djim

This forum, despite the occasional statement to the contrary, definitely is what it always was.

update if anyone's interested... (also someone please let me know how to change the thread title as I've had this thing for a month now)
sketchy times getting it up the drive - duct tape over the plate was for the tax fairies

everyone in my life who told me it wouldn't fit (including myself) can bugger off haha

 

found a free gift wing-mount aerial, but there's no radio, and no wings for that matter either? Came with the car so I'm keeping it, will re-install at some point in the distant future
 
Assessment time - removed the pond from under the rear seats, the dessicated rat from under the driver's seat (sorry no piccy) and the mouldly sound-deadening.
Needs: OS front floor (especially the bit under the rat, probably corroded by death juices), little bit of the OS rear floor, and parts of the boot floor:

eh, could be a lot worse
 
Floppy gearstick was irritating me, so had a look under the cover plate:

hmm that's not right...
 

pin's somehow sheared off the linkage. Probably unlikely to find a replacement, since seems it's base-model specific for some reason, so...

ended up being welded back together and popped back in the car. Was a right pain trying to get the bolt off the end to slide the pin back into the bushing, breaker bar in one hand and holding the linkage to the kitchen floor with my bare foot (socks give you no grip whatsoever)
 

All back together, featuring spare CV boot from the Golf, because again there's no way I'm ever finding an OEM replacement rubber boot. Please also ignore the large amount of daylight coming through the floor.
 
Ok so natural progression would be to get the clutch working, so master cylinders and servo out:

Wondering where all the brake fluid went?

Straight through the structure of the car of course. Excellent.
To be fair, looks like it's only the top side that's fucked, though not the easiest place to get to for welding.
 
Servo looked fine, so painted it with some weird £5 iron fence paint, just to protect it. Should really be plated but whatever.

May notice the recurring theme here that my workbench is a wheelie bin
 
Next steps, work out how to remove the front seats to get to the floors, and sort the clutch slave cyliner out as it's looking decidedly sad at present.
Need to get some taller axle stands from Machinemart since the ground clearance is so big nothing I have will lift the wheels off the ground, but gotta find a route that doesn't go through ULEZ cameras - every £12.50 I save will go on penetrant
 
 

Right, time for a long update on the old girl. 
I had yet another problem with the air suspension in November.  No leaks that I could identify and none of the shocks were losing air over night but the pump would struggle to charge up the air tank and would stop running and time out with an error on the dash. This was OK on short journeys and tended to happen at the end of longer drives, presumably when the pump got hot and was getting worse as days went by. 
I ran a VCDS scan and it showed a pump overheating error and given that the car now has 2x  new front air shocks and a replacement valve block I self diagnosed a tired pump (even through I rebuilt the pump seals) and fired the parts cannon at a replacement pump for around £120 from the ebay. 
I fitted it in a fun* evening on the drive at llpm to my neighbours delight, and there are no pictures because it was fairly unpleasant work lying on my back  with a head torch trying not to drop a heavy pump on my face while being showered with rust and crap. (and it was windy, it is ALWAYS windy whenever I'm under a car, it can be calm as you like until I crawl upder and then it is a blizard of leaves and dust swirling around, does anyone else find this or have I angered the wind gods somehow?)
The good news is that cured the problem and made a noticeable improvement to height adjustments if I make them so I'm pleased with how it worked out. 

Next up, I started getting a damp passenger footwell so I went looking for leaks, and cleared a load of crap out from around the engine bay and under the battery. There was water there but not enough to cause an issue I don't think, but it is definitely draining now. 

My daughter later confessed to spilling her water bottle in the car so it may have been a false alarm but I'm feeling better that it is done. 
As it was winter and I really couldn't be arsed to be out dealing with it in the cold and thankfully it has largely worked as hoped, hauling things, bouncing over potholes and on one occasion fording a flooded road. 
 

After a rocky start I'm really pleased with it. 
 

Investigations:
One caliper was indeed pretty stuck. One piston especially.

The sliders on both sides weren't mega but they'll clean up.
Annoyingly, the outer side of both discs is looking a bit thin so I'm gonna have to buy some discs.


Pulled both calipers apart to see if I could get away with a £0 GBP refurb* of just cleaning them up and reusing the seals. One side was good but the other will need 2 pistons as I'm not happy with the level of pitting on these.

Shouldn't be too bad to get it back through the MOT but it does also ideally need 4 new tyres and this throttle valve thing sorting. Cars eh.

