loserone

Fuck me sideways, the job I was on yesterday was a blast... 
'Can I plug it back in? I have work to do...' 

'Ol' mate fix`

'It's fine, just don't unplug it...' 

'Insert screwdriver here for a good time...' 

I give up. 

Oh my, so it's economical AND slow? I have a mega want for that 😂

The old taxi has finally come back on the road again after 6 months of winter storage.

Its not terrible but certainly noticeable. Might investigate what can be done about it if I can be bothered that is.
Parts for the Celsior arrived on Monday so they went straight on the car after work yesterday/today.

We made a start with the swaybar bushings, as you can tell it was about time...

Things actually went surprisingly smoothly, no seized bolts or anything really. Replacing the bushes finally removed any frontend clunking the car had, straight forward job resulting in a major improvement right there.

I've also replaced the dodgy O2 sensors. Since I didn't want to buy an O2 sensor specific 22mm socket with a cutout for a wire I decided to take a sawzall to them instead, access wasnt great but just good enough to cut them down to a length just short enough to get a long 22mm on instead. The sensors actually came out surprisingly easily on both sides.

The new sensors are of the universal type, they are Denso though so OEM other than the lack of connector. With plenty of wiring on both sides they were cut down to about the right length and crimped together. I checked the connections and resistances of each wire several times to make sure I dont have to do this again. The plastic sleeve acts as heatshrink, I've wrapped it all up in electrical tape to make things weather tight and a little cleaner looking as well. The sensors came with anti-seize paste which was nice, too.

I took the car out for a drive afterwards, no CEL or limp mode after wide open throttle anymore, the car has full power and pulls well. Fingers crossed it stays that way, will confirm on a longer journey but we should be good there as well now. Another issue crossed off the list.
Rear brake discs happened today. Turns out they are paper thin even when new at just 1.6cm. 1.5cm is their minimum allowed thickness so I'm not sure who came up with that bright idea.

With the old discs being ancient and having some pretty noticeable lips it was time anyway.

Job jobbed. I didn't do the front discs as I'm cheap and probably get another few years out of them considering the miles these cars usually do, but aside from them all pads, the rear discs, brake hoses, the brake fluid and all wear sensors are new now, with all calipers greased in the hope to get a lot more life out of them.

I've also adjusted the coilovers in the front now and double-checked the rears. Its now sitting much better without being exessively low, at least as good as I can do without all 4 wheels off the ground at the same time.


I think there's still something wrong with the rear suspension but I might have to deal with that when the ebay special Maxpeedingrods wear out and I replace them with the BCs I got stashed away. Considering I only paid 135 quid for them new they are currently proving to be surprisingly good though. We'll see how long that'll be the case.

The Z3 is doing well so far. Neither CEL nor Airbag lights have come back.

The access to our Airbnb was half a mile of gravel roads/green lane so the car did a little bit of light offroading a few times.

In Penrith today. Early 2000s Roadster face-off. I know which one I'd rather have.

 

First drive in 2024 is a success. Good to have it back on the road again.

Small update. Have now greased all the grease points and checked the oil level in the gearbox and differential both were fine and refilled oil on the diesel pump and steering box.
So then all the maintenance is done.
One small thing I do that I recommend is to take a picture of the manual with maintenance points and print it out and have it with you when working on the car and cross it off while you are working so you don't forget anything.

 
And since I don't have a car lift, things are done the old way by driving the car up onto blocks and crawling under it, which is not exactly good for the body.

 
And now with this done, all that remains is to drive it, something that will hopefully happen soon.

New car means new fixing.
Went to fit my new temperature sensor.

It was just unplugged? I've reconnected it and I'll see how we go, the readings on VCDS seem sensible.
Had a look at the gear linkage which had loads of side to side play when in gear and was difficult to get 1-2/5-6. This bolt was really loose?

Tightened it up and we seem to be all good.
Love me a free fix.

And presumably if it wasn't just me having a strop to make a point, it wouldn't have been undeleted if I or whoevers thread "it was" - whoever started it - didn't agree to reinstatement.  

It's only available for undeletion for 30 days. So if it was forgotten about longer than it, it'd be gone for good. Apart from those on this part of the forum where they are archived by archive.org.

Fuck yes.  Two please 

I ended up with my ZAZ 968 by opening the ebay tat thread and not realising that I was reading a page about 6 months behind where the last post (that I'd seen on the activity screen and had prompted me to open the thread) and managing to track down the advert in an obscure Facebook group.

I've also read and enjoyed some ancient/dormant threads on here, for example I found @Mr_Bo11ox's thread detailing the work on his car trailer helpful, as he converted it from rods to cables which is a job I need to undertake. If we binned off old threads then all that useful info and pictures, or even just entertaining content that shaped the forum, would be lost. That defeats the point of a forum IMO.
I think we should be able to delete our own content if we feel the need to (I'm struggling to think of a reason why but I'm sure there are valid ones), but by the same token people should be grownups and not just bin off all their content/entire threads to spite everyone else whilst in the throes of a tantrum. The way things are set currently should work to be fair, if we could all be trusted not to be dicks.

