Shiting there, well done.  I used to drive a Relay at work.  Should be a capable enough tool, and it'll swallow most things you want to put in it.

[sierraman]

Probably better than the equivalent transit.

[chaseracer]

Welcome back, Semi-C.  Best excuse for buying chod so far this month... 

[Bren]

Man maths at its best - new vehicle to collect £21 sofa.

[Semi-C]

Thank y'all and thanks for the gearstick info BoggyMires, I'll get lifting that gaiter later. The supplying dealer was Crayford Motors Limited, Crayford, Kent, they were also the first owners of it. The only stamp in the service book is for the 1000 mile inspection, at 169k I'm sure it's due another.

For now it'll have to make do with some fresh wipers and a petrol cap that actually works.

 

Is there anybody here who is fluent in these vans/engines and could point me in the direction of any weaknesses I should watch for and any top tips to maximise the service life I can eek from its willing frame?

 

Merci.

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

Well... That's who I worked for at that very time. I regonised the plate- vaguely. It was probably our parts van although we had a couple of courtesy vans. I worked on the relays a lot. You would probably find that I've carried out some work on that there very engine and that is why it is still running.

[junkyarddog]

Those 2.0 HDI lumps are pretty much bombproof if regular oil changes are carried out.

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

What the man said, they're a good lump when cared for with quality parts and fluids.

 

1st job is to look at the timing belt. As with any belted engine, when was it done last? There was a recall for breaking diesel pumps not long after they were new but on your mileage that problem is long gone. Front wheel bearings can be an absolute pain in the arse to change, welding themselves to the hub, usually resulting in a new hub. Gearing components aren't the strongest. Rear shoes can suffer under extreme heavy use. Diesel filters often get left out on servicing although these always start well enough after a change if it's done by the book. They always seemed to have a squeaky exhaust on idle from new. Spare wheel cage may be damaged from previous light fingered attempts or seized or both.

 

Main issue with vans is the abuse they get all over. These are pretty basic so easy to live with. I have no idea on how they rot... Quite well I'd imagine just like anything else. It would be worth unscrewing and removing the plastic steps in the door recesses to see what lurks underneath if your planning on keeping it. Oh, and heater matrix failure used to be quite common, leaking out under the glovebox area. Smell curry inside the cab? Dash out.

 

Get one of those mini battery screwdrivers. You can have the entire dash out in 45 minutes.

[Wingz123]

Some of the 2.0 hdi engines have water cooled egr valves that can often leak thus fooling you into thinking the car (or in this case the van) is using water and gets the brain thinking is the head gasket on its way out....have a check of yours....

 

In my opinion however, the body’ll go before that engine gives up...

[wuvvum]

As others have said, good old vans these apart from shite gearboxes and a tendency to stealth rust. 2.0 HDI is perfectly adequate in a SWB van, not fast but nowhere near as underpowered as the old 1.9D. Looks a megabarg for 250 notes.

[sierraman]

Not quite as shit gearboxes as Vauxhall Vivaro. I read in disbelief in a back issue in Car Mechanics about how robust the 6 speed box was in the Vectra. Compared to what? The Titanics maiden voyage?

[Semi-C]

Thanks for that BoggyMires, a priceless nugget of history (there's a distinct lack of that with this van!), hopefully your deft touch has provided me with a salvageable foundation.

I filled a basket on Eurong Car Parts with a full house of filters, a brace of belts, a thermostat and a water pump. Next port of call is locating a decent (preferably factory) workshop manual for it.

 

I'm assuming from the consensus that whilst these gearboxes are dog-egg, their shitness doesn't impede their function?

 

The heater position control does not work apparently, the vendor told me it is stuck on screen demist but a damp outing soon disproved that. Before embarking on a blind stab in the right direction, would anybody (I'm looking at you Mr Mires...) have the answer to the question, how is that fixed?

 

Cheers.

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

Not a weird one but I can't remember the set up on them. I think they have an array of cables secured to various parts of the heater/ vent unit not unlike other vehicles. These cables are secured in various places with clips with barbs. If any of these are missing or the cable has been routed incorrectly then the cable for that particular control won't operate correctly and will likely 'spring' back to whatever position it's stuck in. 

Also the mechanical bits on the facia unit are only plastic so may have failed.

 

I'd release the facia panel and operate it to see what's not moving.

 

My memory is vague and since my Citroen days I've probably removed about 50 different makes of heater boxes. Whatever it is, it's one of those jobs where skin loss and anger is guaranteed.

[Semi-C]

Thanks for the reassurance of the job's unpleasantness. I'll snatch a few shifts on it apres work this coming week and cross my fingers (before they've been grated into corned beef)