It was all kinds of filth inside so I had a good go at it today with wet cloths and a hoover. 
The boot was in a similar state of DIRT to the rest of the car. 
 
Before 
 
*Insert hoovering montage*

 

After

 
Better

 
Best. 

Two more stops to top up and made it home grand.

 

 
Well done little panda. 

Collection made in good time. 
Had brought a Bluetooth speaker just in case but found radio code in the folder. 
wont be a PEZ shot yet as it’s got 3/4 tank in. 
Hopefully trouble free home but will update later. 
None of the windows are working so will investigate another day but heated seats are on. 
2.5 10v Auto 

I had a bit of time last weekend so it was time to get the height sensor fixed to stop the car complaining and to get the headlight height adjustment working again. The car has height sensors on all 4 corners and they work together to let it adjust to the selected ride height and trim the height as required. This one was working kind of OK when driving locally, presumably because the pot holed roads around here are bouncy enough that the sensor is always working up and down and giving plenty of signals.  The error comes up when I'm cruising on the motorway so I'm guessing the sensor had developed a worn/dead spot at its most common height so when the car is relatively stable for a while the lack of signal from the one sensor compared to the others causes the error. That is my complete guess anyway, the sensors themselves are completely sealed so there is no way to diagnose or repair, just throw a new one on. 
A VCDS scan showed it was the front left sensor giving spurious readings and some googling revealed the part numbers (4Z7941285 for LH and 4Z7941286 for RH fact fans) which includes the linkage. You can get the sensor by itself as it is shared across a bunch of VAG and other models but worth getting the linkage too as it will be inevitably seized. I rolled the dice and went with one from Ali-Express as they are less than half the price of getting even an eBay one here and I'm 99% sure in this case it is exactly the same thing and the quality was fine. 
Ease of replacement is largely down to how corroded the old fittings are. Set the height adjustment into service mode by holding both up and down buttons together and then once the wheel is off you can get easy access. It is pretty obvious that they have a hard life exposed in the wheel well. 

Here it is. I was fully expecting the bolts holding the sensor to snap or round but they came out after bit of a clean and were good enough to re-use. I'm surprised that the wiring for the connector is so exposed but the connector itself was clean and dry inside so I guess it is fine. 
Old Vs New

The old sensor was very stiff compared to the new and the bottom joint was frozen solid which can't have been helping. Of course the bolts holding the fixing plate to the sensor were completely goosed. they needed a 5mm allen key which I managed to get into the head after a bit of cleaning but of course it rounded out right away. 
To the vice. 
Some saw and file action got them off. 

I found a couple of new bolts, cut them to length and cleaned up the bracket and then it all went together OK.
I didn't take a picture of the finished article but I'm sure you get the idea, it all went together smoothly and connected up.
I also expected to need to adjust the ride height with the new sensor in place but the car is perfectly happy with it as-is and no adjustment was needed. 
I'm quite tempted to do the other side too as it is only another £30 for a new ali-express sensor but knowing me I'd break something taking it apart so I think I'll leave it for now. 
I didn't mention previously but the car passed its MOT in January too with a few advisories for rear subframe rust (3rd year running) and it needs front drop links so that is now on the list too. I'll probably have the garage service it and do the droplinks at the same time as it is coming up for a fluids service and I want them to check the levels in the transmission and diff etc. The subframe rust will have to wait for better weather and a big dose of motivation from me but I'll get there. 
 

Now that we are out of the longest month I'm also starting to get some mojo back about some of the many small jobs so here are a few from this week. 
First up, the rear washer stopped working again. I could hear the pump and on investigation I opened the boot and was greeted with a dribble of blue water, thankfully not finding its way into the cabin but clearly spraying around in the door. 

Yep, there's the problem. I struggled to get the pipe on when I replaced it but it clearly needed more to stop it flapping about so it was cable ties to the rescue and it should hold for a while now. 
Next up, soundz. 
one of the rear door speakers was buzzing away and harshing my mellow so a new second hand one was purchased and replaced. The door cards are pleasantly simple to remove on these, probably the simplest of any car I have had to work on, unlike the boot inner trim. 
There are no clips to break or ping off, just 2 screws at the top of the door and then a good tug upwards to lift the whole thing off and swing it away. 

