Matty

Would you like the newly created position of my motivation coach? Could do with one like 😆

Just in case anyone was worrying that kids today were loosing their natural wit

I have also been accused of being just a little blunt.

There’s a fine line between my style of motivation and BDSM. So, it’s entirely up to you.

New design time!
https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/159906258

Would you like the newly created position of my motivation coach? Could do with one like 😆

Luckily I'm on direct debit for both of ours (07 z4 3.0si coupe and 07 st150). So I'm not going to look at what it gone upto cos I don't need to. I'll only get upset anyway....

No idea what each car is but I know I'm paying around £150 per month across the fleet for the next six months. Only the Range Rover and the Skoda (or whatever daily I have by the time October rolls around) will stay taxed through winter. 
It's like all the other tax we all pay - I wouldn't have so much of a problem with it if we were actually getting something worthwhile for the money rather than a country rapidly falling apart at the seams.

That camshaft pitting doesn't look fatal but could indicate oil starvation, which these engines are well known for. 
Particularly due to the design of them where the injectors are exposed to oil, so if they leak combustion gasses then it finds it way into the oil which absorbs carbon. It all goes a bit south from there as it starts to block everything up. 
If you feel like doing a bit more preventative maintenance, dropping the sump and checking the oil pickup may not be a bad idea, and possibly checking the oil feed to the turbo and replacing the feed pipe if necessary. Again, this oil pickup blockage is well documented as being the cause for turbo failure on the DV4/6 engines. 

Don't do it human. You know what happened last time... 
Against the better advice of my feline assistant, I decided to crack on with more tinkering on the ever-ungreatful Peugeot. Namely refreshing the washer and seals on number 3/number 2 (depending on however Peugeot decided to number them this week) injector. 

Getting to the injectors was straightforward enough, unbolt the plastic loom holder, disconnect connectors and carefully* wedge it out of the way. Likewise, removing the leak-off pipe watsits only required removing the clip holding each in place and levering off its injector, again stuffing it aside. High pressure lines came off easy too. Am I getting my hopes up? Yes. 
Slight battle getting the rocker cover out, as one of the 8mm bolts was helpfully hidden behind the pipe going from the intercooler to the turbo. Though loosening it's retaining clip gave me enough space to get at the aforementioned bolt. Twist, wriggle, curse the bastard who designed this engine and the rocker cover came out.
Oh. Swear words. 

Moving swiftly on (to preserve my sanity if anything...)
Removing the injector involved liberal application of carb cleaner and scraping around the clamp, the escaping combustion gases had solidified back into a hellish combination of tar and very solid carbon. Unsurprisingly effective at holding the injector in place but it yielded. 

Lovely.
That took a significant amount of time to clean all whilst paranoidly avoiding the tip of the damn thing. 
Cleaned up the bore with an amazon spesh cleaning kit and replaced the seal that sits at the top, with only a slight faff getting the blighted little rubber bastard to seat properly.

Not perfect by any stretch but it do. 
Put new spacer thing and copper washer on the comprehensively refurbished* injector before chucking it back in its home, reattaching everything and putting off turning the damn thing back on. 
A smidgen of hesitation and puckering of the sphincter, then I turned the key.
Chuff successfully banished and I don't have to keep the air con in recirc anymore! 

Double whammy for this episode of mechanical incompetence. New alternator belt, tensioner and an oil change. 
Saturday began with me getting up at fuckthis o'clock to take the merdemobile for a new pair of front tyres. Only I didn't need to get up early as my appointment wasn't until 11 o'clock! Decided to kill time by picking up the new alternator tensioner and belt. 
Anyway, a pair of shiny new Continental EcoContact 6ses and a wheel alignment later, the Pug feels a lot better to drive. Quieter and less twitchy, old tyres must have been on the edge of perishing despite appearances. 
Get home, get tools out and set about jacking up the front end to get the wheel and arch liner oot for access to the belt itself. 
Getting sufficient access to the tensioner saw me playing brittle plastic connector roulette and winning, thank fuck. Levered back the old tensioner back and using an 'approved tool' (a small screwdriver that only got bent slightly*) locked it. 