In all my excitement on collection day, I forgot to thank all that made it possible. The car was in a different country to me and @Lacquer Peel and @juular very kindly gave it a good inspection, picked it up locally* and stored it till I could collect. Thank you gentlemen for all your help and thanks to @MrsJuular for sensibly pointing out the lack of air in the tyres and for excellent hospitality on collection day. 
Now, what's been going on with it?
 
Well, first up and probably not the most pressing issue but what came first in alphabetical order, was the alternator bearing. 
 
Pandas do seem to get through these and for peace of mind* I demanded a new one rather than swapping on a used one. Thankfully @Jimbob McGregor is fantastic at managing demands and he was kind enough to cast his thorough eye over the cars few failings. 
 
Alternator was changed out, front brakes stripped, cleaned, greased and popped back together. The handbrake was as close to vertical as physics would allow and barely held the car on steep gradients so that was adjusted down to the trademark Jimbobmcgreggor two click specification. Great improvement all round. 

Happy new alternator. 

Gained a customer recently, she booked a 21 plate Aygo in for a clutch (!?!) because my quote was less than half the main dealers price - they'd just done the first mot, charged her £400 for front pads and a handbrake adjustment and told her it needs a clutch.
Found myself looking at a 7000 mile car with a very high pedal. Drove it and found the bite right at the top so... Looks like I found the only 2021 car where some shit can wind the manual cable adjustment up to con someone into getting a clutch job.
Set the adjustment to spec, checked pedal, charged her £40 and sent the clutch back.

Only a smoll update today.  Over the weekend we had another sprog.

Hence, the SAAB has been doing family duties.   Here it is, five up, going to the local post office to return some ill fitting clothes.

It felt wrong liking that post but a very philosophical outlook on the necessity that paying someone to do something is better than a lot of other things.

Yesss, a Zoe on veg. 

Had a really good day today.  Got Universal Credit approved so that's my safety net for 12 months (bit of a surprise, since I've never claimed I get the slightly less arduous 'new business' version as a self employed person) as well as info on business and art courses that are available to me as a mature student along with grants I had no idea I could apply for to help with costs.  This was tempered somewhat by coming back to find I had a parking ticket, the job centre hasn't got a car park and I was told I'd be good for an hour on a neighbouring street that's single-yellowed.. I got ticketed at some point during the 45 minutes I was in for my appointment.  It's a reflection on my state of mind that the prospect of a surprise £35 bill didn't make me that angry, just a bit disappointed.
Then went over to the art centre and got some excellent help and advice there on artist networking opportunities, gallery opportunities and an insight into just how active the local art scene is.  Also got to see what sort of thing the art centre promotes and quickly realised it's a very broad church with their featured artist doing abstract sculptures in materials you might consider to be rubbish (I loved them, if I had space there was one I would have taken home), another artist doing miniature portraits, and a shop full of samples of local artists work from wargaming miniatures to ceramics to jewellery to glass items.  My stuff is very different to what was there but then what was there was very different to everything that was there too so that's pretty neat.  There's local studio space I can hire that's not exhorbitantly expensive, a poetry night that is apparently both good and good for networking, and generally just a shitload of stuff that's made me feel rejuvenated about my job.
Having access to an actual meatspace art community really helps and something I've not had for above a decade.  Scunthorpe continues to treat me well in ways I was never expecting and that light at the end of the tunnel is looking a bit more like the exit than an oncoming train today.

#LivingTheDream

I have just realised that garage door actually ending up costing more than what those two heaps combined were to buy. 🫠

Radio in the 205 had been acting up,so decided to replace it with this Top quality* two knob Harrier that I'd bought at a boot sale the last time I was in Norfolk for not very much.
It only works 😁


Looks period correct too.
Chuffed!

Sweep or rake, surely.

So you cruise at 55... mmm. So with 5 charges is that a range of perhaps 60 miles in cold weather, given Durham-Leeds return is about 200 miles?
 
I'm not sure I'm ready to leave the growl of five cylinders exploding vegoil in the outside lane just yet, especially when it's still only 1p or less for a kWh. It's no more efficient than Ferrybridge feeding the Grid, except I don't waste all the heat.

Just a little bit of history repeating.

Not an entirely happy day. 
Traded the S3 to a local performance car merchant for this A3 sportback + cash. As mentioned elsewhere I am buying a new house for reasons and need to be sensible for a bit. 
I probably could have kept it but £50-60 a week in fuel and £30 a month in tax are all expenses I could do without. 
The trader at least was a very nice man and did me a pretty reasonable deal.
TDI 140, £35 a year tax somehow. Has various issues obvs but nothing that will stop me using it. 
In other great news, the van is with the van man racking up a bill in the region of £1500.
I think I mentioned it had an issue with an inlet throttle valve which did not affect the driving at all but put the EML on. 
I ignored it as you would, until it got to the point it went into limp due to overloaded DPF - the thing will not regen with this fault on the intake throttle active. 
Hilariously this valve can't be changed without taking the engine out, and as it's a modern camchain at the back engine it's a sensible "while you're there" job that I really could have done without. 
Cars eh. Still better than the bus or paying £500 a month to rent a Hyundai.

Chrains.