The speaker was just 4 screw and the cable to swap over. It looked like there was nothing at all wrong with the old one although it sounded terrible, but with the new one installed, no more buzzing. WIN. 
Next was the front door mechanism. These, along with I think all other VAG stuff of this era have a delightful trick which is that the microswitch that senses the door being opened is built into the lock. Once this stops working, the car doesn't know the door has been opened and so tries to lock your keys and children in the car unless you either start the car or open a door where the switch does work. On my old B5 A4 I had the pleasure of coming back from a 5 mile run, tossing my keys on the drivers seat and then shutting the door, whereupon the car locked and I had to hobble another 4 miles home and then back on my bike with the spare to get them back. 
The front door card is a bit harder to remove because it has more stuff on it, but still the basic 2 tiny screws and a good tug to get it off, then unclip a bunch of wires and stuff. 
Getting the lock mechanism out is just 2 of those not-torx star head screws that VW love, some clips, and then you need about 3 tiny hands to wriggle and fiddle it out through the opening. I managed to break the bit that connects the external key lock to the mechanism so it all has to come out again when the new bit arrives but I now know exactly where I will cut my hands up so it should be easier next time. 
This is the microswitch that doesn't

and this is the cam it rides on that activates it. some combination of wear and time just does for it and it is obviously quite a close tolerance as in the summer it fixed itself on hot days. 

I feel like I could have made it work by elongating the holes to move the switch slightly closer or something but a new mechanism is not expensive so on it went. 
Lastly, was the front headlight washer. This has 2 jets on each side and one had lost its nozzle meaning that washing the screen also gave a big jet of water 10 ft over the car. You can't get replacement nozzles, just the whole washer mechanism and full replacement is a whole under-tray off, bumper off palaver, however you can replace the jetty-bit with some careful unclipping. 
First up, with your favourite plastic spudger, prize open the washer flap. It is spring loaded and it is vitally important that it doesn't pop back in once you take it apart or it will be a bugger to get the mechanism out again to reassemble. I just used mole grips.

 
Unclip the cover and then you can release the spray jet head thing which has a sort of ratchet clip holding it in on the top that can be gently lifted with a small screwdriver. the jets then just slide out. 

Take the new one apart in the same way and pop it in and you are good to go. 

 
So that is it for now. 
Next up I have a height sensor to replace as it is throwing an error code every now and then, and then it will need a fluids service in the next 1k or so but I'll save that as a treat for when the weather warms up again. 
Thanks for reading. 

XJR update.
Had a few issues. Shock.

Air suspension was throwing a fault increasing regularly. The front end wasn't getting up to a satisfactory height and in the end it became apparent the near side front strut was dead. I bought a second hand unit from auto reserve jaguar (I mention them by name as I rate them for new and used jag stuff) and set about replacing. Go to remove the strut and strip the thread on the top wishbone. Boo. New wishbone in the post and go about fitting it all and air suspension woes cured. Did this a while a go but forgot to update the thread. No pictures soz.

Belt squeal on the supercharger was getting pretty bad and wasn't going away really. A bit of swearing and a delay due to incorrect belt ordering and that is now sorted! Been driving around in the range and forget how different these things are.

More recently and more pressingly on my way to work I got a "gearbox fault" flash up on my dash and it locked me in to third gear. At this moment I thought it needed the solenoids in the gearbox which if done by my local automatic transmission garage would be a £900 fix. If I did it I suspect it would be circa £500. Not ideal. I have however been getting other intermittent issues. Air suspension fault flashing up intermittently, DSC fault flashing up on first startup and then going away. With this in mind I thought that all these faults seem a little bit of a coincidence so checked the battery voltage and it was only kicking out 12.1v, it was also tiny. Replaced with a more suitable battery and said issues have not yet returned so I am hopeful this has cured the above issues. Phew.

It desperately needs a clean but the bodywork is so bad I don't want to. It also has a flickering headlight (xenon's) and a weird issue with the speakers. Music plays fine but then the subwoofer makes a horrible distorted sound after say 10 mins of playing music. Still need to sort the locking and unlocking on the fob. I'll get through them eventually but I've been so incredibly busy of late it is slow going. List of things I want to sort in order I suspect they will get sorted.
Central locking (needs a security sounder module I believe)
Subwoofer (dunno if it just need a new subwoofer but I know it has a weird fibre optic cable thing that may be broken somewhere in which case throw the car away)
Wheel refurb
Brake caliper refurb (I think this will make a huge difference in appearance
General bodywork tidying, needs paint it's flaking off everywhere, needs a new front bumper, polish headlights etc. this will probably end up being a full respray in all likelihood.

Makes simply incredible supercharger noises and I have a sample for you to enjoy for sticking with the post this long.