Looks deceptively roomy, it really wasn't! 2/3 bolts came out no problem, the one furthest away just wasn't reachable from above so had to go at it from the wheel arch. Managed to get it off eventually and only dropped the spanner 553 times...
Lobbed the new belt and tensioner in and made the absolute stupid mistake of placing my pry tool on the engine cover... 
Of course it fucked off down the back of the engine!

Like, right down.
Bawlicks to this I thought, after removing several layers of skin from my hands trying to wedge them through the letterbox sized gap, so I sacked it off for the evening and went indoors to get mocked by the cat. 
Sunday rears it's head and I head back out to try and figure out how to pry the trapped tool from the HDi's grasp. Didn't take long, though I lost more skin as the car fought to claim it's sacrifice. 

SUCCESS. 

Reunited with it, I was able to finally remove the locking pin from the new tensioner and feel the warmth of a job actually done. 
Oil and filter got changed too, which went flawlessly and there were no issues whatsoever... 

Ffs. 
Luckily that was the old oil and I remembered to replace the sump plug before putting in the new stuff.

GT cars at Oulton park this weekend 
Just seen this posted, looks like it was slightly muddy 

I’ve done 20 miles with a B&B clutch cable fitted and have no problems to report.

Just in case anyone was worrying that kids today were loosing their natural wit

Nah you're wrong. I put a borg and beck clutch kit in mine recently. it's managed a full 100 mile and hasn't failed yet! 🤣

Would you like the newly created position of my motivation coach? Could do with one like 😆

Yeah, just not helpful that it seems the car is inbetween years. Like I said above the car falls under a specific year, but the manual doesn’t include it. 
I knew the moment my mom started rambling I thought I’m not going to get anything done on this. And while I did nothing, and actually it was fairly futile, if I didn’t do it it’d have been another day where I’ve just walked past it and not tickled it.

Easy for me to say as it's not my car thus not my nightmare but it will be something and nothing. Just something that's a bastard to find. As said above, keep going!!

Just in case anyone was worrying that kids today were loosing their natural wit

Interesting. Knackered XYZ switches are a thing, after all, so you maybe onto something. Keep going 🙂

Not had half the opportunity to do anything like I thought I would today as my mom had a list of pressing issues. I didn’t have the jump leads with me though, forgot those.
I threw the battery back on it as I thought maybe a wiggle of the gear stick would result in life. It didn’t.
But…

The light for saying what gear it’s in is temperamental. I had put it in park but there was no light. Wiggled it and the light came on, then off etc. I think I am going to take this out and clean it properly.
I did also hear a click from the engine bay. 

A few jobs done on the old Rover.
Lights were polished up.
Had a diesel leak from the secondary pump- a few drips -looks like original clip had lost tension.
Thermostat seemed to be stuck open -so did the Renault 5 mod.
Surface rust on rear suspension components rubbed down, rustkilled and primed today ready for paint.
Next job -hand brake adjustment -which could be a pain.
MOT runs out in just over three weeks so will book it in next week.
Bowls along at 70ish very, very nicely.
 

Bank holiday 2CV tinkering: 
The raspy sound was coming from the cross box silencer. The hole was nicely masked from sight by the fact that it’s right under the gearbox… 

Do love the ease of access on these. Old crossbox removed and yeah… bit of an issue…. 

A sizeable hole, which was where one of the support hooks was supposed to be.
Incredibly, in the big box of spares which came with the two project 2CVs was a brand new one! 

Aside from being a bit jiggly to get under the chassis it went on fine, and even better the noisiness and popping was cured. Best of all… it was a free fix!

Just posted that my parents had those tiles, but it must have been another house.
However, the last time my childhood home was sold last year it still had the original tiles from 1980...

That took me longer than what it shouldve