Made and Fitted the “new” rear plate

 

 

 

I cant say I enjoyed the process, but the car has been recovered from a vulnerable position on the main road to a garage about 3/4ths of a mile away.
Phew!

HERE WE GO

 
 

Although I've been quietly wandering around this forum as a guest for a while I though perhaps it was time to take the plunge and sign up.
At the somewhat advanced age of 74 and not being the fittest of individuals my days of crawling about underneath cars are behind me now  but I still dabble in things that don't require too much physical effort.
Over the years I've owned all sorts of four wheeled transport ranging from utter crap to almost decent. Perhaps the most interesting was a Clio 182 Turbo - all 240 bhp of it. Currently we have a 2016 Toyota Auris Hybrid and a 2017 Lexus IS300 Hybrid. Both come under the heading of "Not exciting but totally reliable".
Current project I'm involved in is the grey thing in the attached photo.

 See if you can read the badge and work out what it is. 

Similar. But not the same as last time.

Ive recently adopted this orphan…

After a colourful life including three engines, and at least 1 new gearbox, its spent the last few years dragging its older, more glamourous relatives about for spares and restorations. (photos by St Austell Bay classics)
 

 

 

 

 

 
Anyway, its been replaced by a discovery 3- and there was a possibility the next step would be for it to be sold off in parts through their e bay account.
I was interested in it as its an unusual colour for a p38 and its a very low spec one. 
No extra wood, more basic heating system, no sunroof, no leather etc
 



Its also has had the rear seats removed and the load bay extended. easy enough to reverse.

So its the poverty model of the least appealing range rover. But its had everything its needed mechanically as its been in front line use. 
 

It wafts along nicely on air, whilst not particulary quick (its the 2.5 bmw 6 diesel) and although the interior needs a clear and a few (cheap) replacement bits, it still feels special to drive.

I think it looks quite funky in white.
 

Two long days of cutting, welding and setting fire to things (mainly underseal, the sleeve of my overalls and my angle grinder that self combusted) I have done it:

and better still it actually works:

despite knowing that there is a shed load of new steel in there replacing the rusty scraps and it being so much stronger I always get the fear when I first lower it down. 
It needs a touch of filler and the seam line reinstating on the side, but I have plans to paint it this summer so it’ll do for now. Wing is also crusty throughout, especially the return lip so more to be done in that as well. 
Also welded up the front step, the missus was underwhelmed by the gaffer tape that kept the water out. No pictures of that, it was a ropey old repair to start with, and I haven’t improved the look of  it, although it’s now water tight without the tape! New step section needed, but again, it’ll do for now. 
As an aside, if you’re slicing open packaging to get to your welding consumables, using a brand new Stanley blade, try and avoid just stabbing it with all your force into your index finger…. 

This had been on marketplace for ages & I was slowly watching the price lower to a more affordable price. It turned out to be a 6 minute drive from my house so it was rude not to go take a look. I'd promised myself before I was 50 I'd either build a kit car or buy a yank tank. I turned 50 last October!!
It was imported, Registered & lived on an American Air force base for over 20 years.
Previous owner bought it as a father son project but unfortunately, his son became ill so his health became the priority. 
The car needs all new brakes, wheel cylinders, shock absorbers etc but luckily that's all supplied.
Biggest stumbling block is the 3.8 V6 engine has single point injection & this seems to be playing up. Apparently it ran perfectly well when parked up but now splutters & dies.
So I'll definitely be looking for advise on the 308 Windsor engine issue.
It can't be too much as the car has a genuine 37000 miles in the clock!
The car is so clean it still has most of its factory decals. No rusty holes just mild surface rust.
The lower trim has been removed & all holes welded up. I'm going to colour match the lower section then use steel wool & soap to nib off any surface rust on the body, then boiled linseed oil & white spirits as a varnish
My plans are to sort the brakes, suspension & get it running however I've been advised to rip out all the smog stuff & then look into getting the 14" factory steel wheels banded so I can use the oem P slit hubcaps. 
Enjoy & any feedback & help with the engine issue would be great & how to remove the smog stuff.

OK, time for an update.
Manta
First off, I started assembling the 2.5 Duratec for the Manta. The block and crank have been checked and polished by an engine builder so I started by installing that along with new bearings. 

 
Pakora sauce applied


And I'm happy to say it rotates beautifully, as you'd expect.
I'll get round to the pistons, the new rings are filed and ready so it's a case of fit them to the existing conrods and get them mounted.
Jeep.
LPG leak. Bugger. It was definitely leaking from near the tank/solenoid valve.
It has copper pipe from the tank to the engine bay.
This didn't look too clever

And nor did this.

Don't worry about the rust, it's surface rust on the spare wheel well, the tank is inside that. 
I decided to replace the copper pipe with the correct hose for LPG. If that didn't fix it I'd take to A Professional as fuck messing with the scary bits of LPG. I knew that the shutoff solenoid worked and that the leak was downstream of that. I also knew that the tank was pretty much empty as I'd ran it out on the way back up the road. 
Anyway, it took me a month because
1. I ordered 3m of hose and needed at least 4

2. When I finally got enough hose I discovered that I had the wrong size of fitting for the tank end. Thankfully I managed to get the correct fitting from my local guy who also gave me some confidence in what I was doing and identified where he thought my leak was from the old pipe/fitting
3. The weather here is pish just now.
Anyway, I finally got a chance this week and cracked on.
Snake!

More snake!

Got enough hose this time

And the compression fitting fitted and ready to go. 

The hose is routed along the inner chassis rail and runs alongside the brake/fuel lines. I'm pretty happy it's secure but will double check it after a few miles. 
With this fitted and ready to go it was time to test it. I hoped there would be enough LPG in it to get it switch over and idle so I could check for leaks. 
Handily we had 30mph winds on the day I was doing this so I drove it on petrol to somewhere remote within walking distance of home and switched it over to LPG.

And-it worked! Either that or I've lost my sense of smell...
I celebrated by driving it to the local LPG station and filling it up. It's running fine on LPG with no leaks. Win! I even treated it to a wash but it's getting dark so you're out of luck for a pic.
It felt strange getting back into it after a month of driving more modern stuff but you soon get back into the way of an old school 4x4, it burbles along very happily and is a nice way to cover distance. Which could come in handy as...
 
911 
After a week or so I got a phone call from Hartech with the results of the strip down. It had spun a main bearing wrecking the crank. They also reported bore wear on the engine and gave me a price for a rebuild. It turns out that the £10k rebuild from the "specialist" pictured a few pages back was essentially a work of fiction. 
I've thought long and hard about it and have [Pistonheads]pulled the trigger[/Pistonheads] on a full rebuild with an upgrade to their 3.7 conversion. 
I'm also shipping the car down to them for them to get it running and mapped with the new engine, possibly trailering it down with the Jeep.
Because fuck installing it myself with the money I'm spending on it😶
So, the Porsche has gone from scratching an itch and hopefully getting out with my wallet relatively intact to being a long term keeper. At least until 996 values approach what I'll have in it. I'm thinking of it as a long term investment plan. Which will go like fuck and get used as much as possible. Euro trips coming up!
 

I partially drilled out the bolt remains, but did it in gradual steps with lots of penetrating fluid, hammering, and levering in between. Eventually the Y pipe let go and left me a promising amount of stub. 

The longer stub came out with vice grips.

The shorter stub broke and became even shorter. 

I decided to leave it for the time being as I wanted to stay in a good mood. 
Next, I cleaned the spilled coolant and muck out of the valley. As per initial impression, looks alright. 

To end on a high note, I rebuilt the drive shaft and re-installed with upgraded hardware, same I did last year on the passenger side. 

Had a quick poke around when moving cars around.
Made the wiper situation less embarrassing


 
Nice to see a GTI without a stupid aftermarket air filter.

Is this the cambelt or aux belt sticker?  @RoverFolkUs
I assuming cambelt

 
Aux belt doesn't look very fresh

Is the boot badge supposed to be red on the GTI? Or is it like the TT where something has fallen off? 🤣

The car definitely shows it age in places.

 
Headlights have the usual cataracts

 
Rear tyres are two different ditch finders.
Fronts are Avon. Might replace the rears with something decent.

 
Now what you're all wanting to see! Quick photos so will take better later.

Oh good, I thought this was just me.
Best one is usually trying to do an oil change; all lovely and calm until the plug's pulled, and then suddenly a Force 8 gale springs up, causing the free-flow oil to blow backwards horizontally and miss the catch bowl by about three feet.
Every.
Damn.
Time.

the boot floor where the battery lives was a rusty mess so i gave it a good seeing to with the wire wheel and slapped on some kurust

warmed it up a bit

and a couple of coats of primer 

first coat of colour

hmm, Rover racing green metallic was the nearest ‘match’ they had in halfords
maybe a second coat will tame it ?

maybe if i turn the floodlights off ?

that’ll do - it will be hidden by carpet anyway 

driving the green monster for the first time last night, one problem became apparent - the Nardi steering wheel is a lovely thing but that peeling varnish feels awful to the touch - really lets the side down

now it was my intention to strip it down, sand it smooth and re-varnish it
but, something appeared last night on marketplace that i couldn’t resist
contact was made and a mad dash down to hartlepool was made before anyone else could snap it up
the new wheel is a momo type fitment so the nardi boss couldn’t be used. fortunately i had a spare momo boss so got to work fitting it

problem - the shroud is missing and the nardi one won’t fit  
hmm…

i found a spare empty one in the recycling bin and got busy with the craft knife

warmed it with the hot air gun

something to cover it with


turned out not too shabby - i’ll give that scabby edge a rub down and a dab of paint  tomorrow 

but in the meantime - how good does that look ?

there’s not a mark on it, i suspect it has never been used 

not sure about this but it’s all i have for now 

for now, we shall call it the Ronald Mc Donald steering wheel  
i’d like to find a horn push with the classic mazda logo but not at this price

maybe i can just buy the sticker ? 
but for now, what a cracking looking interior this is turning into

 

Now that we are out of the longest month I'm also starting to get some mojo back about some of the many small jobs so here are a few from this week. 
First up, the rear washer stopped working again. I could hear the pump and on investigation I opened the boot and was greeted with a dribble of blue water, thankfully not finding its way into the cabin but clearly spraying around in the door. 

Yep, there's the problem. I struggled to get the pipe on when I replaced it but it clearly needed more to stop it flapping about so it was cable ties to the rescue and it should hold for a while now. 
Next up, soundz. 
one of the rear door speakers was buzzing away and harshing my mellow so a new second hand one was purchased and replaced. The door cards are pleasantly simple to remove on these, probably the simplest of any car I have had to work on, unlike the boot inner trim. 
There are no clips to break or ping off, just 2 screws at the top of the door and then a good tug upwards to lift the whole thing off and swing it away. 

The speaker was just 4 screw and the cable to swap over. It looked like there was nothing at all wrong with the old one although it sounded terrible, but with the new one installed, no more buzzing. WIN. 
Next was the front door mechanism. These, along with I think all other VAG stuff of this era have a delightful trick which is that the microswitch that senses the door being opened is built into the lock. Once this stops working, the car doesn't know the door has been opened and so tries to lock your keys and children in the car unless you either start the car or open a door where the switch does work. On my old B5 A4 I had the pleasure of coming back from a 5 mile run, tossing my keys on the drivers seat and then shutting the door, whereupon the car locked and I had to hobble another 4 miles home and then back on my bike with the spare to get them back. 
The front door card is a bit harder to remove because it has more stuff on it, but still the basic 2 tiny screws and a good tug to get it off, then unclip a bunch of wires and stuff. 
Getting the lock mechanism out is just 2 of those not-torx star head screws that VW love, some clips, and then you need about 3 tiny hands to wriggle and fiddle it out through the opening. I managed to break the bit that connects the external key lock to the mechanism so it all has to come out again when the new bit arrives but I now know exactly where I will cut my hands up so it should be easier next time. 
This is the microswitch that doesn't

and this is the cam it rides on that activates it. some combination of wear and time just does for it and it is obviously quite a close tolerance as in the summer it fixed itself on hot days. 

I feel like I could have made it work by elongating the holes to move the switch slightly closer or something but a new mechanism is not expensive so on it went. 
Lastly, was the front headlight washer. This has 2 jets on each side and one had lost its nozzle meaning that washing the screen also gave a big jet of water 10 ft over the car. You can't get replacement nozzles, just the whole washer mechanism and full replacement is a whole under-tray off, bumper off palaver, however you can replace the jetty-bit with some careful unclipping. 
First up, with your favourite plastic spudger, prize open the washer flap. It is spring loaded and it is vitally important that it doesn't pop back in once you take it apart or it will be a bugger to get the mechanism out again to reassemble. I just used mole grips.

 
Unclip the cover and then you can release the spray jet head thing which has a sort of ratchet clip holding it in on the top that can be gently lifted with a small screwdriver. the jets then just slide out. 

Take the new one apart in the same way and pop it in and you are good to go. 

 
So that is it for now. 
Next up I have a height sensor to replace as it is throwing an error code every now and then, and then it will need a fluids service in the next 1k or so but I'll save that as a treat for when the weather warms up again. 
Thanks for